How are you retaining and engaging the healthcare consumer?

The financial stakes have never been higher as healthcare change steamrolls along. There is the growing and choice confident healthcare consumer demanding price and quality data. Reimbursement declines in Medicare and Medicaid continue unabated. Then there is the shift from fee-for-service to risk-based payments and new care models appearing nearly every day resulting in inpatient utilization declines.

And all of this has the greatest effect on how an organization engages and retains in network the healthcare consumer across a wide variety of touch–points, encounters and channels.

You know the old adage, it costs five times as much to find a new customer than to keep an existing one. 

It is truly a new day in healthcare.  Patients are becoming highly informed consumers making purchase decisions based on price and at some point will be utilizing quality data in that process.    

So what does that mean for the healthcare provider?  Without strong healthcare consumer engagement and retention strategies, the financial ramifications of losing the healthcare consumer to other providers and seeking care outside of the network can be ruinous.

This means that one needs to understand the healthcare consumer as never before, anticipating their needs by being proactive in establishing a meaningful relationship with a consistent stream of two-way communication.

It is an opportunity to reinforce your key brand promise and messages.

It's an opportunity to create customer evangelists for your healthcare organization, which through word-of-mouth marketing will bring additional healthcare consumers and revenue.

Here are five items one should consider for proactively retaining and engaging the healthcare consumer:

1.) Transparency and Quality dashboards.  This is about improving care, using best practices, learning and improving as a system to the individual level by engaging the patient.  A provider must be prepared to provide individual level utilization and quality patient reports, to engage the person in a meaningful way to create change in health behaviors, and foster appropriate utilization of services in the right setting.

2.) Voice of the Customer (VoC) program.  One has to be in constant contact and monitoring member attitudes, beliefs and reactions.  It's all part of the patient experience program and process. Engagement and retention strategies are all based upon the needs of the healthcare consumer, not the organization.

3.) Understanding the ongoing customer experience management program and process.  This isn't just about delivering an exceptional customer service at the point of care. You must identify all customer touch-points, from beginning contact to end point, and manage that experience across all of those touch-points. 

  

4.)  Developing comprehensive member communications that are transparent, meaningful and drive engagement customized to the individual level. This is really ongoing communications beyond health and wellness tips. They must also be delivered the way that the member wants them, be it on an Ipad, member web portal, email, hard copy, direct mail, telephonic etc.  One size does not fit all.

5.) Engaging the healthcare consumer through social media. Social media methods in engaging and retaining the healthcare consumer as a customer are nearly immediate and regardless of age group or demographic characteristic are growing exponentially.  Failure to include the social media channel in the organizational engagement and retention strategy is well, inexcusable.

With so much on the plate of healthcare leadership in trying to survive, healthcare consumer retention and engagement can appear at the bottom of the list. Going forward in the brave new world of healthcare consumerism, it’s one of the new critical essential business mandates whether one realizes it or not. To engage and retain is to survive and grow.

Happy Birthday to Healthcare Marketing Matters! On February 17, 2007, I started writing Healthcare Marketing Matters blog, and it hardly seems like HMM should be seven years old. But it is with hundreds of post and tens  of thousands of page views, here’s to the next seven years.  Thank you for reading, commenting and working so hard day-in and day-out to make healthcare marketing more strategic and visionary.  

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. 

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

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.