How is healthcare consumerism changing provider marketing?

Technological and care delivery innovations, specialty pharmaceuticals, social media influences, data releases on price and quality, the healthcare consumer sending more out-of-pocket and exhibiting consumeristic behaviors in insurance choices and provider section, have come together to create the perfect storm.

How has this affected healthcare provider marketing?

It's a tough balancing act when an organization has never really marketed in an evolving semi-retail healthcare market, or communicated with the healthcare consumer in meaningful price and quality terms. Terms that grow your brand, build stronger customer connections and answers the question, what's in it for them?

So why should this be on leadership’s radar screen, as if there isn’t enough to worry about already?

I can give you five reasons why:

1. Retail medicine; 2. Price competition; 3. Newly Insured; 4.Consumer choice; 5. Social media.

These five market shifts are changing how healthcare organizations will do business. And if healthcare marketing is not changing, then what follows are the critical steps you need to take to leverage and move ahead to survive and thrive in an increasingly tough market.  

1. Market Research

Do the research on healthcare consumer behavior, what motivates them, how to communicate with them, how they make purchase decisions and price points they are willing to accept. Healthcare consumerism screams for market research. It's about the healthcare consumer, their needs, expectations, experience and engagement.  And thinking you know about them is not the same as having the quantitative date that knows them.

2. Business Savvy

Make the healthcare marketing department business savvy. Out with the marketing communications focus, and in with a data driven ROI marketing coupled with an understanding of finance, project management, and operations so that the marketing can be transformational. Going from saying "we care and provide world-class care" to building brand, engagement and experience as well as measuring that change in real terms requires a deep understanding  of the organization on many levels in order to be successful in the market.

3. Resource Commitment

Healthcare providers must resource marketing appropriately in capital and human terms in order to compete with retail medicine and pricing competition. Engage the healthcare consumer in a meaningful way and improve their experience. Build your brand and increase awareness. Presence builds preference. It cost money to accomplish market growth.

4. Agility

Be nimble. Be agile. Be quick.  Keep repeating that over and over again. Healthcare marketing needs to move from the tried and true to the exceptional, the innovative, the engaged and the motivational. One can't reach the healthcare consumer on an emotional level to make the right choices, treatment, lifestyle and purchase decisions in your favor unless you are sufficiently engaged.

5. Integration

Integrate your marketing plans deeply within the organization. The healthcare consumer is at the center of all that you do. Pay special attention to social media. Social media is not a billboard but an efficient and effective engagement strategy that enhances all the other marketing channels you use.

6. The multiplicity of markets and patient mechanisms

Not everyone will be in an ACO or a patient medical home. Not everyone will have employer sponsored insurance. Some won't have health insurance of any kind. Not everyone will be in expanded Medicaid programs.  Small business may decrease employee’s hours to not have provided health insurance.  Large employers are creating private HIXs and moving to defined contribution. Baby Boomers are demanding a healthcare experience the way they want. And retail medicine is here to stay and will expand.

That light at the end of the tunnel is healthcare consumerism and that Walgreens ACO has come to a location near you.

Why not engage the healthcare consumer with email?

Email marketing on the consumer side is a staple of any B2C marketing operation. Email marketing can be an effective way to engage the healthcare consumer, enhance the experience and build brand preference.  It also provides a mechanism for continuous content presence to build/enhance relationships, as well as being one of the more cost effective marketing channels available for communication. In the semi-retail environment of healthcare with information flowing to the healthcare consumer along price, choice and outcomes, market presence is everything.

Gone are the days when someone uses your healthcare organization, walks out the door and they never hear from you again until they initiate the next medical encounter.  In between medical encounters, email marketing can keep you engaged with the healthcare consumer. And isn’t that what engagement is all about, a continuous method of communication that focuses on the needs of the healthcare consumer aka the patient and not just a response to an episode of care?

The topics are virtually limitless and can be tailored to meet the specific needs of an individual or group of individuals.  From diet and exercise tips, to medication adherence, wellness programs, clinical service offerings, appointment reminders, test follow ups, etc, email marketing can help to engage and enhance the experience with the healthcare provider or practitioner.  What you choose to communicate is really only limited by the market research you need to accomplish to understand the needs of your audience to respond accordingly with the right engagement information at the right time.

There is some resource investment capital and human, but it will pay dividends in the long run. Email marketing is driven by data and analysis of that data. Sending an email is an activity.  It’s the outcome of those activities- open rates, unique visitors, unsubscribed, click though rates, calls in response etc., that is important to measure and track for a variety of reasons.

Beyond the obvious of needing to collect patients email addresses, you will need a email marketing automation system such as Eloqua, Marketo, Constant Contact  or one of the many other fine systems in the marketplace. These type of systems will assist you in meeting the can spam law requirements as well. This isn’t collecting some email addresses, make a distribution list and send from Outlook type of program. It’s about meaningful content that speaks to and engages the individual in a very personalized way. Part of that is driven by market research and A B testing of your message to learn what works and what doesn't. This is moving the organization forward in a new environment where the consumer is king and cost is everything.

Email marketing pre and post healthcare experience is an acceptable and desirable method to engage the healthcare consumer, build a relationship, strengthen your brand and maintain a continuous market presence. 

Can patient experience and satisfaction drive healthcare marketing?

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 etc., will drive revenue.  Revenue from the standpoint of Pay-for-Performance (P4P) programs and volume from healthcare consumers aka patients, selecting you in a very commoditized and provider undifferentiated healthcare market place is at stake.

Not everyone will be in an ACO or risk-sharing agreements.  Some will choose narrow networks to save a buck on premium. Fee-for-service will still be around for awhile.  The opening of public insurance exchanges in October, 2013, Medicaid expansion in some states and the now becoming ever more popular the private insurance exchange where companies are moving to defined contribution (see Walgreens, Sears and others in recent times), means that you have a direct to consumer opportunity along very different dimensions then in the past.

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 as described by the healthcare consumer here is the result of the function of cost, quality and satisfaction with you.

Why is it important:

• High levels of experience and satisfaction are a powerful differentiator in your market.
• Done correctly, your experience improvement and satisfaction program becomes the ongoing Voice of the Customer (VoC) program to drive real organizational change.
•  It is a strategic and tactical edge for your brand and your marketing communication efforts. 
• Think customer evangelization.
• Think of the power of a high-quality experience and exemplary satisfaction and what that can do for your organization. Think of what it can do in your effort to differentiate.

The choice is yours.  Make it before others make it for you.

Michael J. Krivich, MHA, FACHE, PCM, is an internationally followed healthcare marketing blogger with over 5,000 monthly pages views read in over 52 countries worldwide on Healthcare Marketing Matters. These views are my own. He is founder of the michael J group, a Fellow, American College of Healthcare Executivesand a Professional Certified Marketer, American Marketing Association.  Like us on  facebook at the michael J group, and connect with me on LinkedIn and  Twitter.

Are direct healthcare providers missing the importance of social networking?

In an article that received little fanfare in healthcare circles, the Pew Research Center issued a study on the social networking by online adults.  And this has profound implications for the healthcare industry that has been slow to adapt to social networking in meaningful ways. Which raises the question, are healthcare organizations missing the opportunity to increase adherence, engagement and experience by participating in the social networking usage revolution by adults?

 

In an interesting study, Internet Social Networking, Joanne Brenner, August 5, 2013 points to an accelerating trend of online adults actively engaged in social networking platforms. And if I remember correctly adults age 50 and above consume healthcare resources and would be a prime audience to engage in many levels.  I summarize but only seven percent of online adults participated in social networking in February 2005 compared to 60 percent of adults age 50-64 in May of 2013.

 

But wait it gets even better. For the 65+ crowd, only one percent, that’s right one percent participated in social networking in 2006. Today that number is up to 43 percent of online adults 65+. And adults over age 65 are growing in online presence each and every day.

 

I find it interesting from a marketing standpoint that healthcare providers are slow to adapt to technologies and changing healthcare consumer behaviors, that can made a real measurable impact and difference in experience, engagement and adherence.  That’s not to say that you will ever be their BFF on any of the social networking sites, but it is a way to reach out and engage. It is a way to influence the patient and healthcare consumer experience.  Social networking is a different way that could be used to drive adherence to improve health.  And how many ways can you think of to use social networking for managing population health?

 

This isn’t your kid’s facebook anymore.

 

Social networking sites are not billboards.  They are opportunities to establish a meaningful relationship and engage the healthcare consumer. And in my travels, I see way too much of healthcare providers social networking as being nothing more than running billboard. No attempts to define the healthcare consumer experience. No integration of social network strategy or platforms.  

 

I am not sure if its lack of marketing leadership in healthcare organizations or if its healthcare senior leadership not knowing what they don’t know, or they are blocking meaningful use of the marketing channel because they think it has no relevance in world?

 

But this I do know, as healthcare continues the evolution to a healthcare consumer dominated semi-retail environment, social networking is a healthcare marketing channel that is underutilized and underperforms today, but holds great potential to improve engagement, experience and adherence. And that takes healthcare marketing leadership, executive vision and meaningful action.

 

So even if you Mr. Mrs. or Ms. Healthcare Executive are not engaged in social networking and think it’s a bunch of hooey, the healthcare consumer aka the patient is very active, and they could be talking about you.

 

After all, my 89 year old Aunt is active on facebook and LinkedIn. It’s one of the ways that I can keep in contact with her.  Don’t you think it might behoove you to do the same?

Michael J. Krivich, MHA, FACHE, PCM, is an internationally followed healthcare marketing blogger with over 5,000 monthly pages views read in over 52 countries worldwide on Healthcare Marketing Matters. These views are my own. He is founder of the michael J group, a Fellow, American College of Healthcare Executives and a Professional Certified Marketer, American Marketing Association.  Like us on facebook at the michael J group, and connect with me on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Pheed

Are patient adherence & engagement two sides of the same experience coin?

It has been a most interesting year of change for healthcare in 2013 in anticipation of ACA 2014.  Medical Homes, ACOs, patient- centered care, risk-base payment models, a growing understanding of the importance of healthcare marketing and branding and talk about patient adherence and engagement.  But, none of this will be successful unless you have a patient that is adherent and engaged. It’s really two sides of the same coin that is based on their experience with you the provider.

It think adherence starts first with experience that leads to leads to an adherent and engaged patient. As you view the landscape wondering how you will reduce cost, improve the health of populations, you have to focus on how you will begin to engage in a logically defined measureable process, along the dimensions of experience, adherence and engagement.  And it's not just wellness programs, seminars, community events or material copied on bright neon paper. It takes strategy, commitment and learning.

Here are seven strategies you need to employ to create the adherent and engaged healthcare consumer:

 1. Integrate your engagement solutions. That means information is delivered seamlessly to patients, so that they can interact with you any way they want, when they want too. 

2.  Marketing should be using both push and pull messaging.  Messaging needs to be relevant to the patient at the point in time that they need it as well as personalized, customized, accounting for the cultural heritage and societal influences tailored to them.

3. Start to understand how to being the techniques of gamification to your experience, adherence and engagement programs.  Patient incentives and motivational techniques will be needed to keep patient engaged. That doesn't mean cash. Look to the gaming industry for gaming technology and gaming prediction, for ways to engage without cash. Be creative.  Look outside healthcare for ideas, tools and techniques to engage.  After all, patients are people too.

4. Create a sense of community.  You have to compete for patients, keep them in network and keep them healthy.   You have to get into the inner circle of your audiences and become the trusted advisor. It's not just about loyalty. You need to shape patient behaviors to the point where they will recommend you.

5. Know your audience and with whom you are speaking too. This is really back-to-basics CRM understanding and understanding all the dimensions- gender, age, integration of risk assessments, culture, etc.  You cannot engage the patient unless you are intimately knowledgeable about them, their needs, and how to tailor the information they need to engage them.

6. Know the influence of the patient’s culture on behavior to engage them. You need to know who the individual is culturally, their affinity groups, and religious beliefs to name just a few items, beyond gender and age.

7. Time it right and add value.  If you health messaging is not resonating with the patient when they receive it, then you have lost them. Communicate relevant messages to a committed patient right before healthcare decisions are made. That means knowing the patient like you have never known them in the past. For example, a patient or healthcare consumer, going to a restaurant to eat, or a supermarket to purchase groceries, means sending them health messages at that time, in order to enable them to make the right food choices.  It's not impossible. Think of the Foursquare app.

 

You are moving patients from passive healthcare participants to active healthcare participants.

That's why you engage with experience to increase adherence.

Michael J. Krivich, MHA, FACHE, PCM, is an internationally followed healthcare marketing blogger with over 5,000 monthly pages views read in over 52 countries worldwide on Healthcare Marketing Matters. These views are my own. He is founder of the michael J group, a Fellow, American College of Healthcare Executives and a Professional Certified Marketer, American Marketing Association.  Like us on  facebook at the michael J group, and connect with me on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Pheed

Can hospitals adapt to the new market drivers of price, outcomes and experience?

Over the past week there has been a great discussion going on in LinkedIn in the Modern Healthcare discussion group based on a recent blog post in HMM. So for the benefit of everyone here are the questions I was asked, and my response.

Why do I think price is important to the healthcare consumer?

It really centers on whether or not you believe that healthcare, especially hospitals, are moving into a market that is becoming consumer-centric and dominated. Now dominated in our sense is that the healthcare consumer is becoming more actively involved in the treatment decision making process, and the price/cost side through a variety of mechanisms, whether that is higher co-pays, participating in exchanges, working for an employer that has moved to defend contribution and telling them to figure it out, etc. In the end it results in a greater awareness of the choices they make because it hits them in the pocket.

Some people will pay a higher price because they believe that higher price means higher quality. Other will not, and some will fall in-between depending on that needs to be done within their own value system and financial state.

Can experience and outcomes trump price as market drivers?

I would generally agree that experience and outcomes have the potential to trump price, but only in an environment where the experience and outcomes are understood by the healthcare consumer. Hospitals overall, not all mind you, but overall, haven’t defined and executed on a consistent experience, and haven’t communicated meaningful information on outcomes. So until some takes the lead in their market and takes those steps, it will be difficult for experience and outcomes to trump price. Silence in this case is deadly. Once a hospital takes that position in the market, and we all know that sooner or later a hospital will in a competitive market, and then the others will be at an extreme disadvantage to some healthcare consumer segments in the market.

Quality is not an issue here. For years we have been telling everyone that we have high quality as providers. The problem with that message is that it is undifferentiated in the market, hence the public’s perception that all hospitals are of equal quality. So in the absence of true outcomes of quality data, price and out-of-pocket expense becomes the market equalizer.

We cannot define quality as an award logo from a third-party organization which is another common practice. With no context to set the content in, it is meaningless to the healthcare consumer, especially when a hospital or health system uses it, and then loses it, and continues to say and use it from a previous time period. I mean really, did anyone ever think maybe the healthcare consumer would ask why don’t you have that quality award this year? Quality award logos on ads and materials causes more harm than good if there is no context or content around the award.

Are hospitals hiring marketing talent other healthcare industries?

On the issue of marketing talent in hospitals, I find anecdotally from those in pharma, med device and other health channels that have moved to the hospital marketing side, find it extremely difficult and frustrating to work in marketing in hospitals. More often than not these individuals have a great deal of experience, talent and a level of understanding of marketing, and executing on the marketing vision that few hospitals possess at any level of the organization. Many hospitals in their search still look for marketing talent focused on purely hospital marketing experience. Except in rare cases, that results in a continuation of bad marketing practice and reinforces the “make things look pretty notion” of marketing in some hospitals.

Unless hospitals start to figure out what they don’t know about marketing in a consumer-centric environment, and there is a lot they don’t know or have the experience having never worked in that type of environment, they are in for some real shocks beyond what they are already experiencing. In the end they need these marketers from other healthcare segments that can lead and guide marketing change. Only hospitals can recognize and can make that change before it’s too late.

Michael J. Krivich, MHA, FACHE, PCM, is an internationally followed healthcare marketing blogger with over 5,000 monthly pages views read in over 52 countries worldwide on Healthcare Marketing Matters. These views are my own. He is founder of the michael J group, a Fellow, American College of Healthcare Executives and a Professional Certified Marketer, American Marketing Association. Like us on facebook at the michael J group, and connect with me on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Pheed.

Are you engaging the patient’s family and influencing their experience?

We all read and hear about patent engagement and experience, and what healthcare organizations think that means. But little discussion if any centers around how do you engage the patient’s family along the same lines? Regardless of what payment model-risk, value-based or bundled, full or partial capitation, in an ACO or Medical Home, the patient’s family will be involved.

So from a healthcare marketing standpoint as you develop your patient and healthcare consumer experience/engagement strategy, you need to address how you will engage the family too.

And for your understanding, when I write or speak about patient engagement, it’s a view along a continuum from first contact as a healthcare consumer through diagnosis, treatment, and post care. It is a far more encompassing view of engagement which heavily influences the experience that loops back to either reinforce positively or negative the level of engagement. And guess who is there at all times making comments, coloring observations and influencing the experience and engagement? You got it, the family.

And now that people will be paying more out of pocket, and are becoming price sensitive with all the new price data that’s available, family will be more important than ever. Especially if they may have a financial stake in the individuals care. Think a 25 year old receiving care under their parent’s insurance. Or the wife taking care of her ailing husband. Or the same sex couple.

They all need to be part of your engagement/experience strategy.

And it will be different for each and every patient and their family. Engagement/experience is not a one size fits all. Its mass customization applied on an individual level.

It really only gets more complicated trying to manage the engagement and experience of an individual who at some point depending on the dynamic could be in all three groups- consumer, patient and family. So now you need even more consistency and predictably in the engagement and experience process.

There is no doubt a long way to go on this road, and there are no easy answers. But this I do know, if you are not engaging and influencing the experience of the family, you will lose the healthcare consumer aka the patient. And in captained risk model, that’s a disaster waiting to happen.

On another note, my daughter is a left-handed pitcher on a 16U A level fastpitch softball travel team, and the travel season is now fully underway. So I will still be posting weekly, but maybe not with the same predictability and regularity of an every Sunday post, but it will happen weekly. Oh, and Alex won her first game of the travel season on 06/01/13, 9-3, with 5 Ks & 0 Walks. 

Now where is the suntan lotion?

Michael J. Krivich, MHA, FACHE, PCM, is an internationally followed healthcare marketing blogger with over 5,000 monthly pages views read in over 52 countries worldwide on Healthcare Marketing Matters. These views are my own. He is founder of the michael J group, a Fellow, American College of Healthcare Executives and a Professional Certified Marketer, American Marketing Association. Like us on facebook at the michael J group, and connect with me on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Pheed.

Will you be the first to market healthcare consumers along price, outcomes and experience?

Your price information is out there. Your outcomes information is out as well. And you already have developed by word-of-mouth either a positive or negative patient experience reputation. Whether you like it or not, the horses are out of the barn and it’s too late to corral, get them back into the barn, and pretend like it never happened.

As the hospital segment of the healthcare industry evolves to a more consumer centric model along the three dimensions of price, outcome, and experience, will you use that publicly available data to differentiate yourself to potentially establish market dominance along those brand dimensions that you excel?

This is not a frivolous marketing question. This is about how you are going to be competing in the near future. The healthcare brands of hospitals and health systems will come to be defined by these attributes.

And don’t think that the industry is so unified that no one will make that first attempt to define their market vies a vie their competitors along these three attributes. It is just a question of time before a hospital or system regardless of tax status claims a leading market position. Then what are you going to do?

If one were to diagram what it will look like to the healthcare consumer who will have some fair amount of control in the decision making process, it could look like this:

And the sweet spot is where all three intersect. But that being said, you could take one of several positions in the marketplace. You could decide to be the LDRP of healthcare. You could decide that price and experience are your brand position, and that matches to your healthcare consumer’s needs. Maybe its price and outcomes, price and experience, or experience and outcomes defines your hospital or system brand position.

But to take any kind of position in the healthcare market place without the market research to understand the healthcare consumer, their needs, and decision making process in an evolving market is not wise. No more guessing. No more thinking that you know what the healthcare consumer is thinking.

Healthcare markets for hospitals and health system are heading to a place where they have never been, namely a consumer-centric model boarding on retail. And as more people have a higher cost stake in the game as their costs continue to grow, consumeristic choice behaviors will take place whether you like it or not.

So here are your choices. You fight the losing battle against price and outcome transparency wasting significant energy and resources to stop a wave washing over the healthcare industry like a tsunami. Wait until one of your competitors takes one or all of these brand positioning options away from you. Hide from all of it hoping that it will all go away. Or, figure out what the best fit is for you that you can deliver on day-in and day-out to claim that brand position with the newly minted healthcare consumer.

Because you know as well as I do, that someone will do this despite all the wailing, howling of outrage, and head in the sand approaches to change going on in the healthcare industry. And by then it will be too late for you.

Michael J. Krivich, MHA, FACHE, PCM, is an internationally followed healthcare marketing blogger with over 5,000 monthly pages views read in over 52 countries worldwide on Healthcare Marketing Matters. These views are my own. He is founder of the michael J group, a Fellow, American College of Healthcare Executives and a Professional Certified Marketer, American Marketing Association. Like us on facebook at the michael J group, and connect with me on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Pheed.

Is your healthcare consumer/patient experience disappointing?

Seriously, this is not just a sarcastic attempt to get your attention. It's an honest question about what hospitals and health systems do not get regarding the importance of the patient and healthcare consumer experience from first touch-point to last. The experience story for the patient or searching healthcare consumer isn't just about the patient care or the test. It is for all practical purposes the entire experiential encounter.

Let me relay a story of an encounter with a health system hospital. By the way it's about my recent experience, so no HIPPA is involved here and it's not hearsay. It wasn't bad, but sure did not met my healthcare consumerist expectations.

My personal physician orders a test and faxes it to the hospital central scheduling department. Central scheduling calls during the day when I am work so I call back the next day. Now, if they had really had been on top of the experience and technology, when I called back it would have gone straight to an individual and they would have had some basic info. This is quite common in the PBM and specialty pharmacy industry when calling back and they already know who you are by the number dialed.

Instead I get the "please hold for the next available representative". Okay, it feels like I am calling in for some kind of repair with no idea of how long the wait may be. I am finally an transferred to someone and go through doctors name, my name, date of birth, insurance, test etc.

Then they ask, "Where do I want to have the test done, hospital outpatient or satellite radiology diagnostic center? I thought hmmm, a choice of convenience. I make my chose based on location, distance and travel time. Then I get, "We can do the test on this day and time". So my needs and choice go out the window at this juncture of the conversation. "Sorry I work downtown and that's not convenient to me. I need a Saturday". Silence for a short period. "Okay what Saturday can you do this?" I gave date. "No we are closed that Saturday." Really? We finally settle on a date and time that is convenient for me not the hospital or staff.

The next part actually caught me by surprise because I was expecting a different outcome in the process than what happened. Here's is the experience disconnect, and it goes on everyday thousands of times in hospitals across the country and they don't even know it. I was expecting something very simple that happens in other industries every day, every time without failure.

"Will I receive an email confirming the test, date, time, and any special instructions prior to the test?" "No, just do what I told you and if you forget when the test is just call us back and we will tell you." It was the wrong answer. The answer should have been, "Yes, what is your email address, and you will receive written confirmation of all the details."

When I make a dinner reservations, buy something online, book a hotel room etc, I get written confirmation and all the detail electronically. Now that being said, scheduling a test is no different than any other those other experiences. And that's the point.

As you focus on all the internal experience stuff from your perspective, the healthcare consumer and patient's have very different experience expectations that you don't fully understand.

It's not about you anymore. Healthcare is evolving to a consumer-driven industry and its about the healthcare consumer and patient.

Maybe you should be paying more attention to what's going on in the world around you, and not be so internally focused with the answers that you think that you know about the experience? It's really not that hard.

But what it does take is a focus on the experience from first touch-point to last. It takes enabling technologies, and simple things that go on every day, every time without failure in other service industries that make the experience worthwhile and special. And that is what the healthcare consumer expects.

Michael J. Krivich, MHA, FACHE, PCM, is an internationally followed healthcare marketing blogger with over 5,000 monthly pages views read in over 52 countries worldwide on Healthcare Marketing Matters. These views are my own. He is founder of the michael J group, a Fellow, American College of Healthcare Executives and a Professional Certified Marketer, American Marketing Association. Like us on facebook at the michael J group, and connect with me on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Pheed.

Is your patient experience matching the expectations of the healthcare consumer?

The evolving healthcare consumer is seeking information on great experiences and outcomes. That's right, great outcomes and experiences, not ordinary outcomes or experiences. You are expected to care. You are expected to provide high-quality care. 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. So when the healthcare consumer matches their expectations with your experience, chances are you are falling short somewhere.

And in the reality of a healthcare market place that is evolving to one driven by cost, outcome and choice, healthcare consumers will bypass those hospitals, healthcare providers and insurance plans that have less than great outcomes or experiences.

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 patient/customer experience improvement is a critical business success factor along with patient safety and cost reduction. But at the same time, the majority of healthcare CEOs admit that they really don't know where to start on successfully improving the patient experience.

And it is just not hospitals. Insurance companies, specialty pharmacies, PBMs, home health and others, that are experiencing the same challenges in managing patient, consumer or member experience and expectations.

But before you manage and improve the experience you have to understands the totality of the experience from the eyes of your consumer, as well as understand what their expectations are.

Experience Management is about changing the way you deliver care to the healthcare consumer by your employees, based on an understanding of what their expectations are, not yours. Experience Management is culturally and organizationally uncomfortable. And that is because it's not about you anymore. You have to have a formal definition of patient experience and that only comes from talking to patients, or consumers, or plan members.

The speed of change in healthcare has accelerated beyond the point of no return. Healthcare providers no longer have the time to engage in endless internal dialogue and paralysis by analysis planning loops before moving forward. Individuals expect you to care. Individuals expect you to have high-quality outcomes.

The only way you can differentiate is through creating and maintaining that exceptional patient experience and meeting their expectations. And that only comes through active management of the experience process.

In the end if you want your experience to meet the expectations of your healthcare consumer, do the market research. And get ready for some uncomfortable truths. But in the knowledge about the healthcare consumer gained, you will uncover truths that will set you free to change and change for the better is good.

This week is the American College of Healthcare Executives Congress on Leadership in Chicago. I will be there Wednesday, March 13 and Thursday, March 14. Let me know if you want to meet or just say hi.

Michael Krivich is an internationally followed healthcare marketing blogger with over 5,000 monthly pages views in over 52 countries worldwide on Healthcare Marketing Matters. He is founder of the michael J group, a Fellow, American College of Healthcare Executives and a Professional Certified Marketer, American Marketing Association. Like me on facebook at the michael J group, and connect with me on LinkedIn, Twitter and Pheed.

How is the consumerization of healthcare changing your marketing?

As it stacks up in 2013, we will see monumental shifts in the healthcare landscape as healthcare organizations of all types seek ways to not only survive, but thrive. Technological and care delivery innovations, specialty pharmaceuticals, healthcare consumerism and reform are coming together to create the perfect storm. Hospitals who were once at the top of the food chain are now are the bottom swimming upstream to regain top position. Some will make and some won't.

My bet is with those healthcare organizations that recognize the role of the healthcare consumer in all of this and changes their marketing operation, message and resource allocation to engage the healthcare consumer will succeed.

It's a tough balancing act when you have never really had to market too or communicate with the healthcare consumer, aka the patient in meaningful human terms. Terms that grow your brand, build stronger customer connections and answers the question, what's in it for them to use you?

So why should this be on leaderships radar screen, as if they didn't have enough to worry about already?

I can give you five reason why:

1. Retail medicine; 2. Price competition; 3. Healthcare reform; 4.Consumer choice; 5. Social media

I am not going to go into the detail of these five reason, that's a post for another day. And you are all bright people who get it. But these five market shifts are changing how healthcare organizations will do business. And if your marketing is not changing, then what follows are the critical steps you need to take too leverage and move ahead to survive and thrive.

1. Market Research

Do the research on healthcare consumer behavior, what motivates them, how to communicate with them, how they make purchase decisions and price points they are willing to accept. Healthcare consumerism screams for market research. It's about the healthcare consumer, their needs, expectations, experience and engagement. And thinking you know about them is not the same as having the quantitative date that knows them.

2. Business Savvy

Make you healthcare marketing department business savvy. Out with the marketing communications focus, though you still need the marcom talent, in with an understanding of finance, project management, and operations so that the marketing leader can be transformational. Going from saying "we care and provide world-class care" to building brand, engagement and experience as well as measuring that change in real terms requires a deep understanding of the organization on many levels in order to be successful in the market.

3. Resource Commitment

Resource marketing appropriately. Marketing is not free in capital and human terms. And to compete with retail medicine and pricing competition, you are going to have to spend money. Money to engage the healthcare consumer in a meaningful way. Money to improve their experience. Money to build your brand. Money to increase awareness. Presence builds preference.

4. Agility

Be nimble. Be agile. Be quick. Keep repeating that over and over again. Healthcare marketing needs to move from the tried and true to the exceptional, the innovative, the engaged and the motivational. You can't reach the healthcare consumer on an emotional level to make the right choices, treatment and lifestyle decisions as well as purchase decisions in your favor unless you are sufficiently engaged. And purchase decisions in this case can mean not going out of your network for care.

5. Integration

Integrate your marketing plans deeply within the organization. The healthcare consumer is at the center of all that you do. Pay special attention to social media. Social media is not a billboard but an efficient and effective engagement strategy that enhances all the other marketing channels you use.

6. The multiplicity of markets

Remember that not everyone will be in an ACO or a patient medical home. Not everyone will have employer sponsored insurance. Some won't have health insurance of any kind. Not everyone will be in expanded Medicaid programs. Small business will decrease employees hours to not have too provide health insurance. Large employers will create the own exchanges or go to defined contributions and tell employees to go shopping. Oh, and Baby Boomers will demand the healthcare experience be delivered their way, on their terms, at their price. And retail medicine is here to stay and will expand. Tailor you marketing accordingly. One size does not fit all.

That light at the end of the tunnel is healthcare consumerism and a Walgreens ACO may be coming soon to a location near you.

Michael Krivich is an internationally followed healthcare marketing blogger with over 5,000 monthly pages views in over 52 countries worldwide on Healthcare Marketing Matters. He is founder of the michael J group, a healthcare marketing consultancy dedicated to creating value through strategic marketing for hospitals and health system regardless of payment mechanism, either fee-for-service or value-based to increase market-share, revenue , brand and demonstrate actual return on marketing investment. Michael is a Fellow, American College of Healthcare Executives and a Professional Certified Marketer, American Marketing Association. Like us on facebook at the michael J group.

Can gaming theory improve patient engagement and experience?

One of the great challenges in reform is the engagement of the patient in lasting and meaningful ways, as well as improvement in the patient experience. Uncharted territory really and the old ways of doing things just won't cut it. New market realities and the rising of healthcare consumerism demand new innovation and thought. Unfortunately there is little disruptive innovation in healthcare to meet those challenges.

Enter gaming theory.

Gamification is not a new topic in marketing. It's been out there for a long time and used successfully by businesses to attract, retain and build the loyalty of its customers to the brand. Okay, I can hear it now, "but we are healthcare taking care of people in complex and mysterious ways that they can never understand and this isn't a game". It's not a game, but how you engage the patient and improve the experience is closely related. And my opinion is that you can't do one without the other. Look at this through the eye glass of a new linkage between engagement and experience.

If your goal is to engage the healthcare consumer, aka the patient, to stay in network, to improve health, to be personally responsible for health, then gamification is the way to go. This isn't about creating negative disincentives that have been tried in the past and failed. Those: it will it will cost you more if you go out of network; you pay a penalty for non-compliance; it shortens your life kind of actions and messages if you don't do this. That has never worked in healthcare and never will.

The point is you have to create a healthcare consumer that is highly motivated to act or comply in a way that meets the goals of the healthcare organization to engage and improve the experience.

So how does this happen?

It starts with game mechanics. Game mechanics is really the actions, tactics, mechanisms and motivational elements used to create an engaging and compelling experience for the healthcare consumer. It's about how you design your engagement and experience strategies and tactics that keep the healthcare consumer engaged at all levels contributing to a positive experience.
In game dynamics you tap into the motivations that result as part of the game experience driving continued participation by the healthcare consumer. This statement assumes that you fully understand the motivations of the healthcare consumer. You can't have effective game dynamics unless you know what the motivates the healthcare consumer.

And this is where I start shouting because healthcare organizations are generally clueless about what motivates patients because they don't do the market research. The choice of gaming tactics is an important decision. If you don't know what motivates the healthcare consumer and how to trigger those motivations, then how pray tell, can you design the game mechanics? Do the research.

Put game mechanics and game dynamics together in the right way and you can engage the patient and improve the experience. It's very different and not easy at all. No easy answers here. All the easy answer are already taken.

Gamification is a very powerful tool in marketing and this is but a brief overview.

Think it won't work in healthcare? Think about that the next time you fly your favorite airline, go to a shoppers club or pull out your rewards card for something.

Guess what, you're playing their game and you didn't even know it.

Michael Krivich is an internationally followed healthcare marketing blogger with over 5,000 monthly pages views in over 52 countries worldwide on Healthcare Marketing Matters. He is founder of the michael J group, a healthcare marketing consultancy dedicated to creating value through strategic marketing for hospitals and health system regardless of payment mechanism, either fee-for-service or value-based to increase market-share, revenue , brand and demonstrate actual return on marketing investment. Michael is a Fellow, American College of Healthcare Executives and a Professional Certified Marketer, American Marketing Association. Like us on facebook at the michael J group.

How are you using technology to improve the patient experience?

The other day, I received a call from my PBM. Not being home, they left a message and return number. Now this is where it gets interesting. When I called the number I just didn't reach an individual in a call center, the line was answered with thank you Michael for calling us back. Really.

I called a return number expecting to be told all lines are busy and please wait for the next available person, or if you know the persons extension lease dial it now, right to a personalized greeting. Pretty slick and the start of a great patient experience. For me, that was an excellent example of how technology deployed and utilized leads to a better individualized patient experience. And this PBM has millions of members.

How are you keeping up with technological advances to allow you to customize and improve the patient experience?

Technology when applied creatively can be used to customize and improve the experience of an individual even when those patients number in the millions. When you look at your specialty pharmacy, hospital and nursing home or any other healthcare setting, which doesn't necessarily have millions of patients, why can't you do this?

The majority of patent experience improvement efforts are focused internally looking at the same systems, processes and outcomes time and again. Usually leading to incremental improvement, maybe a little less paper and a slight improvement in waiting times. But if you extend your patient experience improvement efforts to include technology focused solutions for improvements that can be customized for a more personalized experience, you may find that your efforts leap forward and patient's have the start of a better experience.

Personalize the kiosk messaging after an individual signs in.

Leaving a message for a return call, using similar technology for the return call and personalize the experience ala the PBM.

The physician is delayed or the surgery is late etc, send a text with the new approximate new appointment or test start time.

Using technology to improve the patient experience means being creative and adaptable. It also means changing the way you do business, your systems and processes.

These are just some examples. The patient experience just doesn't start when they walk into facility. It starts at first contact regardless of the where or how, be it you or the individual reaching out. Start using technology to your advantage.

The networked, technologically savvy patient has arrived and expects the same of you for a better experience.

Michael Krivich is an internationally followed healthcare marketing blogger with over 5,000 monthly pages views in over 52 countries worldwide on Healthcare Marketing Matters. He is founder of the michael J group, a healthcare marketing consultancy dedicated to creating value through strategic marketing for hospitals and health system regardless of payment mechanism, either fee-for-service or value-based to increase market-share, revenue , brand and demonstrate actual return on marketing investment. Michael is a Fellow, American College of Healthcare Executives and a Professional Certified Marketer, American Marketing Association. Like us on facebook at the michael J group.

Are You Improving the Physician Experience?

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 have a physicians order. No test. No surgery. No home health care. No specialty drug. No nothing.

What will bring you the greatest Return on Marketing Investment (ROMI)?

Running ads that tell consumers are how great you are because you just got an award? Or focusing considerable time, resources and energy on improving the physician experience across all your organizational touch-points? Highly satisfied physicians will see you as an efficient and efficient hospital, health system or specialty pharmacy for example, who allows them to do that they do best, practice medicine? As a side note, research is now showing the consumer doesn't believe the award ads anyway.

Its about their experience in admitting, treating and referring patients to your emergency room, hospital, pharmacy, surgical center or a home care agency to name a few of the providers docs deal with on a daily basis. How easy is it for them to practice medicine in your facility? How many complaints do they get from their patients about you? How do you lessen the hassle factor for them to do what they want? Namely, practice medicine.

More than your own perceived features and benefits.

Be ready to make changes in how you do things. When your physician liaison, account rep, or insert title here person comes back, and says he or she is finding obstacles that physicians are encountering in admitting or practicing medicine in your organization, be ready to make meaningful changes. If not, you're just wasting your time and money sending out people to a physician or multispecialty group.

Bottom line, successfully improving your physician experiences makes for more effective and efficient physicians. And the direct impact of that combined with effective practice management is lower cost, higher quality, profitable practices and opportunities for more effective marketing.

Did I mention more satisfied patients too?

Michael Krivich is an internationally followed healthcare marketing blogger with over 4,000 monthly pages views in over 52 countries worldwide. He is founder of the michael J group, a healthcare marketing consultancy dedicated to creating value through strategic marketing for hospitals and health system regardless of payment mechanism, either fee-for-service or value-based to increase market-share, revenue , brand and demonstrate actual return on marketing investment. Michael is a Fellow, American College of Healthcare Executives and a Professional Certified Marketer, American Marketing Association.

So, how do you market the employed physician?

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're just going to throw some ads out there with a picture of a nice smiling doc with copy written in the third person about how wonderful and compassionate he or she is, you can expect dismal marketing failure.

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 Patient Experience.

You need to communicate very strongly your brand and brand promise you are associating with the employed physician. Bring your brand to the forefront and brand the doc to you.  They represent your brand at an individual level. Capitalize on that opportunity and leverage.

Communicate the value that this physician brings to your community and the healthcare consumer. Communicate the value that the doctor brings to your brand. Stop talking at people, talk to them. Talk to them with compelling value driven reasoning why they should select that doctor, or even why they should even considering switching physicians.

Pay attention to the patient experience. How long is the patient waiting? is your web site easy to use. Can they schedule appointments online? How are they greeted? View the patient experience from beginning to end at ever touch-point along the continuum. Remember, a consumer is only a patient one-third of the time they interact with your physicians. Before care and after care, they are consumers, evaluating their experience with you at very touch-point that they come in contact. And just because you have high patient satisfaction results, that doesn't equate to a grand overall experience.

Stop wasting your money putting ads in papers that expect people to take action simply because the doctor is on your medical staff or in one of your buildings. That treats the healthcare consumer like they are idiots. They're not. They are demanding value and acknowledgement that they have a say in what's going on. If you won't meet their needs they will go somewhere else.

If you're not communicating value and what's in it for them for selecting your physicians, then you can put it in the bank that the healthcare consumer will pass on by and go where they perceive the value to be greatest for them in line with the price they are paying.

In the end, it's all about knowing what consumer/ patient needs are and delivering that in a convenient location at a price point that is affordable. If you think this is crazy, then why are the retail clinics taking you to lunch?

Michael Krivich is an internationally followed healthcare marketing blogger with over 4,000 monthly pages views in over 52 countries worldwide. He is founder of the michael J group, a healthcare marketing consultancy dedicated to creating value through strategic marketing for hospitals and health system regardless of payment mechanism, either fee-for-service or value-based to increase market-share, revenue , brand and demonstrate actual return on marketing investment. Michael is a Fellow, American College of Healthcare Executives and a Professional Certified Marketer, American Marketing Association.

Where is the patient experience and satisfaction in your healthcare marketing?

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 satisfaction with you.

Why is it important?

High levels of experience and satisfaction are a powerful differentiator on your market.

Done correctly, your experience improvement and satisfaction program becomes the ongoing Voice of the Customer (VoC) program to drive real organizational change.

It is a strategic and tactical edge for your brand and your marketing communication efforts.

Think customer evangelization.

Think of the power of a high-quality experience and exemplary satisfaction, and what that can do for your marketing campaigns. What it can do in your effort to differentiate.

The choice is yours. The marketing implications, strategies and tactics are clear. Lead or be left behind.

Are You Improving the Physician Experience to Increase Volume and Revenue?

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 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 quality-based. No matter, that you are employing physicians. If you want to grow volume and revenue, you need to change the physician experience with your healthcare organization.

Face it. Nothing happens unless you have a physicians order. No test. No surgery. No home health care. No specialty drug. No nothing.

To increase volume and revenue in this economy, where patients are putting off or delaying healthcare diagnosis and treatments, you need to break the mold. What will bring you the greatest Return on Marketing Investment (ROMI), running ads that tell consumers are how great you are because you just got an award? Which as a side note, research is now showing the consumer doesn't believe then anyway. Or, focusing considerable time, resources and energy on improving the physician experience across your entire organizational touch-points?

Its about their experience in admitting, treating and referring patients to your emergency room, hospital, pharmacy, surgical center or a home care agency, to name a few of the providers docs deal with on a daily basis. How easy is it for them to practice medicine in your facility? How many complaints do they get from their patients about you? How do you lessen the hassle factor for them to do what they want? Namely, practice medicine. Everyone is out there with the send to me, me, me, message.

More than your own perceived features and benefits.

Be ready to make changes in how you do things. When your physician liaison, account rep, or insert title here person comes back, and says he or she is finding obstacles that physicians are encountering in admitting or practicing medicine in your organization, be ready to make meaningful changes. If not, you're just wasting your time and money, sending out people to increase volume and revenue from a physician or multispecialty group. Nothing worse than over promising and under delivering.

And really, that's as far as I am going. If you don't know how to do this, then you need to hire me.

Do Your Employees Like Your Patients or Customers?

This may seem like a silly question to ask, or even to write about. But truth be told, beyond the customer or patient satisfaction numbers, chances are, your employees may not like your customers or patients all that much. I am not saying that your employees are treating customers and patients with open disdain or contempt. But, the lack of employee enthusiasm, concern and caring, communicated verbally and shown non-verbally in the workplace, with average to mediocre employee satisfaction surveys, may be a pretty good indication that your employees may not like your customers or patients a whole lot.

And that doesn't really help your efforts to improve the patient or customer experience.

When little differentiation exists to tell hospitals, doctors, specialty pharmacies, home health care and other providers apart, employees, liking their customers and patients, can set you apart from your competition. And with little opportunity existing now, and in the future, to differentiate yourself in your competitive healthcare vertical, success in experience improvement will only came when your employees like your customer, patients and you the employer.

Besides, they are your front-line brand ambassadors. The visual and emotional representation of your healthcare brand. And if they don't like your customers and patients, then what does that say about your brand?

This isn't rocket science. Employees are the best brand ambassadors that exist. They can do more to create customer and patient evangelists than you may even imagine. But, if they don't like you or your customers/patients, then creating brand evangelists will be even tougher.

Marketing has a role to play. And it's not just making things look pretty.

Marketing should be analyzing customer, patient and employee satisfaction data with HR to identify trends, challenges and opportunities for improvement.

Marketing should have a mystery shopper in place to document and feedback on employee interactions in three planes- live, on the phone and in social media.

Marketing should be involved in creating or purchasing that customer or patient service training programs.

Marketing should be working with HR or Talent Acquisition to develop that employee branding campaign.

Human Resources or Talent Acquisition as the case may be, has a lot on its plate in this too. But that is a topic for another day. It is also beyond the scope of this blog.

So if you want to strengthen your brand, become a market leader and succeed in your experience improvement efforts, then your employees are going to have to like you and your customers.

Can't have one without the other.