Detroit Hospitals Offer Money-Back Guarantee

CHICAGO The Detroit Medical Center promotes itself as a different kind of hospital system, more focused on patient satisfaction than others in a new television campaign from McCann Erickson.

To help prove that point, the client is offering a money-back guarantee. Ads assert that patients who are not completely satisfied with their care will be reimbursed up to $100.

McCann’s campaign emphasizes a patient-friendly mind-set at the nine-hospital system, said Mark Lantz, executive director of strategic planning at the agency. “They really have taken on the mantle of being on the side of the patient,” Lantz said. “The hospital has a very powerful pro-patient mentality.”

TV spots, which broke earlier this month, depict empty hospital corridors. As a voiceover narrates, text appears on the walls and doors. “Sometimes the only way to fix the system is to buck the system,” reads one line. The voiceover points out the hospitals’ guarantee that patients will wait less than a half-hour for emergency care and “the country’s only money-back guarantee.”

There is no specific requirement to meet in determining satisfaction, Lantz said. “It’s in the eye of the patient whether someone is satisfied or not,” he said.

Spots close with the lines, “Is it a healthcare revolution? Maybe. We just think it is a better way to get better.”

The initiative is the brainchild of CEO Mike Duggan, who joined the Detroit-based client in January 2004. Duggan has been revamping the system to be more focused on patient care.

The Interpublic Group agency’s office in Birmingham, Mich., won creative duties on the $2-3 million account last September after a review.