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Advocate Health Care Achieves Double-Digit Response With CPM Patient Retention Programs

Posted on: Wednesday, 17 November 2004, 09:00 CST

To promote better patient health and stronger physician-patient relationships, Advocate Health Care designed patient retention programs for its health centers and medical group that produced response rates of approximately 15 percent.

Both the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) program and the campaigns were developed by Customer Potential Management (CPM) Marketing Group, a leader in relationship management solutions for health care. Advocate Health Care involved physicians in the planning process, presenting campaign goals, sample materials and soliciting input. "Primary care physicians continue to be the frontline of health care--both for health maintenance and for referrals to specialists and health care facilities--so it was imperative we reach out to patients through our health centers and medical group," explained John Ruhl, director of CRM technology at Advocate Health Care.

While both Advocate Health Centers and Advocate Medical Group used Lifetime Connections (LTC)(TM), a customizable, automated suite of relevant health maintenance communications, to build relationships one consumer at a time, each modified the application to fit its unique goals. Both Advocate Health Centers and Advocate Medical Group used a control group that did not receive campaign materials but had the same characteristics of those in the targeted groups. Advocate compared the service utilization of individuals who received the campaign mailings to those in the control groups.

Advocate Health Centers' campaign goals included increasing compliance to routine preventive health maintenance exams among existing health maintenance organization (HMO) and preferred provider organization (PPO) patients, who had not been seen in the past six to 12 months. Advocate Health Centers aimed to lower claim costs by encouraging individuals to get regular recommended screenings and immunizations which identify problems early and/or keep people from getting sick. Recipients were encouraged to see their physician for a check-up, offered expedited scheduling and a Healthwise Handbook upon completion of the appointment. As the campaign's success became evident, Advocate Health Centers kept expanding the mailings, nearly doubling the number of participating physicians from 66 to 126.

After nine months of tracking, 43 percent of households came in for a visit compared with 28 percent in the control group of unmailed households.

"Advocate Health System used the hallmarks of CRM to achieve success in these campaigns," said John Hallick, CPM president and CEO. "The combination of targeted list selection, control group and tracking technology, and digital printing to personalize each piece helped Advocate earn higher than expected response rates."

To learn more, read our latest case study, "Two Approaches to Patient Retention, Activation Pay Off for Advocate Health Centers, Medical Group" in the Hospital Press Room at www.cpm.com, contact us via email at marketing@cpm.com, or call 1-800-332-2631, Ext. 221 to request a copy.

About Advocate Health Care

Oak Brook-based Advocate Health Care, the largest health care provider in Illinois, has ranked among the nation's top 10 health care systems for seven consecutive years. Advocate's dedicated physicians and associates strive to be leaders in clinical excellence. At Advocate, quality of care is more than just words. A faith-based, non-profit system, Advocate is related to both the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the United Church of Christ. Advocate's 200+ sites of care in metropolitan Chicago include eight acute care hospitals and two children's hospitals, a home health care company, and three of Chicago's largest medical groups.

With 25,000 employees, Advocate is one of the largest private employers in Chicago. Through a long-term academic and teaching affiliation with the University of Illinois at Chicago Health Sciences Center, Advocate trains more resident physicians than any non-university teaching hospital in Illinois. For more information about Advocate Health Care, visit www.advocatehealth.com.

About CPM Marketing Group, Inc.

CPM Marketing Group, headquartered in Middleton, WI, is a pioneer in the development of customer relationship management (CRM) solutions, including database development, intelligent health care marketing systems and predictive market segmentation. CPM's integrated solutions allow health care organizations to maximize their customer relationships through market analysis, strategic planning and targeted personal communications. The foundation is an accessible, customer-centric database that includes comprehensive individual and household data. CPM's suite of software tools provides easy and secure access to the data for individual snapshots of patients and health consumers on a "segment of one" basis. For more information, visit www.cpm.com, call 1-800-332-2631, Ext. 221, or contact us via email at marketing@cpm.com.

Source: Business Wire

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