Why I Love Lijit - Model Customer Service for All Health 2.0 Firms

Here's an exchange I had, en total, with Tara Anderson, Lijit Community Catalyst extraordinaire.

I'm posting it as an example of excellent customer service.

These emails also show why, if Lijit ever goes corporate commando and requires a fee for usage, I will pay such a fee without question - because I know people like Tara will be there to help convey my suggestions to improve the system.

Is the deeper point coming through? Systems improvement requires internal catalysts who hunt & gather feedback from users and then integrate suggestions into the corporate process to change systems.

Who are your internal catalysts? Patient registrars? Greeters/patient advocates? Nurses? Who integrates suggestions into the corporate process and facilitates system change? The BOD? Your unit directors/managers? The executive team?

Lesson: You can't buy loyalty like this, but you can certainly earn it, as Lijit has done. I recommend Lijit to all my fellow bloggers.

Thanks Tara! And keep reaching out. The organizations who grow too big to reach out to individual customers grow too big to hold my interest (and business) as a consumer.

Your devoted fan,
Health Mgmt Rx

Jen,

Thanks for taking the time to send your thoughts. We appreciate it. To answer your stats question, we recently added the geo-location information that you are asking about. If you go to your stats page (log into your Lijit account and click on “my stats” up top), you’ll see a chart that shows what countries your searchers are coming from. It’s a neat addition to our stats and I never realized that I had so many readers in Romania .

You can most definitely use any of this in a blog entry. It proves to my bosses that I’m actually working. J We’ve been reaching out personally to new users who sign up for about a year now. However, with our growth, I’m not sure how much longer we can do it. It’s the kind of personal touch that I love but once we start getting 50 new users signing up every day, it becomes very time-intensive. I’m currently struggling with how to scale the process and keep that personal feel.

Thanks again for your support. Please send any questions my way. Hope your Tuesday is going well…

Tara Anderson

Community Catalyst

lijit networks, inc.
1050 Walnut St., Suite 340

Boulder, Co 80302
303.493.5490 x496 direct
303.493.5495 fax
www.lijit.com

We've moved! Please note our new address. Our phone/fax numbers remain the same.

From: Jennifer McCabe Gorman [mailto: jennifermccabegorman@yahoo.com ]
Sent: Tuesday, December 11, 2007 1:26 PM
To: Tara Anderson
Subject: Re: Some Lijit feedback...

Hi Tara -

Thanks so much for the email - I've been using the lijit wijit (that's a tongue twister) with great success.

It's fascinating to see which searches have brought visitors to Health Management Rx - using Lijit stats I've been able to see an upward tick in both political search terms (universal healthcare) and searches for individuals/facilities.

My Statcounter allows me to see percentage of searches that are international/domestic - does the lijit functionality have this capability? If so I've just been too lazy to unearth it!

I'll keep your message and continue to evaluate the lijit service; if I come up with additional suggestions I'll most certainly pass them along.

Happy holidays -

Jen McCabe Gorman

PS - this is impressive customer service and a great way to build the lijit community! Mind if I use it in a future Health 2.0 blog entry? And do you touch bases with all users?


Tara Anderson <tara@lijit.com> wrote:

Hey there Jen. I noticed that you signed up for an account with us and wanted to thank you for installing our wijit on your blog. As the daughter of a public health nurse, I saw firsthand some of the struggles my mom went through in the field of health management. She opened my eyes to the complex workings of the health care system and I feel that your blog has the potential for doing the same.

In the interest of insuring a positive Lijit experience, I was wondering if you had any feedback for us concerning the installation or functionality of the wijit. We are a growing company and user comments are helpful in guiding our development team. Also, in case you hadn’t yet, I wanted to encourage you to take a look at your stats when you get the chance. Our goal is to offer detailed stats to help you get a better sense of your audience; we welcome any suggestions you may have for enhancing our stats offerings.

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact me. Thanks again for taking the time to install our wijit and I hope you’re having a great Monday!

Tara Anderson

Community Catalyst

lijit networks, inc.
1050 Walnut St., Suite 340

Boulder, Co 80302
303.493.5490 x496 direct
303.493.5495 fax
www.lijit.com

We've moved! Please note our new address. Our phone/fax numbers remain the same.

Price Transparency: Become a Positive Deviant Part III

Let's continue the conversation on effecting positive change by communicating pricing/quality data to patients, staff, and community stakeholders.

For transparency to work, both docs and patients must buy in to an evolving view of efficient modern health care as a process and partnership that requires the active and engaged participation of both parties.

And yes, patients, I mean you - how many of us can't even recite the names/doses of current prescription medications or dates/diagnoses related to care in the past five years?

Without this view, hospitals releasing numbers will just be spinning the wheels.

Granted, the rest of us will have some nifty high-deductible-based pricing tools to play around with in the meantime.

And hospital executives, although patients may be telling you they want info on prices, don't discount the fact that "all this readily gleaned customer feedback can lead you astray (from Freeman, Inc. Magazine July 07 "Ask and You Shall Be Misled" - link below).

Don't let demands for pricing outpace a well-designed strategy for releasing cost/quality data. Freeman makes a great point that if you're not used to soliciting feedback from customers, you may overreact when faced with a mountain of complaints about pricing and quality info.

Some of these complaints may arise from simple misunderstandings - successful transparency campaigns also requires rising levels of patient literacy...without improved patient education programs we'll just be spouting data many customers aren't equipped to incorporate into individual treatment goals.

There's a great article by David H. Freeman in the July 2007 issue of Inc. Magazine (page 63 of the print edition) titled "Ask and You Shall Be Misled: Customers can tell you a lot. But sometimes they don't know what they're talking about." Hospital/healthcare CEOs should read it, especially given recent industry flack about listening to customers and incorporating consumer feedback.

Transparency is important yes, but perhaps not the vital primary issue in healthcare. So how does transparency play in to the current single-payor/UHC debate?

Universal health care is a different animal entirely than universal health coverage.

The former will require multilevel participation from patients and caregivers, while the latter will make sure that everyone's &(%$#@ and esophogi are covered.

I'm going to go out on a limb and argue putting health care under either 'universal' umbrella doesn't matter if patients still don't have access to care based on information about provider pricing and quality.

Take a breather, because we're just getting started.

If and when you get patients to buy in to the idea that price/quality data is important, you have to explain the small print. Using a generalized price transparency tool like that at the WVa website is a bit like signing up for a mobile phone coverage plan.

You agree to plunk down 59.99 a month for service, but when you get your final bill there are ALMOST ALWAYS additional hidden or unanticipated charges related to usage variations.

With any medical procedure, costs will vary, sometimes significantly, based on the patient and her particular set of circumstances (including complications).

In addition, early iterations of pricing estimators available to consumers may not take into account all 'true' costs related to the procedure - and related recovery process, which can add significantly to costs incurred.

With a TKR for instance, does the fee listed include surgical workups, preop anesthesia assessments, labs, and extra costs incurred during the hospital stay such as parking, prescription copays, etc.?

What about ambulance transport home if needed, a quad cane, a shower chair or other equipment indicated by a PT, RT, OT, ST, or social worker/case manager prior to discharge?

And what if something goes awry in the OR and an additional surgeon is called in, increasing the cost of the procedure? What if the patient develops a condition during surgery that requires additional follow-up care? Or becomes infected with a nasty bug circling the halls?

Currently, sites don't include pricing tools for ancillary services or programs related to follow up care.

Take physical therapy after TKR for example, which can add quite a hefty chunk to total costs related to the procedure. Competitive pricing information, hours of operation for the hospitals rehab medicine department, etc. would allow a patient to make a more informed choice when selecting related care providers.

The issue is a toughie. But there are basic structural must-dos to get the process started.

• Hospitals - provide pricing info for your docs. Use examples already at work "in the field" such as CompareCareWV.
  

• Patients - request hospitals and docs make price information easily accessible in house and on the web. Acknowledge that you will need to follow up with your insurance provider to confirm coverage/approximate costs.
  

• And med schools/residency programs, for goodness sake - start training your docs on how to handle pricing requests and, better yet, increased levels of patient engagement/involvement. Docs, Nurse Practitioners, Nurses, and Physicians' Assistants will be the frontline advocates for increasing levels of patient health literacy.
  

Transparency is a team effort, and there's no I in team.