Aaron Conant  0:18

Happy Thursday, everybody. My name is Aaron Conant. I'm the Co-founder and managing director at BWG Connect. We are a networking and knowledge-sharing group of thousands organizations who do exactly that. We network analysis here together to stay on top of the newest trends, strategies, pain points, whatever it is that shaping digital as a whole today, that's up multiple different verticals and industry as a whole, because we all kind of seen how COVID is impacted a variety of different verticals as a whole. And so I talk with 30 to 40 organizations each week to stay on top of trends, the biggest pain points things are trying to solve for and when the same topics come up over and over again, we host an event like this. We'll do close to 400 virtual events this year, and a bunch of in-person events as well, just from a networking standpoint. So if you’re in the city and we're having an event here, you would love to meet in person. A couple housekeeping items as we get started, we want this to be as educational and informational as possible. So at any point in time you have a question or a comment, you want to jump in, just hit star five, handle go up on our screen here, we can unmute you and bring you into the conversation as a whole, we're also going to jump around a little bit to different people who have joined, just to get their insights to the whole network and knowledge share as a group. The other thing is, we're starting this four to five minutes after the hour. And just so everybody knows, we're going to wrap up with four to five minutes to go as well. So we're going to try to wrap this up about 2:25 Eastern Time and give you plenty of time to get onto your next meeting without being late and may even grab a cup of coffee along the way. And with that I want to kind of kick off the conversation from the standpoint of consumer, customer experience as a whole is something that's come up over and over again, and reimagining the health plan experience for the consumer mindset is kind of the title we got to just because it's a topic that has come up over and over again is how do we handle the new consumer? How do we give them the best experience possible? What does that look like? And how are different organizations doing it? To stay best in class and to kind of stay ahead of the curve as a whole. So we've got some great friends, partners, they've been supporters of the network for years now. Just been really open to knowledge sharing across the board over at Wellframe. And so they're here to kind of lend insight, ask to answer as many questions as we can throw at them and just kind of knowledge share across the board. So again, you have any questions, just hit star five, you can throw them in there, but I'm going to kick it over. We have Lara and Rachel on the line today. Lara, I'll kick it over to you first. If you want to do a brief intro on yourself and background, that'd great. Then we kick it over to Rachel, and then we can kind of jump into the conversation, sound good?

Lara Silberklang  2:57

So I am Lara Silberklang. Thanks for the introduction, Aaron. I am a group Product Manager here at Wellframe and I run the member experience team. So Rachel will give a broader overview about Wellframe and what we do. But essentially, we're a b2b to c organizations. And I run that almost like a direct-to-consumer roadmap within this larger enterprise organization. So I'm really thinking about what do members want? What are members pain points? And how does that intersect with what health plans and providers market provide to them so that we can lead our roadmap from a member-centered perspective, knowing that what members want and what needs they haven't how they want to interact, or really drive the success of anything engagement that we put out in the market. So I'm deep in member research, talking to our users, talking to the general market, looking at direct to consumer as our main competition in this space, and looking forward to sharing some of the thoughts and the things that I've learned, talking to members and talking to consumers across the country. Rachel over to you.

Rachel Daricek  3:59

Thanks, Lara. And I will preview for everyone here that every time Lara says something when we're talking about Wellframe, like, I have to sit back and listen and take notes. So I'm excited to hear what she has to say here as well. I'm Rachel Daricek, I lead product marketing. I'm the Senior Director of Product Marketing at Wellframe. And Lara and I partner closely on a lot of things. She mentioned that she leads the member experience, my team is more focused on the customer experience. So what do customers want and need the buying experience and partnered with Wellframe after we decided to partner with someone and we partner closely, obviously, with the product team to make sure that our products and solutions meet the needs that our customers are looking for.

Aaron Conant  4:47

Awesome, you want to jump in a little bit about Wellframe as well and kind of where you guys fit in the ecosystem. That'd be cool if you kind of set that baseline as well. And then we can kind of really jumped into conversations. Is that cool?

Rachel Daricek  5:00

Sounds great. Besides the experience and engagement, that's my other favorite topics to talk about. So, welcome to health tech company, we help health plans reimagine the relationships that they have or can have with their members. And we call it the advocacy. I know that's a term that is thrown around a lot in this industry. But we have a very specific definition. We think of advocacy as both a mindset and a service model. And it's grounded by a few key themes. So first, think about the members, Lara said b2b to c so to see side of it, making sure that members have a single convenient access point for all their healthcare resources, whether they access them in a self-service manner, or whether they need to connect with a staff member from their health plan. The other piece of that is the staff side. So from a staff perspective, they have a proactive integrated approach to serving members. And this is really difficult to do for a lot of reasons. But we believe that health plans are in the best position to do this. And the health plans that are able to do this will maintain and create trusted relationships with their members, which will differentiate their business and impact outcomes. To do all this, we offer two solutions, we call them digital care management, or DCM and digital customer service, or DCS. Both of these solutions take advantage of our core digital health management platform. And that includes a mobile app for members that Lara manages, and dashboard on the staff side that another one of our colleagues manages. And there's key features like two ways to share chat, on-demand educational articles, there's a step tracker, medication reminders, and much more. We also offer more than 70 care programs, including all of the clinical topics that are most important to care management. And it is important to know that Wellframe is not one of those tech companies who implements the platform and then walks away. We have a customer success team that sticks around for the life of the partnership, helping with strategic implementation and change management so that we're actually helping you reach advocacy service model. We also work across lines of business. We work with Medicare commercial, Medicaid populations, for all different kinds of plans across the space. So that is Wellframe.

Aaron Conant  5:03

Awesome. I love it. And I want to just kick it off over to Lara, a question that comes up a lot. But I know just the space that you sit in. And then I'm going to jump around to some other people in the audience as well. But Lara, how have you seen the role of member experience, not just the role of member experience and needs evolving in this new digitally focused multi-channel world that's completely different than it was two years ago?

Lara Silberklang  7:55

Yeah. Good question, it's a big one. I think, really, the pandemic and other factors have really altered consumer behavior. They're experiencing their expectations, and the role of digital engagement there. So health plans, like all consumer-facing organizations are evolving to meet those member expectations. And really, this can be either introducing, or then optimizing digital channels. But it's also using data behind the scenes to enhance all interactions across the board. So maybe the interaction is not digital, maybe it's telephonic, but it's being enabled by these digital channels behind the scenes, because one thing that members really want is that they expect this human-first approach and all of their interactions. So they want their experiences across all channels designed to meet their needs smoothly and efficiently. And that their data and past actions are utilized to optimize and personalize their experiences. They really want interactions that feel timely and contextually relevant, whether those are initiated proactively on the part of the health plan or other organization reaching out to them, or reactively, in response to when a member reaches out with a specific need. They want that sense of personalization so that all of those data points that people know have been collected about them in this space, either through claims or diagnoses or past interactions with a health plan. They want that data to be optimized and used for their benefit to make things smoother, to make things more personalized to make any answers they receive more relevant and actionable. And then also to make any later proactive outreach to again, being more personalized, more timely, more contextually relevant to the actions that they need to take in that moment. So I think overall, the pandemic has just heightened a trend that was already well underway before that.

Saad  9:43

Awesome. Love it. Jump in Rachel, for sure. Love to hear your thoughts as well.

Rachel Daricek  9:50

All I can think of is every time I have to go fill out a form and it's the same form, the company knows who I am. I've logged in 100 times before and yeah, I still have to fill out my same information every single time. And how frustrating that is. And it is not just healthcare, I think it's across the board, though. Many companies in many industries are getting much better at it. The other thing that made me think was, you mentioned both telephone, and digital. And as I mentioned, every product marketing, I've also spent many years, kind of as a marketing, generalist leading different teams. And, channel mix is really important, it's not the channel itself that makes the experience, it's having the right channel at the right time for the right reason. And I think about the difference between just on my phone alone, I have the choice to use text, to make a phone call or to send an email. And depending on who I'm talking to, what message I'm trying to get across, how urgent it is, how complicated it is, I'm going to make a different decision. And sometimes that's glitches, right? If I'm texting with my mom about something, I don't know, playing tech support, if she can't figure out how to use this feature on her phone, I'll do a couple of text messages back and forth, and then I'll get frustrated, and I'll call her. And then my kids won't understand why they can't see her face. And then I'll have to switch to FaceTime. And that's all within like a 10 minute span. So it's all about having the right channel available for the right conversation at the right time, in addition to using the data that you mentioned, Lara.

Aaron Conant  11:26

I love it. Jump in for sure. I love the conversation where you keep it going. And I do want to jump out to some people as well, because I do think it's the needs and demands that need to be met. Right? And not only in this space, but when you think everything shifted to digital and people who are never purchasing anything online, are now routinely purchasing online. And now it shifts to how am I in the healthcare space? How am I interacting? And how are people communicating and text is blown up? And there's all these different communication factors that have gone through it, people are saying this is a new need. I want you to communicate with me this way. Is that something you guys are seeing as well.

Lara Silberklang  12:08

We're definitely seeing that, populations that have the reputation for being tech-averse, are definitely not tech-averse. We see them onboarding onto Wellframe using the digital app, having really high engagement and using that as a preferred channel to send quick messages to either their care manager or their advocate that they're talking to, as well as maybe interspersing that with a phone call, but maybe using the chat to schedule a phone call. So you still have the benefits of that asynchronous communication, where you can say, "Okay, I'm free at this time, are you free at this time? Let's talk then." As opposed to waiting for our call that might come the moment that you're pulling into the grocery store parking lot, it's just not convenient to talk. So we're definitely seeing that. And we're definitely seeing the role of digital. And again, in that example that Rachel was giving, just connecting the dots behind the scenes. So making sure that everyone is informed of all of those Omnichannel interactions that the member might be having. So that the person who picks up the thread next is totally in the loop that doesn't need to ask those questions or ask for that form to be filled out again or asked for that context again, but in sort of pick up the conversation where they left it off, which is exactly what consumers expect, and want. And again, people hear it in Rachel's voice, that frustration when it doesn't happen smoothly, that frustration is higher and the frustration tolerance of like how willing are people to sit with that frustration and not get angry about it? It's probably getting lower, as more and more consumer organizations are getting better and better at this.

Aaron Conant  13:41

Feel free to jump in, then I want to go out to Saad, and in a couple others as well. Yeah, jump in.

Rachel Daricek  13:47

Absolutely I just wanted to bring that frustration level experience back to health care, because when folks are calling you to their health plan or looking up information about their health, in addition to having that frustrating experience, they're already often in a mindset where they're scared, or they're frustrated, or they're just entering this unknown, uncomfortable space. As opposed to sending your kid up for camp, which is not unknown or uncomfortable, just frustrating. So it has the added dimensions.

Aaron Conant  14:17

Yeah, completely agreed. Saad, you might jump in and love a brief intro on yourself. And then, have you seen member experience and needs evolving? And how, if any, are there variations across, the member population member base as a whole, you could jump in and share. That'd be awesome.

Saad 14:39

Sure. Absolutely. So, yeah, so this is Saad, I am Senior Product Manager and Associate Director here at Blue Cross Blue Shield. I totally agree with everyone by the way that they're talking about membership chair and change especially during this pandemic, and especially now that we are all more tech-averse as well, and then trying to have the pandemic is really not helping. So a lot of push now has been on the digital side as well. So we're not seeing anything different, absolutely the same avenue, same area. But we technically look at it from an angle off, typically three A's I call them. So, as someone has just mentioned, I think it was Lara had mentioned that, there is a component of frustration that comes along, typically member are using the digital avenues sometimes, and they may not get something and they may end up calling. So there's that component of frustration that's coming through. So what we follow is, the triple A's essentially, one is the attitude, right. So we're going to have the empathy, that we need to make sure that we understand what they're going through. And then how could we essentially adjust ourselves and be attentive. So those are some of the cues that we pick. And, essentially, we're seeing the same exact thing, the same exact trend here. Telehealth being on the high care users are asking for, at the very least a nurse chat or an entry into the tele worlds where they can talk to the providers and maybe not really necessarily have to go to a brick and mortar if they don't need to, for some of the relatively smaller areas, or smaller needs that they may have. So those are definitely being worked upon as well. One of the small thing that we picked up, for example, is highly utilized feature in our world is Doctor hospital finder. Both on the Medicaid as well as on the commercial line of business. And one of the things that we have noticed that simple indicator online, which providers are also doing telemedicine, can you tell us that really helped, right? Because users can now search and essentially say, okay, these are the ones that have brick and mortar, or they can also do telemedicine, so let's connect with them digitally as well. So that has also been something which piqued our members interest, and really, we listened to them. And that's how we adjusted our narrative and started introducing some of those features.

Aaron Conant  17:18

Awesome, love it. And thanks so much for jumping in, others if you want to jump in as well, just hit star five to bring you in. Thoughts there, Rachel, Lara, on that as well, as just thinking a little bit about where you think health plans can begin creating improved, consumer-focused experience for their members as well. I mean, like, where do people start? Any thoughts on that last comment as well?

Rachel Daricek  17:48

I have a follow-up question, Lara, if you don't mind. I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name. Love the three A's. Thank you so much for sharing that. Lara and I are like scribbling it down to save that for later. Was that for telehealth, knowing which providers provide telehealth? Was that consistent across your entire member population? Or was there any variety there?

Saad  18:16

It was pretty consistent. Now, people may use telehealth for different purposes. But it was pretty consistent both on the Medicaid as well as on the commercial line of business and need to happen.

Rachel Daricek  18:30

We hear so many people say that seniors are afraid to use technology. And our data says that's not true. So it's nice to hear.

Saad 18:37

That's not true. That's not true because I'm also working on the launch of the Medicaid app. And there's an independent study that we worked, we actually got hold of it. And it basically indicates that almost between commercial and Medicaid line of business, there's no shortage of smartphones, let's put it this way. It's almost 85% on the Medicaid side as well. And not to mention Medicaid population, almost 50% is minor population. So they are more tech-savvy at the same time. So that is also wondering that for learning and continue to learn.

Aaron Conant  19:22

Awesome. Where do people start creating that improved customer experience? There's a ton of data out there. I mean, like Saad was just saying around case studies and stuff that's done. But, where do you where do the people start to get that improved experience as a whole? That can be Rachel, it can be Lara, it can be other people if you want to jump in, you can hit star five, we can bring you in. We'd love to hear thoughts there.

Lara Silberklang  19:57

I can take a first pass and then you can sign in but I love what Saad started with talking about empathy. Because I think that's a great place to start. Everyone knows that the data is out there, everyone knows that digital is part of those channels that folks expect to be able to get information or have conversations, but really to start focusing on moments where they the needs of the health plan, and the needs of the members coincide, and then going further from there. So choosing attraction to the moment where those needs align, and then seeing how you can use data and digital interactions to really optimize it from a member first perspective. So using that empathy to really drive what your strategy is there. So whether it's an intake or HRA, assessments, or messaging about gaps in care, really thinking about what the value is to the member, and what data you have to make that experience more personalized, or to make any outcomes or next steps more actionable. So it could be timing, when do you send that out? Is it based on an internal clock of when that campaign should run? Or is it based on when that number had an appointment last year, and you can help them reach out and say, "Here, this is where you had your mammogram last year, you need to schedule it three months in advance when a start scheduling that now." And that makes it really personalized to the member, it just takes that one little piece of data that folks that already had to make that moment actionable and relevant for the member. And that's a small digital interaction that folks would really I think respond to well, because they want data again, that is personalized, timely, and actionable. And personalization really mean part of it is of course, like letting people choose what channel and having digital be part of the mix. But personalization at its core is the sense that one's past actions are accounted for and one's future needs are anticipated. So digital and member-centered approach to data-driven interventions are really great opportunities to start creating those experiences that are personalized, contextually relevant for members to take those actions to have that positive moment in alignment with that those three A's that we just heard about where someone's really paying attention to their need. Some was really thinking about what does it feel like to be receiving this communication? What does it feel like to be on the other side of the phone trying to figure out a claim or figure out what's covered or how to anticipate costs. And using that attention with a member first member in mind.

Rachel Daricek  22:21

Lara, I wonder if we could recommend adding a fourth A to that list. And that would be agile. Where to begin start with one little piece of data, or even minor things that seems so small can make such a huge difference. And it can be so overwhelming to think about the there's this phrase digital transformation that everyone throws around, like it's so easy. It's not. It's incredibly hard. And the larger the organization is that you work for, and the longer it's been around, the harder it is. But off and just taking that first step is the hardest part. And if you can do something smaller and more bite-sized, more snackable, then it gets easier and easier as you weave the agile mindset into the organization and are able to change small things.

Aaron Conant  23:15

Yeah, I think Rachel, I don't know if it went on mute on her side, but we can cheat. Nope, you're back. We only last like five seconds. So we weren't gone long. So if you want to finish your thought that'd be awesome. Yeah. We heard almost all of it. Yep.

Lara Silberklang  23:37

Okay. Yeah, I was just suggesting agile as a mindset or approach to digital transformation, as perhaps the fourth A add to the list?

Aaron Conant  23:46

No, I love it from the standpoint as well that, when you're talking about digital transformation, and it's not something you just undergo, it's not, hey, I'm going to reply for my eCommerce website, from Shopify to Magento. It's an ongoing thing. There's no final end state, because everything's rapidly changing. And so I'd love adding in the agile piece as well. Great,  awesome stuff. What about on the consumer needs and habits side that are key for health plans to understand in order to improve that member experience, and then help them stand out against the competition? That's the other side is I think there is a massive push in the digital in this space. I think, it doesn't matter the age of the population. Now, there's a huge adoption rate. So, when you think about consumer needs and habits that are key to identify so you can stand out, Rachel, I'll kind of kick this going over to you. How to do it, improve that member experience and kind of stand out from the competition?

Rachel Daricek  24:55

Yeah, this one kind of makes me laugh because it's such a classic marketing question. And I think there are some best practices that come to mind, the very first thing that I would recommend is to understand the population that you're targeting. So it might vary by line of business depending on who your customers, are you selling to large employer groups, the small employer groups, brokers, are you selling to government agencies, your competition, and the features and the positioning and messaging and features, quite honestly, that you're offering are going to vary based on who you're selling to. And the member population that it would be extended to would also potentially vary. So making sure that you first understand your customers, their competitors, your competitors in that space, and then the underlying member population, there's a set of common themes that will come up over and over again, but one or two will be more or less important based on the context. So making sure that you're optimizing for whoever it is that you're trying to target is the first thing. But then thinking about people as a whole, which is, I understand direct opposite of what I just said, but consumer needs and trends in general, are always going to evolve. The second you figured it out, there's going to be something new. I like to watch b2c industries, retail and CPG, they're less regulated, they're a lot more nimble than we are in healthcare. And their business is driven by high volume, relatively low-cost items, like buying a pack of gum or a pair of shoes is obviously a very different buying process, then SaaS tech platform for an enterprise. So they're incentivized and able to move a lot more quickly. So watching what trends are coming in the space like that can be really helpful to know what is coming? What are the latest things that we can start thinking about using in our space? Also looking at companies that are known for their customer experience, like Amazon comes to mind, Netflix, Apple company, doesn't have to be a tech company, but any company that is really known for their customer experience can be fun to kind of watch, and then learn from them. What are the things that look like they're gonna stick around that might have an impact in healthcare? And how do we bring those in. I would say do not wait too long, even if it seems kind of farfetched that just the whole project plan and our space and exploring the regulatory requirements and needs and head of security and privacy, this takes a while to implement. So starting to explore something earlier so you can start having doing little test to learn if it might be worth rolling out more broadly, might be something to consider. I mean, I do expect that as members continue to have more choice in their health care options and becoming more involved in managing their own health care, their demands are going to go up. So they're going to start expecting that same customer experience that they get elsewhere. Once some of these technologies are in house, I think there's also some operty opportunities to use them in interesting ways, for example, to address health equity challenges, you know, sometimes you can use technology to reach more people or automatically translate into multiple languages, and things like that. So as we like to say, in marketing, it's all about having the right message, it's the right time for the right person via the right channel. So it's the right option, the concept of the funnel is gone, there is no direct line from A to B. I like to say it's more like a funnel cake, everything's interconnected. And the trick is giving people ways to easily navigate from where they are to where they need or want to go next.

Aaron Conant  29:04

Awesome, love it. I want to jump out to a couple more people. I'm going to jump out to Karen. Karen, if you can jump in that would be awesome. Like Rachel just brought up was around like technology. And it's everything technology is rapidly changed over the past couple years. And there's new things coming out all the time. Have you adopted new technology, new processes over the course of COVID that kind of like level up the experience your members have? Or are you looking at those today. We'd love to hear your thoughts around the technology space. And if you want to jump in a brief intro on yourself and organization be awesome. But Karen, if you can jump in, that'd be cool.

Karen 29:43

Yeah. So Karen local South Carolina and the director of digital experience and excuse my voice. Probably sounds okay to you guys. I have bronchitis so I would just say it depends on the company. So where we solve certain trends directly related to COVID. I wouldn't say that we jump directly into that space, but have really seen as been close monitoring some of the things that have been talked about as far as like, expectations change, household growing and, you know, we've definitely seen over the last close couple years. With COVID, this trends and expectations and growth as a whole. So more and more our focus has been is in line with personalization, all the things that we've been talking about how do we leverage data. How do we leverage data that we don't typically happen to to create a broader dynamic as far as what we're looking at with our members and really, what drives them? And how do we deliver a better call to action for all the things we want to influence change upon, and really around how we deliver it to them through a multi-channel experience. So from a technology perspective, that's really what we're focused in on is our digital experience platform, and how we can drive personalization through that, along with not only focused on specific solutions, as far as delivering campaigns are delivering it through the web, how do we really get it out there through all of our channel opportunities? So definitely for me, it was balanced of when we talk about the things that we look at, from a customer experience perspective, we're very laser-focused and on our voice of customer data. But that's more transactional, it's not always going to get us the angle that we need from a market perspective as far as like what's going on the market. And where those digital transformation trends are really going. It's balancing those two things out. What are our members actually desiring? And what do they have an appetite for entertaining? Versus what are the shiny objects, but bringing all that back together by engaging with our population?

Aaron Conant  32:01

Yeah, I love it. And it's interesting how this mimics what's going on in the traditional direct to consumer world of CPGs, or whatever, fashion or whatever is selling direct consumer, which is personalization, customer data. We've had more conversations around CDP than we ever had before. And how can I not only collect data, assign it to a different group, divided up and know how I can most effectively then communicate to those people because they're more apt to respond to it. Now, a lot of times that is in the traditional DDC side, it's very transactional, you can get it really quickly. In this case, the healthcare side, it's a little bit different. I'll kind of kick this over then to Lara, like a year experience at Wellframe, right? You're working with US-based health plan customers all the time, like, what are the impacts and digital tools make that you guys are seeing across the board? Once it's available, once it's up and running, once it's available to members? Like we'd love to hear your thoughts on this, the digital landscape and different tools that are out there?

Lara Silberklang  33:15

Yeah. So I think the key is here, going back to some of the comments we were talking about earlier, is really thinking about data and empathy, being the keys to understanding and engaging customers. So whether that data is gathered through integrations, or something like actionable insights or garnered through more sophisticated data analysis, whether that's something cutting edge, like NLP natural language processing that can analyze member messaging, and identify topics and sentiments, or whether it's something more like you might already be doing like using care management conversion rates to continuously reevaluate what are those triggers that would it make them eligible for care management. We know that consumers are increasingly willing to share their personal data as long as being used in their interest. So really, like consumers expect this. So someone asked the question, they expect that response to be personalized to their situation rather than generic. And as that trend rises across all direct consumer experiences, that frustration that we hinted at earlier, will rise when those moments are missed. So connecting those data points internally, breaking down internal silos or opting for other integrations will really enable organizations in their teams to anticipate and respond to customers in meaningful ways. So I think that some of the great things that we've seen happening in digital is thinking about how do you meet the member where they are? The inner sounds really basic, but digital enables that in a way that other forms of communication just don't. Timing is everything. We can leverage things like seasonality, whether it's open enrollment or time of the year or using new member driven data to drive those engagements or whether it's they've reached a new age milestone and they start having new preventative measures they should be doing on an annual basis to have a new diagnosis or a new prescriptions. Really personalizing that engagement based on that data is one of the most powerful transformations that can happen when you start thinking from a member first perspective that's now digitally empowered. So thinking about watching members need, how do you build trust? How do you build awareness as well as driving action? So that means some of it can be educational, some of it can be more awareness building, as well as those targeted campaigns that have more stronger call to action. And I think another thing that we can really think about, like Rachel was talking about when we're looking at those direct to consumer models, we can think about, where's that line of creepiness? What do people want, and what do people really not want. So I hear this when I'm driving my kids to school every morning, these advertisements are things that will block your cookies. So basically, when you search for something one time, you're not going to be bombarded by advertisements for that, for the next 10 days on the internet. People don't like that that's not data that they've intentionally shared. That's data that's being used to then try and retarget them. On the flip side of that there are many direct-to-consumer experiences that demand a lot of data from users. So I have this great app that I can like connect to my Spotify and my Apple Music. And it'll tell me based on who I've been listening to, when any of those bands or people, other performers in those genres are performing in my area. So I'm willingly sharing that data, knowing that it's going to give me something in return that's of high value to me. So that when it feels safe, go out hear live music again, and it's going to be live music that I'm interested in. So really thinking about those moments where consumers are willing to share their data with you aware of the data that you have about them? And how can you use that in ways that are in the consumers' interest. And that's not only going to drive conversion in the typical sense. But it's also going to build trust, and also create delightful experiences for members when I really feel like someone's paying attention to go back to those two A’s.

Aaron Conant  36:58

Oh, feel free to jump in. There's a question that comes in. And then, that is enough, I want to make sure we get out to him as well. But yeah, Rachel jumping. Let's hear.

Rachel Daricek  37:06

Lara, as you're talking, there's one thing that came to mind, for me that I think is really key in making this whole vision that we're talking about come to life. And that's integrations, because you're never going to have, whether it's bill by partner, or whatever decision you're going to make to move forward in this consumer experience space. There's never going to be that one company that does everything, nor would you probably want one company, well, maybe Amazon, but companies specialize in certain areas, because then they become experts in those areas. And it's super exciting to see the industry starting to consolidate on this fire-based format. But we also need to actually create the API's and play nicely in the sandbox so that we can share data back and forth. And especially at large enterprise organizations, you have different systems that have been in place for many, many years. And the idea of ripping out those systems or upgrading them or replacing them is a lot of work and a huge investment. And if you could plug something on top or plug something into it, that able to extract data and move it to another place where then decisions can be made. And exactly the Spotify thing you were just talking about are how can we use it in smart ways to stop asking the same question twice, or to combine the data in different ways and find insights and make recommendations. I think the key to bringing all this to life is really going to be in that ability to integrate the different systems and join data and take action on that data. In a way of course that is secure and private and all of those things that are important.

Aaron Conant  38:46

Yeah. Love it. Saad, I see your hand was up, if you want to jump in, if you had a comment, we'd love to hear.

Saad 38:52

I actually had a question. Before I get to that question, I love the comment of agile, this fourth A, I'm going to practice that. And actually, as you guys are talking, I think another one that came in is affordability, maybe another fifth A that we're going to pop in but great conversation. We're talking about the timing and being proactive and integration and things like that, I wanted to also learn and understand from the peers here, because especially when it comes to that mobile app, and I know someone's mentioned that they had experience in the mobile app area. One of the things we have a solution but there's always that constraint that comes along, when you have a mobile app out there and customer service and production issues may come up, there are a ton of issues of replicating and actually going into the production for that member or on behalf of them or even having an account essentially especially when you're highly regulated. If you have any thoughts or anything around the best practices of sort of having an app out there in particular? And how can you essentially be proactive if there are issues, from member experience perspective, how to sort of tackle them ahead of time and replicate them and sort of work on them. At times, we may be at members' mercy of reporting, or at times, we may have an avenue to get to them faster. But I think good practices that are out there, it would be really helpful, would love to hear that.

Rachel Daricek  40:28

Lara, do you have any recommendations on how your team does that?

Lara Silberklang  40:32

Sure, I can share some of the things that we do it Wellframe. I think it's a combination of the different things that you're talking about. So we do have some automatic checking that happen. So it'll check for how often are certain errors being triggered. And we have that for all of our systems. And we have folks that are tasked to monitor that, on the mobile app, it'll be we have Crashlytics that will help us monitor what's actually happening on the local mobile app. But because we also have our internal systems that are fueling the mobile app with data, we'll also be able to track how often errors are reached when API is set. And we get one of those errors there. So we're tracking crashes, we're tracking those errors. But then also, like you're saying, we do have members calling in or not calling, usually have some digital, but they will submit a HelpDesk request form, and can reach out to them and try and figure out exactly what's going on. And in those cases, we also have a lot of logging that happens on the app, and it's all de-identified. So engineers are not going to be seeing PHI or even PII. But they can pick one click out of another click in order to figure out oh, it seems like they're hitting this endpoint when they have this configuration on their phone. And that's probably what's causing the crash. And so we can start to figure things out that way. So really understanding how that data is structured and accessed in a way that still protects the privacy and security of the member account while still empowering the engineering team to find and identify and fix problems. So it's balanced then we can probably have someone even more technical than myself have a more detailed conversation, if that will be helpful, but it's definitely something that we're very mindful of, because like you're saying, as soon as you're putting something in the hands of the consumer, you can't see it anymore. And again, you might not be able to replicate everything that they have going on. So you might need to have lots of tricks up your sleeve, in terms of how to help someone troubleshoot something, because again, that frustration is something that you really want to minimize and that empathy to extend it in that moment when someone is frustrated, to make sure that you can assure them that you're trying to figure out exactly what's going on and how to fix it.

Saad 42:38

Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Very helpful.

Aaron Conant  42:41

Awesome. A question that comes in is, what are some best practices for bringing in the right partners and processes to strengthen member experience and improve outcomes?

Rachel Daricek  42:52

I can take this one. Investing in digital partner niches, I mean, if this isn't the adult question. So there's a couple of things that I think about here. The first one is change management. So if you're asking a team to adopt a new technology, change their workflows, understanding the appetite for risk, and how likely the team is to embrace change before you ask the team to start changing things, is a really important factor to consider. And interestingly, sometimes it's different at different levels. So you might be working, like your organization may be one that has a low appetite for risk or change. But maybe this one particular department works differently. And they like to take big swings and change rapidly. Or maybe the opposite is true, you might have an executive leadership team who has been big, hairy, audacious goals. But then when it gets down to the frontline staff who are using the technology on a day-to-day basis, they feel very differently. So understanding the folks who are going to be asked to change their day-to-day and how they might feel about the team is really important to designing the rollout strategy and plan. If it's a team with a high tolerance and appetite for risk and change, you can be much more aggressive. You can take bigger steps, if you're trying to get from A to Z, you can go from A to M in one swing. But if it's a team that is fearful of change, or doesn't embrace it, for a variety of reasons, being empathetic, taking smaller steps, it can just be much more manageable and really thoughtfully positioning the changes in a way that make people feel confident and excited about them. Take a little bit more thought and work but it's worth it because you've all along for the ride and you get there, either way, you get from A to Z. It says how you get there. The big myth for me is not understanding the appetite, and attitudes and coming in with the wrong plan, because then you're going to end up in a situation that's difficult to undo with people who don't want to adopt the new technology or workflow. But assuming that you choose the right strategy, and you have a team, and they're prepared, and they're bought into the changes, you're really positioned for success. And so then the choices, did you choose the right partner? Whether that's technology or workflow? Is it something you want to build? Is it something you want to buy? Is it something you want to find a partner? If you do partner, do you want to completely outsource the whole thing? Do you want to license the platform and bring it in house? And then you have to think about the workflow changes? Is the partner going to provide that support? Do you need to hire a consulting firm to do that for you? Do you have in-house resources who can do it? There's this ladder of decisions that you have to make, and I'm sure the folks on the phone have to make these decisions every single day. And it's not easy. But one last thing I would put on that checklist for consideration, especially if you're choosing to partner and bring not in an outsource way where you're bringing some kind of a technology in house. And usually these partnerships, all know what it's like to go through the contracting process. It takes forever. So contract terms are often one to three or more years, but you're joined with that partner for a good long time. And some solutions are built to be industry, agnostic, and others are purpose-built for a specific industry like healthcare. And again, there's no right or wrong answer. But understanding the pros and cons of each, whether the solution is industry agnostic, in which case, it may not quite have everything we need in the healthcare space. But if something is purpose-built for health care, then it may not have all of those learnings that you can gather from working across industries. So just making sure that you're asking the right questions, and really understanding the pros and cons to make the right decision overall. I like to think of it kind of like buying a house, right, you have your criteria, what your requirements are, and then you kind of figure out what the right solution is knowing that you're probably not going to check everything off your list. But it gives you a Northstar to shoot for so you end up with the right partner at the end.

Aaron Conant  47:42

Yeah, and I see we're like right here to the end of the time we had set aside. This is to kind of wrap up the conversation today. And thanks to everybody who joined in. And thanks to everybody who was open to jumping in having a conversation. It's just been fantastic across the board. Would encourage anybody, if you're looking for help guidance, just a great conversation in the space, reach out at the team at Wellframe. I'm more than happy to connect you with them. They are leaders across the landscape and just come highly recommended from a ton of different organizations. But Rachel and Lara, thanks so much for your time today. Wrapping up the conversation like, why does all of this matter for health plans? And I don't mind you take a couple seconds to kind of explain how Wellframe helps.

Rachel Daricek  48:24

Sure. I mean, I think it goes back to what we were talking about at the top of the conversation. Consumer expectations are changing. Healthcare is one of the most important things, you talk about the amount of money spent on GDP every year and just how personal and important it is, and the place that health plans have in that overall ecosystem. Getting this right is really, really important. So Lara and I and all the others at Wellframe, think about all day every day. And we're thank you for letting us share some of our insights today.

Aaron Conant  48:59

It's been awesome. And thanks again for your time today and being so open to sharing. Again, thanks to everybody who was able to jump in fantastic call. With that, we're going to wrap it up. Hope everybody has a fantastic Thursday, a great rest of the week. Everybody, take care, stay safe and look forward to having you at a future event. Awesome. Thanks again, everybody. Thanks, Rachel. Thanks Lara. Thanks, everybody. We'll be in touch.

Lara Silberklang  49:19

Thank you.

Aaron Conant  49:19

Bye bye.