mommyjenlin

With the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (aka healthcare reform) underway, do you think that there are any revenue and marketing opportunities? A good questions since many, if not all of the current health insurance plans offered by employers either through a third party, or as self-insured are in grandfathered status. But that should not stop you from looking at the Affordable Care Act (ACA) innovatively and creatively to find and capture those revenue opportunities. The basic reason is simple, employers do give a damn about grandfathered status, but will be unable over time to maintain it. In the business world, cost is king. Period. Employers will do anything they can to drive down that cost by making changes in co-pays, coverage and carriers. When these changes are made grandfathered status is lost. If you're not planning and getting ready to execute your revenue and marketing strategies now, you are already behind in the game. Think Walgreens and CVS/Caremark are wai...

Physicians are the lifeblood of many a healthcare organization. As competition increases for their attention whether it be a hospital, specialty pharmacy, medical device manufacturer, or pharmaceutical company to name a few, cutting through the din of messages and relationships can be a daunting task. For hospitals failure to build successful relationships and sales strategies mean that your docs could admit patients elsewhere. Note to hospitals: If you are not selling to docs, then you're missing a great opportunity to build volume by creating a more committed medical staff than if you just doing "relations or liaison" activities. You can sell legally and effectively if you know what you are doing. For medical device manufacturers , failure to sell the doc mean a more difficult time selling your product into the venue where the physician practices medicine. For specialty pharmacies , the physician sends his or her patients elsewhere. So how do you cut through all of the...

This post is a little different for me. Usually, I am looking at the hospital side of the marketing equation and not so much the sales vendor side. Having worked on both the hospital and IT vendor side Radiology Information System, (RIS), Picture Archiving Communication System (PACS) and Electronic Medical Record (EMR), it is most interesting to compare. The great challenge is selling into two spaces simultaneously, the physician and the C-Suite. Messages may be the similar and different at the same time. Once size does not fit all. Additionally, this is not an all inclusive look at marketing PACS and RIS. I am not addressing the sales side of the equation. That's a discussion for another topic at a later date. I am not anti-sales by any means being Huthwaite SPIN selling trained and a Miller Heiman Strategic Selling alumni. The integration of marketing and sales is for another day. Just an observation but everyone is starting to look the same. It's easy to lose that differenti...

Is there a reason why most healthcare organizations do not use internal marketing expertise to improve their Human Resource (HR) recruitment efforts? I can hear it now and have seen it myself: No budget. It's expensive. Doesn't matter. Employees leave, then we have to change everything. How can a brand help us to attract qualified individuals? Don't have the time for all the creative. Non-traditional ways won't work. And so forth and so on..... Most help wanted ads, traditional and online in healthcare continue to look like they have over the past 25 years. Come join us! We are a (fill in the blank) organization. We care.. You're family here.. And the beat goes on. A missed branding opportunity if there ever was one. A few forward thinking organizations have embraced the concept of branding their HR efforts within the larger organizational brand. Unfortunately, those are far and few between. A missed opportunity. And it's not just adding the logo and tag-line to...