In recent years, the popularity of Medicare Advantage has grown as more and more Americans have chosen to enroll in this type of insurance. The enrollment under Medicare Advantage plans has doubled over the past few years and continues to rise. Though it was initially conceptualized in the 70’s, it has been popular among enrollees lately. One of the reasons Medicare Advantage became explosive is that it offers access to benefits and services that traditional Medicare doesn’t, including vision and dental care. With such added benefits, Medicare Advantage plans have secured an important spot in the Medicare program. By 2025, Medicare Advantage is projected to be the dominant way people receive their Medicare benefits.
The Trailing Edge of Baby Boomers
Anybody born between 1946 and 1964 falls under the baby boomer generation. By 1964, the last year of the boom, this generation had nearly 72.5 million people. And they can be further classified as “Leading Edge” (the older segment within this cohort) and “Trailing Edge” (the newbies (1956-1964) who are entering their retirement age). The advantage that the trailing edge has over the leading edge is their better awareness of the technological world that it is today.
Understanding the Trailing Edge
Understanding the unique characteristics of the trailing-edge enrollee should be a job one for PAYERS.
Since the trailing edge tends to be more tech-savvy than their predecessors, payers need to act quickly and develop innovative systems that are flexible to their needs and formulate diverse strategies that target, attract, and engage this group of the Medicare program.
Engaging the Trailing Edge
This group of emerging boomers are more likely to engage with health plans differently than the leading-edge population. Nevertheless, the boomer community is the prime market movers in digital health, and it is vital that payers do not ignore them. That said, there are 2 things that payers need to look out for here:
- The method of engagement:  Most health plans are falling back in delivering digital member communications. Unlike their tech-averse seniors, this group is more than willing to digitally get their daily dose of health updates since most of them own a smartphone or wearable device that tracks it. 
- The frequency of engagement: How often are updates and reminders sent? One rising complaint with members is that they haven’t heard back from their health plan in the last year other than the member onboarding message. Another pain area is the lack of personalized communication for existing Medicare Advantage plans.
This booming community needs a system that will go above and beyond to help them meet their needs with ease.
So, payers must act on these demands by looking for technologies that provide the flexibility to scale across multiple business elements. 
Trailing Edge and Payers
The post-pandemic era of healthcare innovations has so much to offer to maximize member engagement and scale processes that allow beneficiaries access to a self-service portal that puts enrollment and details at their fingertips. 
But sadly still, most in the payer community use legacy systems that wouldn’t support such demands even now.
The shift to digital can be massive but is much needed to break down the silos, scale and propel business, and engage better.
We at MST Solutions, using salesforce technologies, have come up with pre-built solutions designed in-house and customizable to business needs. Our Medicare Advantage enrollment accelerator is developed to quickly deliver self-service shop and enroll capabilities to your organization’s Medicare program.  
This set of pre-built solutions improves on Salesforce’s out-of-the-box features that quickly configure your system to better handle the unique requirements for Medicare programs and contributes to enrollment expansion while at the same time lifting the burden away from overtaxed support centers. 
There are plenty of opportunities that await payers to overlook the misperceptions to make the Medicare line of business their digital health priority. 
Know more about our Medicare prebuilt solutions here:
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