Innovations: Retail Health Care
Submitted by ExpressCare
Retail Healthcare, pioneering health care delivery model, is coming to a store near you. Retail Health offers quality, efficient, affordable healthcare in a safe and familiar setting. Centers are typically found in big box retailers, pharmacy chain stores and supermarkets. There were twelve companies operating across the United States as of the spring of 2006, and many more are on the way. Retail Healthcare has been favorably featured by Time Magazine, CNN and 60 minutes.
The advent of retail health care is in large part due to a response to the numerous barriers to accessing healthcare that many Americans encounter. High out-of-pocket costs, difficulty obtaining appointments, limited hours of service, travel distances, long wait times and the erosion of health insurance coverage or no coverage at all have significantly impacted accessibility to healthcare.
Retail healthcare centers offer an attractive alternative to the health care crisis for both individuals and employers who typically face double digit premium increases annually. Typically, the retail health centers are found in places where many members of the community routinely shop. The centers are designed to treat a variety of minor illnesses and injuries. Many centers additionally provide proactive healthy-living education and counseling, customized diet plans, disease counseling and screening, physical examinations and immunizations. Many centers are equipped to perform limited laboratory studies. No appointments are required and the centers are open days, evenings and weekends. Patients are examined in fifteen minutes or less, and the cost generally ranges from $30.00 to $60.00 per visit, depending upon what type of service is required and if any additional tests are necessary (i.e. strep testing, urinalysis).
The centers are staffed by board certified, licensed Advanced Registered Nurse Practitioners and Physician Assistants who are required to have a collaborative agreement with a physician who is readily available at all times.
To date, patient satisfaction has been quite high. In October 2005, Harris Interactive conducted a poll for the Wall Street Journal, of adults who visited a retail health center. The poll found that the great majority of the respondents were satisfied with their experience and felt that retail health centers were convenient, accessible and affordable.
When Growth Means Doing Less, Not More
Submitted by Bill Ringle, myBusinessGym
Barbara had tracked several key indicators and brought the results to our strategy review session. Her company provided networking services and solutions to vastly underserved markets in the Greater Philadelphia region, and she had gotten at least three things right very quickly: her marketing message, her vision, and her focus on great customer relationships.
Less than a year ago, she was operating from a spare bedroom office with two part-time techies; now, cubicles in a leased office were filling in fast as employee number 15 was ramping up.
At our meeting, we reviewed the critical metrics and compared them to the business plan. The sales cycle on a handful of new accounts were about half of similarly sized contracts just 4 months ago.
I was expecting Barbara to be pleased and proud -- after all, her hard work and good planning were paying off; but her expression was mixed. I asked what was wrong. Barbara replied, "I don't know."
Before our meeting, I spoke with one of Barbara's clients. Barbara had authorized me to conduct a 360 review and we were at the early stages of external customer interviews. I pulled out the notes and started scanning for clues.
"Barbara," I said, "after just 3 interviews with current clients, it looks like the one thing you have going for you is strong relationships. Strong loyalty, strong satisfaction, strong communications, ...wait, what's the matter?"
She was pressing her cheeks with her hands. "I feel so stretched as it is. I don't know if there's going to be enough of me to go around!"
As an entrepreneur yourself, haven't you felt like this? Not just the project overwhelm that comes from working with an irregular sales cycle, but the sense of needing to be the face of the company to all your clients all the time. It's very common as your business goes from early stage to growth stage.
The tactics for scaling up beyond the point where you yourself have personal contact with each and every customer are quite straightforward -- you bring on board capable project/account managers, you develop multi-leveled support systems, you create smart policies that ensure alignment, and so on. What's really, really hard though is making the mental and emotional shifts.
Knowing about this trap is half the battle. One of the great benefits of running a business is growing personally along with the it; your business demands it of you, so expect it and embrace the opportunity.
Barbara is learning that her business can still grow without her being the primary contact for every client. She'll keep a few of her favorites -- as the boss, she's entitled to and it helps give her insight into emerging market needs. However, becoming better at delegation and hiring people she can fully trust are two areas she’s developing more skills and awareness.
Like Barbara, you might find areas where you need to do less of something in order to go further. When you take those steps, you'll build a stronger business.
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