January 2007

Communication Breakdown - Always the Same

Complexity and Plan Changes Were Top Concerns of Employees
Communication challenges topped the list of employer concerns during the most recent annual benefit enrollment process, according to a recent poll by Watson Wyatt Worldwide, an HR consulting firm. This came as employers used the enrollment process to more fully engage employees in their health care buying decisions.

In a press release, Watson Wyatt said that while employers were highly satisfied with the more transactional aspects of enrollment, they felt that improvements could be made in the areas of employee communication, health information and decision support. As for employees, they were most concerned with the growing complexity of the enrollment process and the level of plan changes, according to the companies surveyed.

For more on the survey results:

Continue reading "Communication Breakdown - Always the Same" »

Posted by Shawn Whalen on January 30, 2007 at 6:03 PM
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Wall Street Journal Reporter Interview

Here is an interview with Amy Dockser Marcus of The Wall Street Journal, drawn from the Schwartz Communications Healthcare Newsletter. Useful advice for PR practitioners.

Schwartz: What makes a good pitch? What do you look for when evaluating a medical therapy or diagnostic to feature in Personal Journal section?

Marcus: To make a good pitch, you have to read Personal Journal. It is clear to me from a pitch when someone has never bothered to read the newspaper or the section and so has no understanding of what kind of stories we run.

Personal Journal is heavily oriented toward consumer service information. We want to break news, but it also has to be news that someone can use right then or in the immediate future. Diagnostics or new medical therapies that won't be available in the doctor's office for the next five years may be fascinating and work for some other section of our paper, but we won't write a story about them in Personal Journal.

I am interested in learning about diagnostic tests and new therapies that will transform in some way how diseases are treated. The pitch should explain why this is a significant change from what is traditionally done or what kind of major difference its use will make in the health of a consumer.

Schwartz: What is your view of disease awareness months? What are the requirements for making that kind of pitch newsworthy?

Marcus: Personal Journal in the past has rarely written about disease awareness months. We are interested in breaking news about diseases no matter when they happen during the year. We do not run general stories about disease awareness months. The only way we would consider this is if there is a genuine news story, emerging trend, new treatment, new diagnostic test, or some other news-related development related to the disease. Even then, we'd probably just run a straight news story about the development rather than focusing on the tie to a particular disease awareness month.

Schwartz: What do you think of the use of celebrity spokespeople?

Marcus: It doesn't matter what any of us think, they are here to stay. It won't make a pitch more appealing if a celebrity is backing the use of a particular product. But if there is an unusual or newsworthy reason why the celebrity got involved, that might be interesting to know.

For more PR strategy and tactical advice, please click on the "PR Strategy and Tactics" category to the right.

Posted by Shawn Whalen on January 29, 2007 at 3:30 PM
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Follow the Money

Managed care and big business continue to step up to the plate in driving IT adoption to improve healthcare quality and lower costs.   This is natural since doctors certainly can't be relied upon to do, and payors and employers feel the economic pinch most.  Payors are granting technology to providers to improve revenue management. Pay-for-performance will force adoption by doctors interested in avoiding salary cuts. 

Examples: Aetna is making PHRs powered by ActiveHealth Management available to their 15 million members (Dr. Mike Magee writes on the benefits and risk of this in his Health Politics blog.)  Locally here in Massachusetts, the Blue Cross Blue Shield Foundation awarded $50 million to almost 100 small and medium sized medical practices for EMRs. Stark Law reform will help accelerate these efforts.

Business interests continue to come together to encourage reform. This month two more coalitions have formed.  The Business Roundtable has joined the AARP and the Service Employees International Union to campaign Congress for better legislation for healthcare and retirement issues.  A second expansive group unites the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, insurance companies, and advocacy groups including Families USA.

High on the agenda is healthcare for the uninsured. One in six Americans doesn't have health insurance.  Not all of these are poor - according to the Census Bureau, 70% live in a family with one worker, and a fifth are in families with household incomes above $40,000. The problem is many small and medium sized employers are doing away with healthcare benefits due to cost, or passing along the prohibitive cost to employees.

States have lost patience with Federal inaction and Massachusetts, Vermont, Maine, California and most recently Pennsylvania have moved forward with their own universal healthcare plans.  Most big insurers, facing dwindling medical plan enrollment, favor such state plans.

It will be interesting to see if more coalitions have deeper impact. Leapfrog Group has had limited success. A more receptive Democrat Congress will likely help.

Posted by Shawn Whalen on January 21, 2007 at 4:40 PM
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Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics

Though Twain had his doubts, marketers love statistics. So to help out healthcare IT marketers here are some stats from the Census Bureau, CMS and analysts.

The U.S. spent $2 trillion on healthcare, or $6,697 a person, in 2005.

Healthcare costs account for one-sixth of the economy, compared with one-tenth in the early 1980s.

In 2006, 61% of businesses offered health benefits to at least some employees, down from 69% in 2000.

Young adults are the most likely to be uninsured. Those between the ages of 18 and 34 account for 25% of the population, but 41% of those without insurance. Texas has the largest percentage of uninsured citizens (24.6%), followed by New Mexico and Florida. Can you say que?

According to Forrester Research, CDH enrollment will reach 12 million, or seven percent of the commercially insured market, in 2007.

Up to 98,000 Americans die each year from preventable medical mistakes they experience during hospitalization, according to the Institute of Medicine.                                                                          

Mistakes in healthcare are costly.  A wound infection costs $21,000 on average. A post-operative infection costs more than $25,000 and re-opening a surgical site will cost more than $36,000.  The Juran Institute and Midwest Business Group recently quantified the direct costs of health benefits for poor-quality care over $1,300 per employee per year with indirect costs of lost productivity from poor care at another $500 per employee per year. 

Posted by Shawn Whalen on January 12, 2007 at 5:39 PM
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Crystal Ball

Analyst firm Health Industry Insights/IDC is holding its "Top Ten Predictions for the Health Industry in 2007"  Webinar on January 10, 2007, 12:00-1:00 pm EST. Here is the link to register:

http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=IDC_P14515

Posted by Shawn Whalen on January 4, 2007 at 2:58 PM
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