Southeast Medical Alliance

 

The Case

One of the largest managed care providers, offering managed healthcare plans to more than 500,000 members in Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas and Texas, removed the CEO in September of 1998. Several financial, managerial and organizational indicators testified to this need. To complicate matters, client contracts were coming due, and a lack of confidence could have been fatal. In addition, the CEO had served for nearly a decade and had a strong following within the company.

Our Strategy

We created a plan to preserve the HMO’s reputation of stability and strength both internally and externally while positioning it as a growing company with a promising future. We created key messages for use in response to all inquiries and shared information swiftly and straightforwardly.

We communicated consistently with all audiences through face-to-face meetings, memos, letters, e-mail and telephone, and openly shared the news release and other correspondence. Small group, department, individual and regular meeting structures addressed the concerns of employees promptly and personally.  The “Chat and Chew with the CEO” (informal Q&A lunch settings with all employees and the interim CEO used as a personal follow-up on the announcement) was highly successful in maintaining employee morale and confidence.

To ensure that the messages were delivered consistently and effectively, we created a media response system, a spokesperson, and answered media queries with key messages that positioned the HMO as a stable, growing company. Our success with internal communication was our

most powerful tool.  Consistent, credible and timely communication (face-to-face, informal and peer) secured employee confidence. We coached employees on key messages and orchestrated all audience contact.

The Results

Deveney Communication created and implemented an award-winning plan to preserve the company’s reputation of stability and strength both internally and externally during this time of transition. 

Direct communication with the media from one source eliminated unnecessary attention on the leadership change. We received no national, trade, television, radio or daily print coverage. The local business weekly’s article ran on page 54 with the benign headline, “Managed Care Company Replaces its CEO.”

The highly successful campaign maintained the HMO’s powerful market share while positioning it as a growing company with a promising future. In fact, during the program, the HMO increased covered lives by 41 percent and increases continue to grow steadily. Market share rose 56 percent from a low of 5 percent prior to project implementation to 7.8 percent HMO market share. Four months later, the HMO had increased covered lives by 41 percent (44,000-62,000), and increases continued to grow steadily.