Challenge: Over the years, BU and BMC have partnered to encourage BU employees to choose BMC providers, including placing a BMC facility on the BU campus and, more recently, offering BU employees a financial incentive through a tiered HMO health care plan. BMC is working to broaden its patient mix, to include more commercial patients with higher reimbursement rates, ultimately, to help BMC become more profitable and enable the hospital’s long-term success.

Objective: To understand employees decision process in selecting health plans offered by BU and potential triggers to selecting BMC in the future.

Solution: Plan-it conducted a multi-phased Qualitative Exploratory and Quantitative Conjoint Study to assess key decision triggers that would motivate a BMC provider decision. Specifically, BU employees and BMC primary care physicians were interviewed via focus groups and in-depth interviews in Phase I and online surveys in Phase II.

Result: Plan-it made recommendations related to modernizing BMC facilities, increasing a sense of safety and accessibility on the medical campus, and made widespread recommendations for incentivizing BU employees to choose BMC.