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Retain Patients with Personalized Communications

Tuesday, October 11th, 2022

Expectations of healthcare providers have dramatically changed in the last decade. The introduction of technology and the widespread adoption of digital communications in other industries have increased the pressure on healthcare providers to provide a similar experience. In fact, a recent survey commissioned by Redpoint found a significant gap in the experience healthcare consumers expect to receive from their provider and what is actually provided. To improve the patient experience, a personalized communications approach is necessary.

Patients Want A Personalized Healthcare Experience

Healthcare providers manage a lot of patient data. As audience segmentation and personalization techniques become more common in other industries like e-commerce and personal care, consumers are beginning to expect the same experiences from their healthcare providers. For example, media streaming services make personalized recommendations for new shows based on what you have previously watched. People like these features because it helps them discover new content they may not know about. Patients are beginning to expect a similar personalized experience from their healthcare provider. If a patient wants to control their diabetes diagnosis, communications from a medical provider with helpful resources are not only desired but are starting to become expected.

patient preferences survey

Personalized Communications Affect Patient Retention

Unlike streaming services, healthcare is extremely personal. If a media company recommends a show you don’t like, it’s minorly irritating. On the other hand, if your practice sends irrelevant email communications, it impacts the patient experience and may cause patients to leave. To that end, the Dynata survey found that the patient experience and personalization were two of the top reasons that patients leave a healthcare practice.

patient satisfaction survey

What would you prefer- frequent emails about products and services you don’t want, or consistent emails that relate to your goals and interests? It’s an easy decision. No one likes to be annoyed by pointless emails. Using information about your patients’ health status and goals to craft personalized messages increases patient satisfaction and improves engagement.

How to Personalize the Patient Experience

Traditionally, HIPAA compliance requirements have made it difficult for healthcare providers to personalize email communications. When marketers use patient data to segment audiences and personalize content, the communications must be protected according to HIPAA regulations. Many email marketing tools cannot meet these stringent encryption and security requirements. By selecting tools that meet HIPAA’s technical requirements (like LuxSci’s Secure Marketing and Secure High Volume Email) and by properly training employees, healthcare marketers can employ the same segmentation and personalization techniques to reach their audience with relevant communications.

Conclusion

Personalizing email communications is just one way to improve patient marketing and retention. Contact us today to learn more about how to reach your patients with secure email communications.

Tags: email marketing, ePHI, hipaa compliance, personalization, segmentation
Posted in Email Marketing
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5 Ways to Improve Your Dental Practice Email Marketing

Thursday, October 6th, 2022

Email marketing is a highly effective way to communicate the latest news about your dental practice to patients. However, stale newsletters and practice announcements are not enough to keep patients engaged with their oral health. Take your dental practice email marketing to the next level with these tips to improve your messaging. 

1) Choose an email marketing platform that allows you to use ePHI

Identifying the tools to market your practice is often trickier than it appears. Dental practices must abide by HIPAA regulations, affecting how they can transmit information about their services to their patients. Any vendor that handles PHI on behalf of a dental practice must sign a Business Associate Agreement outlining how patient data will be stored, transmitted, and disposed of. Don’t choose a vendor who is unfamiliar with HIPAA’s stringent requirements.

Also, watch out for quasi-compliance. Some self-identified “HIPAA-compliant” email vendors can protect data at rest but not in transmission, rendering their services moot. What’s the point of using a HIPAA-compliant email marketing service that doesn’t allow you to transmit relevant information?

quasi compliance

Some organizations try to avoid HIPAA regulations by having patients sign consent forms to waive their rights under HIPAA. However, this is unwise for several reasons. Even if patients agree, it does not remove the organization’s obligations to secure PHI under the law. If protected health information is improperly accessed, it is still a breach and can lead to severe financial and reputational consequences. Plus, keeping track of waivers and keeping email lists up to date is a major hassle. It’s much easier to do the right thing under the law.

2) Encrypt marketing emails to comply with HIPAA

Many marketing emails imply a relationship between patients and providers and, as such, can often be classified as protected health information. PHI must be encrypted in transit and at rest to comply with HIPAA. Ensure your email marketing platform encrypts every email automatically instead of relying on your marketing team to secure sensitive data.

However, not all email encryption is created equal. TLS encryption meets HIPAA transport encryption requirements and provides a better user experience. Emails encrypted with TLS are sent directly to the patient’s inbox and are opened just like a regular email. This means that marketing emails sent with TLS encryption are more likely to be opened than those sent to a patient portal which requires users to login to read the email.

tls vs portal pickup

Learn more about the differences between TLS and Secure Portal Pickup.

3) Use PHI to send personalized emails that are relevant to your customers

Once you’ve selected a tool that complies with HIPAA email encryption transmission requirements, use patient data to create highly relevant messaging. Some organizations try to get around HIPAA requirements by sending very generic marketing content. However, these tactics do not deliver results. Marketers in other industries have found that using customer data to segment their audience allows them to create highly relevant messaging that delivers better open and click rates. 

personalization stats

Dental marketers can use PHI to segment and personalize emails and delivers results for both your practice and your patients. Healthcare marketing emails can be personalized as long as the proper safeguards and precautions are in place to protect patient privacy and meet compliance requirements.

4) Use email marketing to engage patients 

Healthcare consumerism is rising, and patients are willing to change providers if they are unsatisfied with their experience. Educating and informing current and potential patients about your services is essential to improving new customer acquisition and patient retention. Many patients now prefer to receive communications about their health status, upcoming appointments, and relevant offers via email. 

online marketing stats

Adapting your communications to fit patient preferences is an easy change that can go a long way to increase patient satisfaction.

5) Track the results and use data to improve messaging

Unlike other traditional marketing channels, email marketing campaigns deliver a wealth of data that can be used to inform your strategic plans. Unlike social media, email isn’t subject to the whims of the latest algorithm change. Reviewing performance over time makes it possible to tell what is popular and unpopular with your customer base. Email marketing is so effective at delivering a positive return on investment because it is straightforward to track what is resonating and what is not. 

Conclusion

Using HIPAA-compliant email marketing tools allows dental practices to achieve better marketing results via segmentation and personalization without sacrificing patient privacy. LuxSci’s Secure Marketing platform was designed to help organizations connect with their patients without violating HIPAA.

Tags: dental marketing, dental practice marketing, email marketing, healthcare consumerism, personalization, quasi compliance, segmentation, tls encryption
Posted in Email Marketing
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Personalize Healthcare Communications to Improve the Patient Experience

Tuesday, August 16th, 2022

Recent survey results from CVS Health indicate that healthcare patients desire a more personalized healthcare experience. Over the last ten years, the online experience has become highly customized. Online vendors have more customer data and use it to extend personalized offers, reminders, and updates. Although people are concerned about online privacy, they are more likely to open and engage with relevant marketing communications.

As the healthcare industry has undergone digital transformation, more data is available in a digital format. But how and when can it be used? This article discusses how to use patient data to personalize healthcare communications without violating HIPAA requirements.

personalize healthcare communications

What is Healthcare Personalization?

Personalized health care places individuals at the center of the health care experience. Health care is a complex issue, and one system does not work for everyone. A person’s health status is influenced by many factors, including genetics, age, environment, social determinants, income, and countless others. A health care program that considers as many of these variables as possible can better address patient needs and increase access to care.

Why Personalize Healthcare Communications

Patients understand that their healthcare providers manage a lot of their personal data and want a personalized experience that respects their preferences. As audience segmentation and personalization techniques become more common in other industries like e-commerce and personal care, consumers expect the same experiences from their health care providers.

For example, say you order a jug of laundry detergent on Amazon. They can use common consumer data in combination with your last order date to estimate when you are likely to run out. Then, they can send an email reminder to encourage a reorder before you run out again. In a similar manner, healthcare providers should know when someone’s prescription is running low and could send a notification to let the patient they need to refill and help improve medication adherence.

A recent survey by CVS Health found that 85% of patients find personalized care to be important. In fact, 83% expect their primary care provider to be aware of their family medical history, genetics and inherited lifestyle habits. 71% of consumers said it was very or somewhat important to their health that they have customized alerts and reminders of screenings and checkups. This is even more common among patients under 40. The next generation of healthcare consumers expects their healthcare to fit seamlessly into their normal lives.

Ways to Personalize the Healthcare Experience

There are many ways to personalize the healthcare experience, but they all depend on the available data. An easy way to start is by asking for patient preferences. Some common ways to personalize healthcare communications include collecting information about patient preferences:

  • Communication methods: How do they prefer to be contacted? Ask patients their preferred channels- email, texting, phone, and paper notifications are standard options.
  • Language proficiency: Is English their first language? If not, send communications in the person’s primary language.
  • Patient status: Are they active patients or overdue for regular screenings and appointments?

Looking at these attributes can help craft messages that appeal to patient subgroups.

The next level of personalization uses protected health information (PHI) to deliver extremely customized healthcare communications. The possibilities are truly endless, but here are a few examples to spark some ideas:

  • Medical conditions: use information about patient medical conditions to send highly targeted communications about managing or preventing chronic conditions like depression, diabetes, and heart conditions.
  • Screening reminders: Remind patients when they are due for mammograms, colonoscopies, or other screenings that are ordered based on age or risk factors.
  • Patient retention and re-engagement: Did a patient skip their annual appointment or screening? Make it easy to reschedule by sending periodic reminders.
  • Insurance status: send relevant communications based on the patient’s insurance status. For example, letting healthcare marketplace insurance holders know about re-enrollment periods to ensure they don’t drop their coverage.

Personalization provides a customizable healthcare experience for patients that eliminates friction and barriers to care. Using personalization to create educational campaigns can also help improve health outcomes. See How to Use ePHI to Segment and Personalize Email Marketing Campaigns for more information.

HIPAA Considerations in Customizable Healthcare

One reason that healthcare has been slow to adopt personalization techniques is HIPAA. These guidelines protect sensitive medical information and govern how it can be used. To send personalized messages like the examples discussed above, HIPAA guidelines must be followed. Some of the core requirements for sending HIPAA-compliant emails include:

  • Encryption
  • Access Controls
  • Backups and Archival
  • Anti-Malware Defenses
  • Identity Authorization
  • Reporting Mechanisms
  • Review Procedures and Policies

See our HIPAA-Compliant Email Checklist for more information about the requirements.

LuxSci offers several solutions for sending HIPAA-compliant personalized messages. Contact us today to learn more about our Secure High Volume Email and Secure Marketing tools.

Tags: digital transformation, email marketing, ePHI, HIPAA email, patient engagement, patient experience, personalization, segmentation
Posted in Email Marketing
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