Increasing health insurance enrollment among uninsured Americans
Modified emails encourage open rates about health insurance enrollment
Healthcare gov website
What was the challenge?
As the open enrollment period for purchasing health insurance through the Federal Health Insurance Marketplace (FHIM) neared its end, many people had visited HealthCare.gov and started an online account, but had not yet selected a plan.
What was the program change?
We developed, sent, and tested email variations that utilize framing approaches, individual motivations, and social motivations to assist individuals with completing FHIM applications before the end of open enrollment.
How did the evaluation work?
7,318,780 individuals who had registered for a HealthCare.gov user account but not yet enrolled in an insurance plan were randomly assigned to be sent different email variations, or no email at all.
What was the impact?
Variations in framing an email about health insurance enrollment can make individuals more likely to open their email and click through. However, even precisely estimated differences in open and click rates do not translate into large differences in health insurance enrollment rates, which may reflect some of the limitations of email campaigns. That is, email may have a limited impact on behaviors such as enrollment.
