Hospital Introduces "No Bill For Seniors" Marketing Plan

SwedishAmerican Hospital in Rockford, Illinois, experienced a loss of Medicare patients. The cause of the problem was a highly successful marketing promotion begun 18 months earlier by a competing hospital.

The competitor had been accepting seniors' Medicare assignments and supplement insurance reimbursements as payment in full, thereby eliminating the patient's co-payment. The effect was a perception of "free care" for seniors at the competing hospital.

SwedishAmerican Hospital needed a marketing program that would stem the Medicare census decline and re-establish SwedishAmerican as the preferred hospital for seniors.

PCI created the concept of the Senior Passport, a program that would pay the balance of the senior's hospital bill not only at SwedishAmerican Hospital, but anywhere in America.

The Senior Passport was the first program of its kind in the nation.

A plastic card, much like a bank or oil company card, was created to identify members in the program. Available to all Rockford seniors, the card was issued free and carried the promise that the cardholder would never have to reach into his or her pocket to pay a hospital bill at SwedishAmerican. Furthermore, if the cardholder traveled out of town on business or pleasure and required emergency hospitalization, SwedishAmerican guaranteed to reimburse the patient for the co-payment portion of the bill.

Using data gathered in a recent PCI-conducted marketing communications audit, a number of program components were planned to launch the Senior Passport. The campaign include:

Focus group interviews. PCI conducted focus interview sessions with groups of seniors and physicians to test program concepts and promotional strategies.

Medicare counselors. A group of six "Senior Passport Counselors" was recruited from the ranks of the hospital volunteers. Themselves senior citizens, the six were trained to assist Medicare patients with questions about their coverage and to help them with forms and paperwork.

Physician briefings. All physicians and their staffs were invited to Senior Passport briefing sessions which were scheduled throughout the day before the public announcement of the program.

Spokesperson training. Three hospital officers were given a full day of media training to prepare for the public announcement and media interviews.

Press conference. The Senior Passport was announced simultaneously to local media in Rockford and to national and trade media at a Chicago press conference. The Associated Press filed a story about the Senior Passport. Media coverage brought in numerous inquires from the public and requests for information on the program from hospitals across the country.

Direct-mail brochure. A brochure describing the Senior Passport program and an application were mailed to all Rockford residents 65 and older. The brochure focused on the "no bill" provision of the program as well as the "anywhere in America" feature to clearly distinguish the program from that of the competing hospital.

Counter displays. Recognizing the marketing role of the physician, each doctor was provided a Senior Passport reception room counter display. The display included a pocket to hold a supply of promotional brochures and applications.

Media advertising. To support the media relations and direct-mail components of the campaign, newspaper advertisements and radio commercials were placed with local Rockford media beginning the day after the press conference. Bus cards were placed on the sides of senior transportation vans.

Quarterly newsletter. The program was described in the hospital's quarterly newsletter to the community. The newsletter was mailed to all Rockford households shortly after the press conference.

Collateral materials. In addition to the plastic card, a presentation folder was created in which the card was mailed to applicants along with a question-and-answer information sheet. Telephone stickers with emergency numbers and the Senior Passport Counselors' telephone number were printed and given away to enrollees.

Additional telephone lines were installed for the launch, and card embossing stations were set up in the hospital lobby to handle initial enrollees. During the first day after the program announcement, 700 "walk-ins" were enrolled in the hospital lobby. Eight hundred arrived the next day.

By the end of the sixth week, 7,600 eligible senior citizens had enrolled — nearly half of the senior market in Rockford. By the end of the sixth month, 12,000 had enrolled in the Senior Passport program.

The ultimate success of the campaign was measured over a period of months as Rockford-area seniors came to require hospitalization and choose SwedishAmerican. Admissions of seniors returned to the level they had been prior to the competitor's "free care" marketing program.

In the meantime, the program created enormous good will for the hospital in the community.