Ben Hendrix: I appreciate that. Thank you very much.
Vijay Kotte: Thanks Ben.
Operator: Thank you. [Operator Instructions] And our next question will come from the line of Pat McCann from Noble Capital Markets. Your line is open.
Pat McCann: Good morning and thanks for taking my question. Really quickly, my first question will just be to piggyback on the last question. You have talked about how in the most recent AEP that we have come out of, there was low plan switching, it wasn’t a big period for first plan switching. When we look ahead to the next AEP and the – and have an expectation for increased switching is, would you characterize that as more relative to this past AEP or if you were to go back several years, would you say just objectively the upcoming AEP you would expect it to be a significant plan switching period? Is that a question, I guess makes sense?
Vijay Kotte: No, it does, Pat. And it’s a very kind of it’s an interesting way to think about and ask the question, so I appreciate the way you have asked it. Let me kind of replay it for you. I think the question you are asking is, okay, we get that this past AEP in Q4 of ‘23 versus what we are expecting to see in Q4 of ‘24 that there will likely be higher switching. But how do we think of that on a relative basis compared to yesteryear when there was a lot of benefit investment and there was justified switching, are we going to be more in line with those years, are we expecting it to be more, is that an accurate replay?
Pat McCann: Yes. Thanks for that, Vijay and that’s perfect.
Vijay Kotte: Okay. So, here is how it was – first, let me just say we don’t know for sure, right. We won’t know until we understand the details of what the health plan to do in their final bids, which are still in process. We won’t know those final benefits officially till October. And so it’s going to be really important that it’s going to be a changing dynamic for us to really predict. But let me tell you how we think about this. I think first and foremost, we have to highlight that what motivated and we said it’s on the Q4 call. In typical years, you can have three scenarios, right. You can have somebody plans playing offense to just improve benefits to grab share. And that’s what’s happened in the last few years.
So, putting last year aside a little bit, but just you can talk about the last couple of years. You have been seeing that there is a clear winner in each one of those years who really invested in benefits. You can have a neutral spot where the major health plans really don’t invest a lot into the benefits, or you can have a degradation time when they are pulling back on benefits. In the first and the last scenario of investing in benefits and degrading benefits, those are high switching environment. Now, what I would say is that on average, if we were just talking about the same shopping consumers, it would probably be a little bit more similar to when there was high switching justified for offensive reasons over the last few years, maybe putting – going beyond just the last AEP.
But what I think is going to be interesting to observe is the disruption to the consumers who historically weren’t shopping every year, right. Who may be selected a plan, became new to Medicare and haven’t looked at it again. But now, because the benefits are not just staying the same or getting better, some are getting worse or leaving the market in total, that’s going to generate a new shopping population that will be net additive to the shopping and likely switching scenarios. So, that’s what we are going to want to monitor. So, just to be clear on your question, what I would say is the same shopping population year-over-year will likely have switching dynamics, I would expect, but again, we will have to see the details later this year, more similar to those prior year AEPs that you are describing.
But the real scenario to focus in on and what we are spending our time on, all those populations who haven’t been historical shoppers, we are looking for a trusted resource because there are significant negative disruptions that they haven’t seen in the past. And that’s where we are really hoping that we can serve more of the population.
Pat McCann: Great. No, that’s very helpful. And then also you guys mentioned certain developments in the business enhancements you are making. For example, allowing consumers to begin the shopping experience online. Could you just drill down a little more into that as far as what’s driving you to make that enhancement and how that would drive demand? And I guess one of the things that crosses my mind is, as we move forward year-by-year, the 65 plus population is going to be more and more technologically literate, if you will, as the years progress. So, maybe you are just sort of setting up for the long-term. But could you just give a little bit more color there?
Vijay Kotte: Sure, Pat. As we think about the digital, direct digital space, that isn’t going to go away as an opportunity, but to your point, it’s going to be increasing over time. And the real question is, how do you access those populations and provide them the visibility, the self-driven approach to learning and educating themselves, while also providing them the peace of mind of a good experience and the wraparound with somebody to confirm for you that you are doing the right thing for yourself and not doing harm to your benefit needs. And so as we have been pursuing this, we have spent a lot of time segmenting out the Medicare population, listening to consumers, finding out what could augment or bring those who need to shop, as I referred to before, to shop, right, enabling them with tools that are not pressurized in a way that give them the opportunity to educate themselves.
And ultimately, where we are focusing our efforts is empowering the consumer how they want to be empowered to make a good Medicare decision. And part of that is providing transparency into their options in a very simple, transparent way that can provide them the flexibility to get personalization or just no general eligibility of opportunities. And so we have been continuing to invest in testing those types of tools, and we are going to continue to know that digital isn’t going to go away, digital will be there. And it will likely start to increase over time. And so we are trying to be responsive to that, and we are excited about what it could be for those consumers who really want to play in that space.
Pat McCann: Great. And if I could just squeeze one more in, you mentioned PlanFit Safe and the conversations you are having with the health plans about compensation arrangements and so forth. Is there – I guess two things, is there any additional information you could give as far as what an arrangement might look like? And then any timing updates on when we might expect additional announcements about that?
