Engaging Patients in a Global Market

But given the widening market for healthcare, a number of businesses are helping consumers overcome these obstacles. Medical tourism is such a burgeoning industry that it has spawned subsidiary businesses that get, qualify, and publish data on the best hospitals worldwide. There are even travel agencies that do considerable legwork for patients, including providing information on hospitals, arranging travel and immediate post-care treatment, and coordinating after-care between patients' primary care physicians and the hospital abroad. So finding quality medical care, as well as getting after-care overseas or at home, is becoming less of a problem for consumers.

Increasingly, U.S. insurance companies are considering covering medical tourism, and some already do: BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina, for instance, is stirring up the industry by adding several hospitals located outside the United States to its network and providing access to concierge services related to treatment. OptiMed Health/United Group has covered foreign medical care for more than a year, forgoing deductibles and co-pays and covering all travel expenses. Swiss Re's Commercial Insurance now recognizes medical travel coverage as part of its existing stop loss offering, which is offered through Westport Insurance Corp.

Some members of the business community aren't waiting for insurance companies to get around to covering healthcare overseas for their employees. Many companies, big and small, encourage (and pay for) medical tourism because it costs them so much less. Some have an informal, case-by-case policy offered more or less quietly. Others, such as the Hannaford Bros. Company, a grocery store chain based in Scarborough, Maine, are quite public, offering employees the option of getting hip and knee replacements in Singapore.

Engagement

So as quality healthcare becomes a global commodity -- and as patients and companies contemplate the benefits of traveling abroad for the most cost-effective care -- what can healthcare providers do to ensure that their patients are engaged and will return for service in the future? They can promote deep emotional bonds with their customers. This will make patients want to return for care -- and encourage their friends and family to do so too.

It goes without saying that patients can develop deep emotional bonds with the people who heal them. If they do, patients can become fully engaged with their healthcare provider and/or the hospital.

However, far too many healthcare facilities, regardless of where they're located, don't consider engagement when they think of their patient relationships. What most concern themselves with is patient satisfaction. U.S. hospitals in particular are well aware of their level of patient satisfaction. They have to be: The U.S. government mandates that hospitals survey patients about their satisfaction.

But satisfaction by itself isn't a good predictor of future customer behavior, as Gallup research has shown. Results from many case studies suggest that customers who provide the highest rating of overall satisfaction with a company's products or services -- or those who are extremely satisfied -- fall into two distinct groups:

• Rationally satisfied customers are extremely satisfied with the company but lack the strong emotional connection of customers who are emotionally satisfied.
• Emotionally satisfied customers are extremely satisfied with the products and services the company provides and have a strong emotional attachment to the company.

Emotionally satisfied customers deliver enhanced value to an organization by buying more, spending more, or returning more often to or staying longer with an organization. But rationally satisfied customers behave no differently than dissatisfied ones.

What does predict behavior is engagement, the profound psychological attachment customers develop for certain healthcare providers and medical centers -- and patients are customers. And what patient engagement predicts is exactly the sort of thing all healthcare providers care about: fully engaged customers who are passionate about their providers and who are much likelier to return, to visit more often, to spend more per visit, and to make recommendations to their friends.

In a global healthcare market, you shouldn't take your fully engaged patients for granted; you must continually look for ways to build and maintain engaged relationships. For example, 54% of U.S. patients are fully engaged -- and are far more likely to return for treatment to their American healthcare providers. But a $90,000 cost savings might be enough to make even a fully engaged patient think about traveling for more cost-effective treatment options -- and less-engaged patients could be researching their options for medical care on the Internet right now.

As the playing field for quality healthcare goes global, simply competing on quality or price is not enough. The hospitals that will thrive in this new global marketplace -- whether they are in North America, South America, Asia, Europe, or the Middle East -- will be the ones that go beyond merely satisfying patients to fully engaging them.