August 01, 2007
Hospitals Ineffective at Raising Money From Patients, Survey Finds
By Brennen Jensen
Hospital fund raisers are doing a poor job soliciting donations from former patients, and federal regulations that have been in effect for the past six years and that restrict access to patient medical information may be a contributing factor, a new survey shows.
Less than 20 percent of the hospitals surveyed said their fund-raising efforts aimed at former patients were as successful as their other fund-raising strategies. A majority rated such efforts at their institutions as “fair” or “poor.”
Over 240 health-care executives and fund raisers participated in the on-line Grateful Patient Communications Survey, representing a roughly equal mix of public and private institutions. It was conducted by Grizzard, a fund-raising consulting firm in Los Angeles, in partnership with the Association for Healthcare Philanthropy, in Falls Church, Va., which represents some 3,000 health-care fund raisers.
In 2001 the federal government passed a law limiting access by hospital development offices to patients’ names, addresses, and phone numbers only. Information about medical conditions and treatments require a patient’s written consent before being disclosed.
Nearly 45 percent of survey respondents said the federal law has had a negative impact on their efforts to raise money from past patients. One in five respondents reported that they did not solicit donations from past patients at all, and nearly 40 percent labeled their programs as “not significant.”
“The most surprising thing to me is that there continues to be an awful lot of hospitals that are not pursuing grateful patients, either from time to time, or even at all,” says William C. McGinly, chief executive officer for the Association for Healthcare Philanthropy. “We are charity organizations and we should be offering patients an opportunity to support their communities through health care and the hospital.”
The federal restriction, Mr. McGinly says, have made it more difficult for hospitals to tap their rosters of former patients for fund-raising purposes. However, he calls the law a “double edged sword” in that it alerted some hospitals “to the fact this was even a possibility.”
A “summary”:http://www.grizzard.com/healthcare/downloads/AHP_GRZ_GP_Summary_Jul_2007.pdf of the survey is available free at Grizzard’s Web site.
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