vital to apply the same "lifetime value" concept to each of those
relationships.
For example, from the perspective of your facility, apply the tool to
the relationship with a potential referring surgeon. Or, from another
angle, say that of the anesthesia group providing services at your facil-
ity, apply the tool to the value of an exclusive contract and, because
they are actually very different things viewed through the lens of life-
time value, to the value of each of the resulting patients.
For those hypersensitized to kickback concerns, note that I'm not
talking about offering any remuneration for that lifetime value.
Instead, I'm telling you to use the concept as a thinking tool in nurtur-
ing relationships in order to reap their long-term value to you.
What's a great employee worth?
The concept also plays out in connection with relationships within
your facility, medical group or other healthcare business. What's the
lifetime value of a great employee? And, even beyond that, what
turnover costs are avoided by not losing that great employee?
We all know what it's like to be placed on hold by some call center.
We all know what it's like to be greeted at the reception desk with an
unsmiling glance and a cold "yes?" or, even worse, a "next."
The people who run those operations have no clue of the concept of
lifetime value that I've shared with you. Unfortunately, the bigger the
organization, the more clueless they generally are. Why should they
care if you walk, they ask themselves, when your business or mine is
"worth" just a few cents to the bottom line?
But the problem is that they can't see the dollars for the cents. Have
more sense. Customers of all sorts, whether you call them customers,
clients or "patients," aren't transactions. They're long-term relation-
ships with a lifetime value.
Economic Intelligence
EI
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