MedicareCompareUSA Announces Continued Growth in 2018

Business Wire

Through Medicare Helplines and Assisting Patients Impacted by Network Changes, Company Becomes an Indispensable Partner for Many Healthcare Providers

BELLINGHAM, Wash.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- MedicareCompareUSA announced today the forging of new agency and data-source alliances, while expanding Medicare insurance helplines in partnership with some of the nation’s best-known and most widely respected physician groups, hospitals and health systems. In the year just concluded, the company also assisted many premier providers with successfully managing payer terminations by helping to enroll their patients into other contracted plans and protecting the continuity of their care.

MedicareCompareUSA’s insurance helplines provide an important and often missing link between healthcare providers and consumers by focusing discussions on the Medicare plans accepted by the caller’s doctors and preferred hospital. Agents seamlessly educate consumers on plan options, including Medicare Advantage, Supplement and Prescription plans, and then support enrollment in the plan chosen, thus simplifying and streamlining what is often a very confusing and cumbersome process. Calls are currently fielded for all 50 states, and the new alliances forged by MedicareCompareUSA in 2018 offer additional resources to better serve their clients’ needs.

“The helplines are particularly beneficial to seniors just turning 65 who become inundated with conflicting marketing messages from competing plans,” says company Founder and CEO Paul Gauthier. “Hospitals and consumers alike view these helplines as a one-stop information destination, so seniors can feel informed and confident when they are making this important decision.”

New client partnerships in 2018 include Agilon Health (a population health management company working with Austin Regional Clinic and Premier Family Physicians in Texas), Allina Health (12 hospitals and dozens of clinics in Minnesota and Wisconsin), Carroll County Memorial Hospital (Missouri), Lovelace (four hospitals in New Mexico), LifePoint (expanded services to nine North Carolina facilities), Loyola Medicine (three hospitals in Chicago), Mercy Hospital and Medical Center (Chicago), and Mosaic Life Care (Missouri).

In addition to the establishment of its helplines, in 2018 MedicareCompareUSA’s sister company—MCUSA Consulting—assisted healthcare clients with successfully navigating a series of market disruptions caused by health plan terminations and tenuous payer negotiations. Providers turned to MCUSA Consulting to effectively communicate with patients to retain market share and assure that patients’ continuity of care would not be disrupted. MCUSA launched numerous communication initiatives on their clients’ behalf using personalized letters, emails, phone calls and coordinating agent appointments, in conjunction with MedicareCompareUSA-supported helplines.

“Any marketplace disruption can have significant negative consequences for both the providers and the patients unless the provider takes a proactive approach to patient communication and education,” said Gauthier. “This past year we successfully worked with such systems and hospitals as Allina Health, Evergreen/Overlake, LifePoint and Baptist Memorial to help them retain market share they worked hard to build, and to assure that their patients are enrolled in a plan with which their existing providers are contracted.”

In the last year, MCUSA also released innovative Medicare Advantage and Supplement enrollment and market-penetration tools on MedicareCompareUSA’s website. These industry-leading tools help hospital executives better manage their local Medicare population by providing a comprehensive picture of what their local population is purchasing relative to health insurance and what shifts are taking place in local market share for Medicare Advantage and Medicare Supplement plans. The mapping tool is available free of charge to hospitals, health systems and physician organizations, and can be accessed at medicarecompareusa.com/providers.

“This knowledge is essential in anticipating stability in a given market and the potential impact of changing a provider’s Medicare insurer contractual relationships, as well as seeing where the greatest opportunities may exist for risk and shared savings, insurer partnership and plan sponsorship,” said Gauthier. “For healthcare providers that are strategically aligning themselves with specific Medicare Advantage plans or participating in a Medicare ACO, this information is especially important to measure the plans receptivity and changes in the marketplace.”

Gauthier says that MedicareCompareUSA is already working on many exciting enhancements that will be introduced throughout 2019, all of which are being designed to align with the changing buying habits of patients and to further position a hospital as the undisputed go-to resource for all insurance information and needs.

“Because MedicareCompareUSA is not owned or managed by any Medicare insurance company, we can serve as an unbiased Medicare insurance advocate that consumers can turn to with confidence,” he says. “As a result, we expect continued growth nationwide in the new year as hospitals, medical practices and clinics increasingly consider us an indispensable part of a proactive patient-communication and population-management strategy.”

About MedicareCompareUSA

MedicareCompareUSA helps Medicare beneficiaries select a health plan that is accepted by their existing hospital and doctors, thus assuring continuity of care and preserving the trusted relationships many providers have built up over time with their patients. Not owned or managed by any Medicare insurance company, MedicareCompareUSA’s mission is to provide seniors the unbiased information they need while simplifying the enrollment process. With its strong foundation and impressive track record, an increasing number of hospitals and doctors are looking to MedicareCompareUSA as an indispensable part of a proactive patient-communication and population-management strategy. medicarecompareusa.com