Health Plan Monitor Awards: Tufts Health Plan, Cigna and BCBS of Massachusetts Provide Superior Mobile Coverage and Benefits

Health Plan Monitor is pleased to offer its fourth Monitor Awards, recognizing health insurance plans’ excellence in the digital desktop and mobile user experience. In this report, we analyze the state of the health insurance industry’s best digital resources and features by benchmarking industry leaders across major aspects of the member experience using Corporate Insight’s proprietary Health Plan Member and Mobile Audits. With more investment in the mobile space in 2019, we incorporated two mobile categories to our analysis of the following five aspects of the digital member experience: Mobile Coverage and Benefits, Claims Details, Locator Tools, Mobile Telehealth, and Drug Coverage and Cost Tools.

This year, the coverage group continued its trend of a wide spread of award winners, with 11 insurers placing within the five categories covered in the report. Anthem BCBS rejoined the medal winners with a Bronze medal in Drug Coverage and Cost Tools, which is the firm’s first medal since 2016. Cigna continued its four-year pattern as a top medal winner with three awards in Mobile Coverage and Benefits (Silver), Claims Details (Bronze) and Locator Tools (Gold). Florida Blue, Humana and UnitedHealthcare all closely follow Cigna’s lead with two medals each. The report did not contain any unusual winners this year, with all awards going to firms that previously won awards in our past three reports.

Corporate Insight’s two mobile categories focused on core information and innovation through Coverage and Benefits and Telehealth, respectively. Following is a brief summary of top firms within the Mobile Coverage and Benefits space:

Mobile Coverage and Benefits:

Health plans need to provide members with an understanding of their coverage and benefits relative to their plans. In this category, we examine the information and organizational structures that health plan insurers offer to help members better understand their coverage and benefits services. Highly versatile member apps enable users to easily assess their plan information content via the main navigation menu or the homepage as well as access the information in one central hub. We assess the breadth of content and level of provided detail while considering how they present information to members. Key attributes include Findability, Breadth of Content and Ease of Use.

The gold medal winner for this category is Tufts Health Plan for its easily findable plan information and excellent breadth of content. A Benefits section with the member information, date of birth and benefit cycle at the top of the screen—as well as tabs for Key Benefits—provides comprehensive information for members. Cost information, out-of-pocket maximums and views of benefits by subscriber or dependent provide a platform that excels in information delivery for members.

Cigna’s coverage and benefits information is easily findable within the member mobile app. Member name, date of birth and coverage year appear along with main plan features, like referral requirements and network name. Costs are available for various Covered Services; the firm, however, earns a silver due to slightly less breadth of content than Tufts Health Plan.

BCBS of Massachusetts earns a Bronze medal with its centralized My Plan section, but the firm falls short in the steps it takes to reach Plan Benefits. BCBS of Massachusetts features types of plans within the My Plans screen, which includes an overview with dependents, group number and subscriber ID. If applicable, members can view limits, service providers and referrals information for in- and out-of-network care.

 For more on this report and insights for creating your company’s own award-winning experience, please contact us at INTEREST@CorporateInsight.com.