A patient’s perspective, priorities, and process for making decisions all shift when faced with a serious or life-threatening condition. This is particularly true for cancer, serious neurological conditions, serious cardiac diagnoses and complex orthopedic surgeries – and this has implications for how you should position your physicians and your service lines.
When faced with a serious diagnosis, most patients’ research and decision-making process is influenced by certain beliefs: first and foremost, that physicians treat conditions, not hospitals or health systems.
- The vast majority of patients with a serious condition are focused on choosing the best physician. In their mind, the physician is the biggest factor in a positive outcome for their condition, and many patients focus on finding a physician who specializes in the exact condition they have.
- Most assume that a top physician will only practice at a top hospital. To the extent they consider the facility where their care will happen, they tend to focus on whether it has the state-of-the-art technology their physician will need. The focus is rarely on understanding whether specific types of technological tools are available, but rather generally whether the hospital invests in up-to-date technology.
- Factors that impact overall brand image or decision-making regarding less serious types of care, such as having a team that is supportive of patient and family, convenience, or caring nurses, generally disappear as drivers of decision-making for serious conditions.
Trusted medical professionals make or influence most decisions regarding where patients receive care for serious conditions.
- For serious conditions, patients are more likely to seek and follow recommendations from trusted medical professionals, including but not limited to their primary care physician. While physician recommendations carry the most weight, patients will also look to nurses or other medical professionals, assuming they will have an important insider perspective and will be able to provide the “real scoop.”
- In our research, about 3 in 5 patients say their physician chose the hospital they used for their serious cardiac condition. In fact, approximately half of consumers who would have preferred a different hospital did not use their preferred hospital, but instead used the hospital their physician recommended.
- Even among the patients who take a more active role in selecting a provider for a serious condition, many will seek a recommendation from a trusted medical provider and then conduct additional research about that provider before making their decision.
Most consumers will do online research at some point to understand the experience, expertise and approach of a physician they are considering for serious care.
- Our research has indicated that between 60% and 85% of consumers will go online to look for information at some point if they have a serious condition and time allows.
- Most (nearly 3 in 5) say the insights they find have a substantial or major influence on their choice of hospital or physician.
- Patients are likely to:
- Use Google to find out more about their condition, and to identify physicians with a particular expertise in their condition.
- Research physicians recommended to them. When conducting research, patients with a serious condition are most interested in:
- Experience: Patients look for information that speaks to a physician’s hands-on experience, especially in specific conditions or treatments, and their proven track record of success/positive outcomes. This can include length of career, volume of procedures performed, and success metrics.
- Expertise: Patients prefer providers who have vast underlying knowledge, particularly about their condition. Evidence of this can include experience practicing at world-renowned AMCs, awards, published papers, and leadership positions.
- Patient–centric approach: Ideally, patients want physicians who care about and take a personal interest in their patients. The rationale includes but goes beyond wanting someone who will “treat me like a person, not a number”: they feel having a physician who cares about their goals will minimize their risk, including risk of complications, and will optimize outcomes. Language in a physician bio that demonstrates a passion for their patients will resonate.
- Few patients research the hospital or health system directly – so, information regarding accreditations, state-of-the-art equipment, affiliations or the strong medical team should be incorporated into or accessible from the physician pages that patients are likely to visit.
- Most patients (about 3 in 4) say that star ratings and patient comments are somewhat or very important. They tend to use these to get a quick, general sense of quality or to gather insight from other patients about their experience with a provider.
While most consumers will defer to a trusted physician when it comes to where to receive care for a serious condition, it’s still important that the hospital’s brand image is one they will trust for more serious types of care.
- A patient who has had a poor experience or has a poor image of a particular hospital or system is more likely to question their physician’s recommendation, which could lead to receiving care elsewhere.
- Patients will generalize from one type of care to another – a poor experience in the emergency department can lead a patient to avoid a hospital for entirely different types of care.
Strategies for service line growth for serious care
Marketing services for serious care, including cancer, serious neurological conditions, serious cardiac conditions and complex orthopedic surgeries should include the following strategies:
- Secure referral sources. Remember, consumers will be heavily influenced by health care professionals. Ensure physicians will refer patients to you. Be sure to assess and address any barriers to physician referrals, including lack of awareness that you offer specific services or have particular subspecialists, lack of familiarity with the providers on your team, issues with timely access, or issues with the process of making a referral.
- Optimize online information about your team. Make sure Google searches for your specialists will return information and links to articles that will build consumer confidence in their experience, expertise, and patient-focus. If your physician has particular expertise with a specific condition or procedure be sure to feature that, and when possible accompany it with statistics that back up that expertise, such as procedure volume and positive outcomes. Google searches that yield links to a variety of sources that position your team member as an expert are particularly effective, such as links to published, peer-reviewed articles and merit awards on sites other than your hospital or system. Being the expert other physicians turn to regarding a condition or procedure is comforting to patients, so any evidence of that should be elevated.
- Feature your hospital or system’s state-of-the-art technology and strong reputation. Update physician bios to make key information easy to find and focused on what consumers want to know (experience, expertise, patient-focus), then include links from physician pages that address your hospital’s state-of-the-art equipment and recognitions that speak to quality of care, such as accreditations, awards and affiliations. Ensure that information regarding affiliations makes it clear how those affiliations lead to better patient outcomes.
- Pay attention to star ratings and reviews. Few star ratings and reviews for your providers will undermine the perception that the provider is highly experienced. However, the most important thing to address are low star ratings and poor reviews: our research has shown that while few patients will abandon a search due to a lack of ratings or reviews, over 3 in 4 will abandon consideration of a provider who has a low star rating total – in fact, a mediocre overall star rating seems to be more damaging than a handful of very weak reviews.
- Address any brand issues. Ensure patients will be receptive to a referral to a physician at your hospital or system by addressing any brand issues. For example, if your brand image for competence/expertise of physicians is low, or even just lower than your competitors, you might focus on ensuring the qualifications of your team are front and center and pushing that message out in appropriate ways. If your brand image has been tarnished by inconsistent patient experiences or service challenges in the past you might focus more resources on using the voice of the patient to invite consumers to see you through a new lens.
- Position yourself appropriately vis-à-vis your competitors. It’s important to understand your market, and know not only how consumers perceive your hospital or system’s brand but also how your competitors are positioned. The best positioning and marketing not only address any perceived weaknesses in your system’s brand and build from your strengths, they also take into consideration your competitors. If consumers are likely to question their medical professional’s referral to your system in light of other expertise in the area you need to have a well-articulated case why they should receive their care with you instead – and you need to arm referring physicians with that knowledge as well. This requires an understanding of how consumers perceive your competitive marketplace.
We hope these insights will help you with marketing your serious care service lines. We’d love to know what you think – and if you have other topics you’d like us to write about. Thanks for reading!
Need help understanding your system’s brand and your competitive marketplace? Market Street Research can help.