Healthcare By The Slice

Even if 50 is the new 40, it still marks the decade of life when things start to fall apart.  I am well into my 50’s and am blessed with good health, but all around me I see friends dealing with serious stuff.

Big decisions must be made about cancer treatments, arthritis, early dementia, heart disease and Parkinson’s.  These are heavy health burdens that don’t include the sagging eyelids, basal cell skin growths, near-sightedness, hormone replacements, elevated cholesterol and love handles that are less worrisome, but still important to those contemplating the scalpel and a $5,000 deductible.

It is interesting the degree to which these big decisions are influenced by really small ones made when my friends were in their 20’s.  Back then they needed a flu shot, a physical or a prescription for birth control.  So they asked a friend, or ran their fingers through a phone book and picked a doctor.

For many, there is an excellent chance the doctor chosen years ago for something minor continues to influence the biggest decisions of their lives.  What specialist do I choose?  What hospital?  Should I have that procedure now, or wait?  Should I take this expensive medication . . . for the rest of my life?

All around I see health systems spending millions to make sure patients have the best possible experience when they walk through the sliding doors.  And that is certainly important.

Few health systems, however, put equal emphasis on the small transactions that introduce a new patient to the health system and, for many, establish a pattern of consumer behavior that will influence the organization for generations.

What happens at the primary care office, in the emergency department, at the urgent care center, in the waiting room, at scheduling, when the copayment is collected, when the follow-up is scheduled, when the test result is reported (or not)—all these little experiences determine if a new patient will ever hang around long enough to become an old one.

The primary influencers over these interactions are often hourly employees, overworked office managers and salaried physicians who don’t own the practice, and who care more about making the kid’s soccer game than talking to patients.

Great health systems are built on the compound interest of millions of little consumer decisions.  Great health care marketers never forget this truth.

On the web recently I came across a presentation by Allison Hunt, a marketing executive from Toronto.  She gave a remarkable presentation while on crutches, explaining she was recovering from hip replacement, courtesy of Canada’s national health service.

Let me set up the story by saying that Allison Hunt seems a youthful and successful person, near the height of her professional potential.  But she was in pain from a diseased hip, and she had already endured many months of pain waiting for an appointment with a surgeon.

At her exam the surgeon gave her a good, bad news scenario.  He would schedule her surgery right away, but the first available slot was 18 months away.

While leaving with the disappointing news, Hunt noticed a sign in the hospital’s gift shop asking for volunteers.  She signed up for a half-day a week, hoping through proximity to somehow move her name up the waiting list.  To speed the story up . . . she was successful.  She networked her way to the OR table.

Hunt joked her actions were un-Canadian.  They were also very un-American.  Can you imagine any American reacting calmly to an 18-month wait for anything?  Can you imagine an American volunteering as a way to care, even free care.  I think most Americans would call a lawyer.

As Americans contemplate reform of our health system, it is prudent to think about how American consumers will respond.  For the last 40 years we’ve been a “health industry.”  We churn it out–mass producing access to every type of service.  Our customers generate “demand.”  Even those who depend on public health, have an expectation of service that can be measured in hours and days, not months.

It’s hard to argue that the world needs another blog, but I am wading into the crowded pool.  My intent is to provide useful, practical and (on good days) stimulating information for those who care about health care marketing can use to perform at a higher level.

And to minimize boredom on the bad days, my pledge is always to wrap it up in 399 words or less.

I would not commit to this column if I did not think I had something to say.  I’ve been involved in marketing and promoting health care services since the Nixon administration and, for better or worse, I’m still at it.  I’ve seen the good, bad and the silly.  I’ve made mistakes and learned from them.  I’ve got, as old guys like to say, experience.

But I’m not yet old and neither are my ideas.  Thankfully, people still value what I say enough to pay me for my time.  In this blog, however, I plan to give away as much as I can in little fruitful slices.

One of the symptoms of a lot of years on a job is that one develops philosophies.  When it comes to marketing health services, I’ve developed some guiding beliefs I think serve the industry well:

• The patient—the consumer—is the ultimate point of it all.  Forget the patient and you are lost.
• Health care is big, confusing, scary and frustrating.  Our job is to make it feel small, understandable, comforting and simple.
• For most of what we sell, consumers have to be sick to buy it.  No one is more vulnerable than a sick patient.  We have the power to abuse them, but not the right.
• If we are going to spend precious health care resources on advertising and promotion, we had better say something meaningful.

So my blog will cover the relationships between health care providers and patients, the systemic challenges that confront health care marketers in the quest to do the right thing well, and our efforts—good and bad—to advertise, promote, communicate, educate, sell and generate return on investment.

That’s the plan.  Click on my RSS feed for new installments.  Write me if you want to debate or discuss.  If anything I write strikes you as helpful, I would love to know.