- January 20, 2015
- Posted by: growth@locutushealth.com
- Category: Industry Articles, Revenue Cycle
Case studies are more trusted than white papers.
That’s a lesson the world of RCM hasn’t fully digested. Of course, whitepapers are valuable, but unless you’ve got the signature of a professional organization, they won’t carry as much weight as you telling the story of your own business experience via a case study.
Connecting with revenue cycle clients will become increasingly important as CFOs, managed care directors, and other healthcare decision influencers simultaneously become more involved online, and face increasing pressures to outsource their business office functions.
That means that your case studies need to reach beyond the basics, and serve the revenue cycle environment in ways your competitors can’t. To help get you started, here are eight elements to include in your next case study that will prove your organization is in tune with the changing world of healthcare and your clients’ immediate revenue cycle needs.
A Voice
Bland and business-like is not ok. I’m not saying to skip professionalism here, but if you’re just putting numbers and sentences on a page, you’re missing out on a valuable opportunity to give decision makers a preview of what it’s like to work with you.
Your values, your corporate personality, the traits that make you stand out from your competitors — don’t leave them to rot in a corner of your website…find someone in your organization who knows how to relate what makes your solutions special, and incorporate that into a unique, personal, professional, and competent voice in your case study.
One of the easiest ways to do that is to tell a revenue cycle story, and that’s what we’re going to get to next.
Specific Focus
RCM is a niche area of healthcare, but that doesn’t mean you can get away with superficial case studies. You have to demonstrate that you can solve specific problems.
For example, go beyond “Optimizing An ICD-10 Transition” to “Solving The General Equivalence Mapping Problem”. Don’t Stop at “Improving Billing Functions”…go deeper into “Rectifying Costly Issues With Cardiac Department Billing”.
If you’re telling a story that everyone else already knows, your case studies won’t be doing what they should. This might mean you need more studies to fully represent your product and service offerings, but it also means that you’ll have specific examples to give potential and existing clients that clearly demonstrate that you can address their pain points.
If you’re in need of subjects, ask your team for stand-out successes they’ve had — you’re sure to find a wealth of examples.
BtoB purchase decision makers are more diversified in today’s enterprise — Jamie Mendez, IBM Marketing VP
A Clearly Stated Problem
Notice the case study names I used in the example above. Not only are they more specific than higher-level revenue cycle concepts, they clearly state the problem that was solved. This should be done not only in the title of your case studies, but also in a separate section that details the problem the subject of the case study was facing.
Every good story has an antagonist, and in this case, the problem is yours. Give your bad guy some attention, and highlight the problem and all the negative results that came along with it.
Emphasized Results
Touting the amazing results you brought about are the entire point of a case study right?
Surprisingly, a lot of revenue cycle case studies bury the lede. There is nothing wrong with stating your stellar results (at least in summary or with a preview) up front, and then providing details later on.
Flexibility Of Format
Reach beyond the PDF and into the varied world of multiple online media channels.
Once you have a study created, this won’t take much work. Consider slide decks, LinkedIn posts (and groups), newsletters, even having key personnel create audio or video presentations around the subject. Repurpose, repurpose, repurpose.
Quality content in the rev cycle space is somewhat sparse, so you have an amazing opportunity to create a powerhouse niche media presence that builds, maintains, and moves your sales funnel on its own.
A Clear Summary
This is most appropriate for longer studies, but even if a case study is only one page long, well-placed graphics that call out problem, solution, and measurable results are always a good idea.
67% Of B2B Buyers Don’t Trust Vendor Content.~CMO Council
The Soft Sell
If you didn’t get a chance to check out the study about B2B content that I linked above, you might have missed the point that too many mentions of a product or service degrades reader trust.
Any piece of content your organization puts out should be part of a systematic process to get your reader, be they a CFO, billing manager, or a coder, to know, like, and trust you as a service provider. Dedicating three quarters of your case study to discussing the awesome features of your new revenue cycle software suite will call your reliability into question, and may even start to erode any likability you’ve already worked hard to establish.
Always write case studies from the perspective that you are creating them to benefit your customer. They are meant to convert of course, but they should be part of a slower, more nuanced process that doesn’t involve you singing too many of your own praises, too soon.
Client Voice
This element is optional, but goes a long way in selling the validity of your case study.
Anyone who’s done business with a healthcare vendor before knows that the effectiveness of a project is often in the eyes of the beholder. If you can include a client testimonial that dovetails with your case study, you will have made major steps in letting your reader know that not only was your work successful in solving a problem, but that your client also walked away happy — those aren’t always the same thing.
With all that said, here’s our soft sell. If you need any advice or input on beefing up your current revenue cycle case studies, or in creating new ones, contact us to get started. If you’re just looking to learn more about communicating with your revenue cycle clients, I’d like to recommend you read our brief article, “How To Be A Revenue Cycle Ally”.