Newspaper strikes back – oh, and it’s a great healthcare story
Perhaps the traditional media powers read Adam’s last blog post “Bye bye traditional media” and decided to launch a counter-strike. In this Sunday’s Star Tribune, the front page features a story by healthcare reporter Chen May Yee on new tactics by hospitals to collect payment for some procedures ahead of time. Here’s the counter-strike: the article, “Hospitals forced to become bill collectors,” is only available in the print edition of the paper. There is a teaser online, and I imagine at some point down the road (a few days? a week?) the story will end up on their web site. But for now, unless you pick up the paper itself, you’ll have to wait.
So there are two blog posts in one here:
First, this is an interesting tactic by the paper. For a long time, this was a typical maneuver by magazines – keeping stories from current print issues off their web sites for a period of time. But recently, I’ve noticed that’s gone away. Typically, if I see a piece in a printed magazine I want to reference, I can usually find it on the web site right away. And of course, there are some media outlets that charge for online content, such as the Wall Street Journal. I don’t want to get too in-depth on the pros and cons of this strategy by the Star Tribune, mainly because I want to spend more time on the story itself. From my perspective (someone who still receives the print version of the newspaper because I love reading an actual print copy of something while sipping my coffee, and who looks at the arrival of my magazines in the mail as a little Christmas present each week), I say, “bravo!” I’m now getting access to content that those not paying for the paper typically get for free. My guess, though, is that there will be a mini-backlash from those who use the web primarily for content gathering. In most circumstances, restricting something that was previously free is not received well.
Anyhoo, on to the second part of the post – the actual topic of the story. Once again, reporter Chen May Yee is ahead of the curve in reporting the changing dynamics of the healthcare industry. The story details the varying efforts of hospitals and health systems in the Twin Cities to mitigate the rising flood of bad patient debt by trying to help patients understand their costs before they are incurred. These efforts can include upfront informational calls, suggestions of partial upfront payments, and offers of financing or payment plans. The data is staggering. According to the story, patients generated more than $600 million in unpaid bills at Minnesota hospitals last year, up from $150 million the year before.
Even more astounding, to me, were some of the reactions captured in the story. A woman who was planning a C-section delivery of her baby at a local hospital had received a call from the hospital explaining the costs and suggesting an early start to the payments. The patient’s initial reaction?
“In this the state of economy we’re in – that they’ll shake you down even before you have your baby?”
Shake you down. Wow – our society obviously has a long way to go if we’re hoping people will start understanding the cost side of their healthcare decisions. Apparently, having a baby is supposed to be free? (Later, it’s noted that the woman is an attorney at a large law firm – holy irony, batman). Then later, Steve Parente, a health finance professor at the Carlson School at the University of Minnesota, is quoted as saying, regarding the idea of offering financing:
“Hospitals should not be doing this stuff. It’s not in their core business.”
Not in their core business? They’re not making shoes or selling condo plots here. If collecting payment for services rendered is not core – to any business – I don’t know what is. From my perspective, any hospital not trying to get out ahead of patient payment issues is making a huge mistake. Certainly, creating a revenue stream from customer financing is one thing (see Target Corporation and the struggles they’re having with their once-profitable credit card business). But trying to help your customers figure out how to pay for your services is quite another.
His quote is another example showing that while healthcare is changing dramatically in this country, many of us are not prepared for those changes. We often rap our own clientele – hospital and health system leadership – for not moving fast enough to understand and take action on these changes. Obviously, they aren’t the only ones struggling to understand the changes.
- Published: March 29, 2009
- Filed under: Competition, Patient Experience, Strategy, Trends