Can you see the 10 signs of an ineffective healthcare marketing operation?

The arguments are in. SCOTUS has already voted on healthcare reform. The majority and minority opinion writers are chosen. Regardless, healthcare will continue to change in very fundamental ways. And that means marketing has to change as well.

Marketing 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. 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 10 signs spelling marketing doom in your hospital or other healthcare organization:

1. The marketing plan is not integrated with the organizations business and financial plan.

2. Your brand messages are not clear, and are not integrated across internal and external audiences.

3. 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.

4. Departments are creating their own logos and communications. Only coming to marketing to "make it look pretty".

5. Marketing has little or no resources allocated for market research.

6. Marketing does not have an organizational voice or champion.

7. Your marketing department can't demonstrate an ROI.

8. The triangle of Public and media relations, social media and internet and traditional marketing is nonexistent or if it exists, lacks integration.

9. Little internal communication throughout the organization regarding marketing efforts.

10. Marketing is not at the senior management table.

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 will become 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.

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. Fellow, American College of Healthcare Executives and a Professional Certified Marketer, American Marketing Association.

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Have You Made Your Healthcare Marketing Resolutions for 2012?

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.

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How Will You Market Your ACO Solution?

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.

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Have You Listened to Your Automated Voice Answering Attendant Recently?

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?

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Has Healthcare Marketing Failed to Articulate Value?

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.

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How Integrated is Marketing Into Your Organization?

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.

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How Integrated is Your Marketing With Communications?

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.

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

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.

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Are You Engaged in Disruptive Healthcare Marketing?

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.

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Have Direct-Care Healthcare Providers Become a Commodity?

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

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.

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Is Meaningful Differentiation Lacking in Healthcare Marketing?

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:

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.

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Are You Ready for Healthcare Price Competition?

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.

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Are You Ready for the Healthcare Consumers Called Baby Boomers?

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.

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Is Patient Experience Management the New Healthcare Imperative?

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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What Should Hospitals Advertise?

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.

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