While some major national insurers saw mixed results during Medicare's open enrollment, many smaller regional and startup plans saw significant growth.
At SCAN Health Plan, a nonprofit health plan based in California, that meant adding 62,600 new members to its rolls during the enrollment window, growth of about 30%. CEO Sachin Jain, M.D., told Fierce Healthcare that in a typical enrollment period, the insurer would add in the ballpark of 20,000 members.
He called SCAN's performance during the enrollment window "a viral phenomenon."
"We've had kind of an unprecedented bonanza of growth this year," Jain said.
To put that number into perspective, he compared it to Anthem's 2011 acquisition of CareMore, where he previously worked. CareMore was brought into the fold at Anthem for its some 51,000 members, he said, just under how many SCAN added in this enrollment period alone.
What were the driving forces behind this spike in growth? For one, Medicare beneficiaries talk, and word of mouth can be one of the most powerful marketing tools, Jain said.
If they're pleased with their benefits or enjoy their plans, they will tell other seniors about it, he said. In addition, more seniors are learning how to enroll in Medicare Advantage and are seeing the options that it can offer, such as vision and dental benefits that are not available in traditional Medicare.
"I think, No. 1, it's a very high-value program," Jain said. "People perceive that they will get a lot being a part of the program."
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SCAN said that of its new members, about 25% switched to one of its plans from a UnitedHealthcare MA plan. While large commercial payers like UHC and Humana continue to dominate the market, smaller insurers like SCAN and startups like Devoted Health have seen significant growth in their memberships.
And there are signs that the top company's stranglehold on the industry may be loosening, at least a bit. Humana's stock tumbled last month after it drastically slashed its MA membership growth projections, and it's now pivoting to make significant investments back into its MA business.
Jain said nonprofits like SCAN offer an alternative for people who may skeptical of these massive, for-profit payers.
"I think people have a visceral reaction to profit-seeking in healthcare," he said.