Are you prepared for a healthcare consumer centric market?

If you think because reform and the ACA that marketing is just an unnecessary expense, and you don’t need to invest resources, then you may be in for a rude awakening.

Healthcare is evolving from a provider-dominated market to a consumer-centric model and market. And that means how you have been marketing your healthcare organization won’t work in a semi-retail healthcare consumer-controlled market. 

Here are the five areas to focus on to survive the new reality:

1.       Brand. Your healthcare brand will take more of a front and center stage in the new healthcare environment.  It’s not just the logo or how displayed.  It’s now about what your brand stands for, your brand promise and how you deliver on that each and every day in every encounter. Do you even know what your brand promise is?

2.       Price Transparency.  Here it comes, and people are asking questions forcing you to become accountable.  And the answer is not silence, and hoping all the price noise will go away.  Long gone are the days of build it and they will come.  Also gone are the days when you could get way with talking about private rooms, internet access, or how you are such wonderful people because you care.  Patients, consumer’s, employers and others are demanding pricing information, and will be choosing based on price to limit their out-of-pocket expenses.  

 

      Quality is a nonissue. I say that because we as an industry have been shouting  without any measurable understandable proof for the healthcare consumer (beyond fancy award logos with no context around the content) that we have high quality. Okay says the healthcare consumer, quality is a nonissue since you all are the same because you say so, which means I can buy on price alone.

3.       Patient experience.  Still a top concern of senior leadership, patient experience across all touch-points needs to be improved. Not just the single clinical service un-integrated internal focus that most healthcare organizations take. Patient experience is about the totality of the experience, and only improving one aspect of that experience leaves you vulnerable in other areas. It’s also about market research in understanding ever detail and facet of that experience from the patient’s viewpoint, not yours. And that only comes from talking to your healthcare consumers.

4.       Patient engagement. Different than experience, engagement is about actually developing a meaningful relationship with your healthcare consumers to build loyalty, change health behaviors and keep them from going out of network in a risk-sharing arrangement like an ACO to receive care. How do you expect to engage patients when you still send information “To our neighbors at” direct mail?

5.       Outcomes Transparency. This is the only way that you can combat the price equation. People will pay more for higher quality, but it has to be proven. Outcomes transparency is the name of the game now.  It’s all out there already, becoming more available and easily understandable for the healthcare consumer every day. 

Repeat after me: Brand, outcomes, experience, engagement and price.  Miss on any of these and you’re an also ran in the market.

Well the fastpitch softball travel season is over. Last week (July 21-26, 2013) the 16U A Romeoville Starzz team that my daughter plays for participated in the USSSA 16U A Fastpitch World Series in Overland Park, KS. What a season for the Romeoville Starzz 16U A Fastpitch Softball team. Here are the final USSSA rankings for 2013: Region 3 (IL, IN, KY, MI, OH), 5th out of 150 teams; State of Illinois, 4th out of 60 teams; USSA Fastpitch World Series a top 20 finish at No. 17 of 62 teams. In the World Series we faced some of the nation’s top 10 teams and beat them or stayed close. Went 3-3-1 and the girls proved that they can play with anyone. Congratulations girls. Well done. Well done indeed.

Now back to the healthcare marketing story in progress.

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.

Can you leverage the hospital readmissions issue in your market?

Okay, before I start getting bombarded with the "how can you even think that you can use the readmission penalties being leveled against hospitals in marketing" statements, hear me out. Readmissions is a complicated issue that involves a lot more than the hospital stay. In some cases, it is the hospital and I have experienced it personally.

So, what does it mean to leverage the readmissions issue with your hospital good or bad in your market area? Two trains of thought here.

The first one is if you're getting the charged with a penalty and identified in the CMS list, then I suggest to you, instead of diving for under the desk and ignoring the issue hoping that the public won't pay attention, is a dreadfully wrong strategy. Ignoring it because people can't understand it, and its way to complicated to explain anyway.

You need to design a PR and marketing campaign that explains the readmissions issue in terms the healthcare consumer can understand.

People are paying attention and will assume that if you aren't talking about it then you're hiding something. So, leverage it and turn the tables. Show how you are becoming the market leader by attacking the complexities of the issue. Turn it from a hospital-focused issue to a healthcare delivery issue. Don't blame, lead.

Remember, if you have been touting those quality awards, and when this happens, the healthcare consumer will have some cognizance dissonance going on in their head. The two aren't mutually exclusive in the minds of consumers and are linked. Which really only reinforces their belief that those awards are meaningless, if you are being penalized because patients are being readmitted to your hospital in less than 30 days for what they were treated for in the first place. If you let that happen, shame on you.

The second thought is leveraging the issue by moving into the realm of outcomes transparency in your marketing and PR efforts.

I am not advocating in the least to link outcomes to readmissions. What I am saying that is if you have a very low readmissions rates, there are a lot of reasons for that and you need to be clear about why what you are doing is so different than everyone else. The healthcare consumer what's to know. Start talking about your outcomes, linkages in the community and support provided. It's called leading with a better way and informing the healthcare consumer.

It takes finesse to handle, but you have one very large opportunity to redefine the market and perceptions based on transparency.

Hospital senior leadership and Boards, can no longer take the road of silence. Healthcare has already changed too much and the healthcare consumer is demanding more. Old ways don't work, so you might as well get with the program and start leveraging opportunities as they present.

Readmissions PR and marketing is one of those opportunities and it's not going to be the last.

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.

How Do You Sell to Physicians?

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 that in mind, some basic rules of thumb apply:

1) Your sales people must be using a common sales strategy across the enterprise. I have seen too many organizations (hospitals mostly) where everybody's left to their own methods resulting in incorrect messaging and using poorly designed home-grown materials which could have some significant legal repercussions for the organization. Your sales force activities are about relationship selling and acting as the liaison for the physician to your organization. If you don't have a method and training, chances are you will not be as effective as your competition.

2) Use a sales database system to collect information and the marketing department needs to have full access. If your just starting to look at one, marketing needs to be at that table. Don't assume that sales or IT knows what marketing needs. They don't. Systems breed accountability on all sides of the ledger.

3) Create an interdisciplinary marketing and sales advisory committee. Where most organizations fall down is the poor communication and working relationships between sales and marketing. You have to get past the "the feet on the street" don't deliver the brand messages and promise in the right way, and all that marketing is good for is creating stuff, because I need more stuff to leave behind attitudes.

4) Train your marketing department in the sale approach that your sales people are using. This way marketing begins to understand the opportunities and challenges faced, and how your sales staff is trained to overcome them. This means that all marketing materials should be created to be applicable and useful at some point in the sales cycle. It's all about shortening the sales cycle. Effective materials will assist in that goal.

5) Let your marketing people go out on sales calls and major presentations. They can be a new set of eyes and ears as well as providing them with new perspectives on how difficult the job is. Insights from other areas will make you a stronger organization.

6) Cut down on the number of slide you use for presentations. An 80 page slide deck is all about you and nothing about your potential customer. If you have to use more than 10 slides, you don't know what you are talking about and don't understand your audience. Talking head are boring.

7) Have marketing attend you sales meetings and weekly funnel calls. It's about relationships and dialogue. Marketing should have a roll in explaining the organizational strategy, and what they are doing to generate meaningful leads for sales to follow-up on.

8) Joint marketing and sales goals and objectives should be established. Share in the pain and share in the gain.

9) Constantly evaluate and begin again.

As healthcare reform continues to be implemented and becomes more fully defined, the consolidation of healthcare providers will continue unabated. Physicians will play an exceedingly important role in the revenue opportunities for your organization. The physician is your partner. Ignore them at your own risk.

You can continue the conversation with me on:
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/krivich0707
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/mkrivich

For more information, or to discuss you marketing and sales integration needs, you can learn more at my web site the michael J group; email- michael@themichaeljgroup.com ; or phone by calling me 815-293-1471.