Improving patient trust

Aegis’ Henry Ross and M4 Bimark’s Jerry Silverman discuss strategies to improve patient relationships with healthcare providers.

EHM. The healthcare industry is definitely becoming more patient inclusive. How do you facilitate communication between patients, providers and members to ensure that patient experiences are more positive?

JS. Communications between patients, providers, and health plans is like a ‘triangle of care’. Right now, communications are very fragmented, and usually occur because of cost management. Although it may be unrealistic to attempt to eliminate these cost management communications, it would sure go a long way to improving trust and collaborative stakeholder relationships if we could add communication between stakeholders that involve quality of care. For this to happen, physicians and health plans need to participate in electronic medical record systems. The result is that health plans will receive information on the progress of their members in real time. They, in turn, can use this information to better identify and communicate with their members in a supportive, collaborative manner. Health plans will be able to more efficiently communicate with their provider networks in supporting treatment guidelines. With increased efficiencies will come increased opportunities to support patient care. When this happens, patient trust in the entire healthcare system will increase dramatically.

HR. For patients to have a more positive experience, they need to feel heard, understood and respected. One way to do this is by giving them a mechanism through which providers can get a better idea of each individual’s current and anticipated health needs. Tools like personal health profiles (or health risk assessments) help patients themselves understand their unique health risks and how to mitigate them. This can be the foundation for an honest dialogue between providers and patients. Further, savvy providers that gather the personal health profile information can target customized marketing messages to specific individuals, thereby increasing the chances of their messages being ‘heard’ and acted upon.

EHM. What impact do patient education programs and interactive media have within shaping the customer’s relationship with the provider?

HR. Gathering unique and proprietary data about the potential healthcare needs of the market enables providers to anticipate those needs, develop programs that address them and then forge relationships with potential customers long before the actual need arises. This helps build an environment of trust between the consumer and the hospital that will serve both parties well. More and more, consumers are looking for someone to trust in the healthcare system and with hospitals, health plans, employers, physicians and the government all involved in the equation to varying degrees, people simply don’t know where to turn. A well-developed and consistently executed education program can break through all of the noise and clutter and position the hospital as the trusted, important community resource it was always intended to be.

JS. We in healthcare have to accept that patients are consumers who are taking it on themselves to learn more about their illnesses. Therefore, medical practices need to make a conscious decision: do they want their patients getting all their healthcare education from the likes of Google, WebMD, and their health insurance plan, or do they want them to seek their physician practice first for this information? Many physicians tell you they don’t have the resources to participate in the health care education industry. But the question is: can they afford not to? It’s all about relationship-building and trust, which leads to improved patient loyalty, adherence, and ultimately, better healthcare outcomes.

The question for provider practices should be how they can participate. There are two strategic imperatives to consider. At the physician practice site, there is a tremendous need and opportunity to educate patients during the time they are waiting for you, and after they see the provider. The second strategic imperative is the Internet; physician practices need to have a presence on the Web.

EHM. What should be done in addition to advertising to ensure that brand image is optimal?

JS. Brand image is not something you just turn on like a switch, it is something that results from the cumulative effect of associating your organization with a promise that has to be carried through at every point-of-service the customer has. If the health plan is committed to establishing an image, they need to integrate this image consistently into not only their marketing messages, but operations as well. Employees are the best carriers of a brand image; establish the image with them first and you are more likely to succeed. Also, this image must be established with the health plan’s provider network, because they too are carriers of the image.

HR. Branding involves an ongoing and consistent effort by the marketing staff of any organization. But really the best way that providers can express their brand is by doing instead of just saying. For Aegis, the ‘doing’ part is aligning the interest of all of the constituencies that are a part of the healthcare business model. We believe that providers should have a seat at the ‘employer table’ when it comes to making key decisions about healthcare benefit-plan choice and which hospitals are considered in-network in those plans. By doing so hospitals and employers become, for the first time, true partners in two important areas: controlling the rising cost of healthcare and maintaining a healthy workforce.

EHM. How is the shift to online media changing healthcare consumer marketing and market research?

HR. Healthcare marketers have to become smarter in using online media, recognizing that an increasing number of consumers are demanding to receive their information in this manner. Physicians, too, need to more readily embrace the Internet. With the Internet, it is becoming easier for hospitals to speak directly to their consumer population without having to rely on costly direct mail/advertising. The flip side is that hospitals have to realize that online media encourages two-way communication. They need to be prepared for consumers to ask questions, expect transparency in all of their dealings, and make their buying decisions for healthcare much the same way they buy any other product or service. With people ‘shopping’ for care, healthcare marketers have to be more and more creative in how they differentiate their organization from the competition and have to work harder to cultivate patients and entire families into lifetime customers.

JS. More than ever, consumers are using the Internet to research and select their healthcare providers. In today’s healthcare environment, the employer selects the plan, or plan options, for their employees, and provides a list of network providers that patients can choose from. Therefore, if a patient selects a provider that they have no experience with from a network, today’s consumer is likely to search the Internet by the physician’s name. Physicians, and all providers, need to make sure they are steering the consumer to credible sites that they possibly have some content control over, such as their own office practice’s web site.

EHM. How is managed care affecting provider CRM and trust?

JS. Most healthcare systems’ plans negotiate reimbursements with their contracted network providers based on supply and demand for physicians in any given geographic area. This may be a take-it-or-leave-it, one-way negotiation. If a provider chooses to be in a network, he/she will most likely be accepting a lower than customary fee for their services. In this scenario, the physician will be unsatisfied with his/her reimbursement. A possible result: a physician increases patient volume to accommodate the lower reimbursement fees, but with the larger volume, they have to work harder and see more patients. The increased patient volume results in decreased physician time with each patient, which is likely to negatively impact patient trust and satisfaction.

HR. When given a choice, we will always choose to do business with someone we know, like and trust. As consumers become increasingly discerning about the business of their health, they will choose providers that take a genuine interest in their unique health risks. Providers must get to know their patients. This connection builds trust; without trust, patient loyalty wanes. Managed care has been inaccurately depicted as putting profits before the patient, which has led to an unfortunate erosion of trust. The more accurate way to view managed care is that its goal is to keep people healthy – and if it is successful in that, then cost savings will occur. Remember, too, that managed care is a model that works for some, but not for all. The marketplace is offering more choices than at any time in history and while that can be confusing in a blur of information overload, choice is good.

BIOs

Henry Ross is president and CEO of Aegis, the nation’s leading healthcare business development company. His career in healthcare management spans nearly three decades. He holds a Bachelor of Arts from Texas Tech University and a Master of Business Administration from Southern Methodist University. Nashville-based Aegis’ national client base includes more than 60 proprietary and not-for-profit hospitals and academic medical centers. Founded in 1989, Aegis offers healthcare clients employer-directed business development services designed to improve bottom-line performance.

Jerry Silverman is CEO of Bimark Inc., and President of M4: Medical Media for Managed Markets. For more than 25 years, he has utilized the pharmaceutical, marketing, sales training, and managed care program experience he has garnered while working for Bimark, Eli Lilly and G.D. Searle. Under Jerry’s leadership as a seasoned moderator and researcher, his companies have evolved into major players in collaboration efforts among pharmaceutical and healthcare provider clients and the managed markets segments, providing the healthcare industry and it’s stakeholders state-of-the-art marketing and strategy support.