Data from the J.D. Power 2025 U.S. Healthcare Digital Experience Study revealed that health insurance members enrolled in health plans and Medicare Advantage plans use their plan websites and mobile apps as their primary means of communication, but the quality of these digital experiences lags behind that of other industries. 

In the study, Cigna Healthcare ranked highest in satisfaction among commercial member health plans, Kaiser Foundation Health Plan ranked second and Centene ranked third. 

UPMC Health Plan ranked highest in satisfaction among Medicare Advantage plans, UnitedHealthcare ranked second and Cigna Healthcare came in third.

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts,  HCSC,  Highmark and CareFirst significantly underperformed in the commercial member health plan category.

In the Medicare Advantage Plan sector, Highmark underperformed. 

MobiHealthNews sat down with Eric McCready, director of digital solutions at J.D. Power, to discuss the study's results and the current state of the digital experience in health insurance and Medicare Advantage plans.

MobiHealthNews: How would you assess the current state of the digital experience with health plans?

Eric McCready: Overall, it’s a relatively average experience compared to the other industries we measure, but the mobile apps underperform. It is not entirely a fair comparison as healthcare’s digital experience has not had the jumpstart in investment that we’ve seen in other industries, such as financial services. Still, the healthcare industry is in a great position to be a fast follower if the payers can lean on learnings from more digitally matured industries.

MHN: Are the websites and digital apps provided by commercial health plans and Medicare Advantage plans missing the mark when it comes to ease of navigation, the ability to review coverage and other basics of the digital experience? 

McCready: Yes. We refer to initial concepts as digitization or digital twinning. That is when you take something analog or something physical and you digitize it. Think of depositing a check at a bank. Eventually, you could deposit it at the ATM, which was that first initial digitalization. Now you can deposit the check using your phone. The plans have done a great job of building a lot of those features like getting an ID card, finding care and checking max out-of-pocket or deductibles.

The next step, and this is what we saw banks do now that we have digitized, is how do we make it user friendly and easy to navigate? How can we make it so that somebody can quickly get what they need and they can digest information they are given?

MHN: What can health insurers do to close that gap compared to other industries?

McCready: They are positioned perfectly to be a fast follower. If you look at what has been done in travel, financial services, and property and casualty insurance, there is no reason to reinvent the wheel. So, rather than developing from the ground up, it is quite a bit easier, more efficient and more effective to learn from what some of these more mature industries have done with their digital properties.

MHN: Why do mobile apps matter in the health insurance industry?

McCready: When somebody successfully self-services whether it is on a website or an app, they are much more likely to continue that self-servicing. That is particularly true on the app, more so than just on the desktop website experience. We look at those who had a poor versus an excellent experience using a mobile app. Those who had an excellent experience are twice as likely to keep using the app.

The other piece is who uses apps? Naturally, the younger generation are using apps at a higher rate than older generations. But we are starting to see higher adoption from boomers and from pre-boomers at the app level. Apps are not only for Gen Y and Z. When we look at health plan members who interact with their health plan's mobile app, they are much more satisfied with their health plan as a whole than those who have interacted by phone or a website. 

MHN: What is the next step for these health insurers? 

McCready: They need to get their usability up to par, and it is not that far from where it needs to be. At the same time, there are parallel growths in healthcare focused on improving patient populations’ overall health and wellness. 

There has been an explosive amount of third-party apps that deal with healthcare. A lot of people are wearing Apple Watches or other types of fitness trackers that integrate with Apple Health and tell me how well I slept, my resting heart rate or blood oxygen level. 

In the future, we are going to see some expansion to payers’ apps as more of an all-inclusive health hub that incorporates this health metadata and interacts with your doctor through the app taking preventive medicine and digitizing it to the next level.