Improving member experience remains a top priority for payers — and for Medicare Advantage plans, it’s not just a goal but a business imperative. Member experience directly influences CMS Star Ratings, which in turn affect financial performance.
At the heart of member experience is communication. Yet for many payers, communications remain fragmented, adding costs, inefficiencies and member confusion. While some plans continue to operate within these outdated frameworks, others are rethinking how they connect with members.
For decades, NPC has powered large-scale, highly regulated communication programs for agencies such as CMS, the Social Security Administration and the Department of Veterans Affairs — organizations that demand precision, security and timeliness. Now, this experienced communications partner is bringing that same proven infrastructure and expertise to the private sector, helping payers modernize and unify their member communication strategies.
To explore the evolving landscape of member communications and NPC’s role in advancing it, Becker’s Healthcare spoke with Josh Barnhart, CEO of NPC.
Editor’s note: Responses have been lightly edited for clarity and length.
Question: What are the biggest pain points you see in payer communications today?
Josh Barnhart: There are many regulatory-driven communications that must go out on specific timelines and require data from multiple areas of a health plan. At the same time, there are messages plans want to send proactively to engage members. The people managing those communications are juggling inputs from across their organization.
Our goal at NPC is to bring all those moving parts together — to simplify processes, streamline data flows and operate as an extension of the plan’s business operations. We want to remove the friction, reduce the burden on plan staff and help them deliver compliant and effective communications. We’ve spent decades in regulatory, data-driven, high-security environments, so we understand what it takes to get this right.
Q: NPC has a long history of serving federal agencies. For readers who may not know, can you share a bit about NPC’s journey — and what brings you into the payer space now?
JB: NPC’s roots go back to the 1950s, when my grandparents started the News Printing Company in Blair County, Pa. Over time, the business evolved from printing newspapers to managing large-scale communications for federal agencies. That foundation — built on precision, compliance and trust — has guided us ever since.
Today, we’re one of the largest benefit communications providers to the federal government, serving agencies like CMS, SSA and the VA. Now, we’re extending that expertise to the payer market, particularly Medicare Advantage plans. We see a tremendous opportunity to apply the same rigor, technology and reliability that define our federal work to help health plans modernize their communications, improve member experiences, and maintain compliance with CMS.
A big part of that evolution is our CORE platform — the Communications, Operations and Regulatory Engine — which helps payers coordinate all the different types of communications that go out every day in a seamless, technology-enabled way.
Q: As payers continue to invest in tech to strengthen operations and care delivery, what defines a strong partnership that truly drives results? How is NPC putting that into practice?
JB: A strong partnership means investing alongside our clients and building flexible, best-in-class technology that integrates easily with their existing systems. Our in-house development team collaborates directly with health plans to connect their technology and business rules with ours, creating a coordinated, efficient infrastructure that spans from the PBP report to in-hands by members.
We’re also helping plans optimize and streamline communications. Historically, that has meant a lot of letters landing in members’ mailboxes, but both plans and members want to reduce that volume. By unifying multiple communication streams and datasets, as well as helping navigate the transition from print to digital communications, we consolidate outreach, cut costs and minimize “noise” for members.
Many payers work with multiple vendors to handle different communication needs. NPC’s model simplifies that ecosystem. By bringing everything under one roof, we help reduce vendor complexity, security risks and coordination burdens. Our goal is to give plans a single, trusted partner that truly understands their operations.
Q: Any final thoughts for our readers? What else should they know about NPC?
JB: We’re excited to have a strong presence at the Becker’s Payer Issues Roundtable this year. It’s a great opportunity to connect, share ideas and continue growing our relationships. We’ll have several NPC Healthcare Solutions team members onsite, and we’re looking forward to real conversations about what’s working, what isn’t and how things can be done better.
At NPC, we take pride in building exactly what our customers need. We don’t want plans to live with the same pain points year after year. If there’s a better way to do something, we want to be the partner that makes it happen — whether that means building new infrastructure, adding technology or simplifying processes.
The message we hope to leave people with is simple: things don’t have to stay the same. There’s a real opportunity to collaborate and rethink what’s possible while building something stronger together. We’re not the loudest name in the industry, but our promise is that you’ll have a team that genuinely cares about your success — a behind-the-scenes partner focused on making your operations smoother and your year a little easier.
To learn more, visit NPC at Becker’s Payer Issues Roundtable, Nov. 3–4, 2025, in Chicago.
