Tag: healthcare consumer

Experian Health announced it has acquired MyHealthDirect, a SaaS-based company specializing in digital coordination solutions in scheduling. We interviewed Jason Considine, Experian Health general manager of patient engagement and collections, to learn more about the acquisition, as well as opportunities arising in healthcare due to the rise in consumerism. What led to Experian’s interest in MyHealthDirect and the ultimate acquisition? We’ve had a relationship with MyHealthDirect for several years. Experian Health has been reselling the MyHealthDirect solution since 2017, and we’ve long recognized that their platform’s digital care coordination capabilities would be a great match with our existing solutions. MyHealthDirect's platform links patients with the right providers, offering online scheduling tools and referral coordination to ensure more timely access to care for patients. These solutions have proven to increase appointment and referral rates, improve call center efficiency, reduce no-shows and enhance the overall patient experience. By coupling this technology with our Experian data, we can ensure patients are getting the care they need in the management of chronic diseases and wellness programs. This acquisition evolves our core revenue cycle management capabilities and helps us make gains in the patient engagement space with all-new innovative offerings. You referenced “digital care coordination.” What does this mean and how does it apply to healthcare? Digital care coordination, as it applies to the MyHealthDirect suite, is comprised of self-scheduling, call center, referral coordination and automated outreach solutions, making it easier for people to access healthcare. By combining these scheduling solutions with Experian’s existing digital patient engagement solutions, we can deliver a seamless consumer-centered experience – from serving up an estimate, to streamlining the registration process, to providing consumers with the ability to pay their healthcare bills via multiple channels. Today’s healthcare consumer expects a turnkey, personalized, on-demand experience. When you think about the best engagements we all enjoy in retail, financial services, travel and entertainment, the expectation is that the healthcare experience should be no different. We need to arm consumers with the ability to streamline their healthcare and make it easier for them to access care. Why is the scheduling component so key in the overall patient journey today? Scheduling is the one of the very first steps of the care journey and booking an appointment has traditionally been a poor experience. Common frustrations include not being able to reach the provider, finding out that no appointments are available, or being forced into a time-consuming three-way call between the health plan and provider. Without fast and easy access, patients may not be able to get the care they need. When healthcare plans use technology to better connect patients to needed care, quality scores for patient experience rise and efficiencies are gained. Can you give us an example on how more automated approach to scheduling could lead to better health outcomes for the consumer? Sure. Take for instance an individual who is living with diabetes. It is important for this person to have regular check-ins with their provider to monitor their condition and adjust care plans accordingly. If this person is challenged to see their provider, or doesn’t have regular appointments booked, they could run the risk of becoming an unhealthy diabetic, being faced with additional health challenges. By tapping into digital appointment scheduling, a provider or payer could create an automated outreach plan to make the scheduling hassle-free. Appointments could be streamlined and scheduled directly on the phone via IVR or text, and appointment reminders can be delivered. How do you see providers responding to the rise in healthcare consumerism? It’s no secret that healthcare costs are rising, and consumers are increasingly bearing more of those costs. Providers, therefore, are telling us they need to deliver a better experience. They are asking for digital technologies to gain rich insights into consumer behavior and then adjusting their care delivery plans accordingly. They recognize that consumers have a choice on where to take their healthcare business, so they need to compete. In the case of scheduling, MyHealthDirect conducted some research and revealed 66% of patients would switch providers for more convenient access. In that same study, 77% of patients think the ability to book, change or cancel appointments online is important. My point? Those providers and payers investing in on-demand tools to interface with their consumers will win, simplifying many of the administrative tasks associated with healthcare. — Learn more about scheduling solutions.

“Build it and they will come” might work for 1980s movie characters, multinational coffee franchises and beloved sports teams, but it’s not a great engagement strategy for most consumer-facing organizations – especially in healthcare. Take patient portals, for example. Giving your patients a way to access their health records can help improve their health outcomes, increase compliance with care plans, and create a more positive healthcare experience overall. But do your customers know the portal exists? Do they know how it could serve them? Do they trust it? You’ve built it, but how many patients are actually logging on? In 2017, over half the US population had access to a patient portal. Around half of those people used it at least once in the previous year. Of those who didn’t, 59% said it was because they didn’t feel they needed to access an online medical record, and 25% were worried about privacy and security. This tells us two things: If healthcare providers want to increase the number of patients using their portal, they need to proactively communicate the benefits to those patients, and healthcare providers could do more to reassure patients they take portal security seriously. If patients discover that using the portal is better than not using it, and that they can do so securely, they will be more likely to log on. You can address both in your patient engagement and marketing strategies. Perhaps the better mantra is: “if you solve their problem and tell them about it, they will come”. Balancing portal security and patient convenience Your patient portal is more than just a platform for patients to access test results, sort out bills or schedule appointments. It’s a way to nurture the patient-provider relationship. And at its heart, that relationship is about trust. One way to build trust is to ensure your portal meets the strictest of security measures without creating an excessive admin burden for patients. You can do this with a security strategy that layers up several protective measures to help you tackle common areas of vulnerability, including weak ID verification, over-reliance on password-protection, and failure to encrypt sensitive data. A few practical ways to keep your patient portal secure include: using ID verification when someone signs up for the portal using device intelligence and identity proofing when a user signs in to the portal deploying extra security checks where the risk of identity fraud is higher putting systems in place to flag and respond to security breaches as fast as possible. A solution like PreciseID® can help you take care of your patients’ privacy and security behind the scenes. They’ll see just enough to reassure them that you’re taking their security seriously, without any protracted log-in process that puts them off using the portal altogether. Marketing your patient portal so more patients benefit from it Solving your patients’ concerns about security is just one route to boosting portal utilization. Another important way to ensure more patients use and benefit from the patient portal is to actively encourage them to access their online records regularly. Research suggests individuals who are encouraged to use their online medical record by their provider are almost twice as likely to access it, compared to those who weren’t actively encouraged. So how do you convince your patients of the benefits of regularly logging on? That it’s not just a convenient way to manage their medical journey, but could result in better health? The answer lies in consumer data – the lifestyle, demographic, psychographic and behavioral information that gives you a fuller understanding of what drives your patients. Experian Health’s ConsumerView data analytics can capture insights that let you reach out to your consumers with the right message, in the right way, at the right time.  Do they live a busy lifestyle? Reassure them that the portal can save them time. Are there lifestyle factors that may hinder their adherence to medication? Encourage them to use the portal to make sure their prescriptions are up to date. If you discover your consumers are big social media users, you might target your portal engagement campaign through those channels. Equally, if a consumer doesn’t have any social media accounts, there would be no point investing in Facebook ads. Personalization makes your patients feel taken care of, leading to greater trust, loyalty and satisfaction. Increase patient portal engagement today In the wake of consumerism and IT transformation across many other industries, a tailored and digitally secure healthcare service is a must.  “Consumers now expect to be provided with a turnkey, individual experience that is fast and seamless,”  said Kristen Simmons, Experian Health’s senior vice president of strategy and innovation. Your patient portal must be seen to provide a valuable and secure service. While there’s a way to go to increase the number of patients making full use of portals, the tools exist to support healthcare providers’ engagement goals. Learn more about how your organization can leverage consumer insights to improve patient retention and engagement. 

Big data is helping every industry take giant leaps forward. Healthcare should be no exception. Household names like Amazon, Netflix and LinkedIn have made personalized consumer experiences the norm: predicting your next purchase, suggesting products you’ll love, and tailoring your news feed to your preferences. The modern consumer experience is intuitive and frictionless. Patients have come to expect the same of all the companies they do business with – including their healthcare provider. Like these consumer-driven industries, information about lifestyle, interests, purchasing behavior and even social media activity can all help create a more comprehensive picture of each consumer patient, and how they choose their provider. By understanding patients as individual customers, providers can use consumer data insights to offer personalized experiences, creating loyal customers and brand advocates. From building awareness about your brand to customer support interactions, these insights ensure your efforts resonate in the right way with the right consumers at the right time – and in a way that makes the consumer feel like they’ve chosen a provider that ‘gets them.’ We’ve all seen headlines about bad players using consumer data in a negative way, so compliance is key to avoid any mis-steps. Making sure you stay compliant with consumer privacy and data protection laws will keep your organization safe. Data-driven healthcare marketing is a huge opportunity The providers who thrive in the era of value-based accounting will be the ones who embrace a consumer insight-based approach throughout the customer journey. In fact, research suggests companies that leverage consumer insights outperform peers by 85% in sales growth and more than 25% in gross margin. But here’s the rub: while it’s a massive opportunity, using consumer data must be done safely and securely. Consumers don’t want to think about their data being traded in the shadows, even if they’re happy to live-tweet the data from their smartwatch. Trust and transparency are paramount. So, what’s a consumer-centric, security-conscious healthcare provider to do? 3 ways to stay safe and secure using healthcare marketing data Working with consumer (or marketing) data is somewhat new to health. The rules for how you source, store and use it bring a whole new set of compliance concerns. Failure to comply can result in eye-watering fines, not to mention the potentially devastating loss of trust. If you’re handling it in-house, beware of vendors popping up with data solutions that don’t quite make the grade. Here are three ways to practice good data hygiene and keep your organization compliant: Safe sourcing First things first: know where your consumer data comes from. Is your vendor collecting this data from original sources, or via a third party? Do consumers know their data was collected, and how it would be used? Can you point to the original source’s privacy policies? When you use consumer data, make sure you know its source and can quickly point to the privacy policies associated with the data. Working with original source compliers of consumer data, like Experian, can ensure you meet privacy policy rules. Consumers should always be told their data is being collected, why, and by whom. Despite the challenges around the introduction of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), its main requirement is actually pretty simple: don’t use consumer data without active consent. GDPR may or may not apply to your organization, but it’s a good model to work to, especially as others are following its lead (like the California Consumer Privacy Act). Safe storage Tales of data breaches at Yahoo and the English National Health Service send a shudder through healthcare C-suites everywhere. And no wonder – a Ponemon Institute Study found the average cost of security breaches is around $3.62 million per incident, while consumers are reported to be more worried about data privacy than losing their main source of income. Safe to say, secure data storage and processing should be a top priority for your organization. Writing for Law Journal Newsletters, Mark Sangster says: “Privacy and data responsibility must be as important to the officers of a business as profitability is to the investors. As such, privacy and compliance blur together, and security becomes the guardian, keeping the others in check.” Familiarize yourself with the rules around storing marketing and non-medical consumer data, such as ensuring you have a written data security policy, identifying data protection officers, and having strict controls on access to data files so that it’s never shared with anyone who doesn’t absolutely need to see it. The Direct Marketing Association and American Marketing Association both have handy resources on ethics, regulations and data privacy. It may not be light bedtime reading, but it’ll keep you right. Appropriate use of data Marketing data is there to help you find promising prospects and keep them interested. Use it to guide your messages and content. It should never be used to deny services to anyone or create unequal access, so always keep an eye out for potential adverse effects. People love to get useful information, but when it’s a little too specific about their lives, that’s verging on creepy! Don’t give the impression that you know solid facts about them. For example, instead of writing “Dear Family of 4”, choose images that would resonate with that family, or offer health fair invites focusing on pre-teen or infant health, according to what marketing data tells you is more relevant. With marketing data, you can avoid wasting time and money (and the embarrassment of) sending your geriatric services promotion to young newlyweds. Or you can connect the dots between services that marketing data suggests will appeal to the same demographic, such as women’s clinic patients who are interested in fitness, who may appreciate a poster about your orthopedics or dietetics promotion. Mastering healthcare marketing best practice Using customer insights to drive your marketing strategy has huge payoffs for patients and providers. Partnering with a reliable data steward will help you take your data analytics to the next level, and stay compliant at the same time. As the gold standard for consumer data privacy, Experian Health offers access to clean, original-source data and robust analytics platforms that give you the most comprehensive view of your health consumers – and peace of mind when it comes to compliance.

Today’s healthcare consumers are at the center of healthcare transformation. They demand a personalized experience, use devices to monitor their health and are vocal when they are not satisfied with their service or care. Healthcare organizations are being challenged to think differently about healthcare engagement. To succeed, you must become consumer-facing and expand your reach. You need to attract and retain patients for service line growth. Connecting with consumers by tailoring their journey is expected, so you using data to predict health conditions and message effectively is critical. Do you know who your patients are? How to build a relationship with them? Can you improve their satisfaction and retention? Are you providing personalized communications? Superior data with actionable insights can help you remain competitive in this new healthcare landscape. This is a new approach to most healthcare organizations, but it provides an exciting opportunity. Leverage data the right way and gain deeper insights to improve patient and consumer engagement.  To learn more, visit Experian Health’s Marketing Services page, contact your account representative or email us at experianhealth@experian.com