Press Ganey, a care-quality services firm best known for distributing patient satisfaction surveys, announced two purchases yesterday that it says will help form "the largest healthcare consumerism platform in the industry."
The first of these is the outright acquisition of Doctor.com, a digital platform neck-deep in provider directories, online bookings, provider reputation analyses and other tools to help private practices and enterprise manage their consumer-facing online data. The New York-based company has been active since 2012, and raised just over $10 million late last year.
Press Ganey's other deal is a majority stake in Binary Fountain, another online provider brand-management platform that helps customers ensure that their listings include accurate information, analyze trends in online reviews and boost exposure. The Virginia company has also been around since 2012, but hasn't seen outside investment since a $16 million round in 2015.
The terms of both deals were not disclosed.
WHAT'S THE IMPACT?
By bringing together the three companies' respective online offerings, Press Ganey aims to play a dominant role in managing the information a consumer sees when searching online for information about a physician or health system.
“Now, for the first time, a single partner can provide health systems with comprehensive engagement of their caregivers and their patients and communities," Patrick T. Ryan, chairman and CEO of Press Ganey, said in a statement. "This will offer an unprecedented understanding of the patient journey and a robust, value-based, modern and efficient customer experience, while also improving physician retention and recruitment efforts.”
Of particular note, said Doctor.com CEO and cofounder Andrei Zimiles, is what Press Ganey itself is bringing to the table: 472 million healthcare consumer surveys per year. Having this type of consumer-experience data on hand could help guide the focus of Doctor.com and Binary Fountain's online reputation management tools – a type of full-spectrum offering that he said will be enticing to provider and life science customers.
"Health care organizations can finally unite their patient experience and patient acquisition efforts within one powerful platform. This unified solution drives performance improvement, accelerates transparency initiatives and improves the patient experience,” Zimiles said in a statement. “As patients continue to ‘shop’ for care in increasingly competitive digital channels, this groundbreaking new platform from three pioneers in the consumerism space gives healthcare organizations the edge they’ve been looking for.”
THE LARGER TREND
Press Ganey's platform now stands as a big fish in the market of online reputation, digital marketing and patient-experience-management companies. The past couple of years have seen a handful of funding announcements in this area from startups like PatientPop, which raised $50 million in August; DoctorLogic, which raised $7 million in January; and NexHealth, which brought in $4.2 million in September 2019.
Online review sites are perceived to have substantial influence over consumer decision-making – at least, according to data from those with skin in the game. Survey data from Binary Fountain collected in 2018 suggested that the majority of Americans are increasingly using online review sites and largely trust what they find. Another survey from PatientPop earlier that year suggested that providers are concerned about the impact these reviews may have on their business, with 90% of them expressing concern about the risks of negative feedback.
