Is 10% engagement enough? How one Artemis client quantified the real impact of a maternity benefit with Console.

Overview

Back in 2020, a large global manufacturer client implemented a maternity-based point solution to address an area of growing concern in their company. Women were a fast-growing segment of their workforce and incidents of high-cost maternity cases were on the rise. Following a comprehensive search, the maternity point solution they selected was a perfect match for their needs—innovative, reputable, and affordable. Plus, the initial employee feedback from the program launch was overwhelmingly positive.

Nearly two years later, our client anxiously opened their second annual performance report from their point solution. Neatly packaged with appealing infographics and optimistic headlines, the report provided nearly two-dozen pages of analysis. It was clear that members using the program were engaging often, gave user feedback scores, and utilized program benefits. Overall, it was a good report card, but there was one glaring stat that was hard to reconcile: 10% of eligible members had engaged in the program.

At first glance, 10% felt low. If roughly 15% of their membership were eligible and only 10% of those were engaged in the program, they were, in effect, reaching just 1.5% of their covered population. So, the big question our client asked was: is 10% enough to justify continuing with their program, or should they cut their losses and move on?  

Our Methodology: Beyond Anecdotes and Surface-Level Metrics

To an untrained eye, analyzing a point solution’s performance seems reasonably straightforward, comparable to the way an HR leader might analyze any of its other programs. Yet even the most sophisticated industry experts quickly find themselves mired in questions that are hard to answer without the proper data, metrics, and a healthy dose of analytic expertise. We know this because it was not long ago that we found ourselves regularly asking questions such as:

• How is “engagement” defined for this point solution, and how is that different from other point solution programs?
• How can a point solution calculate a savings estimate without access to a client’s historical claims and eligibility data, both before and after the program started?
• What is the minimum number of participants needed to run a credible analysis? And how long does the program need to be in place before we can measure outcomes?
• How can I tell if changes in participant behavior, outcomes, and cost are in fact attributable to the point solution program instead of being merely coincidental?

These questions and many others prompted our team to design and develop a point solution evaluation methodology and tool for our clients. After considerable research and testing, we arrived at a methodology featuring five core pillars based on this simple logic: health outcomes and financial results of a program’s performance are byproducts of user engagement and behavior change.  

This is simple, sound logic in principle, but quite difficult in practice, particularly at scale (i.e., conducted monthly or for multiple programs and clients). 10% of members with a delivery episode participated in the maternity program during the first, second or third trimester of their pregnancy. When comparing the participating members to a comparable cohort of non-participating members (“Control Group”), we found the program was:  

• attracting higher-risk members
• yielding meaningful differences in healthcare claims utilization, patient behavior patterns, and health outcomes.  
• driving overall financial savings

This five-pillar process functions as the methodology behind our point solution evaluation tool, Artemis Console. It is also the methodology our team employed to help our client make their renewal decision about their maternity program.

Our Findings: Evidence That Informs Confident Decisions

When our client turned to Artemis for help, we were ready to answer the call. Our team went to work using a dataset consisting of nearly two years of point solution enrollment metrics, health plan eligibility data, and self-insured medical and pharmacy claims files. Aggregated, integrated, and matched at the individual member level, we were able to depict a 360-degree view of their program.  

The Verdict

In the end, our analysis gave the client the data evidence to support the business case to renew their point solution contract. Their primary rationale was that a 10% engagement rate, though small, was packed with high-risk cases that benefited immensely from the program. Plus, their members were reporting high levels of satisfaction.  

Taking it One Step Further…

Our analysis provided our client with more than a retrospective look at how their program performed in the past, it provided helpful insights into ways that our client could improve their program performance moving forward because, if the program is valuable at just 10% enrollment, it would be even better at 15% or 20% enrollment.  

To add, we were able to point out that 82% of the participating members were employees. Less than one-in-five participants (18%) represented non-employees (spouses, partners, or dependents). With that in mind, they decided to embark on a targeted communication campaign aimed at reaching and engaging members in the home.

Make This Success Story Your Own

If you would like to learn more about this success story or better understand the ways Artemis can help you evaluate the performance of your point solutions, please contact us here.

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