Affluent babyboomers have become prime targets for marketers at a handful of preventive care clinics that are well-positioned to offer what managed care and most insurance companies don't - extensive detection of illness and disease risk factors.
Although these clinics are currently relatively low in number (about 15 clinics throughout the country), managed care has fueled a growing demand for the advanced and costly diagnostic testing these clinics offer. And the way marketers are trying to attract patients is in many ways groundbreaking.
One clinic heeding this trend is the highly exclusive David Drew Clinic in affluent Bethesda, Md. The clinic, opened earlier this month, aims to sell patients on its prediction, prevention and early detection medical testing. It is the brainchild of Dr. Timothy Soncrant, who earned his stripes at the National Institutes of Health as a board-certified internist for 10 years, and Douglas Allen, whose background is in medical equipment sales. The clinic, housed in an upscale office building and neighbored by Saks Fifth Avenue and Nieman Marcus touts "proactive rather than reactive medicine."
Targeting the upper echelon in the tri-state area (Washington, D.C.-metro, northern Virginia and southern Maryland), Dr. Soncrant and Allen, with the help of their PR firm, Charles Brotman Communications (Washington, D.C.), are relying on a sophisticated direct mail effort to generate its patient base.
The $40,000 campaign was launched last year with an eye towards communicating elegance and lifestyle preservation. Wedding invitation-like mailers were sent to 1,800 socially prominent households in the area with net incomes of $500,000. The direct mail piece invited "those with means" to participate "in revolutionary, technologically advanced health programs that detect heart disease, impending stroke and cancers before catastrophic illness occurs," and requested an RSVP response.
That initial effort generated a 4 percent response or 70 RSVPs. Of the 70 who responded, 20 to 25 expressed interest in visiting the clinic.
To follow up on that interest, a descriptive four-color, four-page glossy brochure was mailed to those who wanted to visit the clinic. However, this piece was less effective.
"We realized that the brochure was a nice-looking marketing piece but it did not provide enough information about our programs. Our people wanted to have a better understanding of what it is we do," said Allen, who heads up the clinic's PR/marketing efforts.
Their next piece, a 24-page booklet, became the clinic's at-home talk piece. "This piece is our most effective direct mail tool. We wanted people to keep it, refer back to it and tell their friends about it," said Dr. Soncrant, who wrote most of the copy.
By year end, Allen's and Dr. Soncrant's goal is to attract between 150 to 200 patients through a total of 20,000 mailers and some collateral radio.
Dr. Soncrant does not want to exceed that patient goal as he intends to be the exclusive physician for each patient, which he plans to see about three times a year, two to three hours a session. And for that extensive attention, patients can expect to pay an average annual base fee of $5,500 with little or no help from their insurance companies.
Marketing Preventive Care to Corporations
Selling corporations on preventive care programs has much more established roots in this country, with executive programs like the 25-year-old Mayo Clinic (Rochester, Minn.) the 25-year-old Cleveland Clinic and the 27-year-old Cooper Clinic (Dallas). But it was the New York-based Executive Health Group that spearheaded the preventive healthcare trend in 1913.
As of late, these programs, that command anywhere from $250 to $2,500 and up per patient, have also witnessed increased corporate participation, primarily due to HMO barriers to preventive care. Corporate execs who are intolerant of the typical HMO process - delayed appointment times, brief physician appointments, minimal diagnostic testing, and the necessity for primary care referrals - are thoroughly accommodated by these high-end, out-of-pocket programs.
Investing in Employees
Ranging from one full day to two weeks, executives receive thorough preventive assessments that include medical history, complete physicals, and a battery of diagnostic testing from mammogram exams and blood pressure measurements to maximum performance treadmill tests and various cancer screenings.
"Employers are realizing that managed care is not the silver bullet it was intended to be," said Steve Manobianco, Executive Health Group's vice president of marketing/sales, noting that more and more companies are realizing the value of investing in their CEOs and upper management who are worth millions to their bottom line.
In addition, employers who stress corporate wellness to their executive and management types project a humanistic and health-conscious image, according to Manobianco, who says that the center's pharmaceutical and hi-tech clients are among its most aggressive corporate wellness marketers.
For instance, one of Executive Health's pharmaceutical corporate clients sweetens its executive wellness programs by offering a $500 credit to each employee who signs up and goes through the customized exams and evaluations. Another hi-tech client offers paid time off from work for each employee who gets through its program.
Hospitals are also open to suggestions on preventive care overhauls. The world-famous Cooper Clinic, whose founder Dr. Kenneth H. Cooper coined the term "aerobic" and lead the fitness movement in the '70s, recently expanded to include a consulting arm, Cooper Aerobics Ventures. This two-year old group designs and implements corporate fitness centers. With a current roster of 40 clients, one to two medical-based companies express interest in incorporating preventive care/fitness programs into their services each month.
"More and more companies are realizing that stressing healthy living practices and longevity to their employees on the front end is much more cost effective than treating illness after the fact," said Leah Kay Gabriel, vice president of marketing and executive director of the Cooper Wellness Program.
(CDB Research & Consulting Inc., 212/367-6849; The David Drew Clinic, 301/656-1262; Executive Health Group, 212/332-3700; The Cooper Clinic, 214/239-7223)