How Well Do You Know Your Healthcare Customers?

#healthcaretransformation

In the USA, in December, 2003, the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act (MMA) of 2003 was signed into law. This new law amended section 1144 of the Social Security Act. One of the many changes that came with the Act were other coverage options, including tax-preferred retirement or health savings accounts (HSAs), consumer-directed health plans, or other vehicles that sponsors of employment-based retiree health coverage believe would assist retirees with their future health care needs and their willingness to sponsor such alternative plan designs. It was then that health provider and facilities branding became far more important than it had in the past.

In exchange for paying more out of pocket, patients would have greater choice in where they purchased healthcare.

On page 405 of the 416 Act, (26 USC 223,224) HSAs were described and along with them, the mention of high deductible health plans (HDHPs). In exchange for paying more out of pocket, patients would have greater choice in where they purchased healthcare.

The term ‘health savings account’ meant a trust created or organized in the United States as a health savings account exclusively for the purpose of paying the qualified medical expenses (under IRC213D of the tax code) the account beneficiary, but only if the written governing instrument creating the trust met certain requirements.

The change permitted people to shop for care - assuming the care prices were transparent and "shoppable", in which case most in the USA at that time were not. So along with this choice, providers of healthcare who had in the past relied upon health plan "steerage" to their practice or facility or ancillary service had a rude awakening. Prior to 2003, many furloughed their marketing departments, placed their fate in the hands of the health plans and each plans' provider directory, and relegated themselves to being commodity sellers of healthcare concerned only with copayment amounts. To this day, many providers still have no clue about branding, knowing one's customer, or how to compete for patients and win.

The immutable law of branding: Know Your Customer

An interesting report, recently published by Huron Consulting explains the five segments of healthcare consumers that are part of this 17-year old healthcare transformation process. If you aren't aware of how it works, I'll attempt to summarize it here for you:

• ME-focused (27%) are those who value and make choices based on personalization and convenience. They buy concierge medicine memberships, and loathe waiting for anything. They are totally ready to engage in telehealth, and they are engaged in clinical decision-making.
• Time and money oriented (25%) are those that are cost and strong time-sensitivity (e.g., aversion to waiting). Executives and others seeking value for money without waiting long to access care.
• Results -focused (19%) are those who seek to achieve positive results/outcomes, without regard to cost. They will go anywhere, to get the best - as they perceive it.
• Digitally-inclined (17%) are those ready and eager to access care that comes with availability of digital tools and a strong affinity toward a personalized end-to-end experience.
• Affordable - Results Driven (13%) are those inclined to achieve positive results/outcomes, with sensitivity to cost.

How will you message the marketplace to attract your share of customers?

Well, the first thing to do is to study who purchased from you in the past. What do you know about them? Why did they choose you? What did they buy? What did they put off? For how long? What would make them switch to a rival hospital, practice, specialist or ancillary provider?

Huron's report stated that "The matrix of consumer drivers and detractors indicate that an organization’s journey to a more consumer-centric model will require both point solutions and a broader transformation of the patient experience." Patients want more trust, respect, affordability, personal attention and convenience. So what story will you tell each of these 5 segments?

For example, at St George Surgical Center, a multispecialty ambulatory surgery center (ASC) located 115 miles north of Las Vegas, where I work as its Director of Business Development, we incorporate bundled price transparency as well as safety, accreditation, stellar infection rates and complication rates, and soft factors relating to convenience and personalized attention.

Whereas competing surgeons at other centers and hospital-based surgeons make their patients wait weeks, if not months for an appointment, if the patient is medically-ready to have surgery, our longest wait is generally measured in days - usually fewer than 10.

Our prices are lower and more affordable than our local and regional competitors. We have better (more advanced) technologies available. We offer full end-to-end experiences from the first call to first follow up appointment. We offer shoppable prices on over 450 procedures in 15 specialties. We've transformed care from the inpatient hospital setting with its 80% margin markups on surgery to the outpatient setting. We offer employers and their TPAs a custom-tailored program that meets the needs of their plan participants and helps them contain costs. What we lack in proximity convenience we make up for in price and service orientation. As a result, we receive patients from 44 states and pre COVID we also received many Canadian patients, and will again.

How we do this is directed by yours truly, supported by a fantastic team of professionals I am proud to call my colleagues. Our surgeons and anesthetists are warm, approachable, patient, kind, and humble. Most are also board-certified or board-eligible, fellowship trained, and highly skilled.

In this small town, we walk our talk and live our values

Led by a servant leader Administrator who finds ways to acknowledge the value of each team member on a daily basis. On my office door is a little wooden heart that says "By love, serve one another," from Galatians 5:16. It's how we roll around here.

For our traveling and local patients, we provide a single point of contact. People come to our website and ask to be referred to a surgeon. The surgeons bring their own cases, but we supply many with referrals by request through our cash pay transparently bundled price program. We coordinate telehealth consultations prior to coming to our ASC, followed by a face-to-face consultation on arrival.

Our patients don't worry about how they and their care companion will fit into the overwhelmingly stressful surgical experience. But we custom tailor how we handle moms with children, the elderly and everyone in between. We do this by knowing our customers. And by knowing our customers and tailoring to each of the 5 segments, we build loyalty, trust and patient delight. Satisfaction isn't enough.

In developing our robotic-assisted joint replacement program for orthopedics, we've learned by listening. Seniors who had a knee or hip replacement in the past with the surgeons up the road tell us they were not and are not happy with their outcomes. They relate stories about staff and surgeon gruffness.

Consumers’ willingness to switch providers presents a major growth opportunity for organizations who can harness it. We've learned how. We respect that healthcare consumers - especially those with traditional Medicare have more choice and are now define what a great experience should be - for them:

1. Quick recovery, to avoid being a burden (driving themselves, participating in events and leisure activities with family and friends, staying healthy and pain free, and more.)
2. No- or low-opioid multimodal pain management so that their heads aren't fuzzy from the medications
3. More natural and precise kinematics and load balancing. They don't want to think about their knee or hip anymore. They don't want to be hindered by pain or disability or limitations. They want to kneel in prayer, climb, hike, kayak, bike, play and enjoy and chase after the grandchildren.
4. Minimal out of pocket cost, and
5. A rapid return to their previously active lifestyle without the pain of their osteoarthritis.

How we get the chance to listen is we hold events where the doctors present for 90 minutes and entertain questions. And what we've learned is that close to 60% haven’t shared their treatment and lifestyle goals with other doctors because because they felt the other surgeons neither made them comfortable doing so or didn't allow for the time to do so. Nor did they ask. Our competitors would fare better by shifting from disease-centered goal setting to patient-centered, collaborative goal setting. But to do this comes from the top down. Many healthcare organizations don't even have this on their list of important things to work on. Many simply focus on getting higher fees from payor organizations.

Connecting with our patients and prospects at an individual level around their goals engages them, their companions, our surgeons, and our entire care team — all of which can lead to better clinical outcomes and consumer experiences.

Our surgeon doesn't treat them like a "hole in the drape" or talk with them with their hand on the door and their feet pointed to the hallway. And as a result, his practice continues to grow delighted patients who tell others of their delight. We've transitioned from paid advertising only to less reliance on paid advertising and now enjoy a health percentage of word of mouth brand ambassadorship by those delighted patients. If each of them tell one friend and one family member, each of those gets a personalized testimonial and comes with a potential of two knees and two hips that could require medical attention.

And the more we listen, the better and more quickly we adapt to enhance patient delight even further. And we change up our message to be more relevant to whichever of the 5 segments we are messaging. And the metrics and the patients say it works!

What should you do now?

1. Change your thinking: make your goal to first understand your customers and delight them, the money WILL follow. I promise you!
2. Plan your strategy: Prioritize investments of time and money that distinguish you, drive up quality, safety, patient delight, convenience and personalization. Then execute on it and measure results.
3. Focus on your patients, not accreditation or fee schedules. Put the patient and the center of EVERY decision based on what you know about the segment of each customer persona.

If you need help, call me. (800 727 4160). Please visit my website to read more timely and helpful, informative articles so you can do more without my help, but do reach out if you need a little more. My work at SGSC is part time and as long as you aren't in the immediate area, and don't pose a conflict to my role here, I am available to assist you.