Anne Jessup Explains Florida Blue's Changes Since ACA Implementation

Since the implementation of ACA, Florida Blue’s enrollment plans have changed in that plan has expanded its outreach platforms and had to educate a larger audience of consumers, explained Anne Jessup, senior director of digital channels at Florida Blue.

Transcript (modified)

How has Florida Blue’s enrollment plans changed with the implementation of the ACA? And how have they evolved over the first 3 years of ACA open enrollment?

Florida has a slightly unique position regarding the individual market. We’ve had a strong presence in the individual market since late 2008-2009. We started engaging consumers on a one-to-one basis, actively in the community, wholeheartedly in 2010. We opened retail centers around the state, as well as promoted our contracted general agents, the broker communities, to really establish footholds in the community—encouraging events, encouraging different activities that really connected them to the members and to the community folks at large.

Using that platform, and expanding it even further with the start of open enrollment for 2014, was a huge opportunity for us. It has changed things, though. Prior to ACA, we really weren’t an individual market that focused on people who could qualify for coverage as well as who could pay for the coverage. Coming into that first 2014 open enrollment period, it shifted. We had a new target audience: a group of consumers who weren’t as well-educated and potentially weren’t financially sound, and really came not knowing much about insurance.

So the shift of really having to educate them, not only about the benefits but about how a health plan works, how they can make a smart choice, and how they can really use those benefits for themselves and their families.