on July 29, 2010 |
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Topics: Imaging, Service Lines, Marketing
I recently received a request from a member wanting to know where it makes sense put their focus when it comes to marketing of imaging services: consumers or physicians. The member also wanted to know which audience got most of the funding. This is actually two unique questions- I would argue that the dollars don't necessarily translate to the effort.
First off, I believe all progressive imaging programs should market to both physicians AND consumers. However, if I had to choose one as the larger opportunity, I would say referring physicians is where most of the effort should go. Here at the Advisory Board, we've researched marketing strategy for multiple service lines (I actually headed up the study on marketing of cardiovascular service line last year). Over and over, the conventional wisdom historically has been that more often physicians choose where to send patients and rarely do patients self-refer. I would say this still largely true for imaging. However, this is definitely changing. We've heard a lot of feedback from the membership that patients are becoming more price-sensitive and choosing where to go based on price and other factors. Exactly how much isn't clear, however, 91% of you reported to us in our 2010 Volume Trends Survey that patients in your market are becoming more price-sensitive. Furthermore, a recent study by McKinsey revealed that often it is actually a joint patient-physician decision so I would never recommend counting the patient decision out.
When it comes to funding physician vs. consumer marketing, the answer is a little less clear. This is because the consumer market is a larger target audience and thus marketing usually involves expensive mass media- TV commercials or print ads. While the return on these efforts is not as high, the value to brand exposure and image is high. On the flip side, physician marketing involves liaisons which command a considerable salary- about $50K to $70K per year. If you include this, the funding may come out about equal. If you don't, then consumer marketing is the clear funding winner.
In our Imaging Marketing survey (distributed to imaging directors as part of research process for Imaging Marketing Strategy), we found that the average percentage devoted to consumer marketing (vs. physician marketing) was 46% (n=51). It should be noted that the n was particularly low for this question because most respondents (n=85) answered "don't know." I actually thought this percentage seemed low, and that more of funds would go to consumer marketing. In the survey we submitted to cardiovascular service line leaders (in conjunction with the cardiovascular marketing study), 67% of respondents said that consumer marketing made up 80% or more of the budget. It should be noted in that in this survey, we asked respondents to NOT include the cost of staff salaries in their answer. Unfortunately, we did not add this condition in the wording of the question for imaging survey- so I can't know for sure if respondents included that in answers. Taking all of this together, my conclusion is that after staff salaries, about 60-80% of funds should go to consumer marketing, with the rest to physician marketing.
Given the increase price-sensitivity of patients and the declining volumes in imaging right now, physician referral strategy and improving the patient experience are high priorities for hospitals right now. Therefore, they are high priorities for the Partnership in 2011. Please let us know if you would like to be sure you are included in the research process next year. We welcome member feedback and information on these topics.
on July 23, 2010 |
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Topics: Imaging, Service Lines, Payer and Regulatory Policy, Revenue Cycle, Finance
CMS announced a new project today that is aimed at examining the efficacy of decision support programs in guiding appropriate ordering of imaging exams. Starting January 1, 2011, the project has $10 million dollars in funding and will initially focus on the 11 high- cost and utilization imaging exams listed below.
- CT abdomen, brain, lumbar spine, pelvis, sinus, and thorax exams
- MRI lumbar spine, brain, knee, and shoulder exams
- SPECT myocardial perfusion imaging exams
Inappropriate imaging can result in increased costs, unnecessary radiation exposure and reduced quality and safety of patient care. Decision support programs, currently in limited use in some outpatient settings are designed to assist physicians in deciding if and what type of imaging is appropriate to order based on patient presentation. In this project, CMS hopes to solicit the participation of 2500 to 3500 physicians to implement decision support tools and have resulting utilization data reported to CMS.
More details and request for proposals can be found here.
on July 20, 2010 |
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Topics: Imaging, Service Lines
Modern Healthcare recently released their list of the top ten stories of 2010, as ranked by their readers. Approximately 700 healthcare executives completed the online poll describing what they believed were the most important stories of the first half of 2010. While the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act garnered over half (56%) of votes, many other topics, primarily related to changes to healthcare delivery models and regulatory changes, displayed significant interest.
Only one clinical-related topic reached "Top Ten" status: the growing concerns related to radiation overdoses in medical testing. While only the 9th most popular choice (2% of votes), the significance of the topic cannot be ignored, even for hospital senior executives. Stories of patients receiving numerous CT scans and outrageously high doses per scan have caused many hospitals to re-examine their CT protocols and make strides toward managing proper imaging utilization. While the radiology community is only beginning to explore how to manage radiation dose, the interest shown by non-radiologists has appeared swiftly. Modern Healthcare will release their top 10 list for the entire year in December and we will have to wait to see if radiation dose can still command a top spot.
