Managed Services In Healthcare: Just What the Doctor Ordered

By Maurice Saluan 1

Last month, I offered you four keys to ongoing managed services success — regardless of the economy. With those previous thoughts in mind, let’s look at new client acquisition in healthcare — which is a ripe opportunity for managed service providers. I’ll even show you how to find leads for healthcare companies that are 10-99 employees in a 50-100 mile radius around your office.

All healthcare-related companies are affected by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996. The act:

Where’s the Opportunity?

There are no teeth in the regulation so why should a healthcare organization be concerned? Liability and downtime are the specific drivers.

Healthcare providers can’t afford to lose a patient record and any system downtime is costly. If systems are down, patients can’t be seen. Another motivating force is malpractice insurance policies. HIPAA compliance is required by these policies. This may force the issue.

So why wouldn’t a company comply and what are the roadblocks to compliance in most cases? Primarily, complexity and cost. If you could offer solutions that answer a healthcare professional’s needs that are affordable and easy to understand and maintain, you have their attention. Data protection, fault tolerance and RTO (Recovery Time Objective) are more critical than ever in this vertical.

Zenith Partners provide a business continuity solution that places a standby server on site. It performs frequent secure snapshots every 15 minutes of all the data that is changing. In the event a server crashes, this device can be remotely activated in minutes to take over as the server and all users can continue working. This solution allows you to answer many of the HIPAA requirements noted above. Additionally, the roadblocks faced by the healthcare providers-cost and complexity- are addressed. This is an affordable solution that can be billed on a monthly basis and it requires no staff interaction to maintain it.

Finding Your Target Customers

A target list can be built inexpensively by targeting the Health Services SIC code (80) and pulling leads for companies that are 10-99 employees in a 50-100 mile radius around your office. Generally you can build a list for .12-.25 per contact depending on the volume you pull. Zapdata (www.zapdata.com) and D&B (www.selectory.com) can provide pay as you go services for building lists. You can set up direct mail programs-postcards are the best. The list you pull can be merged by the US postal service with the postcards that you create (here’s how).

The message can be as simply as “Let us show you how you can protect your patient data and have a standby server on site for less the $200 per month.” You should set up a telemarketing campaign to contact these companies as well. When you call, make sure to find out what Electronic Medical Records (EMR) system they use. Address HIPAA compliance and the fact that you can guarantee very minimal system downtime.

How can you achieve a deeper penetration in the Healthcare market without approaching individual practitioners?

Healthcare providers need system uptime and they can’t afford to lose a patient record. You have the answer. With a good Business Continuity plan systems are accessible, online and running 100% of the time, whether the employee is on-site of off-site. Any downtime represents thousands of dollars in lost revenues for each patient.

If you address reduction in liability, provide a service that doesn’t create more work for internal staff, that’s easy to understand at a fixed monthly cost you will build your business very quickly. This applies not only to Healthcare but to all SMB’s.

Note: Maurice Saluan is VP-Channel Management for Zenith Infotech as well as seasoned sales veteran in the managed service arena. Guest blog entries such as this one are contributed on a monthly basis as part of MSPmentor.net’s 2009 Platinum sponsorship.