Healthcare Marketing Matters

Where is your market research in patient/customer experience management?

2012-02-03T09:43:00.000-06:00

Or, the dangers of viewing the customer-patient experience management process, thinking you know it all, it's easy to do, or only use patient satisfaction survey results.

And from the questions I get from healthcare professionals around the country, it became very clear that a key element is missing from most efforts at improving the patient experience.

Healthcare providers, aka hospitals for the most part, are not doing the required quantitative and qualitative market research on patient experience, attitudes, behaviors and expectations in their market place. They are assuming that because they read an article, go to a seminar that they know it all. They are only using patient satisfaction survey data, lean six sigma results and their previous quality improvement efforts. Few are actually talking to patients.

Had you been conducting market research on your customers-patients in the experience management process outside of internal patient interactions, you would be much better off. But unfortunately, most customer-patient experience management programs are focused on the 1/3rd of the encounter as a patient.

Where do you go from here?

It's important to view Customer-Patient Experience Management(CEM or PEM) in its totality, not as one service or clinical line experience. It may be for you, but to the healthcare customer-patient who experiences your organization across numerous touch-points, it's not. They aggregate all of it into one overall experience. You, as a healthcare provider, need to understand the expectations and experiences through quantitative and qualitative analysis. Then integrate that information and learning's into your efforts.

Part of the process of experience management, is actively managing customers-patients experiences to meet expectations and change their experiences, to drive revenue and market share. It's not all about the patient satisfaction numbers. CEM or PEM have definable and measurable financial outcomes. But you cannot achieve those revenue outcomes if you are not looking at experience management in its totality. And that means doing the necessary market research.

By not fully understanding your customer-patient in their totality, you are not successfully managing their experience or expectations.

The wave is here to use an oft quoted metaphor. Its consumer-directed not provider-directed healthcare. And the sooner you get it, that its not about you, but about the patient, and start looking at the customer experience in its totality, the better the chances of your survival in the coming years.

You don't have all the answers.

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

2012-01-26T12:18:00.000-06:00

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.

How are you marketing your healthcare services to retired Baby Boomer's?

2012-01-19T10:15:00.000-06:00

Heard an interesting statistic the other day, on a commercial no less. So for the discussion lets assume it's true. (Remember those FTC Truth-in-Advertising regulations?) That there are 10,000 people retiring every day. Kind of makes you stop and wonder, how do you reach out to a group that has changed every aspect of life and products as they moved through time? And I think that means that they won't necessarily need healthcare services, until the later years of their retirement. Or at the very least, wanting the ones you offer and the way you offer them today.

So instead of future happy days the docs are busy, the ER is bustling and the beds are filled, it may be more of asking where is everyone?

This group is healthier. Expects product and services to conform to their will and in the way they want them delivered. Expects an exceptional level of service and experience. Expects to be involved in the decision-making process. Values freedom, choices and uses mobile technologies. Does its homework and asks questions.

Which means, your healthcare marketing strategy and tactics probably needs to change.

That means the way you approach markets, the marketing channels you use, the way you communicate, your brand message, your value proposition, the patient experience, reporting on quality that is transparent and useful, as well as being able to listen to what healthcare consumers are telling you and responding accordingly. May even mean changing what healthcare services you offer.

With all the new payment models, combined with diagnostic and treatment alternatives to traditional hospital-based services, in more convenient and experience friendly settings, talking at people isn't doing your healthcare brand any favors. Especially when an aging population is used to choice and having it their way.

So as you think about your healthcare marketing challenges in 2012 and the years ahead, just remember that your audience is changing, expecting more and may even be using you less than at any other time in history.

Which also may mean, that healthcare marketing could be a significant piece of the puzzle that is missing from your business strategy.

After all, both my 89 year old Aunt's are on facebook and LinkedIn.

Is it time to tell consumers how they can afford your healthcare services?

2012-01-13T09:24:00.000-06:00

Two reports came out this week. One about the slow growth of healthcare costs. The other, that people are delaying treatment, not filling prescriptions, nor taking meds etc., for a variety of reasons. Some reasons for this include the economy, loss of employment and health insurance, more high deductible plans, employers moving to defined contribution and so on.

Volume is down. Revenue is down. Marketing scaled back in some cases, or increased, attempting to drive selection and utilization from people who just may not be that interested because simply, they can't afford it.

Don't take me wrong. You have to run marketing campaigns. The economy is slowly turning around and there is a lot of pent up healthcare demand. You have to maintain brand image and awareness. You have to maintain your position in the marketplace.

But, is messaging all the shiny new equipment and facilities, "best docs", awards etc., the way to entice selection, leading to volume and revenue increases?

I don't think so.

If your audience has no interest in you because they can't afford it, then maybe you need to adjust your messaging. Become creative in communicating how people can afford your healthcare services.

That doesn't mean advertising and campaigning that you have all these charity care programs, (it may help you with your State's Attorney General and legislatures hot buttons regarding hospital charity care expenditures) but by being creative and developing alternatives so that individuals can become your healthcare consumer.

Take a look at Walgreens, CVSCaremark and Rite Aid on how they are tackling this issue. Let's get past shall we, the "well, they are drug stores pushing pills so it's different" argument. The point is, is that they have seen the challenges in the marketplace that healthcare consumers are having. They have responded with affordable healthcare solutions. And it's not only pills, it's physical exams, some tests and vaccinations. Specialty pharmacies have answered the bell. So have pharmaceutical manufacturers and others.

As healthcare providers, you need to start messaging solutions to the healthcare consumers health issues. You need to change your focus and attention from the here we are doing great things, to here we are and this is how you can afford these great things. That means new programs, new services, all focused around convenience, assistance with the cost and affordability issues, coupled with real demonstrated quality.

If you want to stop "surviving" and grow revenue and volume, you have to provide affordable healthcare solutions. It's like the old marketing lesson and question about railroads. Are you in the railroad business or the transportation business? Same for hospitals and others. Are you in the hospital business, or the healthcare business? You can't say you're in the healthcare business and only message about the hospital etc.

Today's healthcare market demands that you understand the needs of your consumers and develop those services and programs that allow them to afford you.

Do it now and you will have a customer for life.

Where is the data to back up your ad claims?

2012-01-05T14:36:00.001-06:00

This isn't hypothetical anymore. For better or for worse, we, as a healthcare marketing professionals, continue to use terminology in our campaigns like best doctors, centered around you, university level healthcare, world class, highest care, etc., all in an effort to differentiate us from the guy down the street. Attempting to create the brand impression that we somehow we are different, without every really saying anything. Except for making a lot of claims.

So now, a savvy healthcare consume, grabs the ad, and walks into your faculty and says, "Show me". "Show me the data that proves the claims that you are making." "Show me the patient satisfaction scores." "Show me the data that proves you provide University level healthcare." "Show me how your outcomes are different from the guy down the street."

Healthcare is entering a new phase in 2012. A phase with the actual implementation of ACOs, Medicare and private. The Supreme Court ruling on the PPACA. Budget reductions and sure to follow Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement reductions. And that is just to name a few.

This also means that as a starter to attract patients, aka the healthcare consumer, you will need more than trite slogans or messaging that make you feel good in your marketing campaigns. You are going to have to talk about outcomes whether you like it or not. And that means having the data available to prove your claims.

Besides, just because you're a Not-for-Profit, doesn't mean that you are not subject to the same Truth-in-Advertising laws and regulations under the Federal Trade Commission like everyone else. And for far too long, many NFP healthcare organizations have gotten away with it.

With the Justice Department taking a more aggressive stance by looking more closely at healthcare mergers and affiliations, your advertising becomes a focal point.

So really, it's time to clean it up. Time to stop viewing healthcare marketing as advertising and making things look pretty. Time to move marketing from the basement to the C-Suite. You're not a cottage industry anymore.

To not do so, is taking financial, brand and image risks that are avoidable.

What will be your reaction to a consumer walking in your doors and holding up that ad and saying, "Show me"?

Welcome to 2012, the year when things really change.

Have You Made Your Healthcare Marketing Resolutions for 2012?

2011-12-27T11:10:00.000-06:00

New Year's Resolutions, for the most part, play an important role in most everyone's life. To lose weight. Live life more fully. Be a better husband, wife, or significant other etc. Value more what we have in our family and friends. And many more that I have missed. But have you ever considered New Year' Resolutions as a part of your business and managerial life?

So my last Healthcare Marketing Matters blog for 2012, is about New Year Marketing Resolutions. My own Top 10 list to get things started. What are yours?

10. Educate my organization about the value of my department and work. I will lead and prove my departments ROI.

9. Continue to scan other industries for their marketing successes. I will learn about them, adapt them to my industry, and implement successfully.

8. Expand my marketing education through webinars, seminars and conferences. There is always something new on the horizon to learn.

7. Integrate traditional, online and social marketing strategies. All are complementary to one another and drive multiple successes.

6. Innovate, discover the needs of my customers and drive consistent brand messaging.

5. Foster a spirit of and demand marketing excellence in my department. Good enough is not good enough. I owe nothing less to my organization and my customers.

4. Create brand zealots, and show what the brand promise, brand reputation and brand equity mean to my organization in revenue terms.

3. Stop using the words "unique", "state-of-the-art", and anything that is considered "buzz word" terminology in my marketing communications. Unique can be duplicated easily. State-of-the-art refers to yesterday's systems as things change so fast. Buzz words quickly fall out of favor.

2. Bridge the divide between sales and marketing and in doing so, together we will drive value, customer satisfaction and create customer evangelists all the while reaching new revenue heights.

1. Serve and be humble, for working in healthcare is a privilege, not a right.

Finally. I would like to thank everyone that read these posts over the past year. Your comments, suggestion and readership is very much appreciated. Healthcare Marketing Matters is now read monthly in 52 countries around the world. Maybe we aren't as different as we may all like to think when it comes to healthcare.

Happy New Year Everyone. Have a healthy, safe and prosperous year.

How Do You Handle a PR Crisis Communications Event?

2011-12-21T07:09:00.000-06:00

Sometimes, another organizations PR missteps, are an opportunity to learn how not to handle a PR crisis. Just ask the Chicago Bears, who historically have mishandled every PR crisis of the last 10 years, including the one the week of December 12. Yes that right, this one went on for a whole week, because they messed up right from the beginning.

Is your response to dive for under the desk? Do you send out poorly prepared underlings, to face reporters and the public? Does leadership, make proud pronouncements at the outset, that could come back to haunt you because at this point, you just don't know? Do you react as an arrogant organization with the, "How dare you question us response"? Do you think that it can never happen to you? Do you have a crisis communications plan in place?

Every healthcare organizations will face a PR crisis.

How you handle the communications, will determine the amount of brand damage, and length of time people remember. In this age of social media and the Internet, there is no, "We just need to wait 3 days to weather the storm", anymore.

Many times organizations respond with:
Lack of organizational understanding of the need to handle a situation as crisis communications;
Different, conflicting senior management messages;
Testy responses to questions;
Lack of preparation by speakers in understanding the seriousness of the communication;
Poor speaker body language;
No overriding organizational message;
Organizational arrogance;
Lost messaging opportunity ;
Appearance of blaming others;
The organization appearing not accountable;
The organization furthering to anger the media;
No response at all with the "it's just a three day story and will go away";
Sending out unprepared underlings to face the media;

Is it not true that any press is good press! Every day, someone somewhere faces a crisis communications issue which is handled poorly. Just look at the Chicago Bears for the past week. You need to learn from others and be prepared.

It's not hard, and should be part of your marketing strategy for 2012, as a separate communications plan. By following these planning guides, you can weather any storm, limit reputation, revenue and ultimately brand image damage.

Understand the nature of the situation;
Be transparent;
Be proactive in how you intend to address the situation;
Limit the amount of time senior leaders i.e. the CEO or president speak;
Make sure everyone has the same message and is on board;
Develop strong organizational messaging of care and concern;
Don’t scapegoat, blame others or give the appearance of blaming others;
Don’t tell people things will change when things are not changing;
Practice, practice, practice;
Bring in an outside PR firm for another viewpoint;
Understand that your reputation is built up over a long time and can be destroyed in a few short minutes;
Remember that it is not just a three day story;
Watch your body language;
Know your facts about past performance, reporters will be prepared;
Learn from others;
Each year engage in a day of media training for executives. Dealing with the media is a learned skill that the majority of executives do not have. It is not as easy as it looks.

Most importantly, engage the media all the time all year round. Why? Because, media relations is a year round activity. Not just when you have a problem. By establishing positive media relations with the good you do, you won't necessarily be cut any slack in a bad situation, but you will get the opportunity to tell your side. You won't if you don't have good media relations already in place.

Plan now for that crisis communications event, and you will better off as a prepared healthcare organization in 2012.

Will Healthcare Provider Debt Be The Next Financial Crisis?

2011-12-13T10:16:00.000-06:00

The other day, I asked the question about hospital and health system debt as being the next financial crisis on several groups on LinkedIn. The response has been a resounding thud. The reason for the question was based on an article in Crain's Chicago Business, Monday, December 5, 2011, "New hospitals building debt", by Kristen Schorsch. It really got me to start considering the broader hospital and healthcare debt question in general, as healthcare continues to change in such dynamic ways.

And I believe that the 800 pound gorilla in the room, locally and nationally, is hospital and other healthcare provider debt.

It is no longer just a question of having an individual AAA rating.

When you view the changes in the healthcare reimbursement from Medicare and Medicaid. Declining admissions. Changes in reimbursement from production-based to quality-based. Payers introducing pricing competition, though user-friendly tools, which allow healthcare consumers to compare price of tests procedures and surgeries, etc., and know their co-pays instantly. Payers and governments not paying for never events. No reimbursement for readmissions. Employers choosing defined contribution models, letting employees choose their plan, incentivizing employees for prescription adherence and wellness and introducing financial penalties for poor health behaviors. The emergence of retail healthcare, retail workplace clinics and insurance. Falling investment income. Declining Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement. It all makes for a very uncertain outlook for healthcare debt repayment.

The biggest change is, that many of these models are designed to keep people out of the hospital.

The hospital is really becoming the last setting for care delivery. Moving from the top of the food chain to the bottom.

And that is just the tip of the iceberg.

When you consider that there are over 600 specialty drugs in the pipeline that treat complex and chronic medical conditions, that will place further volume and revenue pressures on healthcare providers. Adherence to the drugs will keep individuals out of the hospital.

Infused or injected, these drugs can be administer in the home or in an ambulatory infusion center. And specialty pharmacies and infusion centers are popping up like weeds. They will take business from hospitals, health systems and others. They are already doing so.

What do you think would happen, if all the remote medical monitoring capabilities that NASA has developed for the space program and International Space Station, were available to the average person in their home?

Though the truly empowered and involved healthcare consumer is still a few years away, today, a savvy consumer, by spending a little time and effort, can find the lowest cost option for diagnostic testing and treatment. Potentially never setting a foot in a hospital or hospital-based outpatient service for care.

Most healthcare leadership are following the, this is what has worked in the past business development and planning rules. Build a new hospital or replacement hospital; add a new patient bed tower. Develop another clinical service line and so on. Instituting 25-30 key objectives to achieve in a strategic plan. Really?

While healthcare executives and professionals answer the question in a LinkedIn group about what the hospital of the future will look like, lost in the discussion, given the disruptive nature of all these changes, is whether or not the patients will even be available to fill the beds.

In my opinion, the next big financial crisis could be hospital debt.

Has healthcare become "to big to fail"?

What Are Your Customers, Patients, Doctors and Employees Saying?

2011-12-07T08:04:00.000-06:00

Customer Generated Media (CGM). It can be a great unknown. It can be helpful. It can be harmful. It can be your best friend, or your worse nightmare. It has the power to influence thousands, if not millions, in this mobile social media aware society we live in. CGM can make your brand the greatest on the earth. It can send you to the ash heap of history.

Anybody can blog.

Anybody can do a video.

Anybody can start a viral email campaign.

Anybody can create a facebook page.

Sorry to say this, but not everyone thinks you doing the great job that you think you are.

If your marketing department is not monitoring CGM and your customer experience from a brand perspective, then you and your specialty pharmacy, payer, hospital, physician practices, or any healthcare organization is at risk. People are not afraid any longer to say things publically.

It means that in the age of the Internet, disgruntled consumers and patients, unhappy employees, media, anybody, can opinionate about their experiences, post photos, interviews and show to the world how good or bad you are.

Anyone with a computer and Internet connection can create CGM. Doesn’t matter if what is written is true or false. The world doesn’t care. And those who read it will believe it.

Look at: Comcastmustdie.com; Ihatedell.net; Technorati.com; Youtube.com; MrConsumer.com, all examples of CGM. And it could be you tomorrow.

If you don’t know what your consumers are saying about you or your competition for that matter, you are losing control of your brand.

You operate in a virtual marketplace where consumers know more than about you than you realize.

You lose in a customer/patient driven fast-break. Disgruntled consumer creates Consumer Generated Media, and is picked up by mass media- print and electronic. You won’t even know what hit you.

Monitor CGM like you do your competitors and you can possibly prevent being a victim, limit potential damage and improve the customer patient experience in the process.

Welcome to the age where customers and patients are the new paparazzi.

Are You Ready for Patient Engagement in 2012?

2011-11-30T07:42:00.000-06:00

It has been a most interesting year of change for healthcare in 2011. Medical Homes, final regulations on ACOs, patient- centered or centric care focus, payment models beginning to move from production of care to payment for quality care and at least in some places, a growing understanding of the importance of healthcare marketing and branding. But, none of this will be successful unless you have an engaged patient.

In anticipation of still more change and continued progression to a fully reformed healthcare model, (regardless of what the Supreme Court of the United Sates rules), healthcare will never be the same. And it hinges in large part, on an engaged patient. Engaged in diagnosis and treatment. Engaged in wellness. Engaged in health plan selection. Engaged like they have never been before.

As you set your strategic marketing plans and tactical budgets for 2012, a key component is how you will begin to engage the patient, aka healthcare consumer. 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 nine strategies you need to employ:

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. Personalized, customized, aware of the cultural heritage and influences tailored to them.

3. 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, especially if you are forming an ACO or employing physicians. You need to feed the beast. 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 who you are speaking too. This is really back-to-basics CRM understanding. 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. Test and measure. This is no time to be reactive. You have to know how to approach patients and engage them, You don't have the answers. The only way to can figure out if it's working is to test and measure in a very methodical way.

7. Fast Failure. We live in a world of technology and you need to run a multifaceted, highly integrated campaign. With web, text messaging, mobile messaging, QR codes etc, if you structure it appropriately, and this is a big and, you are testing and measuring, you will know if it's working or not. If your marketing model is not working, get out. Get out quickly and allocate those resources elsewhere. Failure is successful because you learn from it. Fail fast.

8. Know the influence of the patients 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.

9. 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.

You are moving patients from passive healthcare participants to active healthcare participants. That's why you engage them. Time to get started.

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

2011-11-22T12:06:00.000-06:00

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.

Will There be Brand Conflict Between Traditional Healthcare Organizations and an ACO?

2011-11-16T08:10:00.001-06:00

Have you considered the question of your brand, or brands, the ACO brand you may create, or as an ACO participant? This is really a much more important question than you may think. For some healthcare organizations, it won't be, as they have a highly developed brand architecture and strategy. For others, that haven't been paying as much attention to their brand architecture and strategy, it will.

I would surmise that large healthcare systems and payers will be ahead of the branding game, and able to seamlessly create and launch an ACO under their current brand umbrella. I think the brand challenge for healthcare systems, will be when they have to contract for services outside of their traditional system.

In those organizations that have more brands under the sun than stars in the galaxy, it will be a challenge supreme. That is what happens when there is no clear marketing leadership in most of these healthcare organizations. If you did the brand market research as well, you would probably find in these organizations, no clear brand recognition and brand confusion in the marketplace.

Creating a brand for your ACO or participation isn't just throwing a name and logo up. Some items you need to consider:

How does the ACO fit into the brand architecture of the organizations?

What will be the ACO brand impact on the existing organization? If you are reducing cost, providing higher quality medical services and better outcomes, you need to consider that impact on other populations served not in the ACO. If they are not recipients of all these ACO benefits in their care, regardless of payment model, you are in for a world of hurt.

Does your brand promise for the ACO fit in with the brand promise for the traditional healthcare organization, outside of the ACO?

Are you a house of brands, needing to create and implement a brand architecture, fixing all those service and clinical program line brands?

What are the resources you have committed to creating the ACO brand, its brand promise, brand value and brand awareness?

Did you consider the need for market research to fully understand you current brand position and how the ACO will make an impact on existing brands? Did you budget for that expense?

Are you ready for the expense of fixing you multiple brands, creating a clear, definable brand architecture and strategy?

Will you create and implement organizationally, a brand manual that everyone is accountable to follow?

Will senior management support marketing in being the "brand police"?

This list isn't all inclusive. But, you have to start somewhere. Sooner rather than later.

On another note, Healthcare Marketing Matters is now read monthly in 49 countries. With some of the request for information and comments I receive, the U.S.A. doesn't have sole ownership of cost and quality issues. Others around the world are facing the same things more or less. And from what I can tell, have been far more successful than us.

Medepage (you can find a link in my notable sites), is an Australian- based international healthcare job search site, has added a blog feed from Healthcare Marketing Matters to its site. Thank you Tony!

With the upcoming Thanksgiving Holiday next week in the U.S., I am not sure if there will be another post. The kids are off high school and the wife took off a couple of days. So maybe it's time to step back and recharge for a few days.

Thanks for reading

How Will You Market Your ACO Solution?

2011-11-09T08:47:00.001-06:00

Now that the final rules for ACOs have been released by CMS, it seems that there is more positive interest in the ACO model first proposed under PPACA. The basic premise remains the same, to engage the patient, aka the healthcare consumer, in the care and treatment decision making process. Medicare ACOs remain open networks, meaning that members can go outside the ACO for service.

The marketing challenge before you is to attract members to your ACO, engage and retain them.

You must be prepared to deliver an individualized experience that meets the needs of that patient. A mass customization, of your patient experience process, down to the individual level. One size does not fit all.

In entering the brave new world of ACOs, here are some things that you need to consider for marketing:

1.) Clear and easily stated Value Proposition. Not a mission statement, this is crucial for communications and focusing the message to members, employers, payers, government and community. Not flowery or full of jargon. It's your elevator speech that can be delivered in 30 seconds about your ACO, what you do and the value it brings. Twenty-five words max.

2.) Transparency and Quality dashboards. This is about improving care, using best practices, learning and improving as a system to the individual level, and by engaging the patient. If you do not plan to report back on at least a quarterly basis to your audiences, you will not be successful. You must be prepared to provide individual level utilization and quality patient reports, to engage the person in a meaningful way, to create change health behaviors, foster appropriate utilization of services and reduce costs.

3.) Voice of the Customer (VoC) program. You gave to be in constant contact and monitoring member attitudes, beliefs and reactions to you. VoC. It's all part of the patient experience program and process. These are open networks, if you are not fully and completely customer focused, trouble will ensue and it won't be pretty,

4) Ongoing customer experience management program and process. This isn't just about delivering a exceptional customer service at the point of care. You must identify all customer touch-points, from beginning contact to end point, and mange that experience across all of those touch-points. Here is what a customer experience program looks like:

5.) Highly integrated marketing plans. You will need to integrate your messaging like never before across the traditional, online, mobile and social media platforms. You can't afford not too. You also need a presence in all platforms. One that is sustainable over time through dedicated marketing resource allocation. One shot ads won't work; develop sustainable, integrated campaigns.

6) Comprehensive member communications. Ongoing communications beyond health and wellness tips. Communications that are individualized, engage the patient and are meaningful. They must also be delivered the way that the member wants them, be it on an Ipad, member web portal, email, hard copy etc. One size does not fit all.

7.) White pares and case studies. This is about transparency and quality that is data driven. It's about accountability to your members, payers, employers and physicians. Medical device, pharma and specialty pharmacies have been engaged in white papers and case studies driven by data for years. And it works. But, it will make you uncomfortable if you have never engaged in this type of activity and communication vehicle .

8) Marketing leadership. Marketing especially in most, not all hospitals and health systems, needs to move from the basement and take its seat at the senior management table, reporting directly to the CEO. Marketing now needs to be seen in hospitals and health systems as a defined, accountable strategy , that is fully integrated into the business plan. That doesn't happen if marketing is not present and engaged in the discussions at the highest possible level.

9.)Return on Marketing Investment (ROMI). In an ACO, there is just no doing things because someone wants them. Every action must be measureable against a defined goal and objective. Every action must have a call to action. Every action must evaluated against a predetermined ROMI. If you are not held accountable and your activities are not measured, then how will you know you were effective and produced result?. What gets measured get done.

10.) Marketing automation systems. Need I say more. Marketing needs these systems to understand markets, track activities and campaigns, as well as produce various marketing reports and dashboards. This really in concept, is no different than financial reporting, clinical reporting, quality reporting systems etc. Capital budgets will have to be allocated to marketing in order to automate marketing functions and planning.

11.) Marketing staff evaluation. This is probably the hardest activity, but few have the level of staff with the expertise and capability, to operate in an ACO environment. You don't know, what you don't know. Clayton Christensen understands and says, " ACOs are a disruptive business model and they must compete for consumers. Providers that are not accountable and transparent will lose, and those that meet patient needs and improve care will win." Your marketing staffing, organizational structures and resources will be to be changed and adjusted in order to meet new market conditions.

Is there more? Yes. But you have to start somewhere. Marketing can't be just an after-thought. Too much is at stake.

Have You Listened to Your Automated Voice Answering Attendant Recently?

2011-11-01T10:51:00.000-05:00

How often do you call in from an outside landline or cell phone, to your organization too experience what a customer does when calling? This isn't such a strange question. We all go through the evaluation process, seek the system we believe will reduce our cost, improve response and service, which will hopefully result in less dropped calls, increase customer or patient satisfaction and revenue.

But you know, sometimes we make the system so complicated, that we forget why someone calls us.

For this I have coined Mike's Law: "The smaller the organization, easier to use is the automated answering solution. The larger the organization, the more complex and harder the automated answering solution is to navigate." Use is very different than navigate. One implies simplicity, the other complexity.

Let me give you a couple of examples.

In calling a local hospital when a family member was hospitalized, it was really very straight forward. Dial in, hear the message, dial the extension or room number if you know it, or wait for an attendant to come on the line and assist.

I have found that most of the time you can short circuit the whole thing and just dial 0, get to the live person, and to where you need to be.

Then there is the most complicated system, integrating your existing customer data into the call, because you are a current customer. Then it plays what seems the game of 20 questions, tries to push you entirely to an automated solution to solve your problem, that could be resolved in less than 60 seconds if you could get to a live person.

When you keep trying to get to a live person, that systems automated response, keeps attempting to push you to an automated solution. Even when, I indicated every way that I could, three times (yes three separate calls), that I wanted to talk to a service representative before hanging up. The best part of the encounters was the "voice" telling me, "I can't help you, goodbye".

It was like being in a Monty Python episode.

From a marketing standpoint, your automated answering attendant is an integral touch-point in the customer experience chain. It may even be the first experience that someone has with your organization. But, how many times has marketing been included in selecting the automated answering attendant, beyond, writing the copy for the greeting, options menu and submenus?

Marketing should be involved in nearly every decision you make that effects your customers and patients from an customer/patient experience standpoint.

It's seemingly the rare organization that considers the experience and needs of customers in selecting the system. Its more based on what the needs of the organization and solutions to cost and headcount issues, than what will make the customer experience exceptional.

The moral of the story.

Consider the customer experience and the impact both positive and negative, that your automated answering system will have on a caller. You have a clear choice. You can make a customer evangelist with a great experience, or create a customer with a negative experience and view of your company, no matter what good you have done, simply because, you couldn't answer the phone.

After all, that old land-line technology, which even cell phone users will access is get to you, usually is the start of a positive or negative customer/patient experience.

Which one do you want?

How do You Market Healthcare IT Solutions?

2011-10-26T09:00:00.001-05:00

Having worked on marketing in the hospital, healthcare group purchasing and IT vendor side in Radiology Information System, (RIS), Picture Archiving Communication System (PACS) and Electronic Medical Record (EMR), the marketing challenges of selling into two spaces simultaneously, against a bevy of competition, seems to be increasing exponentially.

Just an observation, but everyone may be starting to look the same. It's easy to lose that differentiation every company craves, when selling similar products and services . In respect to all, the Healthcare IT space is beginning to look a little commoditized with a lot of product sameness.

So why is this happening? Lots of reasons. Let's take a short look at some common marketing techniques and what could be done to break the log jam. Less is more.

Key Messages

Leading provider, reducing cost, improving quality, reducing medical errors, innovative, next generation, improving productivity and efficiency, easy to use, interoperability with all systems, IHE, user groups that deliver real information, increasing satisfaction for the physician, C-suite and patients are key messages everyone is using. What is wrong with this picture? The pun is intended!

Sales and Marketing Integration

Marketing and sales really need to be more highly integrated than they are. It is much more than sales saying "marketing makes things look pretty", or marketing saying "if the feet on the street sold it the way we tell them it would work".

There needs to be a sales and marketing advisory committee, that is set up with sales reps from the various regions. Agenda driven, these weekly calls discuss what going on is sales, issues in the marketplace, what they are hearing about competitors and feedback on how the sales tools are being used. Marketing should be listening, understanding and discussing what is coming up. The sales force should be soliciting comments from the larger sales team and carrying information back.

Marketing should also be on the weekly sales funnel calls. Joint goals and objectives should be developed for sales and marketing collaboration. Share in the gain share in the pain. Marketing should also be going on sales calls and have access to trip reports in the Sales IT system. And, marketing staff should be trained in the sales methodology that is currently being used.

Case Studies

Case studies are important, and I would think everyone agrees on that point. Maybe however, our audiences suffer from information overload. The observation is that those documents are way too long. Sometimes, it seem like we get paid by the word, or we are so enthralled by our own system prowess, that we must write in excruciating detail. If I have learned anything about case studies and white papers for physicians and the C-Suite, it's two pages tops. And even that needs white space. Organize as follows; Background , Solution, Outcomes. And yes they can be written in two pages or less. Just because they are shorter doesn't mean you're treating your audience like an idiot. They most likely will appreciate the brevity.

Also, if you keep them shorter you can use them as the basis for email campaigns. But that too requires creativity. Use a video spokesperson to introduce the white paper or case study, to drive the audience to your web site. Its electronic and can be done for $15,000 or less, including email list procurement.

White Papers

White papers it is believed, add a measure of thought leadership to your space. They do, provided you are putting them out on a regular basis and (this is the important part), are more than you writing about what you know about. White Papers need to be used as mechanism for thought-leadership, not simply writing what you know about. To be a thought leader in your field, you need to write like a "thought- leader". That means taking on topics you may not feel so comfortable about. It may mean becoming a visionary and projecting out where an industry may be going. To be seen as a thought-leader, you must generate though-leading content.

For example, those vendors who operate in the international space, think of the lessons you have learned in single payer government sponsored healthcare systems, or in Europe where there is a mix of payers where everyone has health coverage. How do those lessons translate into the transformation of the American healthcare system? That is thought leadership.

Association Meetings and Trade Shows

Exhibits are what they are. But adding workshops, presentations and discussions on the booth are a must have. You are the focal point with the doctor, hospital, whomever is playing a supportive testimonial role. Yes, you do have a role as a presenter but this is the soft sell and credibility established as a the content expert, as well as showing you understand the pain and can make it go away. Consider being a major sponsor as well to access key decision makers one-on-one. Sales must have pre-established appointments on the booth. No appointments, no go. Immediate lead generation and follow-up on every booth visitor is another must.

Webinars

Needed, yes. However it seems that most people are still in the 9-5 mentality. Most physicians and professionals I know, are usually working in their office or the hospital. So why not have these webinars in the evening or early morning before they start reviewing x-rays? If they are not reading x-rays then they are not making money. Don't infringe on that valuable time. Be more responsive. For the C-suite, lunch time is usually good for them scheduled later in the week rather than early in the week or the middle.

Internet usage

Interactive, interactive, interactive. Readers neither have the patience nor the desire to have to read the fine print to see what they want. Make sure your site is user friendly and designed for mobile access. Use video messaging. Don't forget about facebook, twitter, LinkedIn, Plaxo, blogs, YouTube etc. Your audience is out there. Messages delivered across multiple channels are more effective then a one size fits all approach. Build a following. Have apps for your site. Use QR codes linked to account executives, white papers, case study or web site as suggestions.

Customer Evangelists

Got to have them. If your hospitals, doctors and others won't stand up for you, then you have a problem. You're just another vendor who can be replaced. Testimonials, implementation success stories, outcomes, data transparency, anything that show others are passionate about your product. Third party conferred credibility is a powerful medium and message. Don't lose sight of it. Find them and leverage.

And rankings do matter. KLAS is important. Add in ECRI and Hayes as well. Tie them all together if you can for your products with customer evangelist testimonials.

Media Relations

More than just press releases, this is the down and dirty of getting coverage. Major stories in targeted publications will do more for you than any advertisement, banner ad, webinar etc. people do believe what they read. You need a steady stream of news and information. Be proactive, build press relationships. Use the Business Wire. Target your messages for the specific press you are trying to attract. Build your news around current events in healthcare. Don't be afraid to issue a statement on your position on a topic of importance. Be seem as a content expert so that when news develops around the industry you're in, you become the go-to organization for the quote. it confers strong expert credibility for you and your companies solution products. Copies of articles can be used a leave behinds and in campaigns. Can't buy that kind of coverage and credibility. Build more than a press page- build a bio of the senior team and a speakers bureau for conference, seminars etc. If you are not out in the market presenting, then you are not being seen. Presence builds preference.

I have gone on long enough and probably too long for that matter. But from what I have seen in the segment of the healthcare industry, everybody is starting to look the same.

If you're not the lead dog, the view never changes.

Do Your Employees Like Your Patients or Customers?

2011-10-19T08:04:00.000-05:00

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.

Has Healthcare Marketing Failed to Articulate Value?

2011-10-12T07:51:00.002-05:00

On Monday, October 10, 2011, Deloitte released their latest Issue Brief, The Public View of Health Care Reform. I would also recommend highly that you read the 2011 Survey of Health Care Consumers in the United States.

Anyhow two items caught my attention from the Public View report out of many. The first is that and I quote: "Consumers perceive a complex, wasteful system sensing a lack of value for what is spent". "Consumers are critical of the U.S. health care system performance: 22 percent give it a favorable report card grade of "A" or "B" while 36 percent of consumers give it a grade of "D" or "F". In the second report, 2011 Survey of Health Care Consumers: " Satisfaction with U.S. health care system is low. 8 in 10 consumers see no system improvement and 3 in 4 believe other countries' systems are better. "

When you look at these consumer perceptions, one realizes very quickly that healthcare organizations are unable to articulate value. All that time, energy, resources and creativity spent to communicate that you are a quality healthcare provider has failed.

Why?

It is simple really, healthcare organizations have never talked about value. Never defined their brand in terms of what is the value, of what you do for the consumer. Much healthcare marketing communication is about you having "best" physicians in the region, or great high-tech equipment, we care and pictures of shinny new rooms and buildings. My favorites include "spa-like atmosphere", "world-class" and "unique".

Anyone wonder, why the giggle factor goes way up for consumers when they see this nonsense? They don't believe it, and it doesn't mesh with their experience. It may make you feel good and your Board happy, but at the end-of-the-day, it's not working.

What you are is doing is damaging your brand.

Sooner rather than later, you are going to have to articulate your messaging around the value that your brand brings the consumer. You can't run away or hide from it anymore. If you're not messaging brand value, then you are not being heard in the market. Sometimes, the reality of what you believe to be true, clashes with what the consumer wants from you. If you were doing your market research, you would have known this.

At some point, healthcare organization will have to develop strong value propositions. And communicate those brand value propositions to consumer. Communicating in meaningful ways about value that refrains from insulting the consumer with simplistic, self-centered messaging, that only increases the giggle factor in your market.

If you don't, that sound you hear, are the 40 percent of people in your market (Deloitte, 2011 Survey of Health Care Consumers in the United States), that would leave for what they perceive are better healthcare services starting their cars.

How Integrated is Marketing Into Your Organization?

2011-10-05T07:46:00.000-05:00

In a day and age, when consumers are bombarded from all directions and media for attention, it would seem, that marketing should play a more important role your internal organization and culture, than it may appear. No intent is made to downgrade your activities and internal communications about what marketing is accomplishing. But rather, asking a thoughtful question to consider.

Is marketing at the table then the Finance Department is staring to develop the annual financial plan and budget assumptions?

Is marketing at the table when the yearly business plan is in the initial stages of development?

Is marketing at the table when the product managers are deciding new product enhancements, new products, features and benefits?

Is marketing at the table when Human Resources is putting its headcount budget together and recruitment strategies?

Is marketing at the table when the annual sales plan is developed?

Not simply yes or no.

I think it is more a question of perception and opportunity, than what is right or wrong. But it seems to me, with so many avenues for consumers to learn about, and experience you, a marketing operation that is highly integrated into the organization and its culture, will find more success, brand awareness, market strength and revenue, compared to those companies where that's not the case.

Think of the power of a highly focused organization where marketing is fully integrated into most, if not all decision-making and planning? Employees become your strongest brand advocate through their engagement and contact with customers. Products and services are developed with enhancements that consumers want, not what someone thinks are needed. Growth plans based on market trends and developments, that have you meeting market demand and creating new markets, instead of adjusting your products and services to meet the financial plan revenue and return targets, forcing consumers into what you want.

Seems backwards to me, but that is U.S. business when compared to many other parts of the world, where it starts with the customer first and plans are developed and executed from there.

The world is so interconnected, that companies can no longer afford to have planning and decision-making processes that do not include marketing. That is more than an employee newsletter. Or sending out some update emails, displaying the new ad campaign or holding organizational meetings to explain what marketing is doing,

It is really about fostering and growing a marketing culture in the organization, where everyone has a stake in the outcome. That starts with leadership and a champions voice in the organization, C-suite and Board leadership that no longer accepts the status quo. This is about organizational change and the willingness to be not just successful, but a highly successful market leader. Without that, then a marketing focused organization is not possible.

Remember, if you're not the lead dog, the view never changes.

You can find me on:
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/krivich0707
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/mkrivich
Web site: http://www.themichaeljgroup.com

If you are interested in exceptional strategic marketing consulting, you can reach me through my web site the michael J group; email- michael@themichaeljgroup.com; or phone, by calling me at 815-293-1471.

How Integrated is Your Marketing With Communications?

2011-09-27T10:55:00.000-05:00

How much more effective would your marketing campaigns in traditional, online, social, mobile and Public/Media relations be, if you made a conscious effort to frame your messaging in your communications campaigns around the main brand and key messages you use in your marketing campaigns?

More often than not, brand messages in healthcare communications sometimes lack the level of integration and planning needed across vehicles and channels. Little, if any attention, is given to using communications as a strategic and integrative vehicle in the overall marketing effort. With so many different marketing activities and channels required to cut through the clutter, in order to leverage your key messages, you can no longer afford to not have your communications highly integrated with marketing.

Is that lack of integration a missed opportunity?

We are expected by our audiences to advertise, write white papers, create case studies, write impactful sales materials, partner with leading market research organizations to present "groundbreaking" topical surveys and results, as well as produce other materials.

People see, read and hopefully the key messages resonate, advancing the brand, generating sales leads, or in some cases, bring a sense of accomplishment to internal audiences, because in the end, all of these materials are "about us". Activity measurement as opposed to outcomes measurement.

Integrated communications can provide you with a continuous brand presence in the market that you cannot afford through paid efforts. It can successfully build positive impressions and solid opinions which after a while, will come to be believed about your organization.

If you are not integrating your brand messaging into your communication efforts internally and externally, your losing the opportunity of a lifetime, and potentially your markets.

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

For more information, or to discuss your strategic healthcare marketing, customer experience management, marketing/sales integration or start-up needs, you can learn more at my web site the michael J group; email- michael@themichaeljgroup.com; or phone by calling me at 815-293-1471.

Can Transparency on Outcomes and Quality, Increase Volume, Revenue and Market Share?

2011-09-21T07:54:00.000-05:00

Tough economy and getting worse. Hospital volume, scripts and specialty drug orders, flat or down. Little differentiation among competitors in many healthcare verticals. New proposed cuts in Medicare and Medicaid spending. High unemployment with no end in sight. Political gridlock. Healthcare payment models evolving from production payment focused on care delivered, to pay-for-performance based on quality outcomes. Price competition. And finally, a growing empowered healthcare consumer, taking control and playing an active part in the healthcare decision-making process.

With all this transpiring, most are taking the same past course of marketing action. Advertise services by making claims of world-class service. "Me too" messaging, attempting to driving volume because we focus all of our efforts and resources around you. (Isn't that what you are supposed to do anyway?) Sales forces all focusing on the same a therapy or drug class in specialty pharmacy which, in most cases, is the same as the specialty pharmacy down the street.

But nearly everyone, is missing the most important piece of the puzzle to generate demand, revenue and market share.

Where is the outcomes and quality data?

One area that is greatly lacking in most healthcare marketing, is an intelligent dialogue on your outcomes with your audiences. Payors', pharma and medical device, have recognized this and are leading in the use of quality and outcomes data to drive decision-making. It is time for the rest of the healthcare industry to catch up.

And in my experience, it works. Driving demand, volume, revenue and market share.

I maintain that even in this economy, there are healthcare dollars out there. Healthcare consumers willing to spend those dollars, if only that had a compelling reason to do so. With all other marketing avenues exhausted, healthcare executives weary from being in "survival mode" and facing new revenue pressures, one would think healthcare marketing would be able to answer some of these challenges.

Maybe it's time to give the healthcare consumer be it employer, individual or family, or any other stakeholder you can identify, quality and outcomes data to make decisions?

That's really the only avenue left for healthcare providers, to start talking about quality and outcomes. Engaging in a meaningful dialogue, that goes beyond accreditation logos and quality awards from third parties, to an actual honest-to-goodness quality and outcomes disclosure and discussion.

Few healthcare providers are willing. Most are afraid of this direction. But, it's a strategy and tactic that can break the current cycle of avoidance and loss. Leadership. Courage. The ability to be visionary. Recognizing that your customers, are best served by the healthcare organization that places them first in a meaningful way.

You have some choices here. Stay the course and do what you have been doing. Get lost in an endless paralysis by analysis loop. Mimic your competitors. Talk about quality and outcomes in vague terms. Or, be the first in your market, to establish a clear strategic marketing plan, focused on your healthcare consumers, about your brand in terms of quality and outcomes.

Sooner or later, you are going to have to do this.

If you are not willing to change, then don't expect a different outcome from doing the same old healthcare marketing that you have been.

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

For more information, or to discuss your strategic healthcare marketing, customer experience management, marketing/sales integration or start-up needs, you can learn more at my web site the michael J group; email- michael@themichaeljgroup.com; or phone by calling me at 815-293-1471.

Are You Using Your Patient Educational Materials in Your Marketing Efforts?

2011-09-15T08:09:00.000-05:00

When you consider all the time, resources and effort spent, in developing patient educational materials, by specialty pharmacies along the therapies of RA, MS, HIV/AIDS, Oncology and Transplant, payers, PBMs, pharmaceutical manufactures, disease-specific associations and hospitals, one would surmise that an opportunity exists, to use them in broader channel marketing efforts.

Pharma and disease-specific associations have great and innovative marketing programs around patient education. After that, specialty pharmacy's, PBMs, and hospitals, not so much. I think that their use in marketing campaigns will depend greatly on the quality of the materials. And in some cases, they are pretty poorly written and designed. Sometimes lacking all together.

But are all healthcare segments, especially specialty pharmacies, missing an opportunity to truly differentiate themselves in a lookalike marketplace?

I know. We all think we are the best at what we do, offering considerable expertise, advice and education to improve the health, compliance, adherence and healthcare IQ quotient of our patients. Is that really the case, or, is it just to show payers that you are engaged in direct patient education, supplementing the investment in out-bound call center infrastructure, using computer based clinical information systems, etc.

Patient education is a great medium to reinforce your brand, your brand promise and create customer evangelists. But that of course assumes, that you are doing original work in patient education. And not, just throwing together one-page disease information sheets, or using information from associations or pharma. Just because you throw some patient education materials in a med box, pass them out at a health and wellness fair, or use another other channel for distribution, doesn't mean that you are accomplishing anything. Other than your materials possibly reaching the recycle bin.

This is by no means a knock on any association or pharma materials, for they are great sources of information and advice. They just lack an organizational imprint of who you are, your brand and brand promise, to be able to showcase the breadth and depth of your knowledge and expertise. And that imprint doesn't mean putting your logo on the materials.

Besides the pervasive fear of competitors seeing what you are doing, patient education materials need to be on your web site, in easily accessible and downloadable formats. You can use QR codes in your mobile marketing, that take individuals to the patient education section. Reference them in your communications programs. Build a marketing strategy around them to differentiate you from other providers.

Be the first and everyone else looks like a "me too".

Sometimes, the simplest marketing strategy is the one that creates customer evangelists, improves health and well-being and positions you as a leader in your healthcare vertical.

Don't discount the importance of patient educational materials in your marketing and what they can do for you.

You can continue the conversation with me on:

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/krivich0707
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/mkrivich
Web site: http://www.themichaeljgroup.com

For more information, or to discuss your strategic healthcare marketing, customer experience management, marketing/sales integration or start-up needs, you can learn more at my web site the michael J group; email- michael@themichaeljgroup.com; or phone by calling me at 815-293-1471.

Are You Engaged in Disruptive Healthcare Marketing?

2011-09-07T08:09:00.000-05:00

This is not about guerilla marketing. I am writing about engaging in what I call Disruptive Healthcare Marketing (DHM). DHM is a process that moves you from looking like a "me too" in your healthcare marketing, to forcing competitors into changing their game, reacting to you.

If for the sake of argument, you can agree that there is little meaningful differentiation, healthcare is becoming a commodity, price competition is beginning, and the healthcare consumer is becoming more empowered and taking control, then why would you continue to market the same old ways and play follow the leader in your industry vertical? Isn't that the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

Disruption is occurring across healthcare on a daily basis and well into the foreseeable future. So why isn't healthcare marketing keeping pace?

Much healthcare marketing is like Lemmings in a herd, falling over the cliff because everybody else is. If your marketing is so effective, then why do executives, especially in hospitals, talk of being in survival mode? Sounds like what you have been doing isn't working.

Disruptive Healthcare Marketing is contrarian in nature.

That's right, DHM is contrarian in nature, because you don't follow the leader and change a few things in an effort to look different, with the same essential message. It's about finding those meaningful points of differentiation that your consumer is looking for that will resonate. You ask the hard questions. You do the grunt work. You challenge conventional thinking. You challenge the culture and beliefs of the organization. You look at why someone is taking a particular strategy path, and understand why they aren't doing something else. You lead. It's about going in a different sustainable directions that builds volume, revenue and market share.

Everyone is chasing the same healthcare consumer and looking the same in the process.

Really, is your customer/patient satisfaction that much different from your competitors? Are your hi-tech medical devices so amazing that healthcare consumers and purchasers will flock to your doors? Can your valet service "out customer experience" the healthcare provider on the other side of town? Can your specialty pharmacy clinical sales tell you, without a 50 slide deck, in 25 words or less, how you are better than a competitor? Can you do a presentation to an insurer that that's not 80 slides of, all about you?

Are you saying to your marketing department, look what they did?

If yes is the answer to any of the questions, then you are not engaged in Disruptive Healthcare Marketing.

A Disruptive Healthcare Marketing model can look like this:

Disruptive Healthcare Marketing utilizes marketing in a strategically focused plan, to provide meaningful differentiation, positions you as the leader and create a brand story with lasting marketplace presence. It is highly integrated, sustainable and focused. DHM changes the organization. It will make you uncomfortable. But then, if you're not uncomfortable, then you really aren't changing.

Insert any audience in the center of the model and you have Disruptive Healthcare Marketing. Integrated, coordinated and not based on what your competition is doing, but upon you, your brand and your differentiable, sustainable message points.

Change or be changed. You decide.

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

For more information, or to discuss your strategic healthcare marketing, customer experience management, marketing/sales integration or start-up needs, you can learn more at my web site the michael J group; email- :michael@themichaeljgroup.com or phone by calling me at 815-293-1471.

Have Direct-Care Healthcare Providers Become a Commodity?

2011-08-30T09:09:00.000-05:00

In a most robust discussion on LinkedIn, in the Society for Healthcare Strategy and Market Development group page, regarding meaningful differentiation in healthcare, a question was posed by one of the participants, that received no comment, but is very important.

Has healthcare become a commodity?

If we look at the definition of a commodity as I remember it from my graduate econ classes, a commodity has the following properties: It is produced and sold by many companies; There is generally uniform quality between competitors' that sell or provide it; There is demand for the product or service; And it is supplied without qualitative differences between one company's products and services from another.

Sounds like a hospital, doctor, home care agency, infusion center and specialty pharmacy company to name a few.

When you think about it in this light, I would maintain that the majority of healthcare providers can be considered commodities, with a few notable exceptions, such as the Mayo Clinic, The Cleveland Clinic, M D Anderson and a few select others. Maybe not to patients at this time, but to employers, insurance companies, the self-insured and governments to name a few, that healthcare providers are commodities.

In the absence of qualitative data on quality and outcomes, that would generally available and understandable to consumers, then how does one tell the difference between direct-care providers?

For example, hospitals nearly all have the same clinical programs and services, JACHO accreditation, technology, insurance contracts, community- based medical staff's, MOBs. surgical-centers , ERs etc. It's the old a hospital, is a hospital, is a hospital argument.

A consumer really can't tell on the face of it, meaningful qualitative differences between providers. And I don't think it is because they can't or don't have the ability, but because they simply don't have the right information. Since healthcare consumer's can't identify and hence don't know, what those differences are, the direct-care providers in the healthcare industry are allowing their healthcare vertical to become commoditized. Everyone looks the same.

With the introduction innovative tools from payers, (Are you ready for price competition?) where insurance plan members at Aetna's Payment Estimator, WellPoint's AIM subsidiary and United Heath with its Innovation Center , allow members to compare and shop on price and determine their co-pay or deductible for their out-of-pocket expense, you have the introduction of consumer shopping behavior. And these tools are not just limited web site use. They have mobile applications as well in most cases. What we see is that these tools, interject a new level of commoditization to hospitals, physicians and others. The assumption is that quality is equal across providers.

Say what you want about the quality argument. Until you can qualitatively define your quality as better than a competitor, just saying you provide quality care is a hollow argument.

As consumers become more price conscious and take more control in the decision-making process, it behooves direct-care healthcare providers to become more market differentiable, based on qualitative data. You may not like it, but the sooner you get ahead of the commoditization spiral, if that is even possible, the better off you will be.

Healthcare is rapidly changing, from a provider-controlled and dominated decision-making model, to a consumer-controlled, decision-making model. And in a consumer-controlled model, absent meaningful and understandable qualitative differentiation, healthcare services become just another commodity. One that is in the end whose purchase will be based on price.

Now there's real healthcare reform.

You can continue the conversation with me on:

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/krivich0707

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Web site: http://www.themichaeljgroup.com

For more information, or to discuss your strategic healthcare marketing, customer experience management, marketing/sales integration or start-up needs, you can learn more at my web site the michael J group; email- michael@themichaeljgroup.com; or phone by calling me at 815-293-1471.

Is Meaningful Differentiation Lacking in Healthcare Marketing?

2011-08-24T12:32:00.000-05:00

The other day, I was reading my local community newspaper, the Herald-News and a national publication, The Wall Street Journal. Yes, I am kind of old fashion that way, reading a newspaper where you actually have to touch and turn a page, and move your head to read a story. In both papers, I saw several healthcare advertisements and a placed story.

Normally, one would probably would scan the ads or the story, make a fast determination of usefulness, and move on. Especially, if you don't need that particular service or clinical capability at the time. The placed story led with "A spa like atmosphere". Really.

But when looking at all the placements, I asked myself, what were the distinguishing differentiation characteristics, that separated everyone? What was the brand promise? What were the key messages? And most importantly, what, as a healthcare consumer, did you expect me to do?

Sadly, I could not find any clear and unambiguous differentiation.

This is not a challenge to be overcome, to be politically correct. It's a marketing problem. Period.

And it goes on in markets all across the U.S.A. on a daily basis.

What it reflects, is an old way of doing business. In a dynamic and rapidly changing healthcare market, where the consumer, is beginning to assert more control over the decision-making process, healthcare providers need to begin paying more attention to what they are, and are not saying. Just saying we provide quality care, have the best physicians, treat you with the latest high-tech toys, or provide an exclusive hotel-like experience doesn't work.

Those messages do not differentiate you. Everybody is saying the same thing.

The healthcare consumer of today, is looking for meaningful information upon which to make a reasonable and rational decision.

They are looking for answers to such questions as:

Why should I choose you?

What makes your doctors different, from the physicians in the other hospital, office or clinic down the street, who by the way, practice medicine in your hospital, and as your physicians do, admit to that hospital too?

How are your high-tech diagnostic and treatment tools, so outstandingly different from the ones in other settings. How do they make an outcome difference?

Do you really think that I care that you have a "spa like setting", big screen HD TVs, or internet access and will use that information to make one of the most important decisions in my life?

There are no easy answers.

The answers do require, that healthcare leadership and many marketing departments, begin to admit, and recognize, that the old way of healthcare marketing doesn't work anymore. Your brand messaging and advertisements, direct mail, web site, social media efforts etc., will have to become clearer. Much more clear on the benefits of, and reasons for, choosing you. That means treating the new healthcare consumer not as an idiot, but as a partner in the decision-making process. It means becoming transparent and open about outcomes. It means educating the healthcare consumer, about what the value is of an award is and what that award means to them.

It means changing attitudes toward, and practice of, marketing in your organization. Understanding that the old ways of healthcare marketing just don't work anymore.

To the major health system, that ran the cardiovascular ad in the Wall Street Journal, placing the Thompson Reuters Top 100 logo for excellence in that service-line, pay attention. The date on the logo of the award is 2008. It's 2011.

Since that award is bestowed annually and it's two years old, do you think that maybe the consumer, is asking what happened the last two years that you didn't receive the award?

Never let a consumer think of, or ask a question you don't want to answer.

Repeat after me: Brand. Price. Value. Differentiation.

You can continue the conversation with me on:

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Web site: http://www.themichaeljgroup.com

For more information, or to discuss your strategic healthcare marketing, customer experience management, marketing/sales integration or start-up needs, you can learn more at my web site the michael J group; email- michael@themichaeljgroup.com; or phone by calling me at 815-293-1471.

Are You Ready for Healthcare Price Competition?

2011-08-16T13:09:00.000-05:00

The game is changing. Rapidly.

That's what I call Aetna's introduction to its members, of its easy-to-use, out-of-pocket payment estimator. Simple really, know the cost of a test, visit or procedure; know what it will cost you. But it doesn't stop there, it allows the healthcare consumer to compare the cost across multiple network providers. You can compare costs across 10 different hospitals and doctors.

WellPoint through its AIM subsidiary has shown where it was possible to incentivize physicians and plan members, to shop for radiology services and choose the lowest cost provider. It's reducing healthcare costs; while maintaining quality.

United HealthCare, though its Innovation Center , is empowering its clients and 70 million members across a broad array of data driven products and services, for the healthcare consumer to better understand their healthcare utilization, and make cost effective choices.

And these are just a couple of the price and cost decision-making information that the healthcare consumer is starting to receive. (I receive no remuneration from mentioning these three companies. As a matter fact, they didn't even know I did this.) How long do you think it will be, before everyone else plays follow- the-leader?

As I have written in the past, healthcare is rapidly changing from a provider-dominated and controlled model, to a consumer-dominated and controlled model. And these changes are further evidence of the change. Nothing like having higher out-of-pocket expenses, coupled with the ability to obtain pricing information, then combined with the ability to estimate your own costs, to get healthcare consumers to pay attention. Shopping for care.

Member co-pays and deductibles are rising. Healthcare consumers are facing the economic reality that they now have some "skin-in-the-game". Can you really think of any better way to control healthcare costs and introduce a level of price competition, by providing information which really up until now, was essentiality unattainable?

Forget the quality argument.

Just because you charge more doesn't mean you have higher quality. The healthcare consumer already assumes quality. And they assume that it is equal across multiple providers. Saying you have high quality when you are unable to differentiate yourself in the market, because you won't use outcomes data, is a claim that falls on deaf ears. It's a given. It's the business you are in.

Pricing begins to rear its head in the healthcare consumer's decision-making process. And when all other things are equal, in the mind of the consumers, price wins. Quality is assumed. Caring is assumed. It's what you do.

Your marketing needs to change. Now.

Most healthcare organizations that are consumer facing, have never really had to deal with the pricing equation on a competitive basis. For insurance, medical device, pharma and other suppliers to healthcare, price competition has been a requirement in their markets since the beginning of time.

Now, doctors, hospitals, and others will need to change their marketing operations and begin to deal on price. Your brand and brand reputation, takes on new meaning, when price and choice become a critical component in the healthcare consumer decision-making process. High price, undifferentiated quality, won't cut it anymore.

Competing on price vs. claims of quality, requires a different set of marketing skills than what you have traditionally found in most healthcare marketing operations. It requires more than a communications skill set, or senior leadership thinking that they know how to market. This is a game changer, and if marketing is not at the senior management table now and involved across the organization, then you are already in deeper trouble than you think.

Change is never easy. Eespecially old attitudes towards the value of, and need for, healthcare marketing. With an industry changing as rapidly as healthcare. With price competition now entering the equation. I prefer to think that a potential golden age of healthcare marketing is upon us. One where the old attitudes are going away. Highly trained, experienced and professional marketing people will take their place at the senior management table. And in the process, healthcare becomes more accountable to the consumer in ways never imagined.

Repeat after me: Brand, Price, Value.

Exciting times we live in. Game on.

You can continue the conversation with me on:

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/krivich0707

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/mkrivich

Web site: http://www.themichaeljgroup.com/

For more information, or to discuss your strategic healthcare marketing, customer experience management, marketing/sales integration or start-up needs, you can learn more at my web site the michael J group; email- michael@themichaeljgroup.com; or phone by calling me at 815-293-1471.

Are You Ready for the Healthcare Consumers Called Baby Boomers?

2011-08-08T10:55:00.000-05:00

Really. Have you given any thought to the marketing and operational challenges that Baby Boomer consumers represent to healthcare? In a time of great change in healthcare, from a provider directed and controlled model, to a consumer directed and controlled healthcare model, the Baby Boom generation will have a more significant impact than maybe what you have considered.

Think about it for a moment.

The Baby Boomer wave has changed virtually every industry they have encountered. Identified what they wanted and forced that industry to adapt to them. Brand, brand promise, and brand experience delivered they way they want it and when they want it, has changed entire industries. It has brought new products and services to market; created entirely new industries and channels. They have buried products, services, markets and channels on the ash heap of history, for not meeting their needs or expectations.

What makes you think that the Baby Boomer won't be focused heavily on healthcare, as an involved consumer, who expects high-quality, outstanding-experiences and value, delivered at a price that they deem to be reasonable?

And that will pose some significant challenges to many healthcare organizations and models of care that frown upon a "healthcare consumer" aka patient, questioning what is going on and demanding better.

With their out-of-pocket costs for healthcare increasing, Boomer 's will demand whole lot from you.

Better quality.

Better experiences.

Better value.

Better price.

Better brands.

Boomer's are getting ready to turn the healthcare process over on its head, but is anyone listening?

Marketing will play an ever increasing role in healthcare providers in understanding the massive change about to take place. That of course assumes, a rapid maturing of the understanding of marketing and its place in the organization. And for many a healthcare provider CEO that means, marketing is elevated to the senior management table in presence, focus and resources.

Boomers are bursting onto the healthcare scene as a wave crashes upon the beach. They will be informed. They will be questioning. They will demand answers and involvement in the process of care. They will demand much more from the healthcare system in the way of choice, quality, experience and brand. If Boomers' don't get what they want, they will take their healthcare dollar elsewhere.

That light you saw at the end-of-the- tunnel because of healthcare reform and the mandatory health insurance provision, if you can just survive until then, is an oncoming train that's not slowing down in the least.

Time to change.

You can continue the conversation with me on:

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/krivich0707

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/mkrivich

Web site: http://www.themichaeljgroup.com/

For more information, or to discuss your strategic healthcare marketing, customer experience management, marketing/sales integration or start-up needs, you can learn more at my web site the michael J group; email- michael@themichaeljgroup.com; or phone by calling me at 815-293-1471.

Is Patient Experience Management the New Healthcare Imperative?

2011-08-02T08:20:00.000-05:00

The new healthcare consumer is seeking information on great outcomes and experience. 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.

And as time moves along, healthcare consumers will bypass those hospitals and healthcare providers 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 Experience Management 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 managing the patient experience.

If you read my previous seven posts on Customer/Patient Experience Management, you would have a clear rationale and model for moving forward. Clarity, purpose and resolve provided.

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.

Considering the ever increasing role of satisfaction scores in the CMS value purchasing programs, it has a direct financial outcome. Do well and receive additional revenue, fail and it will cost you. Insurance companies will follow CMS and move to more value purchasing arrangements as well.

A financial whammy approaches that requires new ways of doing business for the healthcare provider. Change and you can prosper. Refuse and find financial difficulties caused by market share losses.

Patient Experience Management is all about the culture.

It is not managing to a survey.

It is not just patient satisfaction. Patient satisfaction is an outcome of experience management.

It is not just a program.

It is not just a one-time activity.

Experience Management is about changing the way you deliver care to the patient by your employees, based on an understanding of what the patients 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.

So I answering my own question, patient experience management is the new healthcare imperative.

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 that only comes through active management of the experience process.

So, tell me, what you are still waiting for to get started? Time to deliver.

You can continue the conversation, linkup or follow along with me on:

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the michael J Group

For more information, or to discuss your strategic healthcare marketing, customer experience management, marketing/sales integration or start-up needs, you can learn more at my web site the michael J group; email- michael@themichaeljgroup.com; or phone by calling me at 815-293-1471.

How do You Drive Volume, Revenue in a Slow Growth Economy?

2011-07-20T07:28:00.003-05:00

Revenue in hospitals, clinics and physician offices are down. Payers earnings are up because of lack of healthcare utilization. They are spending less. Looming Medicare cuts. Slow pay or no pay from Medicaid programs across the country. Increased self-pays. Lowered insurance reimbursements. And of Congress doesn't act on increase the ability of the Treasury to raise the debt limit, "you haven't seen nothing yet".

Healthcare is not a discretionary purchase. There is little if any differentiation between medical providers. With so many individuals out of work, consumer confidence eroding and wage earners fearful of losing jobs, healthcare, whether doctors visits, medication, hospitalizations or insurance purchases, are the last thing on peoples' minds.

What is a healthcare provider to do?

We all know the drill, cut costs, lay-off staff , hiring freeze, decrease marketing. etc. All retrenchment strategies to "weather the storm." In most cases necessary steps. All fatal to the healthcare organizations. When recovery ensues, which it will, you can't take advantage of new opportunities that present themselves because you are trying to recapture what you lost. Focusing resources and effort to make back the revenue and market share that you lost.

You can drive volume and revenue is a recessionary or slow growth economy. Here's how:

Step One: Recognize that healthcare is a purely a discretionary purchase. No one wants to get sick. No one plans to get sick. No one thinks about what health provider they will go to when they get sick.

In recessionary or slow growth economy here is the paradigm:

I get sick » self diagnose and try over the counter medications » doesn't work » consider retail clinic yes/no » call primary care physician yes/no » go to hospital ER.

Hospitals are last on the list and individual healthcare decisions in this economy are driven purely by price. What is going to cost me in co-pay or out of pocket if no insurance and what is the cheapest price.

Realize too, that there is little if any differentiation among providers. You all look and feel the same.

Step Two: Focus on physician and patient experience. Understand every touch point that a doctor or patient comes in contact with you for the first moment that they learn about your brand, to the medical services, to leaving, is an opportunity to create a lasting positive impression. Complete a patient experience map and a physician experience map. Find the issues and fix them now.

Step Three: Focus on the core. That's right, focus on your core services that pay the bills. No wild fancy flights of new services that are consumer or physician discretionary or elective in nature. People won't buy them. So don't waste the time and energy except for planning for those new service lines when the economy turns around. But not now.

Create pricing and service specials for your existing outpatient services, for example with lab create a schedule, test and results in two days (STaR2) program.

Step Four: Crank up the media relations, press releases, statements, white papers, outcomes studies, anything that puts you in a positive light and keep you in the media. Consider a steady stream of health and wellness tips etc. Drive people to your web site and don't forget to use social media efficiently and effectively. Patient and physician success stories are needed as well.

Step Five: Constantly measure and evaluate. Change on the fly. Don't stop. Be consistent in your brand messaging.

The opportunity is now to build for the future.

This is my last post until August. My daughter is a left-handed pitcher on the 14U Plainfield Lightning fast-pitch travel softball team. We are going to the ASA Class B Northern National Championships next week. Its been a great year for the Lightning: 36-13; 3 tournament championships; a 2nd; 3rd; 4th place finish; and winning streaks of 6 and 12 games. My daughter did pitch a no-hitter too in June! For 2012, the team moves up to 16U. It will be fun. Enjoy the summer.

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

For more information, or to discuss your strategic healthcare marketing, customer experience management, marketing/sales integration or start-up needs, you can learn more at my web site the michael J group; email- michael@themichaeljgroup.com; or phone by calling me at 815-293-1471.

Why do hospitals use the word world-class, unique etc., in ads when it's debatable?

2011-07-13T14:26:00.000-05:00

Hospital and other healthcare leadership seems to be struggling with the concept of an empowered, informed healthcare consumer who is making active decisions regarding treatment and care, instead of relying on the provider of care making the decisions.

This is leading to any number of hospitals and others advertising satisfaction rates, awards for care, no wait ERs and other self proclaimed measures or for example, using web site clocks to potential customers that provide real-time ER wait times, etc.

Some innovative hospitals have even been cleaver in their ER advertising and other communication channels allowing potential customers to text a message and get the wait time back. Some ads make claims of being the number one in treatment because of the volume of cases.

Most ads are agency quality and well done, while some are clearly created in-house and look it too.

Misrepresentation of the data

But what I am also seeing is misuse and misrepresentation of data related to quality awards from third parties. It's one thing to advertise that you have earned awards for clinical quality in several areas, who the awarding organization is and the importance of the meaning of that award to your audience.

It's an entirely different matter when you take that award and tell people that if all the hospitals in the nation were as good as you, in those categories, which are not all of the categories of care awarded, that 158,000 lives would be saved annually is flat out wrong and misrepresenting any relative value of what that awards means.

What you should be communicating.

Which is the experience and how that awards makes you a quality provider of care in that category not all categories. Your messaging and visuals should be reinforcing quality, educating about what that award means , strengthening your brand and brand promise, as well as differentiating you from your competitors. You should be the data and outcomes transparent provider in your community. Create trust and goodwill with your messaging. Listen to your consumers and give them the meaningful data that they want in order to participate in the decision making process.

What you should not be communicating.

Do not use "unique", "world-class", "one-of-a-kind" , or "state-of-the-art" in your copy. What you do is not "unique", others provide the same. Unless someone is coming from another corner of the world to get care, you are not "world-class". And "state-of-the-art" is fleeting because a new service, procedure or technology is already on the horizon. Do not write or say "our medical team" or "staff" and use physicians in that sentence. Nor should you say "our physicians". That will get you drawn into physician malpractice lawsuits under the apparent agency doctrine.

Telling people "you care", when that is already an existing expectation of your consumers is stating the obvious. If anything, those types of messages only raise a red flag to consumers and are seen a pejorative.

Are you listening?

In most cases your advertisements and other channel communications are the primary contact that a consumer has with you that starts the customer experience process or even considering changing providers. Talk to your audiences in meaningful ways. Educate. Teach. Inform. Change opinion. Tell them why the quality award is important and what it means to them. Frame their expectation and experience. Manage it.

Frame it in terms of the customer experience and you will find a heightened sense of consumer and brand awareness. Data transparency in outcomes and honesty will drive volume and revenue for that category of service.

It won't if you incorrectly position the achievement by making wild claims of superiority that no one believes.

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

For more information, or to discuss your strategic healthcare marketing, customer experience management, marketing/sales integration or start-up needs, you can learn more at my web site the michael J group; email- michael@themichaeljgroup.com; or phone by calling me at 815-293-1471.

How do you communicate to your patients or plan members regarding a merger or acquisition?

2011-07-06T13:40:00.000-05:00

With the acceleration of mergers and acquisitions across all healthcare verticals, the question is posed for your consideration, how do you communicate with your consumers, patients or plan members about a merger or acquisition? Do you communicate on a personal level what's going on at all, or do you rely on the news media to carry the story?

This is an important question.

After all, most organizations, if they are paying any attention to communications detail, are decent at communicating with physicians and employees about what's going on. Timing can sometimes be an issue internally, especially if a news reports hit the street before employees know.

But commonly, where most healthcare organizations fall down in the communications chain, is how they communicate the merger or acquisition with patients, consumers, and vendors.

They are important audiences and you need to control your message with them as you do internally and with the media. In the age of social media where everyone has the potential to become paparazzi, why would take a chance on publicly generated comments? Comments, that may or may not have your brand messages and information.

When you did your Q&A for internal audiences, did you consider who has daily interaction with consumers, vender and patients, creating and training them with a Q&A for their use? Probably not. That my friends, is a missed opportunity to point up the positives, strengthen your brand and create a better experience for your end-user.

But the communication does not end there. You also need a plan that provides all of your audiences with regular updates about how the merger or acquisition is progressing and what it means to them. You have an opportunity to engage in a meaningful dialogue with your patients during this period. Don't waste it. Just don't assume that because they are your patients, that they don't care, don't have concerns about how it effects them, or don't want information about what's occurring in your organization.

And if you are think about changing the name because two health systems merge, then you need to start planting that idea now.

Having been though more mergers and acquisitions that I care to remember, my communications plans have been extremely detailed and project management oriented. Most importantly, the plan also detailed how I has going to communicate with patient's message frequency and methods.

Never, ever, miss an opportunity to strengthen you brand messages and control the messaging with key audiences.

My best merger-acquisition marketing communication plan ever? Glad you asked- 5 brands, 17 legal size paper pages, containing over 250 steps, not only to inform and minimize patient, employee, physician and consumer defections, but to move four of the acquired brands to our existing brand and brand architecture at the same time.

Good luck. Be detailed. Take nothing for granted. Use all available communication means- direct mail, press, web site, social media etc.

And communicate, communicate and communicate.

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

For more information, or to discuss your strategic healthcare marketing, customer experience management, marketing/sales integration or start-up needs, you can learn more at my web site the michael J group; email- michael@themichaeljgroup.com; or phone by calling me at 815-293-1471.

How do you tell you have an ineffective healthcare marketing operation?

2011-06-28T12:17:00.001-05:00

Strategy and effective marketing operations is everything today in healthcare marketing. And if you have a bad strategy or no strategy, combined with marketing operational deficiencies, then no amount of tactical execution will overcome ineptitude. If you don't have a good strategy, any old road will get you to where you want to go, with significant inefficient resources utilization in cost, human capital and loss of return. Some of the verticals in the healthcare industry, are notorious for no strategy and just plain bad marketing operations, following the herd and just keeping the internal audience happy with what they want.

Here are the signs that you have a bad or nonexistent healthcare marketing strategy/operation:

1. There is no marketing plan.
2. The marketing plan is not integrated with the organizations business and financial plan.
3. Your brand messages are not clear, and are not integrated across internal and external audiences.
4. The CEO sets the marketing priorities based on what others are doing , the loudest voice in the room or just because he or she likes it.
5. Departments are creating their own logos and communications. Only coming to marketing to "make it look pretty".
6. Marketing has little or no resources allocated for market research.
7. Marketing does not have an organizational voice or champion.
8. Your marketing department can't demonstrate an ROI.
9. Sales is out there creating their own materials.
10. The triangle of Public and media relations, social media and internet, as well as traditional marketing is nonexistent or if it exists, lacks integration.
11. Little internal communication throughout the organization regarding marketing efforts.
12. Marketing is just viewed by senior management as a bunch of people who make things look pretty.
13. And my favorite, one senior vice president thinks thy have all the answers, doesn't listen to reason and thinks they can write as well.
14. Marketing is not at the senior management table.
15. Marketing does not report directly to the CEO.

Healthcare verticals where this is pretty common and relevant: hospitals; physicians offices; hospice; home health care; and specialty pharmacy.

Healthcare is transforming from a provider-dominated and directed model, where these types of behaviors and operational deficiencies really didn't make much of a difference. In the evolving consumer or patient-directed and dominated healthcare model, continuation of these marketing operational structures and behaviors need to be weeded out.

The healthcare consumer is becoming a harsh mistress and will not tolerate an unresponsive healthcare organizations. Old ways of marketing must be replaced with a new understanding of marketing in healthcare and its power in the marketplace.

Welcome to retail healthcare.

You can continue the conversation with me on:

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/krivich0707
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/mkrivich
Web site: http://www.themichaeljgroup.com/

For more information, or to discuss your strategic healthcare marketing, customer experience management, marketing/sales integration or start-up needs, you can learn more at my web site the michael J group; email- michael@themichaeljgroup.com; or phone by calling me at 815-293-1471.

What Should Hospitals Advertise?

2011-06-22T07:05:00.000-05:00

That question of course, assumes that you believe hospital advertising is appropriate. And you may well believe that it is also a waste of resources. Which I think is a most dangerous position, given the ongoing transformation of the healthcare market from a provider-directed to a consumer-directed or as some prefer a patient -directed model.

Arguments aside, what should hospitals be advertising to create an unassailable market position, a strong brand, as well as an enlightened and informed consumer? Remember, when you are marketing to consumers, they don't become a patient until they receive a service from you. So three-quarters of the time in their interactions with you, the "consumer" is only a "patient" during diagnosis and treatment.

Should it be being the best at all things or a category of service?

How about having the most current technology?

Maybe it could be who has the most quality awards and highest patient satisfaction?

Or, it could focus on the physicians with messaging about having the best specialists in the region?

Then, there is the here are the insurance plans we accept, followed by the, we have big screen TVs and private rooms.

I think, that pretty much for the most part, sums up the current state of hospital advertising. And when several hospitals are staying all of these things at the same time in a market, do you really believe that the consumer is paying any attention at all, when there is so little differentiation, it all looks like "me too" and just shouting for attention?

I am sure it makes the Board, senior management and physicians feel good. All the while your target audience receives absolutely no information that will help them make some of the most critical choices and decisions in their life.

And that can't go on any longer.

Time really to stop treating the healthcare consumer like they are some kind of idiot. People are coming to the realization that healthcare is not such the "black box that the consumer can't possibly understand the complexity of medical care".

It's time for meaningful information in the marketplace that will allow the healthcare consumer to become informed, educated and participatory in the care decision-making process. Time for marketing to begin to lead in hospitals instead of being order takers, and talking nonsense in their markets.

You should be transparent and talking about your outcomes. You need to engage in a meaningful dialogue that gives individuals the information that they want and need. The healthcare consumer is hungry for information and are searching the internet and other sources about you and how you perform. They are paying more of the cost. Demanding more say in what goes on. And don't like being treated like they are some small child who can't make a decision.

To use an often quoted metaphor, the wave of change is upon the hospital industry as we move from provider-dominated and controlled decision-making, to consumer and patient-directed, controlled healthcare. Your choice, change, be responsive and surf the wave to success, or be washed over and deposited on the ash heap of history.

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

For more information, or to discuss your strategic healthcare marketing, customer experience management, marketing/sales integration or start-up needs, you can learn more at my web site the michael J group; email- michael@themichaeljgroup.com; or phone by calling me at 815-293-1471.

Can we learn anything from Veterinarians about caring and compassionate care?

2011-06-08T11:35:00.000-05:00

Interesting question isn't it?

And from my point of view, the answer is yes.

Sometimes, examples of how things should be in healthcare, come from areas and experiences that one would have never thought of, borne out of intense personal experience. And believe me it was shock.

Briefly, my Golden Retriever Molly, who was 8 years old, became acutely ill and quickly passed away after 5 days at home. She was our family's loving companion, playful friend, and protector for the past 8 years.

Enough said, because this is about a very intense journey filled with compassion, caring, respect and dignity for Molly and me. And in my 25 years in healthcare, on several sides of the equation- as a professional, patient and caregiver, I have never seen anything like it.

I am not talking about the medical care, for Molly in a brief period received better care than most people in the world today. I am talking about the respect and dignity, the genuine caring and compassion exhibited during the diagnosis and treatment process. We, on the human side of healthcare, could learn a great deal from our healthcare brethren in the animal world.

And I am an expert on patient satisfaction.

I have always said, written and published that patient satisfaction is a process. One that could be understood, controlled and manipulated to produce high levels of satisfaction. It is well known that highly satisfied patients are more compliant with treatment regimens, tend to litigate less, and even if the medical outcome is not good, believe that they have had a high-quality medical experience.

But it's just not the process of satisfaction which is important and identifies areas of concern . This is also about all the little things that you and I do on a daily basis, that make that difference and you really can't measure that.

The answering of the phone and responding to an immediate need and not telling a patient that can't get in until next week. It's the person at the receptionist desk that stops what they are doing, doesn't look bored and extends the helping hand to get somewhere they need to go. It's the follow-up phone call to the patient at home to see how they are doing. It's the doctor calling the specialist first, getting things set-up and then informing the patient. It is about open and honest communication and patient involvement in the diagnosis, treatment and recovery process. Its caring and compassionate action demonstrated verbally and non-verbally to the patient, caregiver and family. It's the hospital staff being human again and not like acting like the patient is an inconvenience. It's the health insurance employee not sounding like they are being bothered, or blaming the computer.

For we are here to serve others, not for others to serve us.

I have never had such a positive experience in any healthcare organization.

As we move to a patient -directed healthcare model, these types of critical core behaviors and actions will determine the success or failure of a healthcare organization. Time to start the journey and get back to what we should be about in healthcare- caring, compassionate, respectful and treating everyone with dignity .

June 6, 2011

Molly Krivich, age 8, lover of cheese, eggs, Milkbones, popcorn, chasing balls, going for walks and being hyper (especially when I got home from work), went to dog heaven early this morning. Born March 3, 2003, survivors include Mike, Julie, Tyler, Alex and Grandma, and several brothers and sisters. Known for barely passing puppy training twice, and not knowing when to quiet down when visitors arrived, she still wrapped us around her paw and made us a better family. She really was the sweetest dog, and she will be missed. Rest in peace, Molly girl. You are loved By: Julie Corazza Krivich

My thanks and gratitude to: Care Animal Emergency Services, Animal Eye Consultants and Plainfield Animal Care Center. You are the best.

For more information, or to discuss your strategic healthcare marketing, customer experience management, marketing/sales integration or start-up needs, you can learn more at my web site the michael J group; email- michael@themichaeljgroup.com ; or phone by calling me at 815-293-1471.

Is earned media still a viable healthcare marketing strategy?

2011-06-01T09:20:00.000-05:00

With everyone a buzz about social media, web sites, apps, channel specific publications, blogs, YouTube, twitter etc., and the supposed decline of print media, is chasing earned media still worth the effort? It does seem, except for pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers, that earned media is on the decline for other types of healthcare organizations. And the reasons why puzzles me.

Is earned media to hard?

In any brand marketing campaign, its easy to focus on the "hot button" techniques to show the CEO and Board, that you are up-to-date and executing your marketing with the latest and greatest. Make no mistake about it, earned media is hard. You have to develop relationships with reporters. You have to plant and cultivate story ideas. You have to respond to reporters request for more information. It takes time. It takes patience. It takes resources, in a period of time where all we ask on a daily basis is, "What did you do for me today?"

And in the pressures of today's immediate gratification world, earned media seems so anachronistic.

That's a mistaken attitude.

Earned media has value.

All that content that goes online comes from somewhere. A reporter has to write it. A network broadcaster has to cover it. Columnists look for it. It goes out on facebook, web sites, YouTube, twitter and gasp, print editions of magazines, daily newspapers and specialty publications.

Since it comes under the byline of a reporter, there naturally flows some journalistic credibility that is conferred on the story. The more people say that they don't believe what they read, the more that they believe it. We are expected to advertise. We are expected to do direct mail. Communication of our brand messages and potential product experiences are expected by the consumer. Whether they believe it or not is another matter.

Earned media can become viral in nature because it has so many different outlets. When a news outlet or publication carries your brand messages, it makes what you are doing seem more believable. Once they story runs about a topic and you're the first, it's much harder for your competitors to get out there with the same message. A powerful way to differentiate yourself which also has a considerable number of aftermarket uses.

There is a payoff.

Besides the advertising equivalency return for earned media ratio and successful brand image awareness measurement, there is a compelling reason for developing earned media relationships.

Every organization will experience a communications crisis. Taking the time to develop positive relationships with reporters, blog writers, broadcast media and others has a big payoff in a media driven crisis. The development and cultivation of a relationship with media doesn't mean that the story won't run. But what it can mean, is the difference between a story that is balanced and fairly reported, versus a story that is one-sided against you. As we all know, negative news about travels farther and faster than positive news, which does more harm than good over the long haul.

So, maybe it's time to rethink that "old bygone era strategy" of actively planning for and pursuing earned media.

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

For more information, or to discuss your strategic healthcare marketing, customer experience management, marketing/sales integration or start-up needs, you can learn more at my web site the michael J group; email- michael@themichaeljgroup.com ; or phone by calling me at 815-293-1471.

Do You Know the Value of Your Healthcare Brand?

2011-05-18T09:46:00.001-05:00

Changes at the speed of light in the various healthcare marketplaces, impact brands in very significant ways. Mergers, acquisition, new companies and non-traditional models for delivering care, are creating a dizzying array of healthcare brands for the consumer. Some brands go way. Some remain as hybrids, dying a slow death. Some even stay in the market with just a tag-line identifying the parent company.

Your brand image, brand promise and brand architecture have a value that impacts you organization in two ways, revenue and image. Have you quantified that the value your brand has on your revenue stream? And have you created a rock solid brand architecture that accounts for mergers and acquisitions, to eliminate the "my company name Is better" arguments that go on internally post acquisition, when the issues are not addressed up front?

Your brand has a dollar value.

For example, the Walgreens brand has been valued at $1 billion. What this means is that if Wal-Mart, or Target had the same brand awareness and image as Walgreens, their revenues would be $1 billion higher than currently reported. And that value carries over as WAG moves into retail healthcare, out- branding, out-pricing and out-delivering you, the traditional healthcare provider.

Healthcare is changing from a dominated provider model in the U.S. to an employer and consumer-driven model. And that means that your healthcare brand is everything. As you view changes in your organization to talk more about outcomes, quality and price, so should you be talking internally about what the value of your brand is, how it relates to consumers and the steps you need to take in the marketplace to improve.

If you do not know what the dollar value of your brand is, then you are missing an important leverage point negotiations. I mean really, my brand name can't go away because I believe that it has more value than you, or the ever popular, "our brands are equal keep them both". Nonsense. Data talks, all else walks. Know your brand value and it may have a better chance of surviving.

Now, that being said, if you are being acquired by a multibillion dollar company with a strong brand architecture, give it up and count your money. You will survive longer if you go with the program instead of fighting it.

Brand is important in a rapidly consolidating industry.

Healthcare is at the beginning start of a massive consolation from small individual cottage-industry type organizations e.g., specialty pharmacies, home agencies, infusion centers and hospitals to become part of larger organizations to survive. It is more important than ever, that you have clear and unbiased understanding of your brand, its strengths and weaknesses, but most importantly, its dollar revenue value in the marketplace.

As employers and consumer takes more control of their healthcare, your brand will be more important than it is today. But if you don't understand the value of that brand, then you are missing a golden opportunity.

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

For more information, or to discuss your strategic healthcare marketing, customer experience management, marketing/sales integration or start-up needs, you can learn more at my web site the michael J group; email- michael@themichaeljgroup.com ;or phone by calling me at 815-293-1471.

Is Your Healthcare Marketing Model Evolving?

2011-05-11T09:48:00.000-05:00

Healthcare is changing as never before. There is a marketplace momentum developing that will never allow healthcare organizations to go back to the way they were. Accountability, transparency, price and value are the new expectations. Business models need to change to meet the needs and expectation of the evolving healthcare consumer. Which begs the question, is your healthcare marketing model evolving as well?

My guess is probably not.

Doctors, hospitals and insurers are going to have to change their marketing models. The old model of advertise it and they will come is slowly, but inexorably going by the wayside. Ads that are all about the provider, offering limited time discounts on certain test or exams due to the time of the year or date on the wellness calendar, are pretty standard. They offer little if any differentiation. Even the insurer plan ads are starting to look the same. Great offers about benefits, little transparent discussion of price and outcomes for choosing them. Ads across hospitals offer little in the way of building brand equity in the minds of consumers.

Where is the brand equity?

And you really have to figure out how to build brand equity for the consumer in the future healthcare world. Brand equity is not built overnight, it takes years. For insurers they are ahead of the game and probably most doctors, even though their brand equity is more by chance than actual effort and planning. But hospitals, they are way behind the brand equity curve unless you are a Mayo Clinic, M D Anderson, Cleveland Clinic, John Hopkins and a few select others.

Consumers are taking more control.

As employers figure out that not much has changed in the way of healthcare cost reduction, their strongest response will be to provide a fixed dollar contribution to employees, who will shop for their own healthcare plans from insurers and exchanges. They will build their own healthcare networks of who they want in and out. Consumers want choice. Their choice. Just as they have choice in any marketplace. And they are not going to pay for poor quality care or mistakes.

Consumers aren't off the hook in all of this change. They will have to become more knowledgeable, accountable and involved. They will have to learn how to select a health plan, doctor or hospital. And that's your opportunity to begin to change your marketing model and branding efforts.

How can you build brand equity?

There is no simple answer, it is a combination of changing internal processes and systems (customer experience management) to become more consumer-friendly and efficient. It's about adapting technology that will reduce errors and improve decision-making. It's about changing marketing and communication activities from what you do, to the value of what you do. You will need to engage in meaningful ways the healthcare consumer. You will need become price and quality transparent. You will need to respond to each individual consumers healthcare needs.

You will need to build or rebuild your brand, around value-based performance that delivers better care at reasonable prices.

So, is your healthcare model evolving with the new healthcare consumer in mind, or are you still doing things the same way, looking for volume that may not exist?

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 your strategic healthcare marketing, customer experience management, marketing/sales integration or start-up needs, you can learn more at my web site the michael J group; email- michael@themichaeljgroup.com; or phone by calling me at 815-293-1471.

How Do You Sell to Physicians?

2011-05-04T15:57:00.000-05:00

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.

How do You Change Healthcare Consumers From Ignorant/Uneducated to Informed?

2011-04-27T09:56:00.000-05:00

The discussions on 30 plus LinkedIn groups across the wide healthcare industry spectrum has been revealing to the question "Is the Healthcare Consumer Ignorant?"

To summarize, there are many contributing factors, from healthcare diagnosis and treatment complexity, the inability of providers too communicate in an understandable way their process, to economic factors that cause the consumer to be disconnected. And some are just like arrogant parents who know all and see all.

And I thank everyone who contributed to the discussion no matter what side you are find yourself.

But it is time to move the discussion forward and start the dialogue on how to change the healthcare consumer from ignorant/uneducated to informed.

The task at hand is not insurmountable. It will require innovation, creativity, change, an attitude adjustment and perseverance.

Anything is possible.

This means a long-term commitment that most likely is generational in nature across all healthcare industry segments, to have an informed healthcare consumer. Think back to the 80s when DRGs were introduced. As an industry, healthcare went from we will do things to you, care for you and you have no real responsibility for your care and treatment, to now you have a personal responsibility to maintain good weight, stop smoking, wear a motorcycle helmet etc. We offered wellness programs, screenings, lectures and educational materials. Lots of stuff that more or less has had a positive impact on some diseases.

In spite of these efforts, we remained an industry that still does things to people and generally looked the other way when patients asked questions or wanted to be involved.

The economists, think-tanks, employers, physicians, health plans, hospitals, associations, Federal and State governments and special interest groups have spoken, created new models, programs and services in an attempt to bend the cost curve with limited success. This is not an attack, for we are better off today with these attempts at reform.

From the view in my world, one thing we have not done to a great extent is involve the end user in these discussions. How can we succeed, if the end-user is not informed and involved in all of these processes and plan creations?

The healthcare cost problem will not be solved until we have an educated, informed consumer, that is an active participant in the decision-making process regarding their care and understands the price.

Where do we go from here?

Here are some ideas, not all inclusive but just offered up for consideration.

1. Marketing needs to be far more involved than it has been so far. This isn't just about making things pretty. It's about delivering content that is informative, understandable, actionable and life-changing, delivered however the person wants it. It is multi-channel and uses all available methods like social media, web site, direct mail, webinars, apps etc. Whatever it takes. Not just the do an ad, have program. It needs to be interactive and fits into an individual's daily life seamlessly.

Senior management needs their marketing departments at the leadership table to understand the life and pulse of their communities.

HIPAA does not mean that you can't communicate and use all the tools available.

2. There needs to be price transparency. Time to move away from communicating what the charges are for healthcare to the price of the healthcare service. Consumers will understand price, they will never understand charges. Strive for clarity.

3. Increase outcome and data related transparency for the consumer. Quality awards are nice and all, but what does it really mean and how can the consumer use that type of information? Consumers can not make choices without real actionable information.

4. Stop talking at people; talk to them. Healthcare will not change and the cost curve will not be bent until we have an informed and educated consumer.

5. Create incentives for the physicians and consumers to be involved and choose lower cost options for treatment or diagnosis. For example, American Imaging Management, a WellPoint Subsidiary, has developed a creative incentive program that awards physicians and patients for choosing lower cost alternatives for some imaging. People respond to financial incentives positive and negative. Time to be creative.

6. Adjust your attitude. The healthcare consumer is not ignorant. They may be uneducated, but they are not ignorant. Given the right information, they can make reasonable decisions and be actively involved if you let them. That means changing attitude, organizational culture and approach.

7. Innovate. Healthcare lacks original innovation and an entrepreneurial spirit for the most part. Instead of saying why something won't work because it challenges established beliefs or process or ways of doing things, ask how it will work or how lessons from other industries can be adapted. Leave the comfort zone.

8. Lead the change in your organization.

These are just some ideas and opinions. I am sure that I have missed a lot, gorged some sacred cows and maybe angered a few people. We all know that this is a complicated challenge. We have tried just about everything else. And unless we begin to create an informed, involved and educated healthcare consumer, then we won't be able to bend the cost curve.

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

Michael Krivich is an entrepreneurial healthcare marketing executive and internationally followed healthcare marketing blogger read daily in over 38 countries around the world. A Fellow, American College of Healthcare Executives as well as a Professional Certified Marketer, American Marketing Association, he can be reached at michael@themichaeljgroup.com or 815-293-1471. Areas of expertise include: brand management; strategic marketing; sales and marketing integration; medical device and specialty pharmacy marketing; physician marketing; product launch; start-up launch and revenue growth; tactical market planning; customer experience management; rebuilding and revitalizing marketing operations; media relations; and service line revitalizations. Mike is Huthwaite SPIN selling trained and a Miller Heiman Strategic Selling alumni.

Is the Healthcare Consumer Ignorant?

2011-04-20T08:27:00.000-05:00

It's the kind of question that pauses one for a minute or two. How this question came about was in response to a post of mine a few weeks ago, regarding pricing at Urgent Care Centers and the $500 Band- Aid. In comments on a couple of LinkedIn groups, a few healthcare executives called consumers ignorant.

Really.

From a marketing perspective, that is a most interesting characterization of a healthcare consumer. And a dangerous belief to hold about one segment of your audience.

Ignorant.

I don't think so. Informed. Connected. Questioning. Seeking. Paying. Shopping. These words describe the healthcare consumer of today. A consumer who is awakening and demanding a voice in diagnosis and treatment options. After all, isn't that one of the major premises for healthcare reform, and CMSs' one opening statement in the proposed ACO regulations?

In ignorance there is opportunity.

So if you really believe that the healthcare consumer is ignorant, then what are you doing to change that to create an informed consumer? How are you interacting and building you organizational brand to change the healthcare consumers from ignorant to informed? Or, are you just happy to keep them that way, so those "pesky " informed consumers don't question your pricing, decision- making and quality?

Healthcare is changing from a provider-directed and dominated model to a consumer-driven model. And that means people will be informed. They will be involved. They will make quality and pricing decisions. They will play a very strong part in utilization decisions. The healthcare consumer is far from ignorant.

With a little work, they could actually put together their own price-affordable healthcare delivery network and never set foot in a hospital, or hospital-owned setting for care. Obviously, there will be those situations requiring major surgery or trauma care, for which a hospital is the most appropriate setting. But for the rest of it, doubtful.

So, don't be surprised in the future if a healthcare consumer-driven web site shows up that points the healthcare consumers to lower-cost providers for care. Your opportunity is to become that low cost provider, taking advantage of consumer shopping behavior though innovative, cost-effective programs and services.

For health plans and insurance companies, your opportunity is to educate your plan members about providers who have lower prices for services you are paying for, and giving consumers the option to seek lower-cost providers. You could also create loyalty and incentive programs for consumers to avail themselves of lower cost setting for care.

Just because its low cost, doesn't always mean low quality.

After all, almost all diagnosis and treatment can be done in lower-cost settings than a hospital or hospital-owned facility. Get ready for a different future than what you think it will be.

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

Michael Krivich is an entrepreneurial healthcare marketing executive and internationally followed healthcare marketing blogger read daily in over 38 countries around the world. A Fellow, American College of Healthcare Executives as well as a Professional Certified Marketer, American Marketing Association, he can be reached at michael@themichaeljgroup.com or 815-293-1471. Areas of expertise include: brand management; strategic marketing; sales and marketing integration; medical device and specialty pharmacy marketing; physician marketing; product launch; start-up launch and revenue growth; tactical market planning; customer experience management; rebuilding and revitalizing marketing operations; media relations; and service line revitalizations. Mike is Huthwaite SPIN selling trained and a Miller Heiman Strategic Selling alumni.

How Do Your Marketing Efforts Counter Negative Quality Data From 3rd Parties?

2011-04-13T11:16:00.001-05:00

On March 31, a new data release for consumers took place with CMS posting individual hospital performance on eight Hospital Acquired Conditions (HAC). Reaction has been highly critical to say the least by physician and hospital groups. There are legitimate question as to the methodology used in some of the data and that does need to be revised. So the question came to me after reading the various groups denial of the data, pointing out its flaws and generally trying to deep six any potential informational credibility for the public- it's out there, so what is the brand opportunity if any?

How Does Your Marketing/PR Department Counter Negative Data Releases From 3rd Parties?

Hospitals and others are quick to bend over backwards and break their arms running ads and creating press releases when the data is in their favor or an award has been bestowed. This is not a criticism it is fact. Sometimes the information presented is misleading as well. When negative quality data is published, its everyone under the table time. If we howl with indignation at the outcome or just ignore it, then maybe it will go away. Well it's not. It is out there, so how are you going to respond?

Why not take a proactive approach with the same fervor that your Marketing and PR departments do when you have an award?

There is always opportunity to be leveraged in a potentially negative situation and that takes leadership, wisdom to see the opportunity and conviction to not follow the heard.

Can you be courageous?

Have your Marketing and PR departments follow these steps and you will find that you can strengthen build your brand, counter negative effects and be a force for change in the industry.

1. Acknowledge that this is another step in the transformation of healthcare from a provider-dominated to a consumer-driven transparent healthcare market.

2. Look at the CMS data for your organization and understand what is good and what is bad.

3. Create the documents and tools for internal and external audiences to learn how to use and understand the data. Be an educator. Frame the public's discussion.

4. Indicate the challenges with the data, how it was incorrectly calculated and how it can be simply fixed. Recalculate the data based on your hospitals performance against the true number of patients that received the service.

5. If you are a poor performer, then you have the opportunity to acknowledge that you can do better and inform your audiences what you are doing to improve.

6. Use the same techniques, and resources that you would use to tell the world what a great place you are because of a quality award.

7. Be proactive in a positive manner and not reactive with negativity. Be a solution the problem, not the problem. Hit the lecture circuit in your community.

Develop good Marketing and PR habits now. As change and time accelerates and the public becomes more involved in the choice of healthcare providers and treatment options, you need to control the discussion before others.

Define the discussion before they do. If you protest too much, or dive for under the tables, then the perception is there must be some truth to what's published. Maybe, maybe not, but it's there

The consumer is the new paparazzi, social media wiz and healthcare information seeker. Frame the discussion or be framed by it.

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

Michael Krivich is an entrepreneurial healthcare marketing executive and internationally followed healthcare marketing blogger read daily in over 36 countries around the world. A Fellow, American College of Healthcare Executives as well as a Professional Certified Marketer, American Marketing Association, he can be reached at michael@themichaeljgroup.com or 815-293-1471. Areas of expertise include: brand management; strategic marketing; sales and marketing integration; medical device and specialty pharmacy marketing; physician marketing; product launch; start-up launch and revenue growth; tactical market planning; customer experience management; rebuilding and revitalizing marketing operations; media relations; and service line revitalizations. Mike is Huthwaite SPIN selling trained and a Miller Heiman Strategic Selling alumni.

Welcome to Accountable Care Organizations- Marketing Does Matter

2011-04-05T12:02:00.001-05:00

On March 31, 2011, the healthcare system in the U.S. began to change forever with these words:

"An ACO will put the beneficiary and family at the center of all its activities. It will honor individual preferences, values, backgrounds, resources, and skills, and it will thoroughly engage people in shared decision-making about diagnostic and therapeutic options."

With these words, CMS has taken the bold step of moving the healthcare system from a provider-directed healthcare enterprise to a consumer-directed healthcare system. And the implications are enormous. It is also apparent that this will require leadership skills and abilities at the integration of culture and care. No more spin of shifting here among reimbursement options, playing docs off of one another, or avoiding difficult decisions.

Welcome to consumer-directed healthcare.

Eagerly or not so eagerly awaited, these 429 pages of proposed regulations mark the beginning of a great national discussion that will fundamentally change the healthcare delivery system in the U. S. Much as been written already by such publications as Becker's Hospital Review and more to follow.

Most of the commentary is focusing on the organizational structure and what it will require to successfully develop an ACO. My focus though is in what are the marketing implications? And there are many for what in the regulations is really a very small and insignificant portion, but can get newly developing ACOs in some serious difficulty should they fail to strategically plan and execute marketing properly. So, from the proposed regulations we find as an example:

11. ACO Marketing Guidelines:

"We believe there is a potential for beneficiaries to be misled about Medicare services available from an ACO or about the providers and suppliers from whom they can receive those services. We realize that care coordination is an important component of the Shared Savings Program; however, the potential for shared savings may be an incentive for ACOs, ACO participants, or ACO providers/suppliers to engage in behavior that may confuse or mislead beneficiaries about the Shared Savings Program or their Medicare rights.

As a result, issuing beneficiary communications or engaging in marketing activities that may be confusing or misleading would not be patient-centered because these activities restrict the ability of beneficiaries and/or their caregivers to be informed about their health care choices and thus limit the opportunity for beneficiaries to be properly involved in the management of their own care. We are proposing that all ACO marketing materials, communications, and activities related the ACO and its participation in the Shared Savings Program, such as mailings, telephone calls or community events, that are used to educate, solicit, notify, or contact Medicare beneficiaries or providers/suppliers regarding the ACO and its participation in the Shared Savings Program, be approved by us before use to protect beneficiaries and to ensure that they are not confusing or misleading. This requirement
would also apply to any materials or activities used by ACO participants or ACO providers/suppliers on behalf of the ACO to communicate about the ACO's participation in the Shared Savings Program in any manner to Medicare beneficiaries. In addition, we would want to ensure that materials distributed to beneficiaries do not misrepresent Shared Savings Program policies or suggest that we endorse the ACO, its ACO participants, or its ACO providers/suppliers.

We are further proposing that before any changes can be made to any approved materials, the revised materials must be approved by us before use. Finally, because the failure to comply with these requirements would demonstrate that the ACO does not meet the patient-centeredness criteria and therefore may no longer be eligible to participate in the program, we propose that an ACO that fails to adhere to these requirements may be placed under a corrective action plan or terminated, at our discretion.

For purposes of the Shared Savings Program, we are proposing to define ACO marketing materials, communications, and activities as including, but not limited to general audience materials such as brochures, advertisements, outreach events, letters to beneficiaries, web pages, mailings, or other activities, conducted by or on behalf of the ACO, or by ACO participants, or ACO providers/suppliers participating in the ACO, or by other individuals on behalf of the ACO or its participating providers and suppliers. If these materials or activities are used to educate, solicit, notify, or contact Medicare beneficiaries or providers and suppliers regarding the ACO and its participation in the Shared Savings Program, they must be approved by us.”

Marketing Does Matter

For those who have worked in pharmaceutical, medical device and health plans, you all know full well what happens when marketing materials are misleading and have not been approved by the responsible regulatory agencies. This just isn't throwing some brochures or flyers together, this requires high-quality, professionally-produced materials.

So as you being to assess you organizational capability, several marketing considerations become apparent:

Marketing needs to be at the table in the ACO development and decision making process as a senior management contributing member.
Marketing resources and systems need to be planned for.
Seek out an agency that has pharmaceutical, medical device and or heath plan experience. They already know what it's like to deal with and how to deal with regulatory agencies. This isn't something you do in-house.
Develop a highly integrated strategic marketing plan. Clarify brand architecture, messaging, and outcomes. Tactical execution comes last, not first.
Honestly assess the marketing organization, talent and level of expertise existing within the organization and change it if necessary. Seek out individuals with pharma, medical device or health plan expertise.
Understand this is not about making things look pretty.
It's not about you but about the consumer.

And this is important, it is not just communication strategies.

The regulations will change over the next year as comments are taken and considered. Even with change, these are marketing steps your organization needs to be taking anyway. You will be a lot better off in the long run.

By the way, did I mention the 65 quality of care indicators for ACOs that you will need to report on as well?

2012 is almost here.

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

Michael Krivich is an entrepreneurial healthcare marketing executive and internationally followed healthcare marketing blogger read daily in over 36 countries around the world. A Fellow, American College of Healthcare Executives as well as a Professional Certified Marketer, American Marketing Association, he can be reached at 815-293-1471 mailto:ormichael@themichaeljgroup.com . Areas of expertise include: brand management; strategic marketing; sales and marketing integration; medical device and specialty pharmacy marketing; physician marketing; product launch; start-up launch and revenue growth; tactical market planning; customer experience management; rebuilding and revitalizing marketing operations; media relations; and service line revitalizations. Mike is Huthwaite SPIN selling trained and a Miller Heiman Strategic Selling alumni.

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So Tell Me, How Do You Market a $500 Band-Aid in a Hospital Urgent Care Center?

2011-03-30T07:43:00.003-05:00

A story on hospital urgent care centers the other day in the Sun Sentinel, Orlando, Florida caught my eye. In a nut-shell, some hospital and system owned urgent care centers charge emergency room prices. When I started looking around the country, the same story can be repeated in community after community. This is just not an isolated one-time event.

What don't they get?

In a consumer-driven healthcare market, pricing matters. And charging $500 for a 15-minute visit that required a Band-Aid is the perfect example of why there is such an uproar by government, employers, consumers and health plans regarding healthcare cost. It also points out why Walgreens, CVS, Wal-Mart and entrepreneurs are driving the expansion of retail healthcare and outperforming the more traditional healthcare providers.

I get it. Hospitals and health systems need to expand and see the urgent care market as a means of revenue generation for combating falling volumes and declining reimbursement. Urgent care centers will be a part of any ACO strategy as well. But there are alternatives existing that makes the use of hospital-based or owned services at the prices charged, and in some cases, the quality choice of last resort.

This may indicate a lack of understanding of the basic market forces now sweeping the country as healthcare transforms from a provider-dominated " build it and they will come mentality" to a healthcare consumer-dominated market. Could it be in these cases, the age old resistance to change that hospitals and other healthcare providers exhibit from time-to-time?

Entrepreneurial individuals and Venture Capitalists are looking at this type of example nationwide and are chomping at the bit to put their own centers up and compete head-to-head against the hospitals and health systems.

The marketing keys to a successful urgent care center is location, service and price. Urgent care centers are just that urgent care, not emergency life or death care. The consumer usually walks in for minor treatment. If you want a successful urgent care center than provide the services at the price that healthcare consumers will buy. Not the ER charges that you think you can obtain by gouging consumers.

Fast, convenient, affordable. That's the marketing. That's the message. Or should be at least. Keep it simple and convenient.

I feel for that marketing department, I mean, how do you market an urgent care center that charges ER price? Besides having to handle the PR fall-out and loss of credibility to the healthcare consumer, you don't.

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

Michael Krivich is a senior healthcare marketing executive and internationally followed healthcare marketing blogger read daily in over 36 countries around the world. A Fellow, American College of Healthcare Executives as well as a Professional Certified Marketer, American Marketing Association, he can be reached at michael@themichaeljgroup.com or 815-293-1471. Areas of expertise include: brand management; strategic marketing; sales and marketing integration; physician marketing; product launch; start-up launch and revenue growth; tactical market planning; customer experience management; rebuilding and revitalizing marketing operations; media relations; and service line revitalizations. Mike is Huthwaite SPIN selling trained and a Miller Heiman Strategic Selling alumni.

Crafting a Social Media Strategy to Engage the Healthcare Consumer

2011-03-23T09:46:00.000-05:00

To tweet or not to tweet, that is the question?

Faced with a dizzying array of possibilities from twitter to facebook to YouTube, LinkedIn, flicker and others, healthcare providers are struggling with developing a comprehensive social media strategy to engage their customers.

Understandable really. Some of the concern comes from not understanding the power and uses of social media and how consumers are the new paparazzi. Some comes from trying to figure out how a social media strategy fits into the overall marketing plan. Some is purely from executive ignorance in not understanding the place and uses of social media in the life of the healthcare consumer.

In many cases its all of the above and others, including and by far the most pervasive, the never ending paralysis by analysis planning loop and engaging in that quest for the perfect best practice before proceeding.

In these situations it is about internal marketing leadership.

As the marketing expert in your organization, you need to step forward and educate what social media is, how to use it and its advantages to the organization.

It's not just a facebook page, LinkedIn, blog, web site or twitter.

This is an opportunity to experiment, to deliver new content, new key messages with non-traditional methods to reach out too and engage in a meaningful way the healthcare consumer. An opportunity to engage in dialogue, a dialogue which the healthcare consumer desires to have more than you can imagine.

Follow these steps and you're on your way to developing and implementing a strategically-focused, comprehensive and fully integrated social media strategy:

1. Strategy first, tactics second. Any old road will get you to where you want to go without a clear identifiable strategy. This is no different than a traditional marketing approach. Integrate the tools and techniques of social media into your overall marketing efforts.

2. Be clear about your messages and what value using these tools will bring to your healthcare consumers. The purpose is to engage in a dialogue not shout at them. You have to understand what type of information and content your consumers want. Without that knowledge you can say whatever you want, but chances are no one will be reading, responding or listening.

3. Take an integrated approach. What goes on your web site is also on facebook and used in twitter to drive traffic to you. Twitter is a great way to send out links for health related articles or news and information. Have a video? Post it on YouTube. Writing a healthcare blog? You should be if you're not. Make sure twitter, facebook, YouTube, flicker etc., follow you buttons are on your site. Running Back-to- School, Sports or Camp physicals? Put it on twitter, facebook and even those coupon sites like Groupon. Holding a health and wellness event, ditto.

4. Use QR codes with your web site or specific page links or phone number embedded in them to drive them to your site, call center or service line. Through the use of QR codes you can make your print and traditional activities social in nature.

5. Remember at all times your are building brand, perception and experience. This just isn't nice to have, people will remember what you say and do. Be right the first time.

6. Devote resources, budget, time and personnel for the task. This is not a part-time job. It requires a full time position to manage the channels, content and distribution. Your challenge is to keep in front of your healthcare consumers with relevant information, all the time. Attention spans are short. If someone sees no changes on a pretty regular basis in your content or information, they will fall away.

7. Measure everything. Evaluate. Adjust based on your findings.

8. Be creative, don't limit yourself to the tried and true or what a competitor is doing. Be an innovator.

9. Use social media with your physicians and employees to communicate, build organizational support and loyalty.

10. Build excitement around what you are doing, then start all over and begin again.

Jump right in the waters fine!

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

Michael Krivich is a senior healthcare marketing executive and internationally followed healthcare marketing blogger read daily in over 36 countries around the world. A Fellow, American College of Healthcare Executives as well as a Professional Certified Marketer, American Marketing Association, he can be reached at michael@themichaeljgroup.com or 815-293-1471. Areas of expertise include: brand management; strategic marketing; sales and marketing integration; physician marketing; product launch; start-up launch and revenue growth; tactical market planning; customer experience management; rebuilding and revitalizing marketing operations; media relations; and service line revitalizations. Mike is Huthwaite SPIN selling trained and a Miller Heiman Strategic Selling alumni.

Creating a Sustainable Healthcare Marketing Operation in a Consumer-Driven Market

2011-03-16T08:39:00.002-05:00

Sustainability...Presence...Perception...Experience...

These are the four constants that direct-care healthcare providers need to understand and incorporate for success in their marketing operations and campaign efforts in a consumer-driven market. No longer nice to have, these four basic concepts are now business requirements.

Sustainability- The resources to effectively and continuously communicate brand and differentiate your offering across multiple channels.

Presence - By maintaining a continuous presence across multiple channels as in so many other consumer-directed industries, you build brand preference.

Perception- With a sustainable, continuous presence in the marketplace, sooner rather than latter, your key messages become the opinion of you by consumers and they become fact in their minds.

Experience- The actual customer experience matches the brand image, perceptions and opinions of customers that you created in the marketplace that had been communicated in an integrated multi-channel sustained effort.

Change and Survive

A consumer-directed market is much different than a provider-directed market which requires skills and abilities that may or may not exist in an organization. Key success factors for creating a high performance marketing operation that delivers revenue and market share in the new healthcare environment include:

A Vice President of Marketing senior management position that reports to the CEO and is involved in all decision making.

Marketing resources human, operational and capital budgets to support a multi-channel effort externally and internally.

Comprehensive strategic and measurably focused marketing plan that is integrated with the financial and operational plan of the organization.

Tactical execution plan and timetable that integrates all the campaigning to be done over the fiscal year.

Internal communication and training to educate the organization around marketing efforts, expectations and their role in the execution of the plan.

Creation of a comprehensive marketing dashboard which communicates activities and results on a monthly basis to all levels of the organization.

The above organizational marketing success factors are at a minimum what is needed to move direct- care healthcare providers from a cottage-industry approach to marketing to a comprehensive multimillion or billion dollar corporation approach to marketing, that in realty, most of you are.

As the healthcare providers continue to consolidate across all segments, marketing will assume an increasingly important role in the survival and revenue generating activities for the organization in a consumer dominated and directed healthcare marketplace.

And that requires a far different innovative sustainable presence that changes perceptions than the old way of doing things.

You can continue the conversation with me on:

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/krivich0707
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/mkrivich

Michael Krivich is a senior healthcare marketing executive and internationally followed healthcare marketing blogger read daily in over 20 countries around the world. A Fellow, American College of Healthcare Executives as well as a Professional Certified Marketer, American Marketing Association, he can be reached at michael@themichaeljgroup.com or 815-293-1471. Areas of expertise include: brand management; strategic marketing; sales and marketing integration; physician marketing; product launch; start-up launch and revenue growth; tactical market planning; customer experience management; rebuilding and revitalizing marketing operations; media relations; and service line revitalizations. Mike is Huthwaite SPIN selling trained and a Miller Heiman Strategic Selling alumni. healthcare marketing, brnd, hospitals, health systems

Customer Experience Management Applied to Healthcare- Part 7

2011-03-09T10:49:00.000-06:00

Or, the dangers of only viewing the customer-patient experience management as only the patient encounter.

An Intuit survey, "Healthcare consumers want online control"- HealthcareFinanceNews.com, March 3, 2011, indicates overwhelming support by the general public for more control over their healthcare via online activities. They want healthcare providers including physicians, to be accessible online. They want to pay their bills online, communicate with the provider, request appointments and get lab results. A clearly demonstrated experience need and expectation of consumers, that except for a few isolated healthcare organizations, is generally lacking among healthcare providers.

Had you been conducting market research on your customers-patients in the experience management process outside of the patient interaction, you would have understood that expectation and need. But unfortunately, most customer-patient experience management programs in healthcare providers are focused on the 1/3rd of the encounter with you as a patient.

Where do you go from here?

Healthcare providers do "dumb things" all the time. And they never seem to learn from that experience. So what happens when test results aren't available, the bill is wrong and a person cannot get the information they want or is on hold for too long? Well, all the compensatory goodwill built up in the patient encounter is lost because of these little "dumb mistakes" that healthcare providers make day-in and day-out. Those mistakes continue to build until they become non-compensatory event. Meaning that all the good encountered in the patient experience is washed away like a flood.

That's why its important to view Customer-Patient Experience Management(CEM or PEM) in its totality and not as an one service or clinical line experience. It may be for you, but to the healthcare customer-patient who views your organization across numerous touch-points and aggregates all of it into one overall experience, it's not.

Use the Internet and social media to frame the experience and meet customer-patient expectations.

Online bill payment, searching for information, communications via email, chats, facebook, twitter, YouTube and other mediums is an everyday occurrence for healthcare consumer. You, as a healthcare provider, need to understand that expectation and experience and integrate it into your efforts.

Part of the process of experience management is actively managing customers-patients experiences to meet expectations and change their experiences to drive revenue and market share improvements. It's not all about the patient satisfaction numbers. CEM or PEM has a definable and measurable financial outcomes. But you cannot achieve those revenue outcomes if you are not looking at experience management in its totality.

You may not want patient portals, but your customers do. You may not want online bill payment but your customers do. You may not want to have people schedule appointments online, but your customers do. You may not want them to have access to their medical information online, but your customers do.

By not fully understanding your customer-patient in their totality, you are not successfully managing their experience or expectations.

The wave is here to use an oft quoted metaphor. Its consumer-directed not provider-directed healthcare. And the sooner you get on the surfboard of true CEM or PEM, and start looking at the customer experience in its totality, the better the chances of your survival in the coming years.

The public, health plans, employers and government are running out of patience with healthcare providers and the "dumb mistakes" that continue to be made due to the lack of understanding of their needs, expectations and experiences.

Change or be swept away.

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

Michael Krivich is a senior healthcare marketing executive and internationally followed healthcare marketing blogger read daily in over 20 countries around the world. A Fellow, American College of Healthcare Executives as well as a Professional Certified Marketer, American Marketing Association, he can be reached at michael@themichaeljgroup.com or 815-293-147. Areas of expertise include: brand management; strategic marketing; sales and marketing integration; physician marketing; product launch; start-up launch and revenue growth; tactical market planning; customer experience management; rebuilding and revitalizing marketing operations; media relations; and service line revitalizations. Mike is Huthwaite SPIN selling trained and a Miller Heiman Strategic Selling alumni.

Customer Experience Management Applied to Healthcare- Part 6

2011-03-02T09:21:00.003-06:00

So why are you not talking to your customers-patients in experience management?

As I look across the changing healthcare landscape, there is a movement gaining momentum to improve the patient and customer experience. Case studies and published articles are appearing in healthcare on Customer Experience Management (CEM). And don't get me wrong, wonderful improvements are being made. But when I delve into these improvement activities, one common denominator is missing and it concerns me.

If you are engaged in the CEM process correctly, that means you are talking to and listening to your customers or patients. Healthcare providers, such as MD Anderson as well as others, are actively pursuing customer and patient engagement that includes an intense and focused effort to actively talk and listen to their customers and patients. But unfortunately, they are far and few between.

Are you using only one means of gathering customer or patient experience intelligence?

There is no doubt that customer-patient satisfaction is an important outcome and can indicate where there are problems in the experience process. An excellent place to start to ask the question why, using the various tools of six sigma etc., to start the improvement process. Improvements are being made and satisfaction as measured by the various tools used improves, indicating success. No question about it and well documented.

But you are still not talking and listening to your customer-patients?

And I really don't understand why that is occurring.

Customer Experience Management requires that you actively engage in multiple ways to talk and listen to your customers-patients. Using one tool to accomplish that misses the point and you are losing valuable customer feedback. If you are not using multiple methods quantitatively and qualitatively to talk and listen to your customers-patients, you are not doing true Customer or Patient Experience Management.

Could it be potentially that healthcare leadership is by nature imperialistic?

Healthcare imperialism is an attitude derived from years of making decisions without customer or patient feedback. Because of training or knowledge, perceived status or being a not-for-profit whose espoused vision is focused on the community, healthcare providers can be imperialistic in their thinking that they know all or see all. The customer-patient can't possibly understand what we are doing. It's too technically complicated, or they don't have the knowledge and training that we do. We can no longer afford to think that way, and individuals seeking our care will no longer accept an imperialistic attitude.

Maybe it's because we are afraid of the answers we might get?

Asking your customers-patients about their experiences, needs and desires can be a scary proposition. Even so, as we move inextricably to a consumer-driven healthcare model and less of a healthcare provider-dominated model, talking and listening carefully are skills that need to be developed.

Take a step back.

Evaluate why you're afraid to talk to your customers and make those internal changes that will allow you to seek out open and honest feedback beyond satisfaction. Customer or Patient Experience Management is not easy and there are no shortcuts. Experience Management forces you, if done correctly, to potentially face some uncomfortable truths about your healthcare organization. It will also give you those shinning moments of organizational success to build upon.

To survive you need to get the process of Customer or Patient Experience Management right the first time. Hospital volumes and admission are down and are not coming back to previous levels of utilization. People are finding high-quality, low-cost, well known established brand options to traditional healthcare providers to receive care. Once those purchase patterns are established they are very difficult to break.

Time to start asking the questions you never really wanted an answer too. And listening to those answers.

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

Michael Krivich is a senior healthcare marketing executive and internationally followed healthcare marketing blogger read daily in over 20 countries around the world. A Fellow, American College of Healthcare Executives as well as a Professional Certified Marketer, American Marketing Association, he can be reached at michael@themichaeljgroup.com or 815-293-147. Areas of expertise include: brand management; strategic marketing; sales and marketing integration; physician marketing; product launch; start-up launch and revenue growth; tactical market planning; customer experience management; rebuilding and revitalizing marketing operations; media relations; and service line revitalizations. Mike is Huthwaite SPIN selling trained and a Miller Heiman Strategic Selling alumni.

Making Your Customers, Patients, Staff, Volunteers and Suppliers Heroes

2011-02-23T10:03:00.000-06:00

With the rapid evolution of healthcare from a provider-dominated and directed industry, to a consumer- driven industry is forcing changes in how we market and do business. Being responsive, delivering an exceptional and consistent customer experience from first contact through evaluation to use and post purchase, meeting individual expectations and needs is never easy. But as many successful healthcare companies will attest, these are no longer nice to have business requirements, but got to have requirements in order to survive.

Treating patients is at the heart of all that you do. Doesn't matter if it's a hospital, long-term care facility, medical device manufacturer, pharmaceutical manufacturer or physician. In one way or another we are seen sometimes as heroes, other times as negligent fools and most of the time as just okay along the treatment path by our consumers.

So why then don't we make our customers, who become patients, staff, volunteers and others our heroes?

In healthcare, especially the hospital segment of the total industry, everyone is undifferentiated. Same medical services, same equipment, same doctors across multiple hospitals, same insurance plans, rooms, beds, gift shop. Little brand or brand promise differentiation.

If you are engaged in a Customer Experience Management process across the whole organization, by listening, learning, changing and adapting your business model, as well as the way you are delivering healthcare services to your customers and patients, then you are making heroes.

Why not tell your audiences who your heroes are?

The patient who extols your virtues. The doctor who admits patients nowhere else. The staff member that provides exceptional care and service day-in and day-out. The volunteer delivering papers each day to patients for the past 30 years. The supplier, medical device manufacturer, and others who because of their innovation make it possible for you to be in the position of delivering what we all hope is quality care.

Let's face it, healthcare on a day-to-day basis is mundane.

Making the mundane seem exceptional is what separates the truly successful from the also-ran. You can use these examples to frame the experience of your organization. Set the expectation that what you do is extraordinary. Medical care is mundane on a day-to-day basis. But it's the customer and patient experience and how we portray that experience to our audiences that will differentiate.

This marketing approach lends itself to developing effective campaigns to be deployed over time. It allows you to personalize and strengthen your brand. It also takes you beyond the we do this, this, and this, with this, that and these medical devices by putting a face on the outcome of care.

And in the end, isn't that what we are all about?

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

Michael Krivich is a senior healthcare marketing executive and internationally followed healthcare marketing blogger read daily in over 20 countries around the world. A Fellow, American College of Healthcare Executives as well as a Professional Certified Marketer, American Marketing Association, he can be reached at michael@themichaeljgroup.com or 815-293-147. Areas of expertise include: brand management; strategic marketing; sales and marketing integration; physician marketing; product launch; start-up launch and revenue growth; tactical market planning; customer experience management; rebuilding and revitalizing marketing operations; media relations; and service line revitalizations. Mike is Huthwaite SPIN selling trained and a Miller Heiman Strategic Selling alumni.

Healthcare Advertising in a Consumer-Driven Market

2011-02-16T10:07:00.000-06:00

I have been thinking about this topic for awhile now. And it does fit into what I have been writing about in Customer Experience Management. Hospital and other healthcare leadership seem to be struggling with the concept of an empowered, informed healthcare consumer who is making active decisions regarding treatment and care, instead of relying on the provider of care making the decisions.

This is leading to any number of hospitals and others advertising outcomes, satisfaction rates, awards for care, no wait ERs and other self proclaimed measures and for example, using web site clocks that provide real-time ER wait times, etc. Some innovative hospitals have even been cleaver in their ER advertising and other communication channels allowing customers to text a message and get the wait time back. Some ads make claims of being the number one in treatment because of the volume of cases. Some support the brand and brand promise very clearly. Others leave much to be desired.

Most ads are agency quality and well done, while some are clearly created in-house and look it too.

Some no doubt are driven by what CEOs and docs want.

My advice to those hospital CEOs and docs is- don't quit the day job. Hire an agency and get it right. In a consumer-driven market home-grown is not cute. Too many headlines confuse people. Bolding copy is like shouting at them. Too much copy means you have no clear idea of what you are communicating. Those ads are not supporting your brand, brand promise or even at times make any sense at all.

Misrepresentation of the data.

But what I am also seeing is misuse and misrepresentation of data related to quality awards from third parties. It's one thing to advertise that you have earned awards for clinical quality in several areas, who the awarding organization is and the importance of the meaning of that award to your audience.

It's an entirely different matter when you take that award and tell people that if all the hospitals in the nation were as good as you, in those categories, which are not all of the categories of care awarded, that 158,000 lives would be saved annually is flat out wrong and misrepresenting any relative value of what that awards means.

And Tax-exempt hospitals chide their for-profit counterparts for misleading advertising?

Did you tell your audience that you had to pay the awarding organization for the right to advertise those awards?

What you should be communicating.

Which is the experience and how that awards makes you a quality provider of care in that category not all categories. Your messaging and visuals should be reinforcing quality, educating about what that award means , strengthening your brand and brand promise, as well as differentiating you from your competitors. You should be the data and outcomes transparent provider in your community. Create trust and goodwill with your messaging. Listen to your consumers and give them the meaningful data that they want in order to participate in the decision making process.

What you should not be communicating.

Do not use "unique", "world- class", "one-of-a-kind" , or "state-of-the-art" in your copy. What you do is not "unique", others provide the same. Unless someone is coming from another corner of the world to get care, you are not "world-class". And "state-of-the-art" is fleeting because a new service, procedure or technology is already on the horizon. Do not write or say "our medical team" or "staff" and use physicians in that sentence. Nor should you say "our physicians". That will get you drawn into physician malpractice lawsuits under the apparent agency doctrine.

Telling people "you care", when that is already an existing expectation of your consumers is stating the obvious. If anything, those types of messages only raise a red flag to consumers and are seen a pejorative.

This a critical component of Customer Experience Management.

In most cases your advertisements and other channel communications are the primary contact that a consumer has with you that starts the customer experience process or even considering changing providers. Talk to your audiences in meaningful ways. Educate. Teach. Inform. Change opinion. Tell them why the quality award is important and what it means to them. Frame their expectation and experience. Manage it.

Frame it in terms of the customer experience and you will find a heightened sense of consumer and brand awareness. Data transparency in outcomes and honesty will drive volume and revenue for that category of service. It won't if you incorrectly position the achievement by making wild claims of superiority that no one believes.

In the end, the FTC is watching.

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

Michael Krivich is a senior healthcare marketing executive and internationally followed healthcare marketing blogger read daily in over 20 countries around the world. A Fellow, American College of Healthcare Executives as well as a Professional Certified Marketer, American Marketing Association, he can be reached at michael@themichaeljgroup.com or 815-293-147. Areas of expertise include: brand management; strategic marketing; sales and marketing integration; physician marketing; product launch; start-up launch and revenue growth; tactical market planning; customer experience management; rebuilding and revitalizing marketing operations; integration of sales and marketing team; media relations; and service line revitalizations. Mike is Huthwaite SPIN selling trained and a Miller Heiman Strategic Selling alumni.

7 Keys to Marketing ACOs and Keeping Your Patients

2011-02-09T12:59:00.000-06:00

With the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), impetus was created to drive providers to create Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs). Interesting in that the ACO model was left open. That is, patients can move outside of their ACO home for service and care. Unlike Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) where care was restricted to in-network providers, planners were afraid of the backlash that would occur if they created a closed-model HMO style, ACO model for Medicare beneficiaries. Studies suggest that up to 1/4 of beneficiaries enrolled in ACOs would not stay within the ACO network and would need incentives to do so.

That is a big out-of-network churn rate and too expensive to the ACO.

So what is a healthcare provider to do?

1. Make sure that you have a Customer Experience Management Program place. You need to be close to your members by understanding their current needs and how their needs change over time. This is consumer-directed healthcare not provider-directed healthcare. If you don't meet the experience needs of your consumers, then they will go out-of-network or leave all together. This means listening too, instead of talking at, your customers. It means constantly monitoring that state of the experience.

2. Invest heavily in customer service training. "The Patient", aka customer, is not here to serve you, you are there to serve them. You can never have enough customer service training. A well developed, and implemented customer service program will contribute in significant ways to keeping patients in your ACO. Exacting customer service standards for employee behavior with measurable and reviewed individual performance goals and objectives, are the only way to ensure that exceptionally high levels of customer service are deliver across the entire organization. What gets measured gets done.

3. Brand is everything. A highly developed brand, brand promise and brand promise execution in the organization is essential. Promotional materials, patient education materials etc., need to be of high value, provide useful and usable information, as well as reflect the experience that you want patients, caregivers and customers to have when interacting with your ACO. Your key message must be consistent across all materials. Your employees need to be trained to be brand ambassadors.

4. Define and market the customer experience around quality and outcomes. People will be buying based on price and quality. Since more of a financial outlay will be coming from individuals, they will care about the price they are paying in the way of insurance, co-pays or deductibles. If the patient does not believe that they are receiving exceptional quality and service for the price paid, that will become a large motivator for going out-of-network or changing ACOs all together. You need to be the transparent organization in price, value and quality.

5. Create incentives to use you and not go out-of-network. That may mean lower copayments and premiums. It may mean loyalty programs with no wait services. Online registrations for care etc.

6. Communicate in a variety of ways the value and benefit to the consumer for using you. Educate them to understand why you are better than the next ACO down the street. Don't assume anything. Differentiate!

7. Make access seamless and easy to use. One ACO to the customer/patient, one customer/patient to the ACO.

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

Michael Krivich is a senior healthcare marketing executive and internationally followed healthcare marketing blogger read daily in over 20 countries around the world. A Fellow, American College of Healthcare Executives as well as a Professional Certified Marketer, American Marketing Association, he can be reached at michael@themichaeljgroup.com or 815-293-1471 for hiring as your senior marketing executive , for interim assignments in all aspects of healthcare marketing whether it be strategic or tactical market planning, customer experience management, rebuilding and revitalizing your existing marketing operation, integration of sales and marketing teams, media relations or service line revitalizations. Huthwaite SPIN selling trained and a Miller Heiman Strategic Selling alumni, both highly respected and successful international sales training organizations, I can lead your organization though the challenge of integrating sales and marketing.

Customer Experience Management Applied to Healthcare Part 5- An Organizational Way of Life

2011-02-03T09:14:00.001-06:00

For several weeks now, I have been blogging about Customer Experience Management Applied to Healthcare. The reaction and comments have been most interesting from around the world. Many have come from physicians, CEOs of hospitals, Consultants, Directors, Managers, line-staff and coordinators. The countries of origin for the comments include not only the United States, but Belgium, England, France, China, Russia and India to name a few. Several have asked for the materials offered up to help them internally to start or move forward their companies CEM process.

Some major observations that can be drawn from the comments and discussions.

First, is that leadership across many healthcare industry channels are struggling with the transition of the healthcare marketplace from a provider-dominated, decision-making enterprise, to a consumer-directed, consumer-controlled healthcare system. The consumer has slowly and most assuredly been taking a more active role in healthcare treatment decision-making for a long time now. An empowered consumer is a blessing and a threat to the way business has been done in the past.

Second, many healthcare organizations don't talk to their consumers, be it doctors, community, patients, families, employers, employees, insurance companies, etc. I mean really talk to them and engage in a meaningful conversation. A meaningful conversation regarding their experiences, needs, hopes, desires and expectations. And that is a very different conversation than the one in the hallway or in a patient satisfaction survey.

The third major conclusion is that there is need to accelerate and embrace new ways of doing things that are successful in other industries. That is not to say that new and innovative ways or understanding customers and changing organizations to more fully meet their expectations should be taken lock, stock, and barrel without critical examination and thought. We need to gain an understanding and the knowledge that comes from successful application of innovative techniques in other service industries. Identify what works, adapt, implement, evaluate and evolve. We no longer have the luxury of waiting 5, 10, even 15 years to adapt lessons form other industiures.

Fourth, we have difficulty using the word customer. It is as if that word has some kind of negative connotation because it is used in the for-profit world. It's okay to say customer and only use the word patient part of the time. In the beginning of these blogs I wrote that an individual is only a patient 1/3rd of the time in their experience in an organization. The other 2/3rds of the time, they are a consumer. Yes the 1/3rd of the time is the most critical of the experience chain, but the other 2/3rds of the experience can change the positive work done in 1/3rd of the experience.

CEM is about making lasting and ongoing changes for the purpose of growing the brand, increasing volume, growing profitable revenue and strengthening loyalty.

Customer Experience Management or for those that feel using the term Patient Experience Management is better, is not the "be all - end all" system. What CEM offers is a roadmap that can be used to change your organization to become customer-focused dedicated to meeting their needs and experiences. It is not just satisfaction results but it is part of the process. It is not just consumer market research, but that is part of the process. It is not just about hiring the right staff, that is part of the process. It is all of this and then some.

Customer Experience Management, when done correctly, is a major game changer for organizations. The application of CEM increases brand loyalty, volume, revenue and repeat utilization. CEM creates customer and employee evangelists. CEM takes you to a new level of organizational awareness and performance. One that is industry leading and game changing. CEM applies to all of your customers no matter how you segment or what you call them.

Never has healthcare been more challenging or frightening as we look to an uncertain future with the velocity of directional change. Never has healthcare been more full of opportunity to redefine its business, relationships to consumers and change the scope, cost and outcome of care. An exciting time for innovation, new models and breaking from the past.

To quote Charles Dickens- " It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,... it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, ....it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair,...in short, the period was so much like the present."

Thanks for reading and see you next week.

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

Michael Krivich is a senior healthcare marketing executive and internationally followed healthcare marketing blogger read daily in over 20 countries around the world. A Fellow, American College of Healthcare Executives as well as a Professional Certified Marketer, American Marketing Association, he can be reached at michael@themichaeljgroup.com or 815-293-1471 for hiring as your senior marketing executive , for interim assignments in all aspects of healthcare marketing whether it be strategic or tactical market planning, customer experience management, rebuilding and revitalizing your existing marketing operation, integration of sales and marketing teams, media relations or service line revitalizations. Huthwaite SPIN selling trained and a Miller Heiman Strategic Selling alumni, both highly respected and successful international sales training organizations, I can lead your organization though the challenge of integrating sales and marketing.

Customer Experience Management Applied to Healthcare- Part 4 The Process

2011-01-26T07:00:00.001-06:00

CMS has proposed that 30 percent of a healthcare providers quality incentive payment be based on patient experience. Using the HCAHPS patient satisfaction data as the experience measure, hospitals, associations, satisfaction vendors have generally come out opposed for a variety of reasons, some valid, some just nonsense.

This is where Customer Experience Management (CEM)applied to healthcare comes in. However, and let me be clear about this, CEM is more than just looking at your patient satisfaction scores. Satisfaction data can be important in pointing out areas of needed experience improvement, but it is just one data source.

What you really need to do is talk to your customers.

That's right, talk to your customers with one caveat.

Do not talk to your customers until you have analyzed your satisfaction data. If you haven't analyzed your satisfaction data please see my book How to Use Patient Satisfaction Data to Improve Healthcare Quality. Do not talk to your customers until you have started the experience map process tool that identifies all the touch-points along a continuum where consumers first begin to experience you, then as patients, then as consumers again. Below is an example of a total Patient Experience Map for a hospital.

Along the top of the map are chevrons from the initial touch-point of relationship initiation to ending at loyalty. There can be as many or as few as you want. I would recommend that you be all inclusive and see your customer relationship across the entire spectrum. That is how your customer forms an experience of you. Their encounter with you is not just as an isolated event. It is the sum of all that occurs in their experience process. You will be working on individual service aspects to improve the experience, but you must always remember that changes in one area impact another and vies versa. Nothing is isolated from the whole in CEM. This Experience Map should be adapted for individual product or service lines,

Gaining a detailed understanding of the drivers of your satisfaction experience and connecting them to the organizational touch-points, will yield some initial insights into your customers. Brainstorm organizationally what the data means based on the experience map. Brainstorm what you think about the experience. Develop a detailed list of quantitative information that you need from your customers so that you can begin the customer-centric dialogue to understand their view of the experience.

These insights then need to be validated by your customers.

Market research is required.

If you are not going to listen to your customers about their experiences first-hand, then you are not engaged in CEM. Customers include employees as well. Small focus groups, one-on-one research, web enabled survey, telephone and other methods of research are needed to validate your experience assumptions. Don't be afraid to ask former patients about your current process for whatever service experience you pick. What did they understand? What did they not understand? Where were they confused? What would make it better?

This type of process can yield volumes of results. You can expect to have some of your insights validated. You will also be surprised at insights that you will gain from a customer-centric dialogue, uncovering areas for experience improvement that you never would have thought of or considered. Validation and identification assist in prioritizing what changes you need to make for the "ideal experience". With this type of data, you now are able to prioritize those experience changes that are "nice to have", compared to those experience changes that will make the most impact in experience improvement for rational resource allocation. It takes the guess work out of the equation. Cost benefit analysis is required.

It will take 2-3 months at a cost estimate of $30,000 for the research part for each service.

Now it's about operations.

Data drives decisions and knowing what will improve your customer experience based on your dialogue and validation by your customers, you can now develop those operational service improvement plans to improve the customer experience across the totality of that experience. How you allocate resources and change operationally is left to you within whatever process and or quality improvement system you use.

These steps need to be repeated for each service experience or product-line that you choose to improve.

Customer Experience Management is a way of life, not a one-time organizational change.

If you are interested, I have a small 14 slide PowerPoint presentation overview that summarizes Customer Experience Management Applied to Healthcare in an Adobe file format that I can send to you for educating your organization. Just send an email to me at michael@themichaeljgroup.com

You can continue the conversation with me on:

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/krivich0707
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/mkrivich

Michael Krivich is a senior healthcare marketing executive and internationally followed healthcare marketing blogger read daily in over 20 countries around the world. A Fellow, American College of Healthcare Executives as well as a Professional Certified Marketer, American Marketing Association, he can be reached at michael@themichaeljgroup.com or 815-293-1471 for hiring as your senior marketing executive , for interim assignments in all aspects of healthcare marketing whether it be strategic or tactical market planning, customer experience management, rebuilding and revitalizing your existing marketing operation, integration of sales and marketing teams, media relations or service line revitalizations. Huthwaite SPIN selling trained and a Miller Heiman Strategic Selling alumni, both highly respected and successful international sales training organizations, I can lead your organization though the challenge of integrating sales and marketing.

Customer Experience Management Applied to Healthcare- Part 3- A Model for Change

2011-01-19T09:24:00.000-06:00

Before we go much further, I would like to make a correction in terminology. In an interesting discussion on LinkedIn, a physician pointed out that Experience Management is applicable to physicians as well. I had assumed that individuals understood via earlier posts.

My mistake.

Using the word patient places models and systems in boxes in which we tend to forget, that this is applicable across all customer segments. Going forward I will no longer write about Patient Experience Management, but about Customer Experience Management (CEM) applied to healthcare. The time has come to see people as they really are, whether they be doctors, insurance companies, individual, donors, patients etc., as individual customers with experiences that we need to understand like never before to improve quality and reduce cost.

To quote Paul Harvey..."Now for the rest of the story".....

Customer Experience Management is understanding your customer and their experiences so thoroughly, that you use that information to improve systems, processes, products, services, prices, employee training and other changes to increase brand loyalty, repurchase and customer evangelization.

Marketing Driven Process

This is not a simple marketing ploy. It is about marketing leadership and driving lasting organizational change. If marketing is not involved in your organization in this, then failure will be your outcome. If your marketing department can't do this, then time has arrived for a new marketing department. CEM is not a one size fit all. This is not the flavor of the day. CEM is about lasting organizational change that requires you to become market-driven and customer-driven.

A CEM organizational model can look like this:

Pretty simple really. Very difficult to carry out.

Start with understanding your customer in far more detail than you have ever done before. It is at this point that you need a formal Voice of the Customer (VoC) program. This model requires that you are in constant contact; monitoring your customers continuously all along the touch-points, utilization and purchase process to alert you to things done well and those still needing improvement. Use the experience analysis to identify key internal systems, processes, products and training to meet your customers experiences and expectations. As you improve, you will see higher quality, efficiency and accuracy. That naturally leads to lower operating costs, lower prices, higher level of satisfaction. You retain your customers and prevent leakage to other healthcare providers. Revenue and market share also improve. Then you start again. It is a never ending cycle.

In this model, as you improve systems, processes, products and services etc, you will have lower operating costs which in turn means that you should be lowering your prices. This is a new concept to healthcare, lowering your prices to your customers. It is possible. It is achievable. I doubt that its ever been done, but like all things there is always a first time.

Because you are focusing on the experiences, needs and expectations of the customer, you become an outward focused organization that changes via a controlled process, product and service improvement model to meet your customers expectations. Doesn't matter if it's a physicians, patient, consumer, insurance company, government, Board member etc. It also does not specify what process improvement tool you use, whether that's Six Sigma, Lean Six Sigma, TCM,CQI, Lean Production etc. Those systems fit very well into this model. The difference is that it starts and ultimately ends with the consumer.

Your challenge and the most difficult, is to identify and discover what your customers expect of you. That requires an honest internal examination and a willingness to talk to your customers to reality check what you think their experience and expectation is. If you don't reality check against your customers, then don't embark on this journey. You are not all wise and powerful. Time to stop the healthcare imperialism that occurs today.

Next up on the CEM discussion, getting started.

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

Michael Krivich is a senior healthcare marketing executive and internationally followed healthcare marketing blogger read daily in over 20 countries around the world. A Fellow, American College of Healthcare Executives as well as a Professional Certified Marketer, American Marketing Association, he can be reached at michael@themichaeljgroup.com or 815-293-1471 for hiring as your senior marketing executive , for interim assignments in all aspects of healthcare marketing whether it be strategic or tactical market planning, customer experience management, rebuilding and revitalizing your existing marketing operation, integration of sales and marketing teams, media relations or service line revitalizations. Huthwaite SPIN selling trained and a Miller Heiman Strategic Selling alumni, both highly respected and successful international sales training organizations, I can lead your organization though the challenge of integrating sales and marketing.

Customer/Patient Experience Management Applied to Healthcare Part 2

2011-01-12T09:54:00.000-06:00

There are any number of reasons for beginning the Experience Management movement. Many of my readers have more or less begun some type of Customer Experience Management (CEM) or Patient Experience Management (PEM) process. So this post is really for those who still need some prodding in the hospital and health system segment of the healthcare industry and most specialty pharmacies to a large extent.

Consumer Choice of Provider is Based in Experience

In a McKinsey study published in November 2007, McKinsey Quarterly -A Better Hospital Experience, they found that the majority of 2,000 commercial insurance and Medicare patients surveyed would change hospitals to receive a better experience. It was also shown that only 20% of a patients choice is based on the clinical care experience or reputation, 41% is on the nonclinical experience while the remaining 39% is based on doctors recommendation.

The most surprising finding, was that of the 100 physicians also surveyed, that they are often willing to accommodate their patients' request! Doctors will move patients and honor their request for a better experience.

Now if that doesn't get your attention, nothing will. And that was before the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. With 34 million consumers coming online to be able to afford healthcare services through the purchase of some type of insurance, they will wield considerable market power.

Disappointing at best, few hospitals, health systems or specialty pharmacies understand or act systemically to understand the patient experience and use that to drive quality and efficiency improvements in their organizations. Most don't even know where to start or who to place in charge of the effort.

Looking for Revenue from Customer/Patient Experience? Try the Business Office.

In a HealthLeaders Media article from October 8, 2010, How to Boost Post-Discharge Revenue, Customer Service, improving the customer/patient experience with the business office can realize cash improvements of 20-30%.

Experience and Service Go Hand-In-Hand.

In the Customer Experience Report North America 2010, Forrester Research found a number of interesting facts. Some of the most interesting:

• Of those who decided to stop using an organization - 73% was due to rude staff; 51% due to unknowledgeable staff; 55% due to issues not resolved in a timely manner.
• 79% of customers who had a negative experience told others.
• 59% of consumers recommend a company because of its service.
• 40% purchase from a competitor because of their reputation for great customer service.

Finally, in the 2007 Operationalizing Customer Intelligence in the Contact Center, Business Communications Review:

• Customer retention increased by 15% year-over-year for best-in-class CEM practitioner; by 1% for industry-average CEM practitioner; 0% for laggards.
• Customer satisfaction increased 19% year-over-year for best-in-class CEM practitioners; 6% for industry -average; 3% for laggards.
• Profits increased 8% year-over-year for best-in-class CEM practitioners; increased 6% industry-average; decreased 8% for laggards.

A healthcare provider's ability to deliver an experience that sets it apart in the eyes of its payers, physicians and consumers/patients from its competitors - traditional and non-traditional - serves to increase their spending and loyalty to the brand.

I can go on and on about the importance of Customer/Patient Experience Management, but you get the point. The healthcare industry needs to awaken to the potential of Customer/Patient Experience Management before 2014 arrives. By then it will be too late.

Next up a proposed model of Customer/Patient Experience Management that will drive quality and cost improvement that I have developed.

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

Michael Krivich is a senior healthcare marketing executive and internationally followed healthcare marketing blogger read daily in over 20 countries around the world. A Fellow, American College of Healthcare Executives as well as a Professional Certified Marketer, American Marketing Association, he can be reached at michael@themichaeljgroup.com or 815-293-1471 for hiring as your senior marketing executive , for interim assignments in all aspects of healthcare marketing whether it be strategic or tactical market planning, customer experience management, rebuilding and revitalizing your existing marketing operation, integration of sales and marketing teams, media relations or service line revitalizations. Huthwaite SPIN selling trained and a Miller Heiman Strategic Selling alumni, both highly respected and successful international sales training organizations , I can lead your organization though the challenge of integrating sales and marketing.

Customer/Patient Experience Management Applied to Healthcare

2011-01-05T08:10:00.000-06:00

Happy New Year everyone. Welcome to 2011 and a new decade!

There is an increasing amount of activity in what healthcare organizations are calling Patient Experience Management (PEM). Patient Experience Management is not a new concept. In reality, it is Customer Experience Management partially applied to healthcare.

Customer Experience Management (CEM) first appeared 13 years ago in an article published by the Harvard Business Review authored by Pine and Gilmore. The concept proposes that by managing the entirety of the customer experience from first contact to purchase or use, that you can move a customer from satisfied to loyal and then from loyal to brand advocate by actively managing the experience. It is based on thoroughly understanding the customer. Essentially end-to-end management of the chain of events that an individual experiences . Since that time CEM has grown and evolved to became an important business requirement.

This is a critically important topic for healthcare. And it's not just about reading an article, thinking you know all about it and start a program. I submit that it is time we begin thinking about individuals not as patients but as customers.

We need to look at CEM not PEM.

The reason for this?

Two-thirds of an individual's interaction with a healthcare provider is as a customer pre and post treatment. Only one-third of their encounter with you is as a patient during treatment.

Let me repeat.......

Two-thirds of an individual's interaction with a healthcare provider is as a customer pre and post treatment. Only one-third of their encounter with you is as a patient during treatment.

A healthcare provider's ability to deliver an experience that sets it apart in the eyes of its payers, physicians and consumers/patients from its competitors - traditional and non-traditional - serves to increase their spending and loyalty to the brand.

CEM actively manages the customer experience in total by understanding the customer's point of view. That is, all touch points internally and externally that a customer comes in contact with which in turn creates the experience. PEM looks at only one aspect of the exchange and interaction. That which occurs internally when a customer is a patient. It does not consider all of a consumer/patient's cross channel exposure, interactions and transactions with the healthcare provider.

CEM requires you to see the "patient" as an individual customer with distinct needs and expectations that is developed across the organization externally and internally. It requires a complete and thorough understanding of all customers, their needs and expectations.

This is just the first in a series on Customer Experience Management. Healthcare namely hospitals and other direct care providers have done the Total Quality Management, Continuous Quality Improvement, Lean Management, Six Sigma, Lean Six Sigma, Built to Last, In Search of Excellence, etc. All good systems, all good approaches but for one reason or another have come up short in healthcare. We still have the same cost and quality issues when this all started years ago.

Now maybe it's time we started to focus on the customer, their needs and expectations to grow profitably.

In the next posting we will look at some examples in other industries where CEM is being successfully deployed.

You can continue the conversation with me on:

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/krivich0707
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/mkrivich

Michael Krivich is a senior healthcare marketing executive and internationally followed healthcare marketing blogger read daily in over 20 countries around the world. A Fellow, American College of Healthcare Executives as well as a Professional Certified Marketer, American Marketing Association, he can be reached at michael@themichaeljgroup.com or 815-293-1471 for hiring as your senior marketing executive , for interim assignments in all aspects of healthcare marketing whether it be strategic or tactical market planning, customer experience management, rebuilding and revitalizing your existing marketing operation, integration of sales and marketing teams, media relations or service line revitalizations. Huthwaite SPIN selling trained and a Miller Heiman Strategic Selling alumni, both highly respected and successful international sales training organizations , I can lead your organization though the challenge of integrating sales and marketing.

Healthcare Marketing Resolutions for 2011

2010-12-21T13:00:00.000-06:00

It has been a most interesting healthcare year. One filled with great change by the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, large fraud settlements along with the usually ethical and moral failures, mergers, acquisitions and the glimmer of an economic recovery. There is optimistic hope for the future.

Enough said as all the major healthcare publications run their year-end retrospectives, tops tens, best and worst…. well, you get the idea.

So before I going to much further, I would like to extend a most sincere wish for a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all my readers around the world. Readership of Healthcare Marketing Matters has increased greatly over this past year to over a 1,000 page views a month and read daily world-wide. I hope that you have found these writings to be informative, maybe even educational and occasionally irreverent. But most of all, thank you for reading and commenting.

So my last Healthcare Marketing Matters blog for 2010 is about New Year Marketing Resolutions. My own Top 10 list that you might consider as well.

10. I will educate my organization about the value of my department and work. I will lead and prove my departments ROI.

9. I will continue to scan other industries for their marketing successes. I will learn about them, adapt them to my industry, and implement successfully.

8. I will continue my marketing education through webinars, seminars and conferences. There is always something new on the horizon to learn.

7. I will integrate my traditional, online and social marketing strategies. All are complementary to one another and drive multiple successes.

6. I will innovate, discover the needs of my customers and drive consistent brand messaging.

5. I will foster a spirit of and demand marketing excellence. Good enough is not good enough. I owe nothing less to my organization and my customers.

4. Brand is my religion. I will be a brand zealot and show what the brand promise, brand reputation and brand equity mean to my organization in revenue terms.

3. I will stop using the words "unique", "state-of-the-art", and anything that is considered "buzz word" terminology in my marketing communications. Unique can be duplicated easily, "state-of-the-art" refers to yesterday's systems as things change so fast and "buzz words" quickly fall out of favor.

2. I will bridge the divide between sales and marketing and in doing so, together we will drive value, customer satisfaction and create customer evangelists all the while reaching new revenue heights.

1. I will serve and be humble, giving credit where credit is due and not repeat the mistakes of the past.

See you in what will be a most interesting 2011 when the writing resumes. Until then, a safe and Happy Holiday Season to you all!

You can continue the conversation with me on:

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/krivich0707
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/mkrivich

Michael Krivich is a senior healthcare marketing executive and internationally followed healthcare marketing blogger read daily in over 20 countries around the world. A Fellow, American College of Healthcare Executives as well as a Professional Certified Marketer, American Marketing Association, he can be reached at michael@themichaeljgroup.com or 815-293-1471 for hiring as your senior marketing executive , for interim assignments in all aspects of healthcare marketing whether it be strategic or tactical market planning, rebuilding and revitalizing your existing marketing operation, integration of sales and marketing teams, media relations or service line revitalizations. Huthwaite SPIN selling trained and a Miller Heiman Strategic Selling alumni, both highly respected and successful international sales training organizations, I can lead your organization though the challenge of integrating sales and marketing.