Let's Be Clear is a company-wide communication project launched at Premera Blue Cross in January 2016. Its goal is to simplify how we talk to our customers by eradicating jargon, acronyms, and confusing words and terms (and there's much too much of those in health insurance!). Learn how we carefully launched this project, earned buy-in from the majority of coworkers, simplified our customer experience, and improved the way co-workers talk to each other.
2. A little bit about Premera
Weve been around since 1933
Not-for-profit
Leading health plan in the Northwest
2 million customers
3,500 employees
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3. A little bit more about Premera
New CEO in 2014
Rapid industry change
Internal cultural change/digital divide being bridged
Major accounts:
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4. A little bit about me
At Premera since 2014
Journalism background
Ecommerce, branding, and startup experience
5. A company-wide initiative to use plain and simple
language inside and outside the workplace.
It aims to abolish acronyms, jargon, and
confusing insurance-speak.
Launched January, 2016
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7. A lot of lessons learned
during the last 2 years
Preparing
Launch! So much enthusiasm!
Some missteps
Continual moral support and reassessment
Some great victories
Continuing education &
weaving Lets Be Clear into the company culture
8. Many challenges
When it comes to customer trust, health insurers
are right alongside cable companies
at the bottom of the barrel
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10. Health insurance literacy
77% of individuals are unsure what the terminology in their
health plan really means
Fewer than 1% of people surveyed by Premera could estimate a
hospital bill given the copay, deductible, and coinsurance
87% think that provider means the insurance company, not a
doctor
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11. What do you think of when you think of your
health insurance network?
32. Creating the word list and
their replacements
also known as gathering feedback
from around the company while
keeping the Lets Be Clear project on
the down-low
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37. Senior manager buy-in was KEY
VP-level sponsor/blessing
Executive leadership team awareness
Pre-kickoff meetings with team leaders
to start to spread the word
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43. A few missteps
Focus on member website first:
Pharmacy and provider legally couldnt implement all the
Lets Be Clear terms.
--Formulary
--Prior authorization
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44. A few missteps
Lets Be Clear word list/writing tips vs.
Premera writing style standards
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65. Lets Be Clear in 2017
Revised/longer word list
Letter campaign: 1 million
letters (51%)
Mobile app
More content strategy help!
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67. Net promoter score (NPS) vs.
customer satisfaction
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68. Email signatures
Thank-you postcard campaign
Executive sign-offs on letters
Suggestion boxes
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Keeping up the momentum
69. Keeping on keepin on
SVP and CEO support
Quarterly report-outs
Increased staffing!
Sharing befores-and-afters
Not-humble-bragging about
$$ savings
Cafeteria fridge
Postcards
Lets Be Clear desk flags @JorgensenErica
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70. In retrospectthings I would
encourage the team to do
differently
Divert the attention from
Flesch-Kincaid earlier
It got lots of people hung up and made the
work feel difficult and slow
esp. for those who dont enjoy writing
Launch the 10 steps to clear writing sooner
72.
More resources
Roy Peter Clark
http://www.poynter.org/author/rclark/
Nicely Said: Nicole Fenton & Katie Kiefer Lee
http://www.nicelysaid.co
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#5: As Bezos said in his Wired interview, the best customer service experience is when they never have to contact you.
Amazon: 2nd editorial hire, first health books editor in ye olden days
#6: Not a new thingbut it was a big change for P
Lets Be Clear is a company-wide initiative to use plain and simple language inside and out of our workplace. remera
#8: https://health.gov/communication/literacy/issuebrief/
Customers thought they were producers because they produced a hospital bill some thought they were providers because they provided a body for treatment--!
#9: Were down there with Comcast in terms of customer trust
#11: https://health.gov/communication/literacy/issuebrief/
Customers thought they were producers because they produced a hospital bill some thought they were providers because they provided a body for treatment--!
#12: What your typical person on the street thinks about health care terms
#15: save money with generics went away
Producer: people think they produced a health care claim, so theyre the producerProvider: People think provider is the insurance company itself. https://www.google.com/search?q=seriously&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjB7o-5u7HTAhULsVQKHUXZArsQ_AUICCgB&biw=1033&bih=562
#16: What we think about when we think about healthcare
#17: What we think about when we think about healthcare
#18: What we think about when we think about healthcare
#53: Some pages that performed better were LONGER than before
#54: User testing results: on-the-street surveys
providers: midwives, nurse practitioners, etc.not just doctors
1095 contentdo we really need to put that stuff on the website???