Sutter Health Created ‘Aligned Broker Strategy’ to Boost MA Enrollment
Nonprofit health system Sutter Health during the last Medicare Annual Election Period launched several Medicare Advantage products with Orange, Calif.-based MA startup Alignment Healthcare, which as of June had enrolled about 7,000 members (RMA 6/18/20, p. 1). That partnership is just one part of Sutter’s overall strategy to grow its share of MA members, and the organization has spent the last four years cultivating an omnichannel approach that includes online aggregator eHealth, according to Alan Jones, executive director of Medicare sustainability for Sutter.
Speaking at a webinar hosted by World Congress, Jones explained that the health system consists of 24 hospitals and 5,500 providers in Northern California, a “polycentric economic region” with hotspots of economic activity around San Francisco that shape how Sutter is organized as a system. Sutter sees anywhere from 500,000 to 600,000 Medicare beneficiaries in a year (out of a total 2 million in the region) and has an “imperative mission to continue to support that population well into the future,” said Jones.