The Importance of Patient Personalization in Value-Based Care 

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October 19, 2022

In the rapidly evolving world of healthcare, transitioning to a value-based care model is becoming increasingly important for providers. In order to succeed in this new environment, it’s essential that providers personalize care for each individual patient. 

This not only helps to ensure that patients receive the best possible care, but can also help to improve their outcomes and reduce costs. 

What is value-based care?

Value-based care models are designed to reward providers for delivering high-quality, cost-effective care. 

Simply put, this type of care puts patient outcomes at the center of its model, making care more accessible to all. Fee-for-service models, on the other hand, are incredibly hard to maintain, and lead to unsatisfied patients having to pay for services regardless of whether or not their problem gets resolved. In this case, the healthcare provider is essentially absolved of responsibility for the outcome of their work. 

The benefits of personalized care

Patient personalization can help improve outcomes by ensuring that patients receive the specific care they need. It focuses on understanding patients as people and customizing communications so that they're motivated to act.

The best patient personalization strategies use data and analytics to understand their needs and how to best work with them in order to achieve health and recovery. This will also help avoid repeat visits for the same concerns. 

In addition, personalized care can reduce costs by preventing unnecessary tests and procedures.

Providers who are able to successfully personalize care for their patients will be well-positioned to succeed in the transition to value-based care models. By focusing on the needs of each individual patient, providers can deliver high-quality, cost-effective care that meets the requirements of this new healthcare environment.

Where to start

The first step to personalized care is selecting the best communication channels for the patient. This may mean texting or emailing them if you know they always send calls to voicemail--especially when it comes to the younger generation, who hates phone calls!

You should also note the time of day that they best respond to, as well as whether they best respond to direct follow ups or gentle nudges.

Of course, it would be impossible to expect you to remember these details for every patient off the top of your head. However, it is something to note in their files. 

Yes, it may seem small, but the right communication can go a long way when determining patient outcomes.

After you've made note of how to best communicate with said client, pay attention to specific social determinants that may also affect their health. For example, not everyone has consistent access to transportation, so you'll want to be mindful of where you send prescriptions and consider offering telehealth to avoid missed appointments.

You should also consider the price of the prescriptions you prescribe, as an overly-expensive medication will reduce the likelihood that your patient will follow your healthcare regimen, and therefore decrease their outcome.

How to implement patient personalization

Accurate, real-time data is vital to implementing patient personalization. 

Start by assessing your current data sources and technology environment. You'll want to make sure that your tech stack can support the integration of EHR data, and that these records include broader data on the social factors of health we mentioned above. This will be essential to helping you minimize the number of visits necessary and customize better care.

Patient personalization is more than just an internal process, however. It also involves personalizing your marketing, or as we like to call it, getting "OPTICS™" on your marketing.

OPTICS™ stands for:

  • Orient
  • Predict
  • Target
  • Implement
  • Calibrate
  • Sync

These are the 6 ingredients to our proven and structured way to scale your revenue by building high-performing, personalized marketing campaigns that help you bring in more clients and maintain your current ones. 

Get started today by identifying the strengths and weaknesses in your organization using our free OPTICS™ checkup quiz. It will tell you which of the 6 ingredients you’re missing that are holding you back from achieving your revenue growth goals.