Carenet Health recently sponsored and hosted a CMS Stars engagement planning workshop for a select number of Stars program leaders from Medicare Advantage plans around the nation.
The “Mapping the Stars” workshop was held in San Antonio, where participants gathered to learn from Stars expert and consultant Rex Wallace. The group then spent concentrated time sharing ideas and mapping out their fourth quarter and 2020 member engagement plans to impact their plans’ future Star ratings.
The collaboration and in-depth conversations during the workshop produced valuable insights. Here are just a few:
- Investment in comprehensive strategies that engage both providers and members is crucial to maximizing Stars bonus opportunities.
- Strategies for improvement start with knowing where you stand as a true baseline—long before members are surveyed.
- Keep in mind that provider engagement can be just as important as member engagement. To drive data capture and success, incentives may be needed.
- All plans experience Stars missteps. One of the best ways to avoid them is to develop trusted peer relationships, so that best practices can be discussed and identified.
- It’s critical to make sure that plan leadership knows and continually understands the value of your plan’s quality bonus payment. And strong executive sponsorship of engagement initiatives is key to their success.
- Don’t be penny-wise and pound-foolish. Never say no to a smart idea that will enrich a member benefit for Stars purposes. It may raise claims spend, but it’s worth it when it supports your chances of earning substantially higher Stars revenue.
- A cross-functional, focused work group can be used to enable the operational acceleration of member experience ideas.
- An important question that should inform Stars engagement planning that isn’t always asked: How engaged are your cross-functional teams, providers and vendors who interact with and care for your members?
- Stars engagement work is a year-round game; there is no offseason.
Vikie Spulak, chief client officer, said Carenet plans to host more of these types of events in the future.
“The feedback from this workshop was overwhelmingly positive. Participants appreciated the format … a small group of peers, knowledge updates, then roll-up-your-sleeves planning and sharing.”
If you’d like to be considered as an applicant for future workshops, please contact us with a quick note.
