Palliative care providers need to focus on their specific organization’s specific strengths in order to stand out from a broad range of competitors.

Seriously ill patients often have multiple chronic conditions that require a flexible and individualized palliative care delivery approach, according to Rachel Dedes, senior director of palliative care at NorthStar Care Community.

Marketing and outreach efforts need careful consideration when differentiating how a palliative care program can help address a wide range of patients’ physical, psychosocial, emotional, spiritual and practical needs, Dedes said during the Hospice News Sales & Marketing webinar series.

“You want to be able to be careful with the words that you use and how you differentiate your program, because you really don’t want to put up strong guide rails and not be able to get out of them,” told Palliative Care News during the webinar.

Untangling knots in palliative care marketing

Michigan-based NorthStar Care Community operates Hospice of Michigan and Arbor Hospice. The nonprofit organization in February affiliated with Centrica Care Navigators, expanding its geographic footprint in the state. Post-transaction, the combined organization cares for more than 1,800 hospice patients across 60 Michigan counties and nearly 900 palliative care patients, making it one of the largest nonprofit operators in the United States, according to the organization.

A large hurdle is ensuring these services are not conflated with hospice care, a common misconception and deterrent of access, Dedes indicated.

“[There’s] a specific way that you can differentiate yourself,” Dedes said. “We were a hospice organization at the beginning, so we do best at end-of-life care services. But at the same time, you don’t want to put yourself narrowly in that box.”

The palliative care space has included an increasingly diverse swath of health care providers. Hospices represent a large portion of the community-based palliative care providers nationwide. At least half of all in-home palliative providers are hospices, reported the Center to Advance Palliative Care (CAPC). Primary and palliative care provider collaborations have also begun to take shape.

Challenges and opportunities exist without a standardized definition or a federally established palliative care benefit in place. Some contend that the loose structure allows for creative and innovative care delivery approaches that meet individual needs. Others have indicated that a lack of standardization leaves questions around measuring and defining quality, as well as creating confusion among the public and referral sources.

Palliative care providers can differentiate their programs by focusing on their unique strengths, which can include data around patient and family satisfaction, Dedes stated.

“It’s a positive and a negative that there’s no standard definition,” Dedes said. “It gives us room to move and expand and try new things, but it’s also difficult because all programs are different. So you do get the opportunity to determine what your program is, what it’s going to include, how you are going to provide care and where. It’s yours to decide and then get the information out there with metrics on what your customers want to see from you.”

Keys to palliative outreach efforts

A core of palliative care outreach is having sales representatives that fully understand the interdisciplinary nature of these services, said Conlee Fisher Clark, director of growth at AMOREM. Other considerations include identifying what markets may have the greatest palliative care needs compared to others, as well as communicating the quality benefits around these services, she added.

“It is vital that your sales people know the difference [between palliative care] and how it’s differentiated in your organization,” Clark told Palliative Care News during the webinar. “What type of program do you have? Who do you market it to? What are the expected outcomes?”

Clark has brought roughly 15 years of sales and growth experience to the North Carolina-based organization. AMOREM provides hospice care across 12 counties in the northwestern region of the state. The nonprofit hospice provider also offers palliative, grief support and advance care planning services.

Training and education is a key component for successful palliative care marketing, as well as having clear definitions around the scope of these services versus others an organization offers, Clark stated.

Seriously ill patients can often navigate a complex web of fragmented health care services. Sales staff need to understand when a patient may be eligible for palliative services, as well as other types of health care and treatments they can concurrently receive, according to Clark. Having this awareness can lead to improved communication when sales representatives are seeking to gain a leg up on competing palliative care providers within an organization’s service region, she stated.

“They need to know the [patients’] situation and be able to answer those situations,” Clark said. “They need to know it backwards and forwards, what your organization’s [palliative] program offers, what’s in that scope and how everyone’s different.”