September 12, 2012 •Brian Watson
While it’s true that the primary objective of patient billing is payment, revenue collection is far from the only advantage statement processing provides.
One powerful but until recently under-the-radar patient billing benefit is its unique value as a marketing tool.
To put things simply, transactional documents have rare, built-in reach and patient engagement advantages that are pretty darn appealing to marketers.
For example, InfoTrends reports that only 4.7% of all statements sent are discarded by consumers without being read. And Group 1 Software further strengthens the marketing appeal of patient statements, suggesting that the average consumer spends 1-3 minutes on statement review.
What Is TransPromo? And How Does It Work?
TransPromo is an approach to patient statement design that enables providers to leverage those inherent reach and engagement advantages in a way that still respects the document’s overarching billing objectives. Beginning with the unused space on your statements, it blends on-page design elements with data mining and variable print technology to provide patients with personalized, useful, uniquely relevant information about your organization and the services it offers.
Successful TransPromo is much more than a color logo and brand message on a statement. Like all winning direct response marketing, it has to be appropriate, targeted, and timely. And that takes a highly specialized data integration and variable print toolset. So just what should be on your TransPromo checklist?
1). Clean, hierarchical Design. This is a must. Patient statement printing and mailing is above all else a revenue channel. TransPromo can be a great value to your organization, increasing everything from your social media following to patient use of your treatment services. But it should never obscure transaction information, billing instructions, contact information, or payment channels.
Clean, clear, concise statement design places important elements front and center on your documents: using impact color, call-out boxes, and plenty of white space to control patients’ visual path and emphasize key information. And reserves promotional elements for areas where it won’t interfere with, or detract from, billing information – like the bottom of the statement or on additional pages.
2). Data Mining and Database Marketing. Truly effective trans-promotional documents start with a robust patient profile. Your legacy system has a truly staggering amount of information about patients. There’s demographic intelligence, insurance coverage details, and data about the providers and groups within your organization they’ve visited.
All of that information can be used to create effective, HIPAA-approved, broad-but-still-relevant statement messaging that matches patients with treatment services or health and financial tools on a far more personalized level. Which enables you to market in the most intelligent, patient friendly, and effective way possible.
For example: transaction data shows that a household has a teenager that was treated by your organization’s sports medicine group. Follow-up variable statement messaging could leverage this data to highlight a complementary joint pain seminar, free back-to-school sports physicals, a membership offer for your fitness center, or the opening of a new walk-in clinic in the patient’s area. The end result: a marketing appeal that goes far beyond typical push advertisement to something that’s personalized, engaging, and truly valuable.
3). Variable Imaging Technology. Leading edge variable print technology is the engine that drives TransPromo. On-demand print tools provide the flexibility for on-the-fly changes to each statement’s message, graphics, or even overall design to fit the patient's personal demographic and treatment profile.
4). Digital Asset Management. Digital asset management is a key component of creating highly personalized statements. It works like this: all transactional document pictures, text, and graphics can be uploaded and stored in a central location on the web. Then, when a statement file is ready to be processed, a specialized software program uses custom business logic to pull the assets from the repository and arrange them on each bill for a truly 1:1 marketing appeal.
5). Custom Business Logic. Okay, here’s where everything comes together. Special print-and-mail programs use statement templates and custom business logic to process which assets should be placed on a document prior to printing. It’s these exceptional programs that pull-and-place assets based upon the statement recipient’s unique profile and enable personalized documents to be produced variably.
Given the reach and engagement of patient statements, it’s easy to see why marketers are pretty darn excited about TransPromo. It provides personal, relevant, timely messaging that reduces marketing overhead, boosts brand awareness, and enables you to shine a spotlight on everything from classes to treatment services. If you’d like to learn more about TransPromo and just what makes it work, we’d love to help. Simply contact us at 1.800.276.6456 or get in touch online here.
What direct response marketing techniques are you currently using? How might TransPromo benefit those efforts?