15A - Figuring Out Buyer Behavior No. 2

            With these interviews, I discovered a couple of things that I didn’t know previously. For example, I always thought that the goal for the buyer or patient, was to make sure the patient has access to mental health services regardless of income or insurance but there are other factors. This time around I decided to interview our referral specialist, patient care coordinator, and outreach specialist.

1.     Yolanda Rivera is our referral specialist at Premier. After interviewing her, I discovered that her job as the referral specialist is to build relationships with other practices, hospitals, and diagnostic centers to provide further healthcare for our patients. More specifically, when it comes to mental health services, she states she is looking for offices that have openings within two weeks, accept most major insurances (private and government), and offer sliding scales for uninsured patients. However, because the need is great, she states that she mainly looks for offices that offer sliding scales; insurances coverage is a plus. She states that most people are willing to wait, if they can be seen at an affordable rate or vice versa; some patients will not be willing to wait regardless of price.

2.     Debbie Butler is our patient care coordinator and her position is to coordinate patient care; I know, redundant, but that’s basically it. To elaborate, she follows up with patients and verifies if their visit went well, what struggles they faced, and if the patient should continue seeing a particular provider or if she needs to seek other services for the patient. These factors play a major role in continuing service because if the patients have a poor experience, we won’t refer patients to those providers; partners must make it smooth for patients, because if not, it goes against or mission statement and values. In this case, she states that they make most decisions, but it depends on what the patient values.

3.     Isabelle Gonzalez is our outreach specialist. Isabelle’s position requires to her to go out into the community and market our services to patients and providers. Her position on the other hand, goes a little more in depth with finding the resources for the patients such as housing, government aid, and healthcare. She states that when she visits prisons, she meets a lot of people that need mental health services due to the assaults, violence, and solitary confinement. For Isabelle, it is extremely important for her to find institutions that are helpful to our patients, like Debbie, because again, it plays a major role when deciding to refer the patient.

All in all, I learned that the most important factor when providers are making decisions is patient comfort and the transition from our office to the next. This entire time, when interviewing providers and office managers, I learned that their end goal was to ensure the patient was seen at an affordable cost and in a timely fashion. This is mainly because their job is to get them where they need to go, whereas, Yolanda, Debbia, and Isabelle want to make sure that their relationships with other institutions, as well as, with patients is solid and aligned with our institutions mission.