Scott MacStravic, PhD
When I began my career in health care marketing thirty-five years ago, almost no hospital, physician practice, or other healthcare provider was doing anything that could be called marketing. Advertising had been condemned by the American Medical Association, and was not covered as a “legitimate” expense by Medicare. And many providers operated in as non-marketing a fashion as can be imagined.
The hospital associated with the university where I was teaching at the time, for example, offered two appointment times for its outpatient services – one at 8:00 AM, the other at 1:00 PM. Everyone needing care got one or the other, meaning that the lucky and savvy patients who arrived an hour or more before their appointments might have to wait as little as an hour for care, while those who didn’t understand the “system” waited for as long as four hours.
My first marketing consulting engagement involved a hospital-sponsored primary care practice which had opened in a beautiful and technologically superior facility in a small community about fifteen miles out of the city. Despite its highly qualified staff (with privileges at the academic medical center hospital) and a location on a main highway with convenient parking, it was seeing only a small number of patients. As any first-year marketing student could probably have done, I made a few modest recommendations, which were followed, and the practice became a virtually immediate success, and the first of a series of successful practices throughout the hospital’s market area.
For example, the physician who staffed the practice was supposed to show up at noon every day, so appointments were set beginning at that time. But he actually showed up at closer to 1:30 PM, meaning that patients had to wait at least an hour and a half if they had a noon appointment. And the staff all parked around the back of the facility, leaving the spaces in front for patients, but making it look as if the facility was closed to any passers by unless there happened to be a patient parked in the front.
By changing the hours when a physician was present to begin at 8:00 AM, and having the physician present at that time, plus having one or two employees always park their cars in front every day, and a modest amount of advertising, we managed to bring in enough new and repeat patients to ensure the practice’s success. After all, patients could drive down to the city, be seen by a physician there, and get back home in less time than they had been waiting for care before the changes, so by merely making the practice competitive with that option, success could be achieved.
Since that time, things have improved a lot, though often more in the extent of advertising use than in the adoption of truly “customer-centered” service philosophy and behaviors. I was struck by how far we have come, based on a personal experience I recently had with an urgent care center. The medical quality was fine, as far as I could tell, for a simple challenge of removing a number of stitches put in a week before during minor surgery. But the personal service was truly outstanding, from my experience, at least.
A week later, rather than drive the long distance and take a ferry ride to the where I had the surgery, I went to the Madrona Hill Urgent Care Center in Port Townsend, Washington for that minor procedure. I had earlier phoned the practice where I had the surgery to make sure that was okay, and after leaving my message and phone number with them, got a call back giving me approval to get the stitches out a day early since that way I could avoid a special trip to the urgent care center, twenty miles away, as I was going to be in the area anyway.
Having been to the center before, check-in was prompt, and I was in the treatment room in five minutes. The RN, Alice, a customer service gem, explained that she had to get an okay from the practice where I had the surgery, and would call to get it immediately. She came back a few minutes later to explain that they had not yet sent the fax okay, and apologized for the wait. She returned again a few more minutes later, saying that she still had not received the fax. She asked me if the woman she noticed in the waiting room was my wife, and getting a confirmation of that fact, went out to her to explain to her why there had been such a long (15 minute) wait.
She soon returned, and efficiently/painlessly removed the stitches, putting on a couple of butterfly bandages to ensure the incision continued healing, and applying a larger bandage to cover it. She had been smiling and pleasant throughout, and I cannot even imagine a better customer experience in terms of the elements she could control. Only the inability of the surgery practice to get a fax sent in less than twenty minutes extended my service experience, and I brought a book to that one as well.
It is impossible to generalize from this experience whether service quality in medical care has improved in general, nor even if everyone who goes to the Madrona Hill Urgent Care Center gets such superior service. But it makes me happy that I played a role in, or at least was able to observe the dramatic improvements that I know have happened over the past 35 years in health care.
Remember Me
