There are no atheists in foxholes.  The corollary is that there are no bloggers on bright sunny days.  The best blogs come from angst, gloom, from something amiss.  Things that can take the sun right out of the day.

Today is such a day.  I begin with a question.  How important are patients to your practice or hospital.  Is the attitude that they were coming here one way or another because that’s where the ambulance took them, or we’re the only hospital their payor covers?

If so, you’re home free—it’s like having a built-in retention model.  It reminds me of the line in The Eagles song, “Hotel California”—you can check out any time you want but you can never leave.  You don’t need to be good; you just need to be there.  You can eschew PRM (patient relationship management).  As long as people continue to get sick year-over-year at an increasing rate, your PRM, Marketing, and Social Media strategy can be that of Alfred E. Newman, “What, me worry?”

However, if having good PRM is important because of what it adds to the bottom line, or simply because it’s the right and polite way to relate to patients, here’s an example of how not to keep your patients.

I was on the phone with HP, trying to get someone to answer a question about why my desk-top speakers are filled with static.  Prior to calling, I replaced the old speakers with new ones, same model, and heard the same static.  No answers on line, no answers on Google.  I wind up be handled by an ESL/ASC person, English as a Second Language, America as a Second Country.

We spend nine minutes and fifty-four seconds on the phone as I give him my phone number, my wife’s email which somehow confirms I’m not a mirror image of myself, and crawl under my desk and flip over the HP trying to find and read a serial number that is written in smaller text that the directions on a bottle of cough syrup.  Purchase date, operating system, product ID.

“Now, while I’m waiting on my system, tell me your problem.”

I did.  To which he said, “I can help you for a nominal fee.”  Ten minutes into the conversation before he’s able to tell me that answers cost money.  I shared my dissatisfaction with him and his firm and his country—not really.  I suggested he could have answered my question nine minutes ago for less cost than HP had already incurred for this service call.  I suggested he could point me to a helpful web site, or save us all additional embarrassment and just whisper something like, “you have a bad sound card.”  No, no, and no.

For those who may be new to the idea of PRM and social media, this is how it works.  I will not buy another HP even if the ambulance takes me to the HP store.  Since I can’t listen to my music on my HP, I will make it my mission to go out of my way to convince others that HP is not worth their money.  I will post and Tweet until I grow tired of the exercise or until I simply plug in my iPod.  Whatever happens, I will have done my best to take all of the toothpaste out of the HP tube, knowing they can’t put it back.

This is what happens when customers and patients take PRM and social media into their own hands.  It may also be what happens when the 12-step program proves to have been a few steps short of complete therapy program.