MCOs--you're using the wrong benefits!

Abstract

If managed care organizations (MCOs) think of the benefits they offer and deliver in terms of narrow insurance coverage and limited payments for carefully circumscribed lists of health services, they miss the boat in marketing to consumers. Only by identifying, promising, delivering, and ensuring that consumers perceive core psychological benefits--a sense of security against catastrophic illness, assurance of access to necessary care, and the positive impacts on quality of life that health care can create--will MCOs realize the full potential of the real benefits consumers are after.