The Medigap and Advantage Care Marketing Group

The Medigap and Advantage Care Marketing Group

Christiny Jones, LaShana Leigh, Katherine Niles, Mayra Serna, Eric Waller

Texas A&M University – Commerce

MKT521.01W, Summer II 2015

Dr. Yasemin Ocal Atinc

Executive Summary

The Medigap and Advantage Care Marketing Group is an insurance marketing service that will provide individuals solutions to accompany their Medicare coverage. The company will focus on individuals receiving Medicare, particularly seniors and baby boomers. There are many costs that aren’t covered by Medicare; potentially leaving individuals with high out of pocket costs for medical care and prescriptions. According to Pew Research Center, about 10,000 baby boomers will turn 65 each day, making Medicare supplement plans very desirable. The Medigap and Advantage Care Marketing Group will simplify the selection process, provide seniors with competitive premiums, and reduce out of pocket costs.

The market for Medigap coverage consists of the 5 million individuals in Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Arkansas.  The Medigap and Advantage Care Marketing Group will provide seniors and baby boomers with the tools to properly select a plan. Consumer education and integration with trusted providers and caregivers would play key roles in bridging the gaps in Medicare coverage. The Medigap and Advantage Care Marketing Group has partnered with innovative strategic alliances that have a strong market presence, allowing the company to reach the goal of providing the best possible coverage for each individual.

Understanding how the target market self identifies is critical in establishing a pathway to build a customer relationship. Sales representatives will be influential in maintaining and building those relationships, and integrating caregiver relationships will ensure goals are being met. Success in the target markets will enable expansion into markets targeting the other 45 million Medicare recipients in the United States.

The purpose of this marketing plan is to build The Medigap and Advantage Care Marketing Group as a brand and allow seniors to obtain coverage while providing security and peace of mind.

Situational Analysis

The Medigap and Advantage Care Marketing Group is an insurance marketing and brokerage service that we are launching for seniors in Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Oklahoma.  Our marketing will use approved marketing channels for these programs based on federal and state regulatory guidelines for the Medigap and Advantage care programs (AARP, 2015) in the specified geographical regions. The basic market need is to provide seniors and baby boomers with extended benefits to augment Medicare coverages with reduced out of pocket costs, offer extended benefits for long-term care coverage, community and home based services (including meal programs and access to home care personnel), more comprehensive overall health care plans, ease of use, affordable prescription plans to offset the donut hole and lastly, more comprehensive vision, and hearing plans.

Market Summary

The Medigap and Advantage Care Marketing Group understands the market and have a significant amount of information about the target market for our products. We will use this information to continue to understand how the target market, how and why they are driven to select new services.  We plan to establish pathways to build and enhance business relationships through our strategic marketing channels and actions based on our information gathering.

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Market Analysis

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Market Needs

The Medigap and Advantage Care Marketing Group will be providing its customer base with health care plan offerings that based on the Medicare Parts A- N (Medicare Supplement Solutions, 2015) (see chart below). The Medigap and Advantage Care Marketing Group will achieve the following objectives for our customers:

• Provide seniors and baby boomers with the tools to select a plan based on their needs through transparency, education, and the integration of caregiver education to aid in making choices.
• Understand who the target market is in terms of how they self-identify and live.
• Our goal is to provide seniors with competitive premiums and reduced out of pocket costs.
• To develop relationships with and assure access to caregivers and providers that the target market has grown accustomed to using.
• Provide positive interactions with our representatives to foster trust.
• Enable the target market to become familiar with the companies we represent via relationships, approved marketing channels, and marketing actions.
• Provide the necessary coverages to bridge the gaps in Medicare coverage.

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Market Trends

The Medicare program has undergone significant changes in terms of spending, in the past few years Medicare’s share of total personal health care spending rose to 23% percent in 2012, with some variance in the type of spending by service, while hospital care spending rose to 27% and home health services began to represent a much higher share of spending by rising to 43 % as result of the inclusion of hospice services in that category.  The Affordable Care Act of 2010 (ACA) incorporated  numerous provisions that affected Medicare, inclusive of a host of benefit improvements, reductions in spending that may affect providers and Medicare Advantage plans, delivery system reforms, premium increases for higher-income beneficiaries, and a payroll tax on earnings for higher-income people.  These changes are being phased in over time. (Henry J Kaiser Family Foundation, 2015).

Despite the changes to the programs, the industry continues to adapt and adhere to strict regulatory guidelines while to providing the best Medigap and Medicare Advantage programs available in their respective regions. The ageing of the population has greatly affected the way Medicare programs are funded and will be funded in the future. In the 1980’s, Medicare programs allowed HMO’s (National Bipartisan Commission on the Future of Medicare, 2015) to supplement and offer advantage plans to decrease overall out of pocket spending and increase overall benefits for Medicare consumers. The Medigap and Advantage Care Marketing Group has partnered with three private health care providers whose Medigap and Medicare Advantage programs meet our objectives for our customers.