For anyone still wondering about the value of social media in health care, just look at the latest examples in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings and wonder no more.
 
Each of the three hospitals that treated the majority of the bombing victims –Massachusetts General Hospital, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center – used their Facebook pages and Twitter feeds to communicate everything from the number and condition of bombing victims in their care, to a call for blood donations, to what hospital employees should do about trying to come to work amid a citywide lockdown.
 
Not that long ago, when a gunman fired shots inside one of UPMC’s hospitals in Pittsburg, the health system used its Twitter feed to instantly communicate to the public about what was going on inside the hospital and that hospital workers and patients were safe.
 
When it comes to being prepared for a crisis, having a communication plan is essential, and nowadays, having social media be a part of that plan, is critical.

The last few weeks have finally started to bring the exchange networks into focus, especially when we consider a patchwork of data points and stories from across the country.  It’s sort of like staring at a poster covered in dots – after some period of time, you see a B1 bomber, or whatever image is hidden in the dots.

First, let’s consider what we’re hearing from health systems in different markets.  Negotiations for hospital participation in the exchange networks is starting to yield contracts around the country.  Most are being done at payment rates slightly below existing commercial rates, with most reported discounts under 10 percent.  This has been confirmed by Carl MacDonald, our favorite analyst at Citi who covers the payor space.  The highest profile example is Tenet Healthcare (THC), which just announced three separate agreements in three markets with three different Blues plans.  The recent analyst report from Sheryl Skolnick states that Tenet signed deals which included discounts slightly less than 10 percent in aggregate – hardly the Medicare rates some payors have aggressively promoted to the market. Here’s how Sheryl describes the impact of these deals, and the others that will follow:  

1. The contracts are at slight (or even modest) discounts to commercial rates. Given the delta between commercial and Medicare rates, even a 10% discount could yield a revenue per adjusted admit that is still 30% higher (or more) than Medicare (assume a commercial rate of $14,000 per adj. admit and Medicare around $10,000 and do the math).
2. IF those patients had shown up before, they would have been no-pay heads. Now, they could yield substantial margins. THAT’s the important upside.
3. IF those patients show up, the limitations on co-pays and deductibles for subsidized individuals on exchanges substantially limits ‘balance after insurance’ bad debts. If no patients show up, then no harm, no foul. They’ll show up somewhere else as insured patients, but not at THC hospitals as uninsured, i.e., NOT as negative cash flow events for THC’s facilities.
4. The contracts set a precedence for other contracts, at least potentially, and prove the point that although some managed care plans might wish for Medicaid rates, the hospitals (at this point at least) aren’t necessarily compelled to grant them. (Of course, that sets up a very worrisome dynamic in our mind for those unfortunate plans.)
5. So yes, the contracts might fill beds, but they’d fill the beds at acceptable margins no matter who else is in the network. Unlike in the past when hospitals exchanged price for volume (mid–90s for those of you too young to remember), this is NOT a conversion of the SAME patients from being highly profitable to highly unprofitable. In our estimation, THIS IS a conversion of ‘no-pay’ patients to either ‘no show’ patients or nicely profitable ones.  

Beyond Tenet’s smart strategic play, we recently learned of another deal just about to be signed – at similar rates and with similar steerage protections – by an HCSC-owned Blue Cross plan with a multi-hospital statewide health system.  There is definitely a pattern emerging here, and it’s a clarion call for any hospital considering Medicare or near-Medicare rates: don’t do it.  There are good deals to be done, at rates close to commercial.  
 
With that backdrop, let’s consider the second piece of the puzzle – what the health plans are telling the market.  Most people have seen Aetna’s exchange network offer of 100% of Medicare in trade for complete exclusivity, which Aetna reports has been adopted by numerous hospitals nationwide.  Yet a source close to the action tells us that Aetna has signed up a grand total of five hospitals in the entire country to that deal.  It seems that even promises of complete exclusivity won’t lure smart, high-quality hospitals to an exchange network paying Medicare rates.  Perhaps that’s why Aetna quietly, and without any media announcements, laid off more than 1,200 people in several waves over recent months.  Enrollment is down and the exchange opportunity isn’t as glittery for them as once thought.

WellPoint has made similar claims in recent days  – just last week, a Barclay’s analyst report coming out of their annual investor conference said:

“With Dennis Matheis, who runs exchanges, joining Wayne DeVeydt this morning we spent a good amount of time on exchanges. WellPoint believes that the government is on track for exchange implementation in 2014. The company believes its scale, brand advantage, and local presence make it well positioned to win enrollment.  WellPoint expects to get a lot more clarity on market positioning over the next 8 weeks, with notably California rates due on March 31st.   [WellPoint] is still in the early stages of exchange contracting, and is seeing rates closer to Medicare than commercial, while ‘No one is interested In Medicaid.’ The company is 1/3 to 1/2 done contracting depending on the market. On average, WellPoint sees rate shock of 40 percent, with variability in states depending on current market reforms. WellPoint sees the exchange opportunity as a land grab, where it needs to take advantage of the early opportunity to diversify risk, and it could take 5-7 years to catch up. The company is expecting employer dumping to be low.”

These claims simply defy our experience and all market intelligence.  That’s why we are fielding a quick survey to take the pulse of hospitals in WellPoint markets – we’re going straight to the source to validate or discredit WellPoint’s claims.  We certainly don’t want false information to create a sense of urgency for hospitals to do the wrong deals on exchange networks.   

No doubt WellPoint and other payors want hospitals to believe that Medicare rates are their only option.  They want to create a sense of scarcity and desperation.  And no doubt it’s working with some hospitals.  Yet the truth is different – rates close to commercial are available for those hospitals serious about doing the right deals.  The exchanges can be a success if health plans and hospitals alike approach exchange negotiations as commercial negotiations.

Stay tuned for more information on this topic.

The annual HIMSS conference can be overwhelming, and this year’s experience in New Orleans was no different. More than 1,100 vendors came together in the hope of capturing the imagination (and business) of potential clients, vendor collaborators, investors and of course, the media. In years gone by it was easy to put HIT companies into their respective buckets:

 
• Enterprise-wide solutions designed to capture clinical and administrative data for large health systems
• Best of breed, niche players:
  • Point-of-care decision support
  • E-prescribing
  • Operating room information systems
  • EHR systems:
    • Hospital based
    • Physician based
    • Consumer based
• Revenue cycle; back-office solutions, etc.

Today, through years of acquisition activities, it’s becoming increasingly challenging to differentiate the players, and it’s probably going to get worse before it gets better.

There was an aura of sameness that permeated the conference – everyone positioning themselves to be everything to everyone, trying to get into health care reform alignment.

Additionally, the industry is still being challenged to prove its promise and value in the health care delivery and cost management equations.

For buyers of HIT services, this has to be very confusing times. For firms like ours, though, these are the challenges we live for – helping create marketplace differentiation, competitive separation and buyer preference for our clients.

If Budweiser can encourage the world to “Drink Responsibly” with a straight face, there’s absolutely no reason why Coca-Cola can’t tackle the world’s obesity problem with a promise to “Market Responsibly.”

Big brands know better than anyone that social responsibility is not just some feel-good, nice-to-have initiative, but rather a business imperative. Now health is moving to the forefront of that agenda as the intensity of the world’s health issues push to the top of mind and top of the media’s agenda.  

Consider John Commins’ latest HealthLeaders article comparing the food industry to Big Tobacco. Commins makes the case that it’s time for health care providers to lead the fight against the food industry.

“The sad truth is that wellness movements by themselves aren’t enough to reverse the obesity and overweight epidemic, no matter how well-intentioned or proactive. They will fail unless we address the larger issue of what people eat. The processed food industry must be held accountable and pressured to modify the addictive junk it peddles to the American people. Healthcare providers, the people who see first-hand the devastating effects of overweight and obesity, must lead this fight.”

Commins’ call to action comes on the heels of a string a high-profile stories in the nation’s leading news publications detailing food industry tactics to sell more food that’s not necessarily contributing to our country’s good health.

An interesting trend, however, is how non-health care companies are positioning themselves as ambassadors of good health.

When it comes to the “new black” of corporate social responsibility, wellness is very clearly the new green.  A real focus on sustainability and “green” practices is now being supplemented by a real focus on health and wellness. A healthier bottom line is increasingly being tied to a brand association with healthier habits, healthier choices and healthier lifestyles.

Wellness as a business strategy is finding all kinds of odd and disruptive bedfellows. Smart communications and marketing executives are recognizing the connection. Read more here. 

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Cliff Frank
CEO, PartneraHealth

2014 is our year. It’s the year when Provider Brands become important to a whole new class of insurance buyers – just about everybody. If your hospital or physician group is stuck inside a broad payor network, you will simply be drowned out by the cacophony of insurance electioneering called open enrollment. But you have a brand of your own. This makes you the main event because you want consumers to make a health care decision, not merely a financial one. Your loyal patients can find you and meaningfully show their love for you by enrolling in a plan that features you. But to Stand Out, you have to Stand Up.

Stand Up means deciding you are going to abandon the myth that insurers will market you to their customers so that their customers become your customers. That hasn’t worked in broad networks; why would it work in narrow networks any better? Insurers don’t want patients. That’s the whole point. They want members who are not patients, and are not likely to be patients. They speak a different language to a different group of prospects.

Stand Up means deciding to control your growth through expanding your relationship with consumers while they are still vertical, so when they need to be horizontal in a facility, they have already affiliated with your brand. Connecting with consumers is a process, not an event, but it starts when you Stand Up to accept the responsibility to drive the process.

Stand Up means not accepting insurer demands for more discounts, preferred pricing, and leverage against other providers. Instead, you can go directly to individuals, businesses and other entities with your own insurance products on the exchange, off the exchange, or through defined contribution alternatives. You don’t have to own the product, you don’t have to own the risk, but you do have to own and operate a clinically efficient and effective network that produces superior clinical outcomes over time.

Stand Out means eliminating the background noise of too many confusing alternatives for the purchaser – whether they are individuals, small groups, or any other entity that buys health insurance. Stand Out means defining the decision consumers are going to make as a health care decision, not just an insurance or financial choice.

Stand Out means reaching out to consumers now to become their reference point for health care financial matters. Create a center where you can inform them about health plans you favor, you trust, and that you believe will behave honorably to your patients.

Stand Out means building consumer loyalty programs that continuously connect them to your health system each time they interact with it. Make your brand relevant to consumers more often, more deeply.

Stand Out means building new access points for non-scheduled care outside of the Emergency Room, so that consumers can find you in a moment of need, and stick with you for life.

The Narrow Network conversation is an opening to build a consumer relationship with your brand. And your brand will Stand Out when consumers find you, stick to you, and love you, year after year. Consumer loyalty is the annuity platform for your future that can be adapted to whatever payment model evolves. Stand Up and Stand Out!

Cliff Frank is president of Partnera Partners, LLC, and CEO of PartneraHealth, which helps healthcare organizations become more consumer-focused by increasing access, reducing costs and engaging the consumer before they get sick. Learn more at www.partnerahealth.com or contact Cliff directly at cliff.frank@partnerapartners.com.

In our previous blog post, we explored some of the strategies being employed by payors across the country, and one interesting model employed by Aurora Health Care in the Milwaukee market. We briefly highlighted the Health Net narrow networks in Southern California – Silver and Bronze – that offer just 15% and 5% of the HMO network’s physicians, and we learned that some physicians are interested in this type of network. Given this information, we pose the question: who is resisting this “race to the bottom” (our affectionate term) of narrow networks being aggressively pushed by certain payors in certain markets?
 
An American Medical News article, compared dining out to narrow and tiered networks, and the ratings systems put in place to justify them.
 
“Could someone fairly rate the quality of a restaurant based solely on the check they get at the end of the meal? Most likely not. But some physicians say it’s analogous to what health plans are doing when they crunch claims data to grade doctors’ performance before placing them in a “preferred” network. “The check has nothing to do with the meal. It’s just a way to get paid,” said Burton R. Rubin, MD, a family physician in Old Greenwich, Conn. “I could talk to a patient for 20 minutes about depression, and the bill is not going to reflect that. It … doesn’t give insurance companies an accurate description of the visit.”  
 
The articles goes on to describe a class-action lawsuit brought against UnitedHealthcare and Cigna by various medical associations and physician groups in Fairfield County, Connecticut regarding what they saw as flawed insurer ranking programs. “The suit claims the networks defame physicians and deceive patients. Doctors also accuse the plans of breaching their contracts. The physicians are not alone in their fight against so-called tiered networks, which purportedly drive patients to selected doctors as a way to curb health care costs.”
 
Ultimately, the insurer called off the program indefinitely soon after the American Medical Association/State Medical Societies Litigation Center joined the suit, but these efforts demonstrate an emerging backlash against narrow and tiered networks. This type of resistance makes sense – it’s easy to see how hospitals and physicians who have battled to earn higher payment rates and patient preference can view that as being all taken away by a flawed payor rating system, or punitive network and benefit plan design. If tiered or narrow networks have any chance of working, they must be enabled by fair, balanced, and accurate decision support tools. Otherwise, payors will steer patients to the cheapest providers rather than those who provide the best value, which is a combination of price and quality.
 
Are you facing a payor-sponsored decision support tool that puts you at a competitive advantage? Is your organization pushing back on a payor’s tiered or narrow network? That’s where ReviveHealth can help, communicating the tough challenges and big opportunities. We can help you take control of the situation, drive your strategy, and protect your market position with the right communication approach.

Anyone who reads this blog knows that we are deeply suspicious of narrow and tiered networks, and what we commonly call the “race to the bottom.” This raises the question, is there a right way to do narrow networks? Or is the strategy always wrong?
 
We believe there are a few models out there, and the essential ingredient is employer engagement. For narrow networks to create long-term value for the health system, there must be strong employer engagement and relationships created. Consider Anthem and Aurora Health Care in the Milwaukee market: Anthem’s Wisconsin unit and Milwaukee-based Aurora Health Care signed their first large client for a narrow-network plan, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Roundy’s Supermarkets Inc. will offer a health insurance plan to its 8,000 employees, which steers them to visit only Aurora’s 15 hospitals, 172 clinics and 1,500 physicians.
 
In exchange, Anthem and Aurora have offered Milwaukee-based Roundy’s a savings of 8 percent or more off the trend in the marketplace. In September, Dr. David Lee, vice president of health care management for Anthem’s Indiana health plan, said he expected it would take savings of at least 10 percent to entice employers to embrace the narrow-network concept.
 
On the face of it, this looks like a simple discount-for-steerage deal. Yet the media coverage reveals deeper engagement that will create lasting relationships:

“Roundy’s employees and their family members can still get care from non-Aurora doctors and hospitals —but they will pay much more out of pocket to do so. Roundy’s families that live outside of Aurora’s service areas or who are traveling will be able to visit any hospital or doctor that is part of Anthem’s national Blue Cross network. As part of the health plan, Aurora will have employees at some Roundy’s sites at least part of the week to help employees navigate the health care system and to help manage the care of those with chronic diseases.”

That sounds an awful lot like a narrow network strategy combined with population health management. We don’t know all the details of the contractual arrangement, yet the deal is clearly being positioned as a highly integrated approach to health care for Roundy’s employees – and as a replicable model for other large employers. It positions Aurora as an innovator in local health care, and a partner with the employer in the battle to lower health care costs.
   
Every market is different, and every competitive environment comes with its own set of unique circumstances. That’s where ReviveHealth can help, communicating the tough challenges and big opportunities. No one wants to win a race to the bottom, and some health systems will see the opportunities in narrow network strategies combined with employer engagement. Map your strategy, build your communication approach, and take charge of this rapidly evolving market opportunity.

Narrow and tiered networks are all the rage these days, with every week bringing news of a new payor-sponsored network or product, or some new payor/provider partnership.

“What businesses say they want — and what insurers are promising — are networks made up of fewer but higher-quality physicians (and, presumably, hospitals too). Whereas tiered networks offer incentives to patients who see ‘preferred” or ‘high-performance’ physicians, or charge higher co-pays for visits to lower-tier doctors, narrow networks don’t pay for care from anyone other than those physicians deemed as efficient and high-quality. By definition, a network can’t be narrow without leaving some doctors (and hospitals) out.” Click here to read the full American Medical News article.

The discussion we hear inside industry groups and board rooms centers on the benefits to a health system and the physicians group, and whether the benefits of incremental volume will be real enough to offset any discounts proffered in exchange.

Of course, each payor’s approach to narrow and tiered networks is different. For example, consider United’s strategy, which it affectionately calls “high-performing networks” when selling the benefits to physician groups and hospitals. As this Los Angeles Times article explains, “UnitedHealthcare alone has signed up about 75,000 employer groups nationwide, the bulk of them in the last two years, including more than two dozen Southern California school districts that joined in January.”

Or consider the approach taken by most, if not all, independent Blue Cross plans. We see very few narrow or tiered networks with these plans, given that their primary value proposition to date has been the broadest provider networks. However, the coming exchanges and changing employer demands may lead to new approaches from these big, dominant plans. Beyond United’s current strategies of the approach each Blue is taking, or the approaches being pursued by other payors, every health system expects the payors that operate in their market to push a narrow network product on the exchanges – how else can they secure the discounts they want to make their products profitable enough to be sustained?

In a series of blog posts in the coming days, we will share some observations from around the country about narrow and tiered networks, what’s working (and what isn’t), and how health systems are reacting.

Our first example comes from California, where narrow and tiered networks have been a fact of life for years:

“The narrow networks have attracted some of California’s largest employers. Two of the biggest users — the University of California and the California Public Employees’ Retirement System — have offered their members the option of slimmer plans sold by Health Net Inc. and Blue Shield of California, and say the cost-cutting alternatives have found wide acceptance. The availability of doctors varies by each narrow network. Woodland Hills-based Health Net, one of the first to promote the strategy in California, features 47,000 doctors in its full HMO network but just 7,000 physicians in its Silver plan. That network — available in 10 counties, including Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino and Riverside — can save businesses as much as 14% on insurance premiums, a spokesman said. An even smaller network, Bronze, has 1,600 doctors in Los Angeles, San Diego and San Bernardino counties, and can shave as much as 24% off insurance bills.” Click here to read the full Los Angeles Times article.

Consider this: Health Net’s narrow network Silver plan has 7,000, and Bronze has 1,600, and the full HMO product has 47,000. Presumably the full HMO product already has fewer physicians than the PPO product. So employers are trading away 85% of the physicians in the HMO network for a 14% savings? Or 95% of the physicians for a 24% savings? One cannot help but wonder what the hospital networks look like in these Health Net products.

It’s clear that narrow and tiered networks are getting traction, and health systems will be left with difficult choices. Do you move first to lock-up a narrow network, and lock-out your primary competitor, even if you have to provide deeper discounts to get it? Or do you hold firm on your rates, and run the risk that your competitor locks-up the narrow network, grabbing incremental volume and building market share? These are devil’s bargains that health systems face when the only tradeoff is price and volume.

No matter the approach, every health system will be faced with tough contracting choices, and tough communication challenges in articulating their approach. That’s where ReviveHealth can help, our expertise lies in communicating the tough challenges and big opportunities. No one wants to win a race to the bottom, yet no one wants to be outflanked either. Map your strategy, build your communication approach, and take charge of this rapidly evolving market opportunity.

There may not be much hospitals can do about the fiscal cliff compromise hit, but there is something you can do to combat payor’s “take it or leave it” attitude regarding rates on the coming Health Insurance Exchanges. During our recent webinar on How to Create a Winning Strategy for the Payor Exchange Networks, we received some great questions from seasoned managed care experts who are thinking about their own strategies in the wake of these looming changes. Here are a few of the questions we didn’t have time to answer during the webinar well as a few key takeaways…

What to expect:

• Continued movement forward on health insurance exchanges.
• Familiar benefits packages under the essential health benefits requirement, with small group PPO plans defining the market.
• Unique negotiation strategies in those states that are rejecting health insurance exchanges and leaving them to the federal government to implement.
• The usual suspects in payor participation, inclusive of Managed Medicaid plans. (Although, negotiations might be more complex for Medicaid than it will be for the traditional, commercial payor.)
• Commercial rates as the starting point for payor/provider negotiations. This is not a government payor, this is simply an online marketplace for commercial business.
• Health plan member satisfaction will be dependent upon what the networks look like. Participants will be deeply disappointed if they find that their hospital or physician is not part of the network that they thought they purchased through the exchange plan.

Strategy:

• Overall, providers should be focused on what tiered narrow networks look like: drawing upon examples from California and Massachusetts’ tiered narrow networks.
• Providers must get into the conversation now with their community business leaders and employers. Whether you choose to participate in the exchange plan networks or not, strongly consider your accompanying PR strategy.
• Dominant market players will set the tone for the rest of the market.
• Transparency is the new normal. Pricing will become more public, especially as the patient bears more of the cost of health care. Get ready and get in front of it with a solid messaging strategy.
• The breadth and depth of your physician network will help you influence the market.

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Jim Lackey
Chairman and former CEO, Passport Health Communications, Inc.

I’m a serial entrepreneur.  I like to get involved with companies in the second and third stages of funding and help build value and get the right players in place. That’s what I’m good at, and it’s what I enjoy.
 
When I started my career in health care as director of admissions at a 300-bed hospital, little did I know what the future held. I always wanted to be in health care, and I’ve been fortunate to work with some of the best people in the business.
 
Despite the tremendous amount of change I’ve witnessed in health care throughout the past 35 years, I believe we are on the cusp of the largest transition period health care has ever seen.
 
There will be unprecedented pressure on expenses, new technologies and new players. Everybody’s changing seats. Payors are becoming providers. Providers are becoming payors. CEOs are going to be right in the middle of it, and my guess is, as many as 50 percent of them are going to be faced with the question of whether to stay on or whether to transition out.
 
I was faced with that decision in 2008. I was CEO of Passport, and we had recapitalized the company to several times its original value. A couple of years later, we got another offer for the company, and ultimately three large private equity firms bought a majority of the company. Each owned an equal share, they competed on the street for deals, and now they were about to be partners in the board meetings. At that point, I had been CEO of Passport for 13 years, which was a pretty big deal since the longest I had stayed anywhere was five years. I’m antsy like that.
 
It was decision time. Life as I knew it was going to change. I felt like I needed to control the changes and the timing of the changes, and I began to seek advice and decide what was next. One bit of advice I received at the time was: if you decide to transition out, take good notes. Write things down. It was good advice, and I did. Here’s what I learned in the process:
 
#1: Check Your Ego at the Door. Leave your ego outside the conference room (or office building). Open your mind to other possibilities.
 
#2: Be Honest with Yourself. Be Sure You’re Ready to Let Go.
 
#3: Make Sure Your Spouse is on Board and Stays Informed. Just like when you were starting out, your spouse needs to be on board with the decision mentally and emotionally.  It will affect your relationship.
 
#4: Know the Outcome. You don’t need an elaborate plan, but you should define your expectations for a successful transition.
 
#5: Be Ready for A Lot of Second Guessing. Some of the people you have had as a support network for building your business may ask how you can walk away, in addition to all the other “what ifs”.  That’s okay. It’s also okay to find a new support network of people who have successfully transitioned out of a business.
 
#6: Don’t Be Surprised if People are Glad (That Hurts!), But Know that People Will Still Come to You. Re-read #1. Seriously, you must remember at the end of the day not everyone will be your cheerleader.  But it is more critical to remember everyone is looking to you to provide leadership for a smooth transition.   
 
#7: Go Out on Top. Set your goals and make plans as to when you will leave.  Succession is a stage in your business and your life that you should strive for.
 
#8: Your No. 1 Goal is to Make Your Successor Successful. Know that he or she will do things differently. Take a look at where the company is going and understand that it may take a different set of skills and perspective to get it there. This is good.  People will watch how you support your successor.
 
#9: It Will Happen Faster Than You Think.  In two weeks, most people won’t even remember your name. Don’t take it personally.
 
#10: How You Communicate with Customers and Employees is Huge. I’ll spend a little more time on this one because I think it’s so important. The way you communicate with your employees and with your customers throughout this transition will mean a world of difference.
 
When it comes to your employees, you don’t want anyone to panic or feel unnecessarily uneasy. We had a jeans policy at Passport that was more important to some people than money. Seriously, it was a big deal. So when we announced that I would be leaving, we spent a lot of time thinking about how to communicate that even though this big change was coming, some things wouldn’t change, including the jeans policy. Believe it or not, that gave a lot of people a lot of comfort. It helped illustrate that even with a change at the top, the company would remain committed to the culture we had created.
 
As CEO, I had been connected to our customers. At the bottom of each of our company website pages there was a direct link to me. Most of the time I just needed to send those emails on to someone, but every now and then I would respond directly. A few times I even picked up the phone and called people directly to let them know we heard them and were doing something about whatever it was they needed. There was no need to risk that connection with our customers, so again, we communicated with our customers to let them know what was happening and why.
 
We used it as an opportunity to allay concerns and state the facts. Change is unsettling for most people. But if you’re proactive, if you communicate openly, if you set expectations (with yourself and with the people you work with) appropriately, you control your own destiny. Rather than it being an unsettling time, it can be the best time of your life. At least, it was for me.
 
Jim Lackey currently serves as Chief Executive Officer of Complete Holdings Group, a workers’ compensation resource organization focused on solutions to assure accurate payment for providers.  Learn more at www.completeholdingsgroup.com or contact Jim directly at Jim.lackey@completeholdingsgroup.com.