HCA 3310, Health Care Marketing 1

Course Learning Outcomes for Unit VI

Upon completion of this unit, students should be able to:

5. Compare and contrast marketing in health care sectors to marketing in non-health care sectors.5.1 Examine the role that physician engagement plays within health care marketing.

6. Apply business principles to the health care marketing process.6.1 Identify the impact of management principles on the process of health care marketing.

Course/Unit Learning Outcomes

Learning Activity

5.1, 6.1

Unit Lesson Chapter 5 Article: “Advanced Practice Nurses: Developing A Business Plan for an

Independent Ambulatory Clinical Practice” Article: “Improving Healthcare Referral System Using Lean Six Sigma” Unit VI Article Critique

Required Unit Resources

Chapter 5: Physician Marketing

In order to access the following resources, click the links below.

Johnson, J. E., & Garvin, W. S. (2017). Advanced practice nurses: Developing a business plan for an independent ambulatory clinical practice. Nursing Economics, 35(3), 126–141. https://libraryresources.columbiasouthern.edu/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=asn&AN=123428994&site=ehost-live&scope=site

Alkinaidri, A., & Alsulami, H. (2018). Improving healthcare referral system using Lean Six Sigma. American Journal of Industrial and Business Management, 8(2). https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation.aspx?paperid=82373

Unit Lesson

Health care marketing for providers—including physicians, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants—is a dynamic process. Marketing providers include two main categories not addressed in the textbook, the health care organization marketing themselves to the providers and then the providers and health care organization marketing to the consumer. We will break down both in this unit.

Building Provider Relations

Most health care organizations must have a healthy network of providers to be successful. This network includes providers that work for the organization itself and also those that refer to, or receive referrals from, the organization. In most areas of the country, providers have options and choices on who they refer their patients to for care. They make this decision based on reputation (remember the importance of the brand) and the service they receive in terms of communication regarding their patients. In a busy organization, it can be difficult for providers to have the time to directly communicate with every provider that has referred someone. This is where the marketing team comes into play. Marketing staff that are focused on building these provider relationships and ensuring streamlined communications are called physician liaisons.

UNIT VI STUDY GUIDE Physician Marketing

HCA 3310, Health Care Marketing 2

UNIT x STUDY GUIDE Title

Physician liaisons help educate outside providers on the types of services and specialists available at their organization. They also go to great lengths to build strong relationships and customer service experiences that help build and sustain patient referral processes.

Physician liaisons spend a significant amount of time traveling to meet with referring providers in order to understand their specific patient populations and what they want from a referral. They follow up on providers that refer patients to make sure the process worked well and that they received all necessary communication back in a timely manner. Depending on the organization, some physician liaisons may assist with social media marketing or event planning to help keep referring providers connected. The liaison role is very important to an organization’s health, especially where referring providers have choices of where to send their patients. To that extent, people serving in these roles need to be self-motivated, have excellent communication skills, understand the services offered at the organization they represent, be professional, and be able to build and sustain relationships. For many providers, the physician liaison may be the face of their service and the key to either making or breaking the marketing of their service. Careful selection and training of these individuals is needed by marketing departments to ensure success.

Marketing Providers to Consumers

The second category of marketing with providers is to the consumer. Just as with referring providers, many consumers have choices when they need medical care. Who they choose is guided by many factors including insurance networks. How an organization markets a provider plays a big role in gaining consumer trust and building long-standing relationships. Interestingly, consumers are willing to go to great lengths to see providers with whom they build relationships. In a report published by Deloitte (2016) titled, What Matters Most to the Health Care Consumer? the number one priority was the amount of time spent with patients during exams. Many marketing professionals may think that short wait times in a primary care provider’s office is ideal. For many this is true, but in some situations, when patients become loyal to a provider they believe spends the time they need with them, they will wait. One case study illustrated this in a small office in Pennsylvania. Patients of a specific provider averaged a two-hour wait past their appointment time. When system leadership discussed the concern with the provider, he stated that it is his priority to spend all the time a patient and family needs and if that makes the day go long, so be it. The leadership team then surveyed the patients on the wait time. Surprisingly, the vast majority of patients were so loyal to the provider, they did not mind the wait. Some would check in and then go run an errand while others would bring books or knitting to keep themselves occupied while they waited. Certainly, this is not acceptable to all consumers, but for this niche, it was. Carol Boston-Fleischhauer (2017) in her article titled Consumer-Centric Care: Latest Buzzword or New Reality? suggests that consumers are quite different from patients in that they may or may not have a relationship with a health care organization. To that end, marketing to a consumer is more about the choice in seeking new services whereas the loyal relationship would come later. She further suggests that user-friendly information is what gets people in the door, and patient experience is what keeps them. From a marketing perspective, leaders must find ways to both provide easy to understand information and share the patient experience expectations consumers can expect. Each consumer is unique, so marketing campaigns must also create avenues to ask questions and clarify content that is easy. A strong marketing campaign can be destroyed by long wait times in a call queue while trying to ask a question or make an appointment.

Strategy

In order to be successful at building physician relations as well as marketing physicians to the community, leaders must be well versed in operational process. Promising primary care physicians (PCP) a one-stop shop for all the neurology needs of their patients does not go far when in order to get a patient referred, there are long phone queues and wait times. The same is true for marketing physicians to the community. Flashy campaigns that promote high quality care can mean almost nothing if patients cannot figure out how to get in touch with the physician’s office. In order to prevent the operations of an organization from becoming a barrier to physician marketing, leaders must be well-versed in creating efficient, quality-focused processes. One of the most recognized ways to do this is by using lean methodology. There are a variety of tools that make up this method, but all revolve around laying out the process of a given task and identifying areas where the process can be improved.

Let’s take the example of a PCP looking to refer a patient to a specialist in neurology. If the PCP is given four separate referral numbers, one for each subspecialty in neurology, the process becomes more complicated. The PCP must know which type of patient goes to which subspecialty and if he or she accidently chooses the

HCA 3310, Health Care Marketing 3

UNIT x STUDY GUIDE Title

wrong one, it could delay the patient being seen and cause the PCP to get frustrated. Using lean methodology, a new process could be developed where the PCP only needs to call one number and then the experts on the other end can better decide which subspecialty the patient needs. This streamlines the work the PCP has to do and makes sure the patient gets to the right doctor the first time. You will explore lean methodology a bit more in this unit’s assignment.

Conclusion

Marketing health care providers is complex. The uniqueness of each provider, the need to establish strong relationships with referral sources, and the importance of clear consumer messaging all need dedicated planning and strategic focus. Marketing leaders must address each area specifically and ensure that all communication avenues have strong feedback loops so that processes can be adapted as needed in real time. These marketing efforts also need to be coordinated with the larger health care organization as applicable to ensure consistent messaging.

References

Boston-Fleischhauer, C. (2017). Consumer-centric care: Latest buzzword or new reality? The Journal of Nursing Administration, 47(11), 532–534. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29065069/

Read, L. (2016). What matters most to the health care consumer? Insights for health care providers from the Deloitte 2016 Consumer Priorities in Health Care Survey. Deloitte. https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/us/Documents/life-sciences-health-care/us-lshc-cx-survey-pov-provider-paper.pdf

Learning Activities (Nongraded)

Nongraded Learning Activities are provided to aid students in their course of study. You do not have to submit them. If you have questions, contact your instructor for further guidance and information.

Physician Marketing Case Study

Imagine you are the manager of an independent primary care office. For the last five years, you have had two physicians as part of the practice and have seen a lot of growth in your patient population over that time. In fact, the growth has been so great that you just hired on an additional physician and a nurse practitioner. You are preparing for their start dates next month and need to determine how you will start building their panels of patients. Neither one is bringing patients, so they are starting from scratch. As the manager, you are responsible for building the marketing plan. What do you do?