Is your healthcare marketing evolving?

Living in two worlds is never easy. One side of the healthcare marketing coin is generating demand to put "heads in the beds" for fee-for-service payments. The other is managing demand to keep people out of the hospitals in a value-based payment model. Care delivered in the most cost efficient and effective setting which may not be a hospital or hospital-based outpatient service.

Accountability, transparency, price and value are the new expectations. And your time for adapting is running out. By 2016 an inflection point will be reached where value-based healthcare payment passes fee-for-service healthcare. You will be managing demand instead of generating demand. And that is a very different skill set than what most healthcare organizations have today.

Here are some ideas about what healthcare organizations need to be doing too live in two worlds.

Managing the Patient Experience

Patient experience means just that- understanding what that patient experiences is at all touch points. And then changing or managing that experience to its fullest potential for the benefit of the patient and the organization. Patient experience is an integrating process across the entire organization internally and externally. One organization to the patient, one patient to the organization. It is not simply another quality program or flavor of the day.

Understanding and Executing Demand Management

The hospital is no longer the center of the healthcare universe. Marketing needs to understand what the demand for healthcare services will be, when they will be needed and manage that demand making sure that the hospital or health system has the right resources, in the right place, at the right time to meet demand. The days are coming to an end where marketing departments will be driving demand to fill hospital beds. They will drive demand to the appropriate place and location of service.

Marketing the Manager of Change

Who better in an organization than for marketing to manage the healthcare organizations transformation from an inward-focused it's all about me, to an outward-focused market and consumer driven organization? Open to much debate, this is probably the most controversial look at the expanding role of marketing. Individual who have looked internally at their organizations all of their careers, do not necessarily have the skills, training or abilities to change an organization 180 degrees. And that is the type of change we are talking about here.

Where is the brand equity?

You really have to figure out how to build brand equity for the consumer in the 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.

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 to become price and quality transparent. You will need to respond to each individual consumers healthcare needs.

Is your healthcare model evolving?

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

>>> Is your healthcare marketing evolving? >>>

Do You Know the Value of Your Healthcare Brand?

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.

>>> Do You Know the Value of Your Healthcare Brand? >>>

Marketing Accountable Care Organizations

Entering the new world of healthcare where quality and accountability are drivers to reduce cost, how do you market an Accountable Care Organization (ACO)? Especially as healthcare providers, namely doctors and hospitals, must compete on outcome transparency, quality and cost. A triple threat and uncharted territory. Outcomes data will be the driver and available to the consumer to make an informed choice. A monumental shift in the market place of who controls the information.

Anybody seen the new United Health commercials? They are already touting call us, we can send you to the best doctors. Anywhere in the country. Organizations that control the data, control the market and control the price.

So for those doctors and hospitals looking at ACOs, better get your track shoes on. The big insurers are already moving forward with physician groups and pilot programs to test the concept.

In the end, I believe that insurers will control ACOs by the simple fact that they have the data. They already know which doctors practice the best quality and most efficient medicine. The insurers already know which hospitals provide the most cost-effective and quality-driven care. All because they control the claims data. Insurers analyze, predict and can move much faster than others can. Stockholders demand it. So, while tax-exempt organizations engage in their annual lets build consensus before we can move forward on the idea, you are already late to the market and at a decided disadvantage.

Besides, I wonder if ACOs really pass the smell test of what Clinton tried to do in the1990s? And that failed. Maybe what we really have is the same attempt re-branded for 2010?

Marketing Accountable Care Organizations

Brand. Quality. Data transparency. Service. Price.

Your message needs to be clear and concise, echoing the ACOs brand promise and the value that you bring though your ACO to the consumer or the insurer. Focus on outcomes not high-tech or "touchy-feelly". Consumers are too sophisticated for such a simple message.

How you position your ACO vies a vie others is critical and you get one shot. You need to do it right. Remember, you can only take one of three positions in the market, superior, equivalent or inferior. The initial positioning of your brand is one of the most critical tasks you face. With an informed consumer bearing more of the cost, you have one shot to get it right. No do overs anymore.

Co-brand you member materials with insurers for members to educate and inform abut your ACO. Same with self-funded employers. Go to employers work site to reach employees.

Create a separate web site and social media strategy for the ACO and co-brand where possible, have everything online for patient education materials to forms and payment mechanisms.

Need an easy to read and understand dashboard that reports on quality measures for consumers, insurers and employers.

Commit to excellence in customer service and create a Voice of the Customer program to establish and maintain a continuous feedback loop with your key customers. This is not lip service; this is real change. Failure to do so will label you as inferior. Poor customer service is no longer acceptable.

Keep in constant communication with your members. Email is best. Use video emails and always , always have a call-to-action message.

Create a loyalty program. This is not a taboo and except for government program beneficiaries in Medicare and Medicaid or other government funded programs. You can create a loyalty program. Fact is not all patients are the same so you might as well take advantage of it before others do. It can be a powerful differentiators. Step out and be creative.

There is more you can do, but know this should keep you pretty busy.

More news:

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Michael Krivich is Fellow, American College of Healthcare Executives and a Professional Certified Marketer, American Marketing Association and can be reached at michael@themichaeljgroup.com or 815-293-1471 for consulting services in strategic marketing, media relations and interim marketing executive leadership assignments. 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.

>>> Marketing Accountable Care Organizations >>>