mommyjenlin

Faced with a cacophony of payment models from fee-for-service to value and risked based, with everything else in between, the evolving healthcare consumer, millions of people in the coming months gaining access to healthcare via the HIX insurance purchase, healthcare marketing becomes an even greater challenge than before. One size does not fit all. And growth is good. Sustainability...Presence...Perception...Experience... These are the four dynamics that direct-care healthcare providers need to understand and incorporate for success in their marketing operations and campaign efforts in a consumer-driven market. No longer nice to have, these four basic marketing concepts are now business requirements. Sustainability- The resources to effectively and continuously communicate brand and differentiate you’re offering across multiple channels. Presence - By maintaining a continuous presence across multiple channels as in so many other consumer-directed industries you build brand preference....

As I look across the hospital and health system landscape, one thing that has struck me for the most part, is that little attention is paid to social media outside of using it as a billboard for various programs and announcements. Doesn't matter whether or not if it's a clinical service or wellness program to heralding quality awards, its static. There seems to be a lack of creativity and engagement that one would think is the hallmark of a vibrant healthcare consumer engagement strategy on a social media platform. But then, maybe that is the problem and the solution? That there is no vibrant social media strategy to engage the healthcare consumer, so it just becomes another marketing channel to yell at someone about how you provide " world-class" care. Okay, that's a little synclinal, but healthcare is evolving in ways we didn't imagine which includes how networked the healthcare consumer is today. Yet we continue to reach out to that networked healthcare con...

As hospitals and health systems continue to search for ways to integrate physicians in any number of ways, an oft overlooked aspect in the integration efforts is activity aimed at improving the physician experience. Sadly it appears that little effort is made in the critical success factor. What's wrong with this picture? If you are really serious about integrating physicians, beyond the control of patients and while in still the fee-for-service payment model growing revenue and volume, you must, not need too, but you must make changes in the physician experience in your organization. No matter that the healthcare consumer is in the beginning stages of learning how to be empowered. No matter that the payment model is changing from a production-based, to a risk and quality-based. No matter, that you are employing physicians. If you want to successful integrate and grow, you need to change the physician experience with your healthcare organization. Face it. Nothing happens unless you...

Any number of healthcare organizations are looking to increase admissions or sell to drive revenue and volume by associated physicians. Sales staffs are popping up all over like weeds-in-a-field, complete with goals and objectives, territories and sales quotas for specific docs along profitable clinical-lines and disease-states. In most cases they are managed by people who have never sold anything in their life. Little understanding of the relationship sales cycle, what is important to the physicians, their needs and ultimately their patients. The first time the sale person comes back to the organization with "This needs to change" request, it all breaks down because nobody internally wants to really change anything. We just want volume and revenue. What's wrong with this picture? To sell too physicians successfully, you need more than office lunches and how are the kids kind of conversations. Its about their experience in admitting, treating and referring patients to you...

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....

Though there are many great examples of healthcare marketing across the country, it seems that these are far and few between. This is a shame really because of all the talented marketers that are in the industry. More often than not, we let well meaning individuals who have no formal training or clear understanding of marketing hold sway over the direction. I do understand the leverage that CEOs, docs, product managers and others hold over marketing. At the end of the day, he or she that signs the check or has the backing wins, right or wrong. And there is way too much of that in healthcare marketing. With non-marketing trained people running the show causing chaos and confusing tactics with strategy, companies fall behind in markets and are either sold, became acquisition targets since they underperform, or die a slow and painful death. So how do you exercise marketing leadership in that kind of environment? You need to understand the needs, politics and marketing understanding of the...

It sure seems like it's the season to display all those healthcare award logos in advertisements, direct mail pieces, billboards, lobby displays and a myriad of other places. This becomes even more entertaining when two or more hospitals in the same market display the same award. Don't take me wrong. Tremendous organizational effort has taken place to achieve a quality ranking by an third party. Is just putting the award logo out there without the contextual content about what it means, serving the healthcare consumer in a meaningful way? This is an important question for you to consider. It's not easy putting context and meaningful content together for consumers around a quality or certification award. But just putting the logo out there as some "Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval" isn't working either. And the evidence starting to appear anecdotally, that healthcare consumers aren't buying what you are selling. An award logo means nothing to them and has...

Or, the dangers of viewing the customer-patient experience management process, thinking you know it all, it's easy to do, or only use patient satisfaction survey results. And from the questions I get from healthcare professionals around the country, it became very clear that a key element is missing from most efforts at improving the patient experience. Healthcare providers, aka hospitals for the most part, are not doing the required quantitative and qualitative market research on patient experience, attitudes, behaviors and expectations in their market place. They are assuming that because they read an article, go to a seminar that they know it all. They are only using patient satisfaction survey data, lean six sigma results and their previous quality improvement efforts. Few are actually talking to patients. Had you been conducting market research on your customers-patients in the experience management process outside of  internal patient interactions, you would  be much be...

The other day, I asked the question about hospital and health system debt as being the next financial crisis on several groups on LinkedIn. The response has been a resounding thud. The reason for the question was based on an article in Crain's Chicago Business , Monday, December 5, 2011, " New hospitals building debt", by Kristen Schorsch. It really got me to start considering the broader hospital and healthcare debt question in general, as healthcare continues to change in such dynamic ways. And I believe that the 800 pound gorilla in the room, locally and nationally, is hospital and other healthcare provider debt. It is no longer just a question of having an individual AAA rating. When you view the changes in the healthcare reimbursement from Medicare and Medicaid . Declining admissions. Changes in reimbursement from production-based to quality-based. Payers introducing pricing competition, though user-friendly tools, which allow healthcare consumers to compare price...

Have you considered the question of your brand, or brands, the ACO brand you may create, or as an ACO participant? This is really a much more important question than you may think. For some healthcare organizations, it won't be, as they have a highly developed brand architecture and strategy. For others, that haven't been paying as much attention to their brand architecture and strategy, it will. I would surmise that large healthcare systems and payers will be ahead of the branding game, and able to seamlessly create and launch an ACO under their current brand umbrella. I think the brand challenge for healthcare systems, will be when they have to contract for services outside of their traditional system. In those organizations that have more brands under the sun than stars in the galaxy, it will be a challenge supreme. That is what happens when there is no clear marketing leadership in most of these healthcare organizations. If you did the brand market research as well, you w...

It's the kind of question that pauses one for a minute or two. How this question came about was in response to a post of mine a few weeks ago, regarding pricing at Urgent Care Centers and the $500 Band- Aid. In comments on a couple of LinkedIn groups, a few healthcare executives called consumers ignorant. Really. From a marketing perspective, that is a most interesting characterization of a healthcare consumer. And a dangerous belief to hold about one segment of your audience. Ignorant. I don't think so. Informed. Connected. Questioning. Seeking. Paying. Shopping. These words describe the healthcare consumer of today. A consumer who is awakening and demanding a voice in diagnosis and treatment options. After all, isn't that one of the major premises for healthcare reform, and CMSs' one opening statement in the proposed ACO regulations? In ignorance there is opportunity. So if you really believe that the healthcare consumer is ignorant, then what are you doing to chang...

On March 31, a new data release for consumers took place with CMS posting individual hospital performance on eight Hospital Acquired Conditions (HAC). Reaction has been highly critical to say the least by physician and hospital groups. There are legitimate question as to the methodology used in some of the data and that does need to be revised. So the question came to me after reading the various groups denial of the data, pointing out its flaws and generally trying to deep six any potential informational credibility for the public-   i t's out there, so what is the brand opportunity if any? How Does Your Marketing/PR Department Counter Negative Data Releases From 3rd Parties? Hospitals and others are quick to bend over backwards and break their arms running ads and creating press releases when the data is in their favor or an award has been bestowed. This is not a criticism it is fact. Sometimes the information presented is misleading as well. When negative quality data is p...

On March 31, 2011, the healthcare system in the U.S. began to change forever with these words: "An ACO will put the beneficiary and family at the center of all its activities. It will honor individual preferences, values, backgrounds, resources, and skills, and it will thoroughly engage people in shared decision-making about diagnostic and therapeutic options." With these words, CMS has taken the bold step of moving the healthcare system from a provider-directed healthcare enterprise to a consumer-directed healthcare system. And the implications are enormous. It is also apparent that this will require leadership skills and abilities at the integration of culture and care. No more spin of shifting here among reimbursement options, playing docs off of one another, or avoiding difficult decisions. Welcome to consumer-directed healthcare. Eagerly or not so eagerly awaited, these 429 pages of proposed regulations mark the beginning of a great national discussion that will fundamen...

A story on hospital urgent care centers the other day in the Sun Sentinel, Orlando, Florida caught my eye. In a nut-shell, some hospital and system owned urgent care centers charge emergency room prices. When I started looking around the country, the same story can be repeated in community after community. This is just not an isolated one-time event. What don't they get? In a consumer-driven healthcare market, pricing matters. And charging $500 for a 15-minute visit that required a Band-Aid is the perfect example of why there is such an uproar by government, employers, consumers and health plans regarding healthcare cost. It also points out why Walgreens, CVS, Wal-Mart and entrepreneurs are driving the expansion of retail healthcare and outperforming the more traditional healthcare providers. I get it. Hospitals and health systems need to expand and see the urgent care market as a means of revenue generation for combating falling volumes and declining reimbursement. Urgent care ...

To tweet or not to tweet, that is the question? Faced with a dizzying array of possibilities from twitter to facebook to YouTube, LinkedIn, flicker and others, healthcare providers are struggling with developing a comprehensive social media strategy to engage their customers. Understandable really. Some of the concern comes from not understanding the power and uses of social media and how consumers are the new paparazzi. Some comes from trying to figure out how a social media strategy fits into the overall marketing plan. Some is purely from executive ignorance in not understanding the place and uses of social media in the life of the healthcare consumer. In many cases its all of the above and others, including and by far the most pervasive, the never ending paralysis by analysis planning loop and engaging in that quest for the perfect best practice before proceeding. In these situations it is about internal marketing leadership. As the marketing expert in your organization, you ne...

Sustainability...Presence...Perception...Experience... These are the four constants that direct-care healthcare providers need to understand and incorporate for success in their marketing operations and campaign efforts in a consumer-driven market . No longer nice to have, these four basic concepts are now business requirements. Sustainability- The resources to effectively and continuously communicate brand and differentiate your offering across multiple channels. Presence - By maintaining a continuous presence across multiple channels as in so many other consumer-directed industries, you build brand preference. Perception- With a sustainable, continuous presence in the marketplace, sooner rather than latter, your key messages become the opinion of you by consumers and they become fact in their minds. Experience- The actual customer experience matches the brand image, perceptions and opinions of customers that you created in the marketplace that had been communicated in an integrat...

Or, the dangers of only viewing the customer-patient experience management as only the patient encounter. An Intuit survey, "Healthcare consumers want online control "- HealthcareFinanceNews.com, March 3, 2011, indicates overwhelming support by the general public for more control over their healthcare via online activities. They want healthcare providers including physicians, to be accessible online. They want to pay their bills online, communicate with the provider, request appointments and get lab results. A clearly demonstrated experience need and expectation of consumers, that except for a few isolated healthcare organizations, is generally lacking among healthcare providers. Had you been conducting market research on your customers-patients in the experience management process outside of the patient interaction, you would have understood that expectation and need. But unfortunately, most customer-patient experience management programs in healthcare providers are focused...

Any number of healthcare organizations are looking to increase admissions to drive revenue and volume by associated physicians. Some providers are returning to the days of employing physicians and that seems to be making a big comeback due to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPAAC). Here's hoping lessons learned from the last go around of physician employment will result in fewer mistakes this time. Sales staffs are popping up all over like weeds-in-a-field, complete with goals and objectives, territories and sales quotas for specific docs along identified and profitable disease-states. In most cases they are managed by people who have never sold anything in their life. Little understanding of the relationship sales cycle, what is important to the physicians, their needs and ultimately their patients. The first time the sale person comes back to the organization with "This needs to change" request, it all breaks down because nobody internally wants to reall...