Make Money in the Fee-For-Service Model Today AND Lower Costs/Get People Healthier in the ACO Model Tomorrow

The marketing you should start today will be great for tomorrow no matter what happens with health reform.

A recent survey analyzes costs and access developed western countries. not surprisingly it shows that compared to other developed countries Americans have almost immediate access to specialists of their choice and have hard time getting Primary Care.

The numbers worth pulling out of the survey:

• Most Americans (57%) say they can’t get quick access to immediate care
• Americans are also finding their own specialists (Of course, because we are not getting into PC offices.)

What is the learning for savvy marketers?

1. People are finding specialists online. So, of course, your marketing must be online too. And I not talking about your overly-complicated hospital website – I am talking about a meaningful social media program that drives inbound new patients.
2. You CAN increase referrals quickly. How? 57% of people do not have a Primary Care doc they can quickly access. You must solve that problem and the referrals become yours. AND I am not talking about hiring more primary care docs – I am talking about Nurse Practitioners and other non-Emergency-Department ways to get people quickly and cheaply into the system.

Now you may be thinking, “I am in marketing, how am I going to set up some kind of nursing-based Primary Care clinic?”

All departments need to let the C-suite know how to increase financially sustainability – marketing included. Good marketers analyze the market and discuss their findings with the C-suite. Your executive leadership will likely be wise enough to act on many logical suggestions and they will at least be impressed you are thinking about solutions. So quit whining, get accountable and man-up (no gender bias intended).

Here are are two pieces of Good News when considering a future ACO model:

1. Providing fast cheap primary care will keep people healthier and out of the hospital.
2. The social media plan you implement today will continue to drive cost-reducing wellness programs tomorrow.

So maybe what your Mom told you was right: Doing the right things today will pay huge dividends to tomorrow.

Case Study: Corporate Blog at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center

Tom McCormally loves to tell stories; he is a former newspaper writer and editor and now works as senior director of public relations at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. Tom is always engaging and practical, so I’ve asked Tom to share with us some “real world” insights from running a social media program in a previous series, and this case study.  Feel free to contact Tom directly via Twitter @TMac1957

You know what it’s like when the proverbial light bulb finally goes on?

Eureka!

Viola!

Well, it wasn’t entirely like that when we decided to start a corporate blog at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center.  It was much more sedate than that. But the light bulb did go off.

In the summer of 2009, politicians, health care institutions and some other folks (a few more vocal than others!) were embroiled in a debate that had been dubbed “health care reform.” The news media was covering the town hall meetings, the yelling and screaming, the politicians on both sides of the massive piece of legislation working its way slowly through Congress.

But something was lost in the debate. The whole focus was on insurance and costs. No one was talking about quality. About the patients. About improving outcomes. And we couldn’t get any news organizations to listen when we offered to talk about “real” health care reform, the kind that led President Obama to call us an “island of excellence” for our improvement work.

Illumination! We started Change the Outcome at cincinnatichildrensblog.org. If the news media wouldn’t help us tell the story, we’ll tell it ourselves. And so we have, now, for more than a year.

At first, it was like we were talking and no one was listening. We wrote. Few read. When someone commented, we jumped for joy! Slowly, but surely, our voice was getting louder. More people are listening.

The numbers aren’t huge – a couple hundred people read each post – but numbers are just one measure. (And we are growing those numbers so that measure is promising.) More important, it’s the audience. We tell people, this is not a “mommy blog.” There’s nothing wrong with those that spread health and wellness information for moms and others who care for kids. There are many good blogs out there doing that.

This isn’t one of them. This is about health care policy, about health reform, about public health issues, including things like obesity and prematurity. It’s about making health care safer, more affordable, more accessible.

Our objective is to have our voice heard. To be one of the voices policy makers seek out when they want to know what others think. We’re making progress.

A few more lights go on each and every week.