Cavulus CEO's 2019 Prediction About Medicare Advantage Competition Rings True

PITTSBURGH, Pa., Feb. 8, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- In 2019, Patrick Phillips, CEO of Cavulus, a preeminent Medicare Advantage (MA) technology firm, warned industry leaders that new start-ups would soon disrupt the status quo of the fast-growing industry's dominant players.

That prediction has manifested itself in the current Annual Election Period (AEP) results released last month.

A January Business Insider article noted that "health-insurance upstarts are stealing members from dominant players like Humana in the red-hot market for older Americans."

Bruce Broussard, President & CEO of the $83 billion Humana Insurance Company (5th largest health insurer in terms of membership) acknowledged that aggressive competitors have cut his company's growth projections by 50% which caused Humana stock to plunge - "the most intraday in 13 years" according to Bloomberg.

As Phillips points out: "Many recent entrants in the MA market are tech-backed start-ups who bring an agile, grass-roots approach to marketing with high-touch customer service that can be cumbersome for a number of dominant insurers who serve millions of members."

Phillips also believes "there's often a reluctance to change" among legacy insurers which may continue to impact their growth. "Our firm has been exclusively serving the MA market for 16 years," he said, "and we're still surprised how often we encounter antiquated workflows, technology and paper processing still going on with many of the larger health insurers."

Cavulus works with established and new MA organizations, and Phillips has observed "a nimbleness characteristic of many new smaller insurers" plus "an adaptability that may ultimately position them to better respond to the increasing waves of Medicare eligible individuals." However, he does expect legacy plans will be forced to re-evaluate their strategies noting that last week Humana executives quickly announced they "will invest in automation to run their business more efficiently."

ABOUT CAVULUS - Cavulus is a technology-driven specialist in Medicare Advantage insurance solutions. The Cavulus Cloud-based Medicare Advantage Platform (Cavulus MAP™) unifies marketing, sales, and enrollment operations, and is utilized by many of America's top insurers, including several BlueCross/ BlueShield companies, UPMC Health Plan, Johns Hopkins, Lumeris and United Healthcare. For details visit: www.cavulus.com.

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SOURCE Cavulus