Medicare Compliance & Reimbursement
Part D Sponsors Prep For Advertising 'Blitz'
With the new Medicare drug benefit barely five months away, health plans and other prescription drug plan sponsors are ramping up massive education and advertising campaigns.
On January 1, thousands of seniors will enroll in the first-ever Medicare prescription drug plans. Between now and then, they'll be hit by a barrage of ads and outreach as sponsors seek first to educate them about the benefit in general, and then pitch their own particular products. PDP sponsors "are going to be pretty aggressive in the marketplace," says Wayne Rosenberger, senior vice president of health care markets for marketing specialist Harte-Hanks Direct in Langhorn, PA.
There's going to be "a fair amount of activity" educating seniors about the drug benefit, says John Gorman, president of Gorman Health Group in Washington. "Then the marketing blitz will begin in October, and that's when things will get crazy," he says.
In October, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will have approved the bids, and sponsors will be able to start marketing.
"It will be like somebody raised a hand and fired a gun," says Sherman Rogers, president of marketing firm Finelight in Bloomington, IN. So many PDPs will be advertising their different products that "there will be an enormous amount of white noise," Gorman says.
Television ads will be particularly prevalent, since they are the best way to reach a large number of people in a short period of time, says senior marketing consultant Kurt Medina of Medina Associates located in Rose Valley, PA.
Because Medicare copay and premium rates change every January 1, there typically is a burst of marketing activity from late-December to mid-February, says Rosenberger. A second marketing burst will take place from April until May 15, the cut-off date for enrollment. He expects some early adopters to advertise sooner, but doesn't expect the advertising season to be too much longer than usual.
Medicare health plans with heavy penetration in a certain market will look to raise the visibility of their MA and PDP offerings, so they'll do heavy advertising, says Dan Mendelson, president of Avalere Health in Washington.
Health plans that have already established themselves as solid Medicare players and have strong brand recognition will have a distinct advantage in cutting through the clutter. So will PDP sponsors that have alliances with groups seniors trust - for example, UnitedHealth Group, which has an arrangement with AARP to offer a PDP.
"That's like printing money," Gorman says.
Medicare Compliance & Reimbursement
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