Rehab for Rehabs

The drug & alcohol rehabilitation industry globally is one of enormous change over the past 5 years. Historically, many care providers in this sector were opportunistic and focused primarily on profits ahead of client welfare and actual rehabilitation.

My foray into this industry was driven by personal family experiences involving alcohol addiction.  The impact on our immediate family especially my parents has been significant in several aspects; Financially, emotionally and even to where their own lifestyle was changed and hindered significantly.

My experience within the family and then in being the CEO for a global drug & alcohol rehabilitation business taught me first-hand the challenges unique to this sector. The greatest challenge is ‘how does one create a return on investment for shareholders whilst not compromising the client’s treatment, well-being, welfare and recovery?’.

Some of the major challenges for the drug & alcohol rehab’ industry players today are.

  1. How to drive financial results yet maintain operational productivity. That is, can we deliver more to our clients without compromising their quality of care? Investment in recruitment, upskilling & training, new treatment methods and tools forever challenge the ROI.

  2. Patient safety is and should be the no.1 goal for any rehab’ business yet the presence of fundamental risk management practices if often lacking. Power failures, social unrest or violence within the treatment centre and theft are just some examples of the incidents I have encountered where no plans were in place to deal with it whilst ensuring the clients’ quality of care was not compromised.  Also, such poor risk management can dramatically affect the company’s reputation!

  3. Risk management leads into two key areas separated only by internal principles and external standards. That is, compliance internally to meet in-house policies and standards and externally to respect, meet and abide by local regulatory laws. Non-compliance affects any business because it draws management and operational resources away from the client’s well-being and recovery.

  4. Rehab’ facility security. Clients at rehab centres are there because they have reached ground zero in their life in terms of relationships, self-esteem and loss of control and acceptance with family & societal norms. The security of a rehab is critical. Skilled staff, 24/7 observational abilities, timely responses, tracking, searching and monitoring of clients and staff is essential. I have personally had to deal with clients escaping the facility, going missing within the facility, stealing operational tools and assets, smuggling alcohol and drugs and sexual relations between clients. These are major concerns especially for the clients’ welfare but also for the reputation of the organisation.

  5. Finally, client or patient satisfaction is the lifeblood to any rehab business. Rehabilitation doesn’t ever occur within 30, 60 or 90-days! It can take years for the treatment, advice and support to coalesce to enable the patient to return to a more normal non-addicted life. So, systems are essential to not only tracking the inhouse treatment progress of the client, but also the post-discharge ongoing treatment and support of the client. Systems, tracking, reporting, communicating and follow up are all essential elements of a patient satisfaction strategy.

Nine Critical Success Factors

In the drug & alcohol industry I quickly learned that there is never just the one customer! In sales and marketing, we typically assume that the customer is the one receiving the goods and/or services.  However, in the rehab’ industry there are in fact three ‘customers’ in my opinion:

  • Firstly, the customer is the patient receiving the clinical treatment for recovery,

  • Secondly, the customer is the person paying for such treatment services, maybe a partner or a parent,

  • And Thirdly, the customer can also be the professional network of psychiatrists, psychologists, counsellors, intervention specialists, sober services after-care providers, and so on.

  • So, in defining who is our ‘customer’ and what is our Value Proposition, is it critical that we learn, know, identify and define who they are and what we are actually offering them.

The nine critical success factors
to consider are therefore are:

Owning the total customer experience

Streamlining your business processes that impact the customer

Provide a 360’ view of the relationship with the customer

Launched Thailand’s first direct response TV channel achieving new sales of USD8m

Let the customers help themselves whenever possible; empower them

Provide assistance to the customers when they’re helping themselves

Deliver personalised services

And finally, foster a community culture among the counsellors, the staff and the three types of customers

Establish a succinct Scorecard with a Flight Deck for easy-to-access, timely and relevant key metric tracking and reporting.

Key Performance Indicators for Rehabilitation Centres

Drug & alcohol rehab’ organisations can loosely be described as a hotel for people with longer term accommodation and specific health and treatment needs. However, the business success indicators can be very similar to a hotel. The adage that you cannot control what you cannot measure is very relevant in this industry.

  • Like most businesses operating today, the rehab’ industry relies heavily on the online channels for creating awareness interest, action and hopefully the purchase of services. The rehab’ business is hyper-sensitive compared to other businesses not dealing with client health, welfare and recovery. Selling steaks knives online is far less intricate and demanding than convincing a family or an individual to enrol for months in drug & alcohol rehabilitation treatment. Online reviews are critical as they provide valuable information as to why your centre was chosen and why it performed well or not. Poor reviews are valuable also because they drive operational improvements!

  • The Percentage Occupancy of a rehab’ centre is a key performance indicator because it clearly details the breakeven line between operational outgoings and the profit margin. A sub-occupancy rate simply burns capital!

  • My experience in the rehab’ industry taught me very quickly that price-discounting is a common and dangerous downward spiral to enter. Because rehab’ businesses often have been built on early market entry benefits and lack of competition, little thought was ever given to the Value Proposition of the company as a comparison to newcomers. Not being able to define why your centre is more special than the cheaper operators is a huge risk because price-matching or bettering becomes the core proposition…without any value being added. So, tracking average daily room rates to compare with past periods, promotions, competitor activity and seasons is essential.

  • Advertising ROI is critical as this can become your second biggest investment behind your staff. The myriad of on platforms such as Facebook, Google etc., new and emerging Apps, traditional advertising channels, above-the-line vs. below-the-line can all add up to enormous amounts of advertising spend with little effective client return. Being able to track, report, analyse and adjust is one of the top two investment decisions to be made.

  • The other is staff and the retention of quality staff.  Recruitment best practices, training & development, remuneration options, professional development opportunities all add up to a complex mix for delivering world-class treatment services and retaining the best people.

In listing the above key points, I have attempted outline some key aspects of driving a drug & alcohol rehabilitation organisation to deliver the best client experience, engaged customer interaction, the latest treatment practices, how to track and report and ultimately deliver a ROI for shareholders.