Competition, Marketing Mix, and Pricing

Marketing and Healthcare System

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Direct impact of marketing for Blue Cross Blue Shield Health Insurance Company

South Carolina uses the health insurance exchange that is federally run. Therefore the state has one carrier that offers a plan for 2017 exchange. The Blue Cross Blue Shield appears to be the only health insurance agency that offers plans in the exchange sector. The company's medical loss has been quite low compared to other firms in the ACA marketplace. This insurer has been on track for medical profitability in 2016. The medical loss ratio is the premium debt dollar percentage spent on medical claims rather than profit and administration. The company's medical ratio was about 88.5 percent in the year 2016 thereby putting it on track for long-term profitability (Gesiler,1985).

The company has made sustainable loss ratio to be its norm. For example, in 2015 it spent 91.2% of premium on medical claims and about 85 percent in 2014. According to the requirements of ACA which is the regulatory body, individual market insurers are supposed to spend at least 80% of premiums on medical expense though most insurers have spent amounts more than 100 % which is evidently not sustainable.

This makes the off-exchange individual market to be more robust in South Carolina compared to the exchange market. Whereby the firms involved offer family and own plans outside the exchange. However, one direct impact of marketing this service is that with this kind of plan there are no subsidies provided outside the exchange. According to a report by the HHS about 21, 000 people in South Carolina were on this plan as at 2016, but these were people who were eligible for subsidies if they switched to exchange plans. The company is the only one that offers insurer offering covers in the whole of South Carolina exchange making the stet to be more vulnerable, but the company has maintained its low medical ratio for long.

A strategy for BCBS determining the utilization of its products or services

The company has decided to put its rates down compared to companies offering the same cover in other states. The average rates of the company have always been lower than national rates thereby making it quite attractive for users to purchase their plans.

South Carolina has been ranked in the whole nation as one of the least healthy states. As a result of this, the company has decided to offer the best insurance covers at the most affordable rates thereby attracting customers. Many people remain uninsured due to the high cost of insurance; however, the company has decided to address this issue by providing readily available and affordable covers through the individual and off-market plans. This move has helped to ensure that majority of the people choose the products and services of the company. This is a strategy that BCBS employs in attracting the consumers and which has proved successful (Gesiler,1985).

A marketing strategy for company

With the ever-growing public reliance on hospital plans that are prepaid, there rose a demand in coverage for medical services. However, physicians were more resistant compared to hospitals to the concept of prepaid covers, in fear that a violation of the relationship between physician and patients would occur among other things. But the public continued to have a pinch of the financial burden of the high cost of medical care that they could not otherwise afford. To respond to the gap in the health insurance industry and also to the growing public pressure through the nation, select medical groups and physicians started forming special contracts with the employees and employers to cover medical services. It is upon such ideologies that the company finally thrived and became a leader in the industry. The company uses a low-cost strategy where it keeps its services and products within affordable rates thereby making it quite difficult for market entry. This strategy has helped the company to overcome the competition that is there in the national health insurance market.

The company seems to be aware of the needs of the public, and it is committed to helping it solve them. For quite some time, long specific populations have been disenfranchised by the health insurance plans in the market. This includes the poor, the unemployed, the old and the vulnerable who were just the ones unable to pay for the covers because the primary health covers were through employer groups. Therefore the company came in to serve this majority portion of the population that was left out and provided an avenue for it to access medication. The company believed that there existed a group in the market that felt disenfranchised and to meet its needs the problem lied in the communities themselves thereby a strategy of engaging the communities had to be formulated. This reaction just met an active and well-matched participation of the consumers through the help of public officials who insisted that the company maintain its ultimate dominance in that particular market niche (Wagner et al, 2013).

Shaping the decision buying behavior of the consumer

Many external and internal organizational factors could help influence the decision-making behavior of the consumer.

1.) Marketing campaigns

The organization can resort to intensive marketing activities such as advertising and product promotion. When this is done on a regular basis, it makes a product known to consumers and even influences the purchasing decisions of the consumer. Such campaigns help to remind consumers to shop for a given service (Wagner et al., 2013).

2.) Group influence

This undertaking can help influence the decision-making behavior of the consumer. The company can decide to use influential groups to reach out to the target market for example employees and affiliate companies could help the company through referrals reach out for more customers and shape their perception about the product.

3.) Corporate social responsibility

The company can embark on a number of activities meant to improve the welfare of the communities within which it operates and the people that it interacts with. Corporate social responsibility is known to create sustainable business development. The company can reinvent its image and use such opportunities to create customer trust and loyalty which can help influence the decision making the process of the customers (Wagner et al.,2013).

4.) The company can also consider using social marketing links as a way of marketing its product. Such include sites that create online traffic like social media platforms. The current consumer is a hybrid consumer who does most of the things online; the company should consider ways of reaching them exactly where they are and use strategies to create a brand image to influence the buying behavior of the consumers.

REFERENCES

Constantinides, E. (2004). Influencing the online consumer's behavior: the Web experience. Internet research, 14(2), 111-126.

Geisler, G. (1985). Blue cross and blue shield of South Carolina: Program for clerical workers. Telematics and Informatics, 2(2), 169-173.

Wagner, C. L., McNeil, R., Hamilton, S. A., Winkler, J., Cook, C. R., Warner, G., ... & Shary, J. R. (2013). A randomized trial of vitamin D supplementation in 2 community health center networks in South Carolina. American journal of obstetrics and gynecology, 208(2), 137-e1.