In last week's column I wrote about whether or not marketers are getting more involved in the strategic end of running a hospital. That got me thinking about all the things that hospital and health system marketers are--and are not--involved in. Now, I could be biased, but it seems to me a lot of functions aren't necessarily the marketer's job but, nevertheless, he or she has a stake in them.
Take billing and collections. Might not seem like marketing at first blush. But consider the recent story about a hospital that sent a collection agency to hound a homeless and uninsured man for his $42,000 bill. This was just an oversight on the part of the collections department. But imagine what the local readers thought when they read his story.
Now imagine what they think when they get their 13th "reminder" letter from your hospital because they didn't pay a $50 co-pay for an ER visit on time. At a certain point, you'd think the cost of paper, postage, and bad-will would add up to more than $50.
Patient safety and quality are always hot topics, especially when a surgeon operates on the wrong part of someone's brain not once or twice but three times. But aside from the obvious PR nightmare that is wrong-site surgery, is that a marketing issue?
You bet it is. Molly Rowe, a senior editor for HealthLeaders Media, wrote a recent column that will give you a glimpse into what kind of word-of-mouth that story's generating.
In fact, one of the most hotly-contested categories in the 2007 HealthLeaders Media Marketing Awards was the one for best quality campaign. Hospital marketers are indeed talking to their customers about these subjects. And they're finding ways to do it that aren't way over everyone's head, way too technical and boring, or just downright disgusting. I'm sorry, but no one wants to see a hospital ad with the word "pressure ulcer" in it.
Finally, it seems to me that internal communications is no longer an HR-only responsibility. More and more hospital marketing departments are partnering with HR to communicate with and serve employees. This was another crowded category in our annual awards. Many of the entries were for non-smoking campaigns. It's no longer OK to just send around a memo about a policy change. Hospitals that want to keep employee satisfaction high and turnover low launch sophisticated multimedia campaigns instead.
So tell me, what other functions fall under marketing's expanding canopy? Are these additional responsibilities a good thing? Or do they distract from your "real" work? Click that little talk button at the bottom of this page and let me know what you think.
Used to be, marketers had only a few basic questions to ask and answer. But the questions are radically changing these days: How effective are your marketing efforts? How can you measure that effectiveness? What's the ROI for direct mail and other elements within the marketing budget? Where can you trim costs to improve the bottom line without compromising your effectiveness?
After years of planning and months of public debate, Sacramento County has tapped Kaiser Permanente to open the region's next trauma center. Kaiser beat out Methodist Hospital of Sacramento, which had fought vigorously to win the trauma center nod. County officials have said that population growth requires the new trauma center by 2010, but Kaiser has announced it will open its center in 2008.
There are primarily two paths to growth in this or any industry. There's the organic variety whereby you grow your business through marketing, outreach and expansion into new regions. And then there's the fast-track approach of growing through acquisition.
The former entails a process of building relationships with business partners--be they providers, employers or individual enrollees--while the latter is based on acquiring a set of ready-made relationships. Success via the acquisition route, however, is dependent upon the successful integration of these relationships into your own operations. And there's the rub.
Officials with the Minnesota-based UnitedHealth Group issued a mea culpa of sorts recently, conceding that they mishandled the integration of some of their recent acquisitions. The result? A serious backlash from providers and enrollees alike--particularly in its PacifiCare operating unit--that is costing the company over a half million members.
"We pursued too much change, too fast, and the results were too disruptive," said David Wichmann, executive vice president at UnitedHealth, assuring analysts and investors that the most disruptive portions of the integration have already been completed. Wichmann says providers and consumers alike were alienated by the company's integration process, which included moves to shift call center operations overseas and to centralize provider relations rather than maintaining a network of regional representatives. Those moves are now being reversed, but much of the damage has already been done.
Ken Burdick, president and CEO of the company's UnitedHealthcare division, noted that the integration woes and other customer service problems would cause the United's membership rolls to shrink by over half-million members at the beginning of 2008--350,000 in risk-based membership and 200,000 in fee-based membership.
The member flight problem was most acute among those covered by its PacifiCare unit. In his presentation, Burdick noted that the unit is on target to lose 305,000 members this year and another 215,000 next year. The PacifiCare unit lost 135,000 members in the first year following the merger for a three-year total of 640,000 members.
Still, Wichmann and Burdick were optimistic that the company has turned the corner. Burdick said United is on track to boost its risk-based membership by 100,000 and its fee-based membership by 150,000 by the end of 2008. And Wichmann noted that the company has adopted a new attitude toward provider relations. "We understand relationships and we recognize that this is a health system that needs to work for everyone, not just for us," he said. "We're approaching negotiations in a much more inclusive and collaborative fashion and we're achieving comparable economic results."
Brad Cain is editor of California Healthfax and executive editor for managed care with HealthLeaders Media. He may be reached at bcain@healthleadersmedia.com.
The planned consolidation of Froedtert & Community Health with Columbia St. Mary's in Wisconsin would be the largest of its type since hospitals began forming healthcare systems more than two decades ago. The move will bring its share of challenges, but the two healthcare systems say religion will be a manageable one.
Fourteen medical centers nationwide have been selected to participate in the newly created NFL Player Care Foundation, which will provide access to world-class medical technology and financial assistance to vested players who need it. The program will be funded by the NFL Alliance.