A Not So Modest Proposal

SOME NOT SO MODEST PROPOSALS

Lytuem Advertising has been commissioned by the hospital Angels of Mercy to produce a business and marketing plan to increase revenue of the financially failing institution. The following is a secret recording of Lytuem’s presentation to members of the hospital’s board of directors.

[Noise in a conference room, then a gavel sound]

Board Member 1: As Chairman, I call to order this meeting of the Angels of Mercy Hospital Board of Directors. I welcome my good friend, W.E. Lytuem, managing partner of Lytuem Advertising, and ask W.E. and his colleagues to share with us the results of his firm’s efforts to develop a business and marketing plan for dear old Angels of Mercy.

W.E.: Thank you all for having us here. We’ve come up with some exciting new concepts which we believe can help your finances. As you know with the new healthcare law mandating equal treatment for all regardless of pre-existing conditions or ability to pay there will be some challenges ahead. We will face them together.

Board Member 1: Here, here, W.E. We can’t go on like this. Our docs are complaining they can’t cover their greens fees on Wednesday afternoons.

[murmurs of agreement]

W.E.:  Let’s get right to it. One of the biggest money losers in your hospital is the Emergency Room. All kinds of people have emergencies and show up there expecting to be taken care of. They don’t care if they can pay. All they think about is themselves and their problems, last year alone more than half the people you saw in your ER couldn’t pay the freight. 

Board Member 1: What’s the answer?

W.E.: CLOSE IT!

[sounds of shock and awe]

Board Member 1: You mean not have an emergency room?

W.E. : Exactly! Close it. Shut it down.

Board Member 1: But what will we do with the people who come to us?

W.E.: Are you familiar with the term TURF?

Board Member 1: No.

W.E.: It means to “To Get Rid Of”. You need to TURF anyone that comes to your hospital for an emergency to someplace else.

Board Member 1: But what’ll the people say? What can we tell the public?

W.E.: Tell them the US has the best healthcare system in the world and they should be able to find someplace else to go. Saint Sebastian is twenty minutes away. TURF ‘em there. Remember it’s them or you. How would your docs like to not be able to make those payments on their Mercedes? The repo man doesn’t care if they’re sick or dying. All he wants is the money. SHOW ME THE MONEY! That’s what he says.

Which brings me to my next point, you need to start collecting on all those artificial joints and pacemakers and that sort of thing. Your receivables are in horrible shape. Last year you wrote off millions. You need to start collecting the money you’re owed.  Medicare doesn’t pay for these things for the patients totally. If the patients can’t pay the difference, you need to start reposing your property.

Board Member 1: What property? You don’t mean repossessing our surgical implants?

W.E.: Absolutely!

Board Member 2: But aren’t people going to get upset?

W.E.: Let ‘em. We’re on firm legal ground here. We’ll make the patients sign a contract stating that these devices are your property until they’re paid for. If they want to walk or have regular heartbeats they’ll have to pay. If they don’t pay we’ll take our property back. In the words of my favorite Philadelphiapolitician from the ‘70’s when speaking to that pretend Arab sheik, “Money talks and BS walks!” Remember it’s them or you. Who do you want to come out on top?

Board Member 2: But thirty percent of our income is from joint replacements and pacemakers. If we start repossessing parts, people won’t come to us.

W.E.:  Ah, we have an answer to that problem. We’ll move Angels of Mercy into a new specialty area, and create a huge marketing campaign to promote the new practice.

Board Member 2: That might work. What’s your idea for a new specialty?

W.E.: Death.

Board Member 2: Death?

W.E. : Sure everyone has to die of something. There’s a huge market out there with the baby boomers aging, the potential is enormous. We can get into the death business, funeral homes, embalming, cremation. We can raffle off a free cremation! In the death business no one complains…BECAUSE THEY’RE ALREADY DEAD!

Board Member 1: Interesting…, a hospital with a specialty in death. 

W.E.: Exactly. It’s in your name: “Angels of Mercy”.  What could be more merciful than death? You’d have a differential advantage in the marketplace. You’d be a completely vertically integrated business. You have your maternity where you bring new patients into the world. People have a happy experience. Everyone loves a baby. It’s a joyous event.   Psychographic research shows that people seek out happy memories when they’re upset. So, having a death specialty associated with those happy memories will make death seem happy. You can even offer a rewards points card for procedures they’ll have done at the hospital during their lives. Everyone likes a rewards program! Then they can redeem the points for a funeral, cremation, or anything else from our post life product line. The beauty of it is they’ll never use the points because they’ll be dead!

Board Member 1: W.E. I think you’re on to something here.

Board Member 2: So we TURF the non-paying emergency patients, repossess the prosthetics and pacemakers and start offering funerals.

W.E.: Almost. We won’t actually say that we specialize in “death”; rather, “post-life” services. We won’t use the word “death”. We don’t want people to get the wrong idea about our hospital, now do we?