You Too Can Write Medicare Advantage Ads!

That’s right!  If you act now (or even if you just read the rest of this post), you’ll learn how to write direct mail letters and other ads used to sell Medicare Advantage, the private insurance alternative options pitched, often aggressively, to Medicare beneficiaries.  It’s easy.  All you have to do is remember the three easy steps!  1.)  Find ways to cherry-pick, 2.) Turn your disadvantages into advantages, and 3.) Branding, branding, branding!

(Quick background:  last night, at a health care house party in Westchester County, the host produced a direct mail letter trying to sell him and his wife on Medicare Advantage.  The other attendees and I were able to easily spot all three tips in the letter!  Well done, “company that won’t be named lest I be sued!”)

1.)    Cherry-pick!

Knowing that Medicare beneficiaries are almost always 65 or older, it's impossible to get the highly sought young and healthy demographic.  Instead, you need to tailor your ad to features that would only be used by healthier recipients.  Sicker recipients would find such perks worthless and become less likely to sign up -- saving you the costs of insuring those most likely to use health care!  For example, make access to a gym or recreation center (for free!) a big selling point, since that’s only going to appeal to customers healthy enough to use a gym regularly.  You can also talk about maintaining your benefits when you travel – say, to Florida or another state.  Nevermind that Medicare would have plenty of doctors no matter where you traveled in the U.S. (see step 2), you’ll instantly be most desirable to those healthy enough to travel!  People with chronic conditions requiring they stay home won't even bother applying!

Turning down applications is bothersome, requiring administrative work, potential blubbering on the part of the rejected applicant, and likely shocked and outraged denunciation by, well, everyone who’s not in the insurance company.  There’s a better way – get only healthy people to apply in the first place!

2.)    Turn your disadvantages to advantages!

Keep in mind that most people won’t entirely know what benefits they’re getting from Medicare Part B and Medicare Part D, so you don’t really need to offer much more than that.  You should stress all the stuff they get for FREE!... or $0!... and skip over the fact that they’d be getting it anyway without your plan.  After all, they’re not going to be paying right away – by the time they find the hidden co-pays or out of network charges, you’ll already have the per beneficiary money from the Medicare program, plus 12-14% extra!

They are likely to notice that their choices for doctor has diminished to only those in your network, however.  So you need to work twice as hard on that.  Stress how many doctors are in your network.  The average person doesn’t know that 2,700 doctors (can you believe it?!) really isn’t that impressive if dozen of thousands of doctors accept regular Medicare.  Throw in the Florida reference, too.  Sure, Florida has Medicare doctors up the wazoo and likely only a small to moderate percentage of those are in your network, but if you push the positive, who will bother to check?  Heck, you might want to reference Emergency coverage across the country – granted, all insurers carry that, but maybe they’ll feel like young, hip 20-somethings on high-deductible emergency-only plans (see step 1).

3.)    Branding, branding, branding!

I don’t need to tell you the name is critical.  After all, the whole program is called “Medicare Advantage” – “Medicare Option” wouldn’t have had the same ring.  You may want to come up with your own program name, like “Medicare Awesome” or “Solid Gold Medicare” or “Medicare – BOOYA!” (see step 1 -- if the customer doesn't recognize the phrase "BOO-YA," they're probably not for you).

If possible, also appropriate someone else’s brand.  AARP has blazed the path here – they’re not an insurer, but they sell their name for use by insurers.  Really, who wants a letter from Schmuck Insurance when you get the Ikea Medicare Advantage plan, or the Starbucks Medicare Awesome plan, or the A-Rod A-dvantage?  Really, we’ve barely scratched the surface on superficial reasons for you to switch plans to achieve no better results with slightly more hassle!

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You won’t want to miss this exciting offer.  Given the tips you’ve already read, how much would you pay for the full course to learn this exciting and lucrative career-enhancing skill?  Well, add 14% to whatever you’re thinking…

(Photo credit:  iDream_in_Infrared on Flickr.)