Healthcare Providers Gaining Trust by Marketing Security

You’ve surely heard of “B2B” or business-to-business marketing. The new game plan is “B2C” – business to consumer marketing, particularly in the healthcare industry. The Affordable Care Act allows healthcare organizations to directly deal with consumers on a  massive scale for the first time. However, this comes with some challenges, namely, how to effectively reach potential consumers and differentiate their organization from the competition.

Organizations must take notice that potential enrollees aren’t just concerned about cost and coverage, but two less apparent concerns: privacy and security.
Consumers want reassurance that their data is protected. They can’t get all the data breach fiascos out of their mind. According to the TRUSTe 2014 U.S. Consumer Privacy Report, 92 percent of U.S. Internet users are worried about their online privacy. Of these, 47 percent are frequently worried.
So even though a potential enrollee may have complete faith in your service and reputation, they may be unnerved by the pathways of information exchange: the Internet, mobiles, wireless networks, computers. They know that their personal health data is out there in “space,” up for grabs.
If you want strong enrollment numbers and loyal customers, you must put the consumer’s concern for the protection of their personal health information at the top of the priority list. No way around this. If consumers don’t get assurance from you, they won’t stick around for it; they’ll take their business elsewhere.
So what will you do to put consumers’ apprehension at ease? One way to accomplish this is to facilitate a security and privacy program to ease consumer anxiety.
AllClear ID provides the following guidelines for healthcare insurers and providers:

• Continue to use state-of-the-art IT techniques to secure cloud services, access points, databases and mobile devices; and to better monitor systems for breaches.
• Improve security of corporate devices and employees’ personal mobile devices used for work.
• Enhance employee training at all levels to decrease errors, improve device security and ensure HIPAA compliance. Also train employees around how to comfortably talk to customers about how their data will be protected.
• Institute an identity protection program for enrollees to make them feel safe signing up with you and reduce the pain if there is a breach.