Data from JD Power 2025 US Healthcare Digital Experience Study Health insurance members who are enrolled in Health Plans and Medicare Advantage Plans have revealed that while they use plan websites and mobile apps as their primary means of communication, the quality of these digital experiences lag behind those in other industries.
In this study, Cigna Healthcare ranked the highest satisfaction among commercial membership health plans, with Kaiser Foundation Health Plan ranked second and Centene ranked third.
UPMC Health Plan has the highest satisfaction rate among Medicare Advantage Plans, with UnitedHealthcare in second place and Cigna Healthcare in third place.
Massachusetts Blue Cross Blue Shield, HCSC, Highmark, and CareFirst have significantly reduced performance in the commercial member health planning category.
In the Medicare Advantage Plansector, Highmark performed less.
MobiHealthNews We sat down with Eric McCready, director of digital solutions at JD Power, to discuss the findings of our research and the current state of digital experiences in health insurance and Medicare Advantage Planning.
MobiHealthNews: How do you assess the current state of your digital experience with your health plan?
Eric McCready: Overall, it’s a relatively average experience compared to other industries we measure, but mobile apps have low performance. The digital experience in healthcare is not a completely fair comparison, as it didn’t have a jumpstart of investment seen in other industries, such as financial services. Still, the healthcare industry is in a great position to become fast followers if payers can rely on learning from more digitally mature industries.
MHN: In terms of ease of navigation and the ease of ability to review other fundamentals of the digital experience, do the websites and digital apps offered by the Commercial Health Plan and the Medicare Advantage Plan lack the mark?
McCready: yes. The initial concept is called digitization or digital twinning. That’s when you get something analog or physical and digitize it. Consider depositing your check with the bank. In the end, you can deposit it at an ATM. This was the first digitalization. You can now use your mobile phone to deposit your check. This plan has done an incredible job of building a number of features, including getting an ID card, finding care, and checking the maximum out-of-pocket and deduction amount.
The next step, and this is what we saw now that we’re digital, we’re banking, we’re how to make it user-friendly Is it easy to navigate? How can you make it so that someone can quickly get what they need and digest the information they are given?
MHN: What can health insurance companies do to close that gap compared to other industries?
McCready: They are positioned to be perfectly fast followers. Looking at what was done with travel, financial services, real estate and victim insurance, there is no reason to reinvent the wheel. So, rather than developing from scratch, it is rather easy, efficient and more effective to learn what some of these more mature industries do with digital properties.
MHN: Why is mobile apps important in the health insurance industry?
McCready: When someone succeeds in self-service, whether on a website or an app, they are much more likely to continue that self-service. That’s especially true in the app. This isn’t just about desktop website experiences. Using the mobile app, we look at people who have had excellent experiences with poor people. Those who have had great experiences are twice as likely to continue using the app.
Another work is who uses the app? Naturally, younger generations use the app at a higher rate than older generations. But we are beginning to see pre-boomer adoption at the boomer and app level. The apps aren’t just Gen Y and Z. Looking at the members of the Health Plan interacting with the Health Plan mobile app, they are more pleased with the overall health plan than those who interacted with them on the phone or website.
MHN: What are the next steps for these health insurance companies?
McCready: They need to reach their ease of use to the standard, which is not too far from where it is needed. At the same time, there is parallel growth in healthcare, which focuses on improving the overall health and wellness of the patient population.
There was an explosive amount of third-party apps dealing with healthcare. Many people wear Apple Watches and other types of fitness trackers that integrated with Apple’s health and taught me how well I slept, my resting heart rate, or my blood oxygen levels.
In the future, payer app expansion will expand into more comprehensive health hubs, which incorporate this health metadata and interact with doctors through apps that adopt preventive medicine and digitize it to the next level.
