Marketing the University of Nebraska's relatively unknown physician group practice, University Medical Associates, as the time-conscious choice for primary care service in the Omaha market meant setting a 15-minute no-wait goal and backing it up with trackable proof. UMA's "It's About Time" campaign responded to the market's No. 1 focus group complaint involving long physician waits with an edgy, straight-to-the point strategy that guaranteed a patient would be seen in 15 minutes or less. "If patients have to wait more than 15 minutes they start to feel that their time isn't as important as the doctor's time and get frustrated," said Deborah Ahl of Anderson Partners, the account executive for the UMA campaign.
Backing up the 15-minute claim required significant physician support and buy-in that, initially, was a challenge, according to Greg Dahlhmein, UMA's senior communications specialist. To get the support of UMA's 300 physicians at 11 locations, Dahlhmein and Ahl held numerous meetings to address two main concerns: honoring the time commitment and not being perceived as a "Jiffy Lube" healthcare practice. These concerns were resolved by showing the doctors how close they already were to meeting the 15-minute goal (75 to 80% of the time) and emphasizing how consumer satisfaction would be bolstered by the policy. Internal posters, buttons and brochures before the launch also generated staff excitement for the campaign.
Launched last fall, the $125,000 local newspaper/radio campaign, had two campaign goals to: raise the awareness level of UMA which suffered low consumer recognition and inform consumers of the choice of UMA during the vital insurance enrollment period. So far, the results have shown that the campaign hit a time-conscious consumer nerve that has given the physician group practice a stronger top-of-mind presence among its 11 market competitors. UMA's unaided awareness levels have doubled and about 30 percent of the consumers in the Omaha MSA had recall of the 15-minute campaign. And, physicians are showing a 95 percent compliance rate. (Anderson Partners, 402/341-4807)