Payer 101: One size doesn’t fit all: Sample sizes for payer research

At MedSpan Research, we have over 17 years of payer research experience. In our Payer 101 series, we’re sharing our expertise with you. In our two previous posts in this series, we covered the basics of the U.S. payer landscape as well as the appropriate titles within these organizations to include in payer research projects. In this final post in the series, we’ll discuss how to determine the appropriate number of payers to include in your research study.

Payer 101: The respondents you need for your payer market research study

At MedSpan Research, we’re proud of the expertise we’ve gained over the past 17 years in an important but not well understood sector of the healthcare industry: payers. Today, we’ll continue with the Payer 101 series that we started in September by covering the key types of payer respondents to include in your next payer market research study.

To recap, the term ‘payer’ is broadly defined as any entity that reimburses the use of healthcare services or products. The term commonly refers to health insurance companies (otherwise known as health plans) as a whole, or to a key decision-maker at a health plan, such as a medical director. In the first post in our Payer 101 series, we focused on the former definition. In this second part of our series, we’ll go into more detail about the latter.

Payer 101: Three things every healthcare market researcher should know

How much do you know about the U.S. health insurance landscape?

In this post, we’ll discuss three basic aspects of U.S. health plan payers: type, geography, and size. Understanding these aspects will help you design a study sample that is representative of your market.

What can a well-defined brand do for you?

If there could be only one reason a well-defined brand is critical to your marketing efforts, it’s in this quote from author Seth Godin:

“If you’ve never heard of it, if you wouldn’t choose it, if you don’t recommend it, then there is no brand, at least not for you.” – Seth Godin, bestselling author of “Tribe”

In this week’s post, we’ll take a look at how brand awareness and perceptions research can help you better define your company’s brand and gain an edge over your competitors.

How will private ACOs impact your business?

As healthcare reform shifts from traditional fee-for-service to alternative provider compensation models, such as shared savings/risk-sharing arrangements, provider organizations that aren’t already on the ACO bandwagon are closely watching the performance of ACOs around the country to see if they should get in the game. Last week, a private California ACO reported early success.