Health Comes First
How do you make sure patients are prioritized over profits?
Trinity Health was heading into a series of high-stakes negotiations with some of the country’s largest health insurers. To lay the groundwork early, BPD built Health Comes First: a national platform that rallied patients and communities around the need for fair reimbursement and gave Trinity Health a stronger position for every negotiation that followed.
THE IMPACT
40%
of contracts eligible for renewal were signed at reasonable rates and without patient disruption
71%
of negotiations experienced little to no disruption
72%
of contracts secured increased reimbursements
THE CHALLENGE
We needed a sound payer negotiation plan.
Trinity Health was heading into back-to-back negotiations with some of the nation’s largest health insurers. Each payer would be watching what happened with the one before it.
Trinity needed fair reimbursement to sustainably deliver care while protecting patients’ in-network access. But most patients didn’t understand payer negotiations or why they mattered until their care was at risk.
Trinity needed to make its case early, make it publicly and show payers it was ready to fight for its patients and communities.
OUR APPROACH
We built one platform for every fight.
BPD created Health Comes First, a national platform that gave Trinity one clear position: Patients deserve access to the care they trust, and health systems need payer partners willing to fairly support that care.
Rather than starting from scratch with every contract dispute, Trinity now had a message and communications framework built to flex across payers, negotiations and markets.
We built the community groundswell before we needed it.
We started by helping patients understand what actually happens when health systems and insurers negotiate, connecting reimbursement to something people care a lot more about: their doctors, hospitals and access to care.
Then, we highlighted Trinity’s role in its communities and called on payers to be partners in keeping those communities healthy.
When Cigna became the first major test, Trinity took that case directly to patients through communications, digital, social and paid media. Patients were informed. They were activated. And pressure landed on Cigna.
Then we took that strength into the next negotiation.
Health Comes First was a platform designed to keep going through many negotiations. The same platform could be activated market by market and payer by payer, giving Trinity a consistent story while dialing up pressure when negotiations demanded it.
And the payers behind Cigna had now seen what Trinity was willing to do. That changed the conversation before some negotiations even started.
We put patients where they need to be … first.
When negotiations heated up, Health Comes First moved from platform to pressure.
We carried the message across patient letters, website content, social, print and digital, giving patients a clear, consistent view of what was at stake and what it could mean for their care.
During negotiations, we brought Health Comes First directly into patient communications, driving people to the campaign for updates and giving them a reason to pay attention.
Patients understood the stakes. They got involved. And payers felt the pressure.
THE RESULTS
Payers got the message. Literally.
Health Comes First gave Trinity Health leverage beyond any single negotiation.
We changed the narrative that unfairly places the responsibility on health systems for creating barriers to improved patient care.
We engaged audiences by educating those with influence about the financial challenges that exist and identifying people who are willing to speak up on our behalf.
Payers got the message. After seeing the negotiation with Cigna, Anthem came to the negotiation table with fairer rates, stating that they didn’t want to see “Step up, Anthem” ads in the market.
Most importantly, we improved contract outcomes: In total, 40% of contracts eligible for renewal were signed at reasonable rates and without patient disruption.
