Information Archives -

The Do’s and Don’ts of Online Reviews

June 20, 2016 by Nicole Medina

Written by Stacey Shipman of Healthcents Inc. For assistance with your payer contracting or online marketing needs, contact Healthcents at 1-800-497-4970 or info@healthcents.com.

One of the biggest marketing-related struggles anyone running a business has in 2016 is online reviews, especially in healthcare. Until relatively recently, healthcare providers weren’t commonly reviewed on sites such as yelp.com, Facebook, or doctor review websites. Many providers and healthcare companies don’t even know they have been reviewed by patients / customers, or many don’t take notice until they receive a few negative reviews. We are frequently asked how to respond to comments, or how to remove comments from a disgruntled patient.

First, we highly recommend that all practices claim their business pages on the various websites that allow review posting. Facebook, Google+, Yelp, ZocDoc, Vitals, and RateMDs, are just a few to mention. By claiming these pages for your practice or company, you can ensure that the information on your business page is correct, and it will be easier to monitor reviews posted in the future.

In general, people will only bother to take the time to post a review of a product or service if their experience was amazing, or terrible. Unremarkable service typically doesn’t get reviewed, however, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. We live in a world now where reviews can make or break a business or product, and handling your responses in the right way can really make a big difference. Any reputable review site will not allow businesses to pick and choose the reviews that appear, otherwise the whole process would be a waste of everyone’s time, but there are some important things you can do to stay on top of your practice’s or company’s online reputation.

DO:

Respond to the positive reviews. Thank people who took the time to write a glowing review of your practice, and if the reviewer mentions a specific person, be sure to pass that on to the doctor, nurse or other employee who went the extra mile for their patient so they have a nice reminder that they made a difference to someone!
Be polite. Everything on the internet is public, and permanent. Keep interactions polite, supportive, and friendly.
Respond in a timely manner. Responding to a review- positive OR negative- 6 months after the fact just shows that you don’t care enough to check very often. Check review sites often, and/or set up reminders to do so. For some sites, by simply claiming the business page, you can set up alerts to email you when someone posts a review.
Respond to negative reviews publicly with a simple, clear, response that still shows gratitude that someone took their valuable time to review your practice. “We appreciate the time that you took to review our practice, and would love the opportunity to make you a satisfied patient again, please contact Jane Doe and we will try to work it out,” is clear, simple, and does not encourage further argument. Sometimes you can’t make everyone happy, but at least keeping it simple and clear, and encouraging interaction off the site shows you care and are willing to make it work, if possible.
Encourage patients to post reviews on the various sites, especially if you know they had a great experience. The best way to deal with negative reviews is to drown them out with positive reviews.

DON’T:

Get into an argument. You can’t always please everyone, but engaging in a mud-slinging contest with someone is never going to be good for your practice. Keep it professional, and positive.
Use a stock response for everyone. Be creative, don’t use the same response for everyone.
Don’t include personal details. You’re a medical practice, you have to obey HIPPA laws.

When dealing with online reviews, it’s best to keep things polite, professional, and personalized. Remember that you can’t always please everyone, but do your best to thank EVERYONE for the time they took to review your practice, even if they had a bad experience. People who read reviews before visiting a practice or business are smart, one or two negative reviews will not cast a shadow over a dozen great reviews, especially if the interactions you have with the reviewers stays professional and positive.

For more information and assistance with your payer contracting or online marketing needs, contact Healthcents at 1-800-497-4970 or info@healthcents.com.

You’re Invited: Increase Your Reimbursement & Revenue

January 20, 2016 by Nicole Medina

The holidays are over, and everyone is back in the office. In your revenue/practice management cycle, 1st quarter is the time to get down to business and look for opportunities to increase your provider reimbursement and enhance your revenue.

Two of the easiest ways to do this:

Renegotiate your agreements with commercial payers to increase your reimbursement
Bring more patients and customers to your door with contracting and online marketing efforts

Make it even easier: let us do the work for you! We are ready to assist you with either strategy or a combination. We have more than 50 years of combined experience in the field and many satisfied clients.

We are booking meetings now for the rest of January and February to talk about your goals and formulate a plan to achieve them. Click here to contact us via email or call 800-497-4970. We look forward to meeting with you soon.

Payer Mergers: 3 Critical Steps to Take Action NOW

January 8, 2016 by Nicole Medina

Written by Steve Selbst, CEO and Co-Owner, Healthcents Inc.

The trend of major health insurance companies merging will likely continue in 2016, as Anthem & Cigna, and Aetna & Humana await approval of their respective mergers from the federal government. The impact, once approved, will be huge across the board, and we wanted to take another look at what you should do about payer contracts during these mergers.

First and foremost, you cannot idle your time, you have to start taking steps NOW. It is important to be proactive when the clear trend is payer consolidation, regardless of whether or not the mergers are finalized. As a practice, it is important to build certainty into your provider reimbursement rates and terms and reduce risk. It is reasonable to assume that if / when a major merger consummates, the payer will seek business process simplification and streamlining. This means the payer is very likely to consolidate multiple contracts with the same entity / practice into a single payer contract. The timing of this change will be dependent on how quickly the payer modifies its contracts and the duration of the terms of existing contracts. The following 3 steps are recommended immediately:

Take a complete inventory of your current contracts and identify:
- Term and termination without cause clauses and notification periods and whether or not those notification periods are anchored to be effective on anniversary dates
- The payer’s notification requirements with regard to material changes to the contract
- Benchmark (compare your top revenue-producing codes across your agreements to local Medicare rates and the provider reimbursement rates from all of your other top insurance payers) the term of the agreement
Identify any agreements which renew in the next 12 months or which may be cancelled or changed in the next 12 months
Commence payer contracts negotiations to both increase rates on your top codes and, very important, extend the term of the new agreement to be a minimum of 3 years with built-in cost of living increases and, if possible, additional performance bonuses.

We cannot stress enough that it is critical not to wait for the merger to be complete in order to protect your practice. Once the merger happens, the payer will likely do its own comparison of agreements and, where possible, terminate the higher provider reimbursement agreement(s) and offer to merge the contracts into the lower reimbursement agreement. By locking in long-term, multiple year, agreements, you will create a steady and predictable revenue stream from your current agreements and, in the future, put yourself in a better position to merge your payer agreements at higher provider reimbursement rates. Also, by waiting, you increase the risk that the payers who are merging will “freeze” negotiations until the merger completes, once the merger and transition is underway. Complacency will not be rewarded in this environment.

In this rapidly evolving reimbursement landscape, you will have taken the positive steps to increase revenue from your current agreements and establish predictable revenue streams to weather the changes ahead. So, why not get started today?

If your practice is being affected by mergers and consolidation in the health insurance industry, contact me for a no-cost 30-minute consultation to review your contracts. You can phone me at 800-499-4970 or sign up online by clicking here. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn by going to www.healthcents.com/steve.