Medicare Part D Engagement: A 3-Step Guide for Health Plan Leaders

12/1/2025 Cindy Thomas

As we wrap up this year’s Medicare Open Enrollment Period (October 15 – December 7), it’s important to note that brokers typically focus on Part D plans — the plans that pay broker commissions. However, this can leave members unaware of lower-cost options that don’t include broker fees.

If your organization plans to offer commission-free plans in 2026, a focused outreach strategy can help the right people discover them. You need a way to find high-propensity members — particularly those who can self-enroll (and select commission-free plans) and have specific medication cost needs — to raise awareness of your products. Then, you must be able to cut through the noise and reach them in multiple ways throughout their daily lives and routines.

What follows is a practical, three-step guide to how successful health plan leaders — in collaboration with a quality communications partner — can build and measure a campaign that:

• Reaches the individuals most likely to choose these plans
• Uses mail, email, and social media in a coordinated way, and
• Delivers clear analytics to prove results

1. Target the most likely enrollees

Goal: Find households that value savings over broker guidance and are already managing similar medications.

How it works:

• Start with a foundation of HIPAA-compliant data covering most U.S. households
• Layer in demographics, OTC purchase history, store-visit patterns, and — most importantly — neighborhood-level prescription data that flags specific drugs and comorbidities
• Build statistical lookalike models around current members who self-enrolled in commission-free plans
• Assign every device in the household to a single “digital household” record tied to a physical address — this eliminates duplicate outreach and sharpens budget efficiency

Result: A clean, HIPAA-compliant list of addresses and digital IDs representing an audience with the highest propensity to enroll.

2. Coordinate a true multichannel campaign

Goal: Deliver the same core message — offering lower premiums for the same coverage — through channels people are already using. Your campaign should include as many channels as possible, including mail, email, social media, and video. 

Your execution roadmap should mirror the following:

Channel	Role in the Campaign	Timing and Personalization
Direct mail	High-attention “official notice,” with QR code to a personalized landing page	Weeks one and three of AEP
Email	Reminders, plan-comparison PDFs, live Q&A webinar invites	Days 2, 10, 20 after mail drop
Paid social (FB/IG, TikTok), video	Short video explainer (“save $x/month with no broker fees”) retargeting mail recipients	Continuous during AEP, boosted to lookalike audiences

Coordination mechanics:

• Single source of truth – All creative, offers, and disclaimers live in one compliant content library
• Match-back engine – Every mailed QR code and every email link should carry a unique tracker that ties back to the household record
• Suppression logic – Remove anyone who enrolls mid-campaign from remaining touches as soon as possible (ideally within 24 hours)

Result: Consistent messaging, no channel overlap waste, and a full audit trail for regulators.

3. Demonstrate effectiveness with analytics

Goal: Show leadership exactly how many new enrollees came from the campaign — and at what cost.

Key reports (delivered on a regular basis, and post-campaign) should include:

Metric	How Calculated	Significance
Response rate	Scans + link clicks ÷ pieces mailed	Early indicator of creative resonance
Conversion rate	Enrollments ÷ unique visitors to landing page	True ROI measure
Cost per acquisition	Total campaign spend ÷ new enrollees	Budget justification for 2027
Channel lift	Incremental enrollments vs. control group	Proves multichannel synergy

Result: All data stays within SOC 2+ and HIPAA-certified environments; PII is encrypted at rest and in transit.

Cutting through the noise 

Marketing your 2026 commission-free Medicare plans requires a smarter outreach strategy. Marketing leaders must cut through the noise and directly connect with the best-fit members — those who are ready to enroll online and would realize the most significant savings from your specific offering(s). By collaborating with an established healthcare partner, you can integrate awareness of your plans into their daily routines, ensuring the right people find the right coverage. 

Cindy Thomas is Business Development Director, Healthcare at RRD. Household Connect®, RRD’s patented platform, links every device in a home to a single address record — eliminating the guesswork in cross-channel attribution, keeping suppression lists current in real time, and ensuring every dollar reaches a qualified household. Contact Cindy to arrange a no-obligation targeting preview using your organization’s current member file.