mommyjenlin

As healthcare evolves into a consumer-centric, semi-retail market with you existing in a multitude of reimbursement schemes each nuanced for a different market segment, have you   identified from a marketing perspective immediate actions to   improve your market position and revenue generation?   This isn't about massive advertising campaigns, gimmicks, wellness programs, etc. It’s more about getting the basics right, understanding who pays for what and how, the needs of your healthcare consumers, as well as driving demand, managing demand and moving demand to the right locations. In some circumstances it may even mean de-marketing certain services. This is a difficult question to answer given the focus and preoccupation with hospitals and health systems, with EMR, readmissions, cost reduction, quality improvement, etc., but at the very least, it does not mean that marketing leadership cannot make a difference in their organizations, lead change and make a meaningful, me...

How often do you call in from an outside landline or cell phone, to your organization to experience what a patient, a family member or a healthcare consumer does when calling?   This isn't such a strange question.   We all go through the evaluation process, seek the system we believe will reduce our cost, improve response and service and enhance the experience. But you know, sometimes we make the system so complicated, that we forget why someone calls us. For this I have coined Mike's Law:   "The smaller the organization, easier to use is the automated answering solution. The larger the organization, the more complex and harder the automated answering solution is to navigate." Use is very different than navigate. One implies simplicity, the other complexity. Let me give you an example. In calling a local hospital when a family member was hospitalized, it was really very straight forward. Dial in, hear the message, dial the extension or room number if you know it, o...

With healthcare changing so rapidly, 2013 promises to be even more challenging as the implementation of ACA moves forward. The healthcare industry whether they like it or not is becoming more consumer oriented. Those individuals enrolled in Consumer Directed Health Plans are shopping for healthcare services based on price and are price sensitive for example. Many more changes are coming that will put the healthcare consumer in charge and they will be demanding answers. Here are 10 more steps that healthcare marketing departments need to take right now to be relevant and lead their organizations to a more healthcare consumer focused environment. 10. Educate your organization about the value of your department and work. Lead and prove your departments ROI. Marketing just doesn't make things "look pretty". 9. Scan the B2C companies for their marketing successes. Learn about them, adapt them to healthcare, and implement successfully. Healthcare will take giant steps in 2013...

Okay, before I start getting bombarded with the "how can you even think that you can use the readmission penalties being leveled against hospitals in marketing" statements, hear me out. Readmissions is a complicated issue that involves a lot more than the hospital stay. In some cases, it is the hospital and I have experienced it personally. So, what does it mean to leverage the readmissions issue with your hospital good or bad in your market area? Two trains of thought here. The first one is if you're getting the charged with a penalty and identified in the CMS list, then I suggest to you, instead of diving for under the desk and ignoring the issue hoping that the public won't pay attention, is a dreadfully wrong strategy. Ignoring it because people can't understand it, and its way to complicated to explain anyway. You need to design a PR and marketing campaign that explains the readmissions issue in terms the healthcare consumer can understand. People are paying...

Another way to ask that question is who matters more going forward; the high-cost specialist or the primary care physician who is the gatekeeper for admissions, referrals and treatment? The answer is really self explanatory. So why then do hospitals and health systems continue to market their specialists? I think there are a number of reason for that, but mainly healthcare marketing and in some cases senior leadership is slow to change their marketing paradigm. It's easier internally to promote specialists. Its feeds internal hospital beast that marketing is doing something. It makes the Board and senior management happy not to mention the specialists. Let's face it, I never heard hospital senior management jump up and down with glee when I talked about physician referral advertising and promoting primary care. And that was in the 1990s. Still pretty much true today in 2012. But primary care is where it is at and healthcare marketing departments with their senor leadership team...

Patients and healthcare consumers alike are seeking information on great outcomes and experience. That's right. Great outcomes and experiences. Not ordinary outcomes or experiences. Telling the healthcare consumer that you provide compassionate care and high-quality medical care, is falling on deaf ears. Especially, when the experience doesn't even come close to the claim. And as we get deeper into the Affordable Care Act with risk and value -based payment models, experience will play a deciding role in success or failure. Healthcare consumers will bypass those hospitals and healthcare providers that have less than great outcomes or experiences. Same for insurance plans, doctors and others. When the individual has some skin in the game, i.e., high out-of pocket expenses and deductibles, their experience matters. I am not saying that is fair, or right. It is a reality of a changing marketplace. When healthcare executives are surveyed, the majority say that customer/patient expe...

Have you ever taken a step back and from a strategic standpoint looking at what you can do to nearly immediately improves your market position and revenue generation? This isn't about massive advertising campaigns, gimmicks, wellness programs, etc. Its more about getting the basics right. The blocking and tackling that you need to do now, to prepare for risk and value-based payment models. If you can't get it right in fee-for-service model, then how do you expect to get it right in a risk model? So very quickly here are six ways to improve your market position and generate revenue. 1. Brand and competitive position. Consumers and patients are ready for convenient technology-enabled access to care. Healthcare providers that are capable of identifying their needs and how they want their healthcare needs meet though technology focused on them, will gain new patients and the next-generation of physicians. It's not a crime to use text messaging to send people information or conf...

The game is changing. Rapidly. Game changer. That's what I call Aetna's introduction to its members, of its easy-to-use, out-of-pocket payment estimator. Simple really, know the cost of a test, visit or procedure; know what it will cost you. But it doesn't stop there, it allows the healthcare consumer to compare the cost across multiple network providers. You can compare costs across 10 different hospitals and doctors. WellPoint through its AIM subsidiary has shown where it was possible to incentivize physicians and plan members, to shop for radiology services and choose the lowest cost provider. It's reducing healthcare costs; while maintaining quality. United HealthCare, though its Innovation Center , is empowering its clients and 70 million members across a broad array of data driven products and services, for the healthcare consumer to better understand their healthcare utilization, and make cost effective choices. And these are just a couple of the price and cost d...

I have to admit, this is a pet peeve of mine, stupid hospital advertising. In a day and age where healthcare is experiencing great change, some hospital "marketers" and C-suite leadership continue to treat the healthcare consumer like they are some kind of idiot, incapable of making informed choices. Do you believe that by offering a massage with a digital mammography, that women will choose to have their mammography at your facility? I would like to see the market research on that one. But then, odds are on that there wasn't any market research. Remember, when you are marketing to individuals, they don't become a patient until they receive a service from you. So in one-third of the time in their interactions with you, the "person" is only a "patient" during diagnosis and treatment. Two-thirds of the time they are not patients, and most likely are arguing with your billing department about the charges. And healthcare marketers wonder why no one tak...

Now that PPACA is the law of the land, private and public ACOs will be springing up like weeds in a field. It may really be the last best chance to bend the cost and quality curve of the American healthcare system which is unsustainable. After all, its now about the right care; at the right time; for the right cost; in the right care setting. In the end though, the basic premise remains the same, to engage the patient, aka the healthcare consumer, in the care and treatment decision making process. The marketing challenge before you is to attract members to your ACO, engage and retain them with outcome and price transparency delivered with an exemplary customer/patient experience. In entering the brave new world of ACOs, here are some things that you need to consider for marketing: 1.) Transparency and Quality dashboards. This is about improving care, using best practices, learning and improving as a system to the individual level, by engaging the patient. If you do not plan t...

The arguments are in. SCOTUS has already voted on healthcare reform. The majority and minority opinion writers are chosen. Regardless, healthcare will continue to change in very fundamental ways. And that means marketing has to change as well. Marketing strategy and effective marketing operations is everything today in healthcare marketing. And if you have a bad strategy or no strategy, combined with marketing operational deficiencies, then no amount of tactical execution will overcome ineptitude. Some of the verticals in the healthcare industry are notorious for no strategy and just plain bad marketing operations, following the herd and just keeping the internal audience happy with what they want. Here are the 10 signs spelling marketing doom in your hospital or other healthcare organization: 1. The marketing plan is not integrated with the organizations business and financial plan. 2. Your brand messages are not clear, and are not integrated across internal and external audiences. 3....

New Year's Resolutions , for the most part, play an important role in most everyone's life. To lose weight. Live life more fully. Be a better husband, wife, or significant other etc. Value more what we have in our family and friends. And many more that I have missed. But have you ever considered New Year' Resolutions as a part of your business and managerial life? So my last Healthcare Marketing Matters blog for 2012, is about New Year Marketing Resolutions. My own Top 10 list to get things started. What are yours? 10 . Educate my organization about the value of my department and work. I will lead and prove my departments ROI . 9. Continue to scan other industries for their marketing successes. I will learn about them, adapt them to my industry, and implement successfully. 8. Expand my marketing education through webinars, seminars and conferences. There is always something new on the horizon to learn. 7. I ntegrate traditional, online and social marketing strate...

Now that the final rules for ACOs have been released by CMS , it seems that there is more positive interest in the ACO model first proposed under PPACA . The basic premise remains the same, to engage the patient, aka the healthcare consumer, in the care and treatment decision making process. Medicare ACOs remain open networks, meaning that members can go outside the ACO for service. The marketing challenge before you is to attract members to your ACO, engage and retain them. You must be prepared to deliver an individualized experience that meets the needs of that patient. A mass customization, of your patient experience process, down to the individual level. One size does not fit all. In entering the brave new world of ACOs, here are some things that you need to consider for marketing: 1.) Clear and easily stated Value Proposition . Not a mission statement, this is crucial for communications and focusing the message to members, employers, payers, government and community. Not flo...

How often do you call in from an outside landline or cell phone, to your organization too experience what a customer does when calling? This isn't such a strange question. We all go through the evaluation process, seek the system we believe will reduce our cost, improve response and service, which will hopefully result in less dropped calls, increase customer or patient satisfaction and revenue. But you know, sometimes we make the system so complicated, that we forget why someone calls us. For this I have coined Mike's Law: "The smaller the organization, easier to use is the automated answering solution. The larger the organization, the more complex and harder the automated answering solution is to navigate." Use is very different than navigate. One implies simplicity, the other complexity. Let me give you a couple of examples. In calling a local hospital when a family member was hospitalized, it was really very straight forward. Dial in, hear the message, dial the ex...

On Monday, October 10, 2011, Deloitte released their latest Issue Brief, The Public View of Health Care Reform . I would also recommend highly that you read the 2011 Survey of Health Care Consumers in the United States . Anyhow two items caught my attention from the Public View report out of many. The first is that and I quote: "Consumers perceive a complex, wasteful system sensing a lack of value for what is spent". "Consumers are critical of the U.S. health care system performance: 22 percent give it a favorable report card grade of "A" or "B" while 36 percent of consumers give it a grade of "D" or "F". In the second report, 2011 Survey of Health Care Consumers: " Satisfaction with U.S. health care system is low. 8 in 10 consumers see no system improvement and 3 in 4 believe other countries' systems are better. " When you look at these consumer perceptions, one realizes very quickly that healthcare organizations ar...

In a day and age, when consumers are bombarded from all directions and media for attention, it would seem, that marketing should play a more important role your internal organization and culture, than it may appear. No intent is made to downgrade your activities and internal communications about what marketing is accomplishing. But rather, asking a thoughtful question to consider. Is marketing at the table then the Finance Department is staring to develop the annual financial plan and budget assumptions? Is marketing at the table when the yearly business plan is in the initial stages of development? Is marketing at the table when the product managers are deciding new product enhancements, new products, features and benefits? Is marketing at the table when Human Resources is putting its headcount budget together and recruitment strategies? Is marketing at the table when the annual sales plan is developed? Not simply yes or no. I think it is more a question of perception and opport...

How much more effective would your marketing campaigns in traditional, online, social, mobile and Public/Media relations be, if you made a conscious effort to frame your messaging in your communications campaigns around the main brand and key messages you use in your marketing campaigns? More often than not, brand messages in healthcare communications sometimes lack the level of integration and planning needed across vehicles and channels. Little, if any attention, is given to using communications as a strategic and integrative vehicle in the overall marketing effort. With so many different marketing activities and channels required to cut through the clutter, in order to leverage your key messages, you can no longer afford to not have your communications highly integrated with marketing. Is that lack of integration a missed opportunity? We are expected by our audiences to advertise, write white papers, create case studies, write impactful sales materials, partner with leading market r...

When you consider all the time, resources and effort spent, in developing patient educational materials, by specialty pharmacies along the therapies of RA, MS, HIV/AIDS, Oncology and Transplant, payers, PBMs, pharmaceutical manufactures, disease-specific associations and hospitals, one would surmise that an opportunity exists, to use them in broader channel marketing efforts. Pharma and disease-specific associations have great and innovative marketing programs around patient education. After that, specialty pharmacy's, PBMs, and hospitals, not so much. I think that their use in marketing campaigns will depend greatly on the quality of the materials. And in some cases, they are pretty poorly written and designed. Sometimes lacking all together. But are all healthcare segments, especially specialty pharmacies, missing an opportunity to truly differentiate themselves in a lookalike marketplace? I know. We all think we are the best at what we do, offering considerable expertise, advice...