Healthcare Partnership

Challenge

Highmark Health, which includes Allegheny Health Network (clinical care) & Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield (health insurance), has been engaged in a longstanding fight to gain market share in a landscape once dominated by UPMC. Understanding the connection between the hospital side of the business and the insurance side of the business has proven to be a challenge that is critical to overcome as the organization navigates the implications of a local consent decree that requires competing insurance and health providers to work together for the customer. 

Insights

HIPAA laws and online platform policies (move to full GDPR) restrict digital marketing tracking and targeting capabilities, requiring unique site tagging and campaign set-up methods. 

Strategy

Brunner analyzes historic hospital-side and insurance-side data to create a model that would determine what mix of media would best drive new patient appointments and insurance enrollments. To focus optimization and scale learnings using the KPIs that drive the largest business impact, Brunner consolidates AHN/Highmark’s digital marketing program by creating a site tracking/tagging structure that separates key conversions from lower-intent engagements. We then consolidate data service providers from 29 to 2 DSPs to scale optimizations and better control frequency. Restructuring 99 Paid Search accounts to 16, one for each line of business and aggregating all AHN Display initiatives into one campaign so that algorithmic optimizations can occur faster. Finally, we partner with a macro influencer to build national awareness around postpartum depression to help build AHN’s forward and innovative thinking around women’s health. 

Results

• Appointment Submits increase by +102% YoY  
• Users getting directions to a local hospital from the website increase by +136%  
• Site traffic increases by +151% on +25% more impressions  
• 358 Medicare & ACA enrollments are generated from AHN digital media during open enrollment