Using customer input to improve managed care performance.

How do you get the information you need to manage your company's health care plans effectively? Consider a "customer satisfaction survey" that gathers data from the people who use the plans every day: employees. Make the data work for you when you negotiate costs, communicate key plan features, and look for ways to improve health care quality and upgrade the service you and your employees get from your health plans. American Express and the Chicago Health Plan Value Project (a unique group of 14 companies and 7 health plans) tried this approach, and they now expect a "win-win-win" situation all around.