1. Solving the
Communications
Challenge
Trends, Common Challenges,
and The Path Forward
RESEARCH BRIEF
Joel Radford, SVP, Software Solutions
Silverlink Communications

2. About Silverlink
Silverlink is the proven leader in multi-channel engagement
management solutions for healthcare organizations. Our
solutions enable health plans and other key stakeholders
to engage and support their members in smarter and
more effective ways, empowering consumers to make
the best decisions about their healthcare. We deliver
better control, coordination and effectiveness in member
communications to promote healthy and loyal behaviors.
To learn more about what makes Silverlink the leader in
consumer health engagement, please visit www.silverlink.com,
email info@silverlink.com, or call 1-781-425-5700.
©2015 Silverlink Communications, Inc. Proprietary property.All rights reserved.

3. ©2015 Silverlink Communications, Inc. Solving The Communications Challenge: Trends, Common Challenges, and The Path Forward | 1
The Challenge
Health plans are busy trying to navigate through a sea of changes taking place in the
industry. And they are juggling multiple priorities simultaneously while trying to build
brand, trust, and loyalty with their members across a great number of predominantly
independent interaction strategies—marketing, administrative, and health-related, to
name a few.
With the best of intentions, health plans may find themselves unintentionally alienating
their members, increasing their own administrative costs, and, in some cases, deterring
their members from receiving care. There are many reasons for this, not the least of
which are competing priorities between departments. This situation is untenable in the
long run. Health plans must improve the consistency of their interactions with members if
they expect to achieve growth, medical cost reduction, and improved outcomes.
Why It’s Hard
Industry pundits have been highlighting these challenges for years. So why haven’t they
been resolved? Because it’s difficult, and here’s why:
Healthcare is Different
Management of consumer interactions is more complicated in healthcare than perhaps
in any other industry because:
1. Healthcare payers participate in a pure services business, and it’s a complex one.
Unlike Starbucks, or Amazon, services are not accompanied by an exchange of
physical goods. In exchange for payment, an insurer delivers reduction in financial
risk. So the consumer only experiences tangibility associated with the service in the
form of interactions—voice and tone of an agent; packaging of a letter; the visual
design of an email. The importance of these subtleties is magnified as compared to
more traditional services business.
2. Further, those interactions which might be characterized as “moments of truth” in
many cases can be more deeply personal in the healthcare industry than in any
other—consider a mother’s reaction to the need for “prior auth” when her child is
in need of a specialty medication.

4. 2 | Solving The Communications Challenge: Trends, Common Challenges, and The Path Forward ©2015 Silverlink Communications, Inc.
3. The industry is highly regulated. We are limited in what we can say, how we can say
it, when we can say it, to whom we can say it, and the channel we can use.
4. Lastly, payer business models are changing, shifting from a largely B2B model to
an increasingly important B2C model, and even a B2B2C model which implies new
processes, new people, and new technologies
So what does all of this mean? Proven methods, processes, and technologies from other
industries, while useful, are insufficient. Our interaction techniques must be different.
Our compliance processes must be different. Healthcare payers can’t simply copy best
practices from other industries, so in a way, we need to invent our own.
Financial Pressure
In the midst of all of these changes, payers are also under significant financial pressure.
The risk profile of memberships is shifting. Merger and acquisition activity is driving
changes in strategy. Various enterprise processes are being reengineered in response
to healthcare reform. Internal departments and
business units are being combined, and in some
cases shut down.
It is in this context in which groups responsible
for managing consumer interactions are being
asked to do more with less, and rarely are these
business units experiencing year-over-year
increases in their budgets.
Commitment to Technology
If health plans are to succeed in winning consumer loyalty, they will need to make a
significant commitment to technology. And technology can be difficult to understand,
especially with limited IT support. Groups responsible for consumer interaction must
account for scale, cost, complexity, legacy investments, and compliance. Worse,
different departments have conflicting priorities which can hamper broad adoption of
standard technologies.
At an average cost of $80-120 per member, and
4-6 years to complete, a broad scale system
implementation can range into the hundreds of
millions of dollars.
– Deloitte “Navigating the Landscape of
Health Plan Core Administrative Systems”

5. ©2015 Silverlink Communications, Inc. Solving The Communications Challenge: Trends, Common Challenges, and The Path Forward | 3
Health Plan Priorities
Over a 10 month period, we interviewed more than 70 healthcare executives
representing 41 healthcare organizations in an effort to learn which consumer interaction
management strategies were
their highest priorities.
At a high level we found that
everyone we interviewed is
focused in some way on
improving the quality of their
member interactions. Some are
more process-focused, while
others are more technology-
focused. Some are more
focused on measuring and
improving member satisfaction,
while others are more
interested in allocating their
investments where they would
have the most impact. Some initiatives are being driven by IT organizations, but
most are being driven by business users who have direct responsibility for managing
consumer interactions.
Marketing
36%
Clinical
Operations
32%
Consumer
Experience
19%
IT
13%
Job Functions
Health Plan
70%
PBM
20%
Wellness
10%
Health Care Enterprise Types
The Interview
Our research polled healthcare executives across several different types of
enterprises, and a variety of organizational roles.
63% 63%
48% 45% 43% 40%
33% 33%
20%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
Preferences
DNC
Multichannel
Coordination
Analysis and
Scoring
List
Enhancement
Communications
Overlap
Intensity
360 Degree
View
Transparency Enterprise
Marketing
Automation
Enterprise Data
Warehouse
Technology-Related Priorities to Drive Engagement
Enterprise View
Consolidated view of
organizational priorities.

6. 4 | Solving The Communications Challenge: Trends, Common Challenges, and The Path Forward ©2015 Silverlink Communications, Inc.
The problem is that although respondents indicated they are pursuing or intend to
pursue technology-related priorities intended to drive improved engagement, the level
of importance of each initiative varies depending on individual departmental goals.
With so many competing priorities, it’s imperative that leadership step in and drive
an increased focus on applying technology to monitor and manage communications
across the enterprise.
Below are examples of the top four technology related priorities to drive engagement with
marketing, clinical, and Consumer Experience Office (CXO) departments. As you can see,
“preferences” is naturally more of a priority for the marketing department than it is for
the CXO, for example. Instead, the CXO is more concerned about “overlap intensity.”
So how can a healthcare organization manage all of these priorities while simultaneously
delivering a positive member experience?
75%
63%
33%
29%
25%
29%
25%
42%
21%
59%
64%
59%
41%
50%
55%
45%
23%
18%
67% 67%
75% 75%
83%
67%
58%
50% 50%
0%
25%
50%
75%
100%
Preferences
DNS
Multichannel
Coordination
Analysis
Scoring
List
Enhancement
Communications
Overlap
Intensity
360 Degree
View
Transparency Enterprise
Marketing
Automation
Enterprise
Data
Warehouse
Marketing Clinical Consumer Experience Office
Competing Priorities
Not all are prioritized
equally across the
organization.
Communications
Overlap Intensity
CXO 83%
Clinical 50%
Marketing 25%
Analysis
Scoring
CXO 75%
Clinical 59%
Marketing 33%
360 Degree
View
CXO 67%
Clinical 55%
Marketing 29%
Preferences
CXO 67%
Clinical 59%
Marketing 75%

7. ©2015 Silverlink Communications, Inc. Solving The Communications Challenge: Trends, Common Challenges, and The Path Forward | 5
Our Solution to the Challenge
Collecting the data represented in the charts above has helped shape our software
solution strategy at Silverlink. In fact, our recent release of EngageME 2.0 is helping
some enterprises address many of the priorities highlighted in this chart. Our solution
is a SaaS (software as a service)-based solution
that integrates and stores communications
history, preferences, and compliance information
from multiple data sources into a single member
engagement profile, including the results of
outreaches generated both in-house and via
external vendors. EngageME 2.0 was designed
specifically for the healthcare industry and for use
by multiple communicators within an organization.
In addition to providing valuable insights to inform member engagement strategies and
interactions, EngageME 2.0 also helps healthcare organizations:
• Improve member experience: Regulate communications intensity, drive message
consistency and respect member preferences.
• Reduce administrative cost: Suppress and combine redundant or unnecessary
communications and reduce inbound call center traffic.
• Improve medical outcomes: Improve yield associated with health engagement
programs.
Health plans need to take a more customer-centric
approach and keep their members engaged through
regular communications ... When members perceive their
plan as a trusted health partner, there is a positive impact
on loyalty and advocacy.
—J.D. Power’s
“2015 Member Health Plan Study”