The setting does not exactly scream "health care."
The easel with flip charts is set up in front of a bar. Dotting the dark paneling are advertising signs, including one depicting St. Bernard dogs seated at a table hefting beer steins.
But in this downstairs room at a Parkville restaurant, 18 seniors were gathered to sip coffee, munch Danishes and listen to an NYLCare official pitch the benefits of joining a Medicare health maintenance organization.
Medicare HMOs are a fast-growing product. Nationally, the number of enrollees has jumped from 2.1 million two years ago to 2.9 million a year ago to 3.9 million as of Sept. 1 -- an increase of 33 percent in the last year and 83 percent in two years.
And in Maryland, the numbers are even more dramatic -- from a tiny 978 enrollees two years ago to 8,075 last year to 34,179 on Sept. 1 -- 323 percent in the past year. There's still plenty of room for more growth, however, as that represents only about 5 percent of the eligible Medicare recipients in the state.
HMO companies are learning that signing up seniors requires a different kind of marketing.
Rather than making presentations to corporate executives and benefits managers, then signing up hundreds or even thousands of employees in one enrollment period, HMOs generally reach Medicare recipients in small groups or one at a time.
The pitches come in homes, on the phone, at senior centers, at health fairs. And they come in HMO-sponsored information sessions like this one in Parkville.
Because older citizens may not be familiar with managed care insurance, "This is not your typical sales call," said Kevin C. O'Neill, senior vice president of sales and marketing for Chesapeake Health Plan, whose Medicare HMO plan is called Advantage 65. "You're actually providing an education when you go in."
"We really, really, really focus on heavy-duty education," echoed Sandy Beard, director of marketing for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Maryland, whose product is called Medi-CareFirst.
The HMOs offer a relatively simple trade-off for those over 65: a narrower choice of doctors in exchange for more benefits and lower out-of-pocket costs.
"We've always had choice, but we pay $1,400 [a year] for supplemental insurance, and it doesn't pay for prescriptions. It doesn't pay for eyes. I hate to pay $1,400 if I can get away for nothing," said Helen Shealey of Hamilton, one of those at the Parkville seminar.
