Healthcare organizations are merging or being acquired at a dizzying pace. In the second installment of this new feature, which will run in every issue of HPRMN, we take a look at a recent merger or acquisition and explore how the PR and marketing departments fared and what challenges lie ahead.
Who: Pediatrix Medical Group, Inc. (Fort Lauderdale, Fla,) acquired the Carolina Neonatology Associates, P.A. of the Baptist Medical Center (Columbia, S.C.)
When: May 29, 1997 (effective date)
Total Physicians: Pediatrix: 230 physicians; Carolina Neonatology Associates, P.A.: ( 3 physicians)
Effect on PR/Marketing: For Pediatrix, the nation's largest provider of physician management services to hospital-based neonatal intensive care units (NICUs), the Carolina Neonatology Associates, P.A. acquisition increases its presence in the South Carolina market. For the Carolina NICU, the Pediatrix affiliation lends national prestige to the unit and provides access to its highly targeted marketing programs. Since Carolina does not have its own marketing department, the Pediatrix marketing team, headed by Anita Malloy, assistant director of marketing, will meet initially with the unit's medical director and then Baptist Medical Center's marketing department. Although Malloy has not yet met with the Carolina NICU, her team will be working with the medical director on physician-to-physician marketing campaigns to build the unit's referrals and to generate awareness of the acquisition to the medical community. Malloy's team also works with a four-member integration team that researches the marketplace and provides physician names-usually OB/Gyns, pediatricians and family practitioner-for its direct mail efforts.
Acquisition campaign: The marketing budget for this unit can range from $500 to several thousands of dollars, depending on Carolina's specific needs. And most likely, Carolina nor Baptist Medical, will not kick in its own funds, unless they want to do something above and beyond what Pediatrix offers marketingwise. Pediatrix's primary marketing push is to accentuate the positive pediatric outcomes of its acquired NICUs through brochures, hospital newsletters and other printed materials as well as consumer-focused events like patient reunions and anniversaries.
Acquisition PR/Marketing Challenges:
- Being creative about communicating the positive outcomes of critical care medicine for premature babies.
- Educating NICU physicians on the importance of marketing and promoting their units to other physicians for referrals.
- Re-enforcing to NICU physicians that the way they practice medicine will not change.
Third-Party Acquisition Advice: Cathleen O'Connell, consultant with the Ernst & Young Healthcare Consulting Group in Charlotte, N.C., stresses that maintaining positive and thorough communications throughout the acquisition process is crucial to creating a smooth transition.
She highlights the importance of Baptist Medical Center quickly touting the added prestige and clout that Pediatrix potentially brings to its neonatology unit.
(Pediatrix Medical Group, Inc. 954/384-0175; Carolina Neonatology Associates, P.A., 803/254-2706; Ernst & Young Healthcare Consulting Group, 704/372-6300)