James Edward Hicks III's Page
Profile Information
- Where do you work?
- The Buntin Group
- What's your job title?
- SVP, Brand Response
- Website:
- http://buntingroup.com
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Kindly,
- Jim
Vanderbilt Hospital Understands Marketing
Who is the marketing guy/gal at Vanderbilt Hospital? She/he is a genius. They know how to turn a negative customer service problem into a new sale. Here’s what happened. I was being treated for sinus problems in the Asthma Sinus and Allergy Clinic. My nurse practitioner decided that I needed a referral to the Gastroenterologist, because some of my sinus problems may be related to my hymnal hernia. This was all very well and good until I needed a referral from my insurance company.
I was informed, by Vanderbilt, that I needed to contact my Primary Care Physician to get the referral before my insurance company would allow the visit to the Gastroenterologist. I contacted my PCP and was informed by them that they would need to see the notes from the Asthma Sinus and Allergy Clinic before he would provide a referral.
This is now getting interesting because I had been working with Vanderbilt’s Asthma Sinus and Allergy Clinic for several months and have asked on at least two occasions that they keep my PCP informed about my condition and progress. This had obviously not been done. So I called back to Vanderbilt’s Asthma Sinus and Allergy Clinic and informed them for the situation. The clerk told me to come pick up a copy of my records and deliver them to my PCP. I told her that I wasn’t about to do that and she hung-up on me.
Knowing that I am the customer and this was a case for a patient advocate I contact the patient advocates office at Vanderbilt. This is where the sales job came in. The patient advocate was very pleasant and apologized for my trouble and promised to get the problem straitened out in short order. She asked me if my PCP was a Vanderbilt Doctor and I said know. She said well sir you should know that if your PCP was a Vanderbilt doctor this wouldn’t of happened because Vanderbilt doctors have computer access to all the Vanderbilt clinic patient reports.
Now she didn’t say you need to change your PCP to a Vanderbilt PCP, she didn’t need to. It was the first thing that crossed my mind. I’m not particularly in love with my current PCP but I think he’s competent. The only reason I did consider changing my PCP was because I had recently had a bad experience with a Vanderbilt trained doctor at one of their urgent care clinics. Other wise I would have taken the very subtle advise the patient advocate offered.
Now he’s the point of this. Vanderbilt could allow any doctor access to patient electronic records if they chose to but why should they. By not allowing access to non-Vanderbilt doctors they are encouraging patient to consolidate they business with Vanderbilt and insuring more referrals to their specialists. This is some of the best marketing tactics I have seen in a long time. My hat is off to these guys. They want customer service complaints because they know how to turn them into new sales.