A Money-Back Guarantee In Health Care? Yes.

When new CEO David Feinberg, M.D., arrived at Geisinger Health System in May 2015, he saw a large system with a great reputation for medical innovation and outcomes.

“But its reputation among its patients based on their hospital experiences? Not so great,” says copywriter and regular SHCM contributor Peter Hochstein.

Kathy Scullin, Chief Communications Officer, Geisinger Health System

Hochstein notes that the hospital regularly surveys employees, patients, and physicians, and “some of our staff felt we had lost our way in terms of our focus on the patient,” Kathy Scullin, Geisinger’s Chief Communications Officer, gently puts it.

“The consequence was a multi-pronged effort to not only improve patient service at Geisinger, but also to turn the system’s culture around so that the improvements would happen,” says Hochstein.

Geisinger turned to Donenfeld & Associates/Silverman, which delivered a television branding campaign that also serves as what Scullin calls “a whole cultural refocusing of all the aspects of what we do for patients and [health plan] members.”

Additionally, and even more daringly, “Geisinger now offers its patients their copay money back if they’re not completely satisfied with the care they got. They can get all, or a fraction, of their copays returned,” Hochstein reports.

This is done with the help of what Wendy Wilson, Geisinger’s Vice President of Media and Digital Content Strategy, calls “the sexy piece”: Patients can download an app from either the iTunes Store or the Android Store that lets them tell the hospital’s administration “what went right and what went wrong with your appointment,” Wilson says.

For more on this innovative new strategy, and the massive amount of free publicity it’s generating for Geisinger, read Hochstein’s full article now: Advertising—and a Revolutionary Refund Policy—Help to Change the Brand Experience at Geisinger Health System.

Best regards,
Matt Humphrey
President