From Print to Portal: Connecting with LEP Members through Omnichannel Communications
Patients with limited English proficiency (LEP) face a unique set of challenges when it comes to the healthcare system—all too often, breakdowns in communication lead to medical errors, poor understanding, and underutilization of healthcare services.
Given that LEP individuals make up a significant portion of the nation’s population—about 25 million individuals, to be precise—it’s important that health plans have a clear, concise and multilingual communication strategy that enables LEP members to get informed and advocate for themselves. One excellent way to engage your LEP members is to emphasize omnichannel communication, a strategy that provides a single, integrated customer experience across all communication channels, like your website, member portal, printed letters, text messages, and emails.
Reaching LEP members effectively requires a strategic, omnichannel approach that ensures understanding and accessibility. In this blog post, we’ll take a closer look at what omnichannel communication is and how you can implement it into your communications processes to boost engagement among your LEP members and enable them to make better, more well-informed decisions about their healthcare.
Table of Contents
What Is Omnichannel Communication?
Why LEP Members Need an Omnichannel Approach
Best Practices for Omnichannel Communication with LEP Members
How Omnichannel Communication Drives Member Engagement
Avantpage’s Role in Supporting Omnichannel Member Communication
Measuring Success in Omnichannel Communication
What Is Omnichannel Communication?
Omnichannel communication is a strategy that focuses on delivering coordinated, consistent communications to members across all of your communication channels.
Here’s an example of an omnichannel approach: When sending a member a letter about their health plan in mail, you also make sure that they receive that information in their email inbox, their member portal, and perhaps even a text message notification, all in their preferred language.
By delivering the same message via all of the different channels available to you and your members, you’re covering all your bases and increasing the likelihood that members open and review the content of your message. Emphasizing consistent messaging across all of your channels also creates a seamless member experience and makes it easier for members to access and understand them.
Why LEP Members Need an Omnichannel Approach
An omnichannel communication strategy will be helpful for all of your members, but LEP members in particular may benefit from this approach.
A major aspect of the omnichannel approach is consistency. This is also key when it comes to language access—if you send LEP members a printed letter and an email in their preferred language, but messages in their member portal and SMS are all in English, you simply aren’t reaching them as effectively as their English-speaking counterparts. Additionally, LEP members may have different preferences around technology than English-speaking members—a recent study found lower engagement in telehealth services among LEP individuals. This could suggest that print messaging may lead to higher engagement among LEP individuals.
And the risks of a single-channel approach to your communications are clear: If you only send members emails, they’re more likely to miss appointments, misunderstand their benefits, and lower satisfaction overall. On the flip side, using multiple channels of communication allows members to select the one that works best for them.
Best Practices for Omnichannel Communication with LEP Members
Implementing an omnichannel communication strategy doesn’t have to be daunting—by following the best practices listed below, you can implement a thorough, well-formed omnichannel communication strategy that boosts engagement for your LEP and English-speaking members alike.
For letters, brochures, and other messages that you send via mail, it’s important to use plain language and clear, easy-to-read formatting. Be sure to work with a language service provider to develop multilingual translations of these letters to send letters to members in their preferred language. Using concise and simple language in your original English letter makes the translation process significantly smoother and faster, so try to keep things as straightforward as possible, avoiding complicated jargon and convoluted sentence structure.
Digital Portal
Your organization’s member portal should have an accessible design and language that complies with the rules laid out in the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 508. Members should easily be able to switch to their preferred language. As with print communications, any messages or instructions that members receive in the portal should feature plain language that’s easy for readers to understand.
Email and SMS
Emails should, generally speaking, be a bit shorter than letters sent via physical mail or digital portal messages, while text messages should be no longer than 300 characters. Keep the message brief and direct them to links to the member portal or resources on your website in case they want or need to access more information. And again, be sure that these messages are culturally appropriate and translated into your members’ preferred language.
Voice Calls and IVR
Be sure to have multilingual support options—whether that means hiring multilingual staff to operate the phone lines or working with an interpreting agency for on-demand access to an over-the-phone interpreter. Automated messages should be translated into multiple languages and, just like with written messages, should feature clear scripts written using plain language.
Across all of these channels, be sure you’re conveying the same message to members—they should not be receiving conflicting messages between multiple different channels. In order for omnichannel communications to work, every message you send about a particular topic should complement one another.
How Omnichannel Communication Drives Member Engagement
A well-executed omnichannel strategy boosts member engagement by improving the flow and accessibility of information. When members receive clear messages across their preferred channels, they’re more likely to understand next steps and act accordingly.
For LEP members, this means providing those reminders in their preferred language, no matter what channel you use to send it—whether it’s via print, email, portal notifications, or text message. This consistency increases the odds that they’ll see and react to time-sensitive information, such as preventive care reminders or screening instructions.
This approach also builds trust. When members receive messaging that is accessible and aligned across formats, they feel more supported by their health plan and more confident navigating their benefits.
Omnichannel communication also helps reduce gaps in care. Coordinated messages—for instance, a mailed notice followed by an email and a portal alert—reinforce one another and decrease the likelihood of missed appointments or misunderstood instructions. Over time, this leads to higher participation in preventive care and, perhaps most importantly, better health outcomes for disadvantaged populations.
Avantpage’s Role in Supporting Omnichannel Member Communication
At Avantpage, we’re making omnichannel communication easier with AvantSend, our HIPAA- and ADA-compliant platform that handles every step of member communications—translation, printing, mailing, and tracking.
AvantSend uses artificial intelligence to coordinate print, digital, multilingual, and accessible communications. On average, our 200+ healthcare clients have saved $36 per file processed through AvantSend and their print letters have been delivered to members two days faster.
Using AvantSend, you can send critical member correspondence to your members in more than 150 different languages. Built-in QA and compliance checks allow you to rest easy knowing that you’re not compromising accuracy or security. And that’s not to mention the fact that the platform has built-in, real-time tracking from intake to delivery confirmation, so that you can gain instant insight into status, timelines and compliance.
Omnichannel communications become a breeze with AvantSend—use it to reduce administrative burden and speed up the process of developing and sending out member communications across several different channels.
Measuring Success in Omnichannel Communication
As you work to implement an omnichannel communication strategy, you’ll want to track the following KPIs to be sure that you’re headed in the right direction:
- Email open rates
- Email/ text click or click-through rates
- Portal engagement/ log-in rates
- Care program participation rates
In general, you should expect these numbers to increase as you improve the consistency of your communications across all channels. It’s also a good idea to conduct surveys of members to get feedback and determine how satisfied they are with your services and outreach efforts. Audits should also be regularly conducted to ensure compliance with relevant regulations.
Use these KPIs and feedback from members to fine-tune your communication strategy. As technology and legal regulations evolve, so too does the way we communicate—what works well today may not necessarily work a year from today. By tracking these KPIs and collecting member feedback, you can be sure that your efforts are continuously improving in response to trends in member preferences and technological advancement.
Frequently Asked Questions About Omnichannel Communication
What is omnichannel communication in healthcare?
It’s a coordinated strategy to reach members across multiple channels — print, digital portals, email, SMS, and voice — with consistent and accessible messaging.
What types of messages benefit most from an omnichannel approach?
Preventive care reminders, appointment notifications, benefits explanations, surveys, and health program communications.
Why is omnichannel communication important for LEP members?
LEP members often face language and literacy barriers; using multiple channels ensures messages are received, understood, and actionable.
How does Avantpage support omnichannel communication?
AvantSend coordinates print, email, portal, and voice messages in 150+ languages while ensuring accessibility (ADA/508) and compliance.
Making Every Message Meaningful—On Every Platform
By taking an omnichannel approach to your communications, you give members the option to engage with you using the channel of their preference.
For LEP members, a multilingual, omnichannel communication strategy is an absolute must-have, as it empowers them to fully understand and act on important messages regarding their healthcare. In turn, your LEP members will be more likely to take advantage of your services and advocate for themselves within the complex healthcare system. Not only does this boost trust and member satisfaction—it also improves health outcomes for patients with LEP.
To help make your communications strategy more inclusive and accessible to all members, consider working with Avantpage. Our AvantSend platform makes it easy to implement a multilingual, omnichannel approach to your communication strategy—contact us today online, email us at [email protected], or call (530) 750-2040 to learn more about how we can help you reach all of your members on any channel.
