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...

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...

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...

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...

Any number of healthcare organizations are looking to increase admissions to drive revenue and volume by physicians. Some providers are returning to the days of employing physicians, and that seems to be making a big comeback for health systems ACO development. Anyhow, 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 disease-states. In most cases, they are managed by people who have never sold anything in their life. The first time the sales person comes back to the organization with, "This needs to change" request, it all breaks down, because nobody internally wants to really change anything. Besides, with all the Stark considerations, we really can't do too much anyway. What's wrong with this picture? If you are really serious about growing revenue and volume, you must, not need too, you must, make changes in the physician experience in your organizat...

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, cutting through the din of messages and relationships can be a daunting task. So how do you cut through all of the chatter and have marketing and sales work together effectively? Be the solutions provider! You are supplying solutions to solve the physician practice challenges by providing data-driven or process solutions to those issues in practicing medicine in today's environment of change. And they must at a minimum, accomplish several things: A) practice medicine more efficiently; B) measurably improve the quality of care; C) assist in generating additional revenue; D) are cost effective; E) easy for the physician and office staff to use; and F) reduce the patient hassle factor by cutting down on complaints, or, as we like to say, increase patient satisfaction. With th...

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...

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...

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...

With major cuts in funding coming for hospitals, the only way to survive is to get back to the core. Meaning, what are those core services and programs that regardless of what happens in the world of healthcare, will pay the bills and create market strength and position for you. Its hard to exit programs and services. I have been saying for years that hospitals can not be all things to all people anymore. That means hard choices. It also means a de-marketing program for all those classes of trade that you exit from. It will require organizational strategic planning, a willingness to tackle the scared cows, close collaboration with your physicians, intense internal communications and a solid de-marketing and communication plan to sell it to the community. You will be required to collaborate with your competition. Hard to admit you can't do all things well. If you want to survive, you have too. Find the expertise to assist you along. De-marketing is an area where hospitals have littl...

Who has patients.....doctors or hospitals? Somewhere along the way to the informed healthcare consumer and all that hospital advertising about how good they are, the newest piece of technology and the latest greatest renovation as well as how much we care about you as a person (or your spirit, whatever that means), we have may have forgotten about the role of the doctor.... and that is not a good thing..... Hospitals and health systems talk about "their patients". Healthcare organizations troll for consumers and employers through a variety of marketing techniques. Some have even entered into agreements with insurance companies under capitation arrangements for "covered lives" where they are paid a certain dollar amount per month per life to provide complete care. (After learning that it's not as easy as it sounds and losing millions of dollars, most hospitals and health systems have exited the insurance business. Good move.) Physician referral programs, RN staff...

As the old song goes, I can't get no....satisfaction....... Ever wonder why in the healthcare industry that satisfaction is sometimes so hard to come by? That is not to say that every hospital or health system has a satisfaction or service problem. There are many exemplary examples of service focused healthcare organizations that day-in and day-out deliver high levels of patient and physician satisfaction. Yet, in an industry where we "serve" individuals, we hear from consumer research that it's the other guy. My doctor and my hospital is fine as consumers report general happiness with their healthcare providers. Hospitals regularly report satisfaction in the 90th percentile. Get people outside of the hospital and you hear some pretty common complaints: the food is cold; I did not know about my test; you woke me up in the middle of the night; it was noisy; the room to cold; the room is hot; and on and on. As organizations tout the JD Powers Satisfaction Award, show gr...