Amendola Communications (Amendola) announced today that it has been named a finalist for PR Daily’s 2021 Digital Marketing & Social Media Awards in two different categories, including Grand Prize for Digital Marketing Campaign of the Year and the Healthcare Marketing Campaign category. The agency’s campaign, Amendola Helps Air Methods’ No Membership Required Program Take Off, included reinforcement, education, and patient-centered storytelling to advance pending legislation and solve an ongoing industry challenge.
“To overcome the widely misunderstood reimbursement of medical air supplies, we ran an integrated, high-impact education, reinforcement, and patient-centered storytelling campaign,” explains Jodi Amendola, CEO of Amendola. “We have brought together a number of approaches, both in-house and paid media, to ensure the message gets across. It required an exceptional level of planning, creativity, energy and execution. I am proud of the quality of work and the commitment of the A-Team as well as the high level of commitment and cooperation with Air Methods. “
THE CHALLENGE OF THE INDUSTRY
Health insurances usually do not cover emergency flight services, so that already traumatized families are confronted with exorbitant bills. The industry solution was to sell “memberships”. But almost every region is covered by just one organization, which resulted in people paying into membership for years and still being billed as if they were being transported by another company. As a result, the emergency medical transportation industry – including Air Methods, a leading provider of air medical emergency services – received negative media audiences.
A CUSTOMIZED, INTEGRATED PROGRAM: NO MEMBERSHIP REQUIRED (NMR)
Amendola launched the Air Methods campaign with four strategic goals:
- Change the public perception that emergency air transport companies take advantage of patients in emergency situations through predatory billing practices
- Shift in public and media sentiment in the direction of Air Methods, especially from negative to positive / neutral
- Establishing Air Methods as a leader in reforming the industry to meet patient needs in a fair and caring manner
- Demonstrate Air Methods thought leadership with byline articles and media interviews that focus on billing reform, industry best practices, clinical innovation and more
Air Methods launched an advocacy program to work with patients who were unable to pay their outstanding amounts, stopped selling memberships (and reimbursing membership fees previously paid by Medicare patients), and began working with health plans to to cover their services.
Amendola launched a digital campaign called No Membership Required (NMR) to raise national and local awareness of Air Methods’s decision to end membership sales and its efforts to become network providers for the country’s leading health insurance companies raise awareness. Amendola and Air Methods launched the NMR campaign in November 2019 with a series of digital displays, some of which featured videos of patient testimonials about the patient advocacy program. The patient stories helped transform Air Methods from a perception of a faceless business to a caring provider of essential, life-saving services.
This program included press releases on topics such as Air Methods reimbursement of Medicare patients’ dues and announcements by the company to enter into network agreements with various health plans. In addition, a steady stream of social media posts delivered positive, consistent, and constructive messages that helped promote the NMR program and its underlying principles.
IMPRESSIVE CAMPAIGN RESULTS
The NMR digital campaign generated more than 21 million video plays, nearly 25 million impressions, and more than 21 million post engagements. Most important, however, was the impact of the campaign on consumer sentiment towards Air Methods. In 2019, Air Methods averaged 26.5 negative media articles / mentions per quarter. In the first quarter of 2020 that number dropped to just 5, a decrease of around 80%. In addition, Air Methods has established itself as a clear leader and visionary organization in its industry.
The most successful campaigns, initiatives and teams in the communication, PR and marketing industries are honored with the programs “Ragan and PR Daily Award”. The winners of this year’s awards are expected to be announced at the end of July.
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