Findings from Boston University in Managed Care Reported (Changes In Marketplace Competition and Television Advertising By Insurers): Managed Care

2021 NOV 02 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- Fresh data on Managed Care are presented in a new report. According to news reporting originating from Boston, Massachusetts, by NewsRx correspondents, research stated, “The Trump administration ended television advertising for the Health Insurance Marketplace prior to the 2018 open enrollment period, leaving insurers as the predominant source of health insurance advertising. Prior research findings are mixed on the effectiveness of private advertising on Marketplace enrollment, but no work to date has examined how competitive changes in health insurance markets are related to marketing patterns.”

Financial supporters for this research include Wesleyan University, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), Russell Sage Foundation.

Our news editors obtained a quote from the research from Boston University, “This study provides the first evidence on how insurers are altering their marketing in response to changes in competition. This study links data capturing Marketplace participation (CMS Qualified Health Plan Landscape files) by county and health insurance advertising (Kantar Media/Campaign Media Analysis Group) by media market for the 2014 through 2018 open enrollment periods. We used population-weighted county fixed effects models to estimate the relationship between yearover-year changes in Marketplace competition and changes in (1) total private advertising and (2) advertising per insurer. Going from multiple insurers to a single insurer resulted in 465 fewer private ads aired within a county during open enrollment (P <.01), a 17% to 38% reduction. Losing monopoly status is associated with a drop in advertising of 452 airings per insurer (P <.01), and becoming a monopolist is associated with 293 more airings per insurer (P <.01). Insurers are not replacing the decline in government-sponsored advertising.”

According to the news editors, the research concluded: “We find that insurers behave as if they are responding to strategic incentives, advertising more when they become a monopolist but not filling the hole left by their former competitor, which has implications for the volume of messages seen by consumers.”

This research has been peer-reviewed.

For more information on this research see: Changes In Marketplace Competition and Television Advertising By Insurers. The American Journal of Managed Care, 2021;27(8):323-328. The American Journal of Managed Care can be contacted at: Managed Care & Healthcare Communications Llc, 666 Plainsboro Rd, Ste 300, Plainsboro, NJ 08536, USA.

The news editors report that additional information may be obtained by contacting Paul R. Shafer, Boston University, School of Public Health, Dept. of Health Law Policy and Management, 715 Albany St, Boston, MA 02118, United States. Additional authors for this research include David M. Anderson, Laura M. Baum, Erika Franklin Fowler and Sarah E. Gollust.

The direct object identifier (DOI) for that additional information is: https://doi.org/10.37765/ajmc.2021.88723. This DOI is a link to an online electronic document that is either free or for purchase, and can be your direct source for a journal article and its citation.

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