Resnick Unplugged

Healthcare

Consumer Directed...or Consumer Dejected

In today’s healthcare marketplace, consumerism is a dominant force. America is witnessing the emergence of a generation of price sensitive healthcare buyers. Cost shifting by employers has led to higher deductibles and increased out-of-pocket expenses for employees. Plan designs are exposing consumers to price and quality differences among providers. The result is a healthcare consumer equipped with information, empowered with choice and motivated by accountability.

Consumer Directed Healthcare (CDH) promotes increased awareness and consciousness about choice, cost and quality of care. Rather than shielding consumers from the actual costs of healthcare services, these plans involve consumers directly. The customer takes the lead in deciding where, when, and from whom they receive care. CDH has arrived, nationally and locally.

Over the years managed care helped stem the increase in healthcare costs. But dependence on rules-based cost controls is no longer effective. Nagging double-digit premium increases demand a new approach. And, with most HMO and PPO plan designs problems are exacerbated by dependence on a payment system grounded in co-pays that isolate consumers from the actual cost of care. Low co-payments for office visits, tests and medical procedures have given people a false impression of how much healthcare really costs.

Health insurance customers are clamoring for more choice, lower rates and less intervention in personal healthcare decisions. Employers are looking for health insurance options that deliver quality care to their employees while reducing premium inflation. The result is healthcare consumerism — benefit plans and support tools that put consumers and their physician at the hub of healthcare decision-making, giving them greater discretion and control over their benefit dollars and medical care choices.

Consumer Directed Healthcare plans introduce incentives to increase member involvement in the healthcare decision-making process. Plans meld prevention, wellness and major medical coverage with a savings or spending account feature while providing access to negotiated rates from physicians, hospitals and other providers.

It appears CDH has reached the tipping point as the future direction of employer-sponsored health insurance. Three persuasive business drivers are fueling its growth:

1. Alternative to managed care
2. Return control and choice to the customer and their providers
3. Employer premium stability and price predictability

Patients are the new healthcare consumer. They want to know what they are buying and why it costs what it does. Every healthcare company reaching-out to today’s consumer has to communicate value – including quality measures – in meaningful terms. In the end, don’t underestimate a patient’s willingness to comparison shop when it means saving money out of their pocketbook.

NOTE For more information see the article CDH Success: What's it going to take?

© Lindsay Resnick

Strategy

Future Vision - Lifting the Fog

In competitive markets great strategy empowers a business to identify and capture opportunity. It enables smart managers to anticipate change, manage through obstacles and build on a company’s advantages.

Strategy and the vision that drives it aren’t easy. They call for analytical thinking, informed judgment, objective decision-making and well-structured implementation. It’s a process that continuously works to improve achievement of corporate objectives. It is not a "fill out the forms" exercise to be delegated or one that’s an afterthought to a budget process. Strategy is a task for business leadership. Vision is a task of futurity.

Strategic vision takes the day-to-day out of the mix and focuses on the future. It creates a rallying point for a preferred state of a company. It goes beyond pedestrian business plans used to peek over a one-year horizon or a list of goals for the next budget cycle. Strategic vision evaluates today’s decisions in tomorrow’s context – as uncertain and volatile as that may be – it creates a snapshot of the future.

Formulating strategic vision begins when management seeks answers to the tough questions. Far reaching inquiries that delve deep into the organization's "reason for being". Examples include:

• What are your top three comparative market advantages?
• Are you reaching the right prospects…with the right message?
• Why do you lose sales to competitors?
• What is your big idea - the why choose you clutter buster?

Answers to these and other challenges will help leadership analyze and most often, reconsider an organization's most basic business assumptions. It’s a process that helps refine (or re-set) stakeholder expectations, business practices, performance metrics, market positioning, and customer values.

Great strategy without execution is a waste of time and resources. Taking action is the most critical and most difficult stage of any strategy process. Tactical output such as product introduction, facility start-up, market entry (or withdrawal), brand positioning or reengineered operations are complex undertakings. The implications are far-reaching in terms of resource deployment, operating capacity and human talent.

It takes balance, business acumen and common sense to succeed in a competitive marketplace. Too much reliance on strategy will lead to bureaucracy, decision paralysis and missed market opportunity. Conversely, if you are not prepared to take action based on strategic vision, either because of inadequate resources, poor communication or “ready-fire-aim” leadership, results will disappoint. Future success calls for the right mix of strategy, action and leadership.

NOTE Look for an upcoming posting on Intelligent Implementation - the critical balance between informed decisions and taking action.

© Lindsay Resnick

Marketing

Marketing Dominatrix (aka - How To Stay On Top)

Marketing drives success. It's where strategy and creativity converge. It’s where ideas sizzle and innovation comes alive. Marketing is where concepts blossom, customer relationships begin and value is communicated. Without marketing, toplines would stagnate, bottomlines shrink and customers would remain prospects. It’s a great place to be!

Marketing is also a long-term process. It’s a series of sequenced activities directed at acquiring and keeping customers. Marketing works to create an environment where welcome mats are put out and doors open. The result — new customers. To achieve results, marketing must have a complete understanding of the customer; from the time they are labeled a prospect until they reach frequent flier status.

A sustained connection with today’s generationally fragmented customers isn’t easy. Much upfront learning has to take place. Marketing involves information, interpretation, preparation and execution. It’s a process built on identifying specific consumers “wants and needs”. And then, articulating and positioning your product or service in a way that is meaningful to prospective customers.

An effective marketing machine means consumers know who you are, what you offer, why it’s right for them and why you are the only answer. A fine-tuned marketing machine puts a dollar in one end and management sees twenty come out the other. Business acquisition costs are lowered, customer retention is high, marketing results are measurable and corporate profitability goes up.

However like most things these days marketing is changing. There’s turbulence in the air. Competitive rivalry is pressuring corporate America. Companies are rethinking the balance between localization and globalization, product focus and customer focus and of course, growth and profitability. Consumers are at a crossroads as well. They are being attacked from every angle; uncertainty is at an all time high. “Find me–follow me” advertising is everywhere and hitting hard. Too much throw it up against the wall mass selling has created disenfranchised, disengaged customers rapidly becoming savvy cynics.

Marketing is transforming to adjust to a new world. Transformation means the terms, buzzwords and lingo that shape marketing are constantly changing. So, if you want black and white, go to accounting. If you want comfortable chairs, go to HR. If you want to wear a baseball cap backwards, go to IT. But, if you want to be on the frontline turning strategy into action and using creativity to impact growth and profitability – and stay on top – reignite your company’s marketing.

NOTE For more information see the article Brand Response: Common Sense Marketing

© Lindsay Resnick