mommyjenlin

Patient experience and satisfaction is no longer a nice too have, but a got to have in the evolving consumer-centric healthcare market place.   Consumers are paying more out of pocket and when consumers pay more they expect more.   A better healthcare consumer and patient experience in the end means a more compliant patient pre and post treatment.   Higher level of service and medical process satisfaction brings the healthcare consumer back in a sea of providers who all offer the sameness.   It is one of the primary drivers for a reason to return. And when all things are equal and undifferentiated, experience and satisfaction become a major determination of return and for their recommendations of you. Difficult to achieve and tough to competitively beat once you have it, experience and satisfaction with your medical products, clinical services and processes regardless of the vertical, be it specialty pharmacy, medical device,   pharma, hospitals, doctors...

Health insurance companies and governments are gearing up to spend millions in educating the healthcare consumer regarding purchasing health insurance in a HIX come October 1. But is there any guarantee that they will choose a plan that includes you? Or is this something left to chance? You have a very big stake for participating actively and reaching out to the potential insured marketplace to choose plans that include you. These first time buyers are going to include those who are employed, whose companies decided to throw in the towel on a cost basis in favor of a defined contribution benefit, and send their employees on their merry way to buy their own coverage.   That is if they don't drop their hours below the threshold for mandated employer insurance first. Or, they could opt to pay a penalty for not providing healthcare coverage which in some cases will be cheaper than providing coverage. So where is the marketing opportunity for you because not everyone will be eligible...

I have been reading and seeing a lot of information lately that consumers will be clueless when entering a Health Insurance Exchange (HIX) to purchase health insurance for the first time. Health insurance companies and governments are gearing up to spend millions in educating the healthcare consumer regarding purchasing health insurance in a HIX. You have a very big stake for participating in this marketing game. But wait this gets even better. These first time buyers are going to include those who are employed, whose companies decided to throw in the towel on a cost basis in favor of a defined contribution benefit, and send their employees on their merry way to buy their own coverage. That is if they don't drop their hours below the threshold for mandated employer insurance first. Or, they could opt to pay a penalty for not providing healthcare coverage which in some cases will be cheaper than providing coverage. So where is the marketing opportunity for you because not everyone w...

There is an article in the March, 2013 issue of Hospitals and Health Networks, "Is going it ALONE still an option for your hospital? YES!". It covers briefly the mission critical decisions and viewpoints, but sadly, it left untouched any discussion of marketing's role in all of this. So not being able to leave well enough alone, I started thinking about what role and competencies of marketing that would be needed to be in play to remain an independent, stand-alone hospital in an era of reform. First challenge, the current state of hospital marketing overall is not good enough and needs leadership, vision and new competencies. The second and even harder challenge is that hospital leadership is clueless about healthcare consumerism, how you market to the healthcare consumer and the marketing investment required, but they think they do. The third major challenge is admitting to the "I don't know healthcare consumer marketing" challenge in number two. If you...

Recent figures indicated that owned medical practices by hospitals and health systems are losing $170K a year. It's causing a lot of angst in the leadership suite and with the Board of Directors in hospitals and health systems. And everyone knows these losses are unsustainable. There are of course many reasons for this, some are structural, some are organizational, some are cultural, some are management decisions made and all playing a part in why the practice is losing so much money. But one reason should never be because you don't market that medical practice effectively. And sadly, there is a lot of ineffective medical practice marketing going on by hospitals and health systems. Medical practices are one of the few remain opportunities to drive volume and revenue. Its sure not the hospital, that's the last place you will be wanting to drive volume, especially to the inpatient side. The drive to create ACOs in a value-based payment environment demands a different t...

With healthcare changing so rapidly, is it time to move healthcare marketing beyond " it's all about us" to "it's all about you" through focused brand architecture containing a clear and compelling brand promise that proves every day the value of your healthcare brand to the healthcare consumer? Unless you are a brand new provider in the market, you have been beating the healthcare consumer for years now all about your features and benefits. They get it. In today's brave new world, it's about brand value to the healthcare consumer, perceived and real along several dimensions that most healthcare organizations haven't paid too much attention too, but the healthcare consumer is. Your brand will be viewed and will be challenged by multiple audiences along these dimensions: price; outcomes; experience; access; convenience; and choice. And if you don't have answers to these brand attributes that healthcare consumers are starting to look for, then ...

With a dynamically changing healthcare industry, employment of physicians is making a big comeback to the hospital industry. Born of necessity, hospitals and physicians are being driven by reimbursement declines, effectiveness and efficiency pressures, retail clinic competition and new opportunities. The drive to create ACOs in a value-based payment environment demands a different type of physician relationship.  With this new opportunity to reinvent, revitalize and recapture what previously before had been an adventure on the part of hospitals with mixed results, it's time to discuss how one goes about marketing the employed physician. First break from the past...... It's easy to look at this and say we'll just do what we did in the past in promoting employed physicians and be done with it. That is a dangerous mistake. Healthcare consumers/patients are making physician choices based price, location and convenience due to increasing co-pays and rising deductibles. If you...

With dynamic changes occurring in the healthcare industry as a result of the Patient Protections and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), leading to ACOs, medical homes and such, employment of physicians is making a big comeback to the hospital industry. Born of necessity, hospitals and physicians are being driven by reimbursement changes from production of care payment, to value-based care payment and opportunity. With this new opportunity to reinvent, revitalize and recapture what previously before had been an adventure on the part of hospitals with mixed results, its time to discuss how one goes about marketing the employed physician. What is needed is a new look at what you are doing and changing to meet the needs of your healthcare consumer, not you. With great change comes great opportunity. That is if one is willing to embrace that change and find new ways of moving forward and creating value. Your Brand. Your Value. The Healthcare Consumers Choice. You need to communicate very strongly...

Patient experience and satisfaction is no longer a nice too have, but a got to have in healthcare. Difficult to achieve and tough to beat once you have it, experience and satisfaction with your medical products, clinical services and processes regardless of the vertical, be it specialty pharmacy, medical device, pharma, hospitals, doctors etc., will drive revenue. Revenue from the standpoint of Pay-for-Performance (P4P) programs and volume from consumers aka patients, selecting you in a very commoditized and provider undifferentiated healthcare market place. As you create your networks, Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs), Medical Homes (MHs) and other yet undefined organizations, you have the opportunity to "get it right" this time. The healthcare consumer of today, will view your services as: value= f(cost, quality, satisfaction) as compared to the near past where value= f(cost, quality). Value here is the defining moment and is a function of cost, quality and satisfactio...

With dynamic changes occurring in the healthcare industry as a result of the Patient Protections and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) , employment of physicians is making a big comeback to the hospital industry. Born of necessity, hospitals and physicians are being driven by reimbursement concerns and opportunities. The drive to create Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) demands a different type of physician relationship. One that is more centralized and controlled to "reap" the revenue benefits of the new healthcare market environment. With this new opportunity to reinvent, revitalize and recapture what previously before had been an adventure on the part of hospitals with mixed results, its time to discuss how one goes about marketing the employed physician. First break from the past...... It's easy to look at this and say we'll just do what we did in the past in promoting employed physicians and be done with it. That is a dangerous mistake in the age of healthcare c...

Previously, I authored a couple of blogs on the Re-emergence of Centers of Excellence (CoE) due to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), as well as starting a most interesting discussion on LinkedIn in the American College of Healthcare Executives Group . Those blogs and discussion really focused more on the operational and quality of care characteristics of a CoE than marketing. The point being that with the rise of healthcare consumerism driven by many factors outside the control of healthcare providers, that you could no longer look around and just say that you have a CoE in a particular service-line or disease -state. So, if as a leader in your healthcare organization you have come to realize that the healthcare consumer deserves more than just the old ways of doing things, you have really looked at your self-described CoEs and beefed them up to true reflections of organizational and quality of care excellence, then just maybe you are ready to begin marketing ...

The dynamic has changed. With the advent of HCAPHS and the Affordable Care Act (ACA) consumer satisfaction is no longer a nice too have but a got to have in healthcare. Difficult to achieve and tough to beat once you have it, consumer satisfaction with your medical services, regardless of the monikers we place on them, will drive volume and revenue. Revenue for the standpoint of Pay-for-Performance (P4P) programs and volume from consumers selecting you in a very "commoditized" and provider undifferentiated healthcare market place. As you create your networks, Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs), Medical Homes (MHs) and other yet undefined organizations, you have the opportunity to "get it right" this time. For the past 10 years, I have been writing and working within healthcare organizations to improve satisfaction. Ten years ago, I had the opportunity to coauthor a book with Ralph Bell, PhD., on satisfaction entitled- How to Use Patient Satisfaction Data to Impro...