LCMC Health Uses Yext to Put Patients First

LCMC Health is a nonprofit hospital system that serves the greater New Orleans area. It is the second-largest healthcare system in southeast Louisiana and consists of six distinct hospitals, all of which share the mission of providing healthcare with heart to all care-seeking patients.

"LCMC Health is all about being extraordinary," says Christine Albert, Chief Marketing and Experience Officer. "We want every patient, no matter who they are or where they come from, to experience that little something extra in the healthcare we provide."

Over 70% of LCMC Health's website traffic comes from organic search results, yet there was no established means of managing business listings for doctors or locations. Albert and the rest of the LCMC Health Marketing and Communications team recognized the importance of listings as part of a comprehensive digital marketing strategy. So they decided to seek out a solution that would allow them to manage this information at scale, while capturing patients at the moment of intent.

The healthcare system also lacked a unified process for monitoring or responding to reviews. Users would offer feedback on listings, but their comments and questions would often go unanswered. Patient centricity is a core value of LCMC Health, and Albert knew that a scalable reputation management program was needed if the organization were to live up to its mission.

LCMC Health engaged Yext to improve the system's online footprint with Local Listings for providers and practices. "We wanted to continue to ensure that LCMC Health was providing accurate, consistent, and timely information to people who were searching online for healthcare," says Albert. "A patient-first program for managing our online listings is so important because they are often the 'digital front door' where many patients first encounter our brand."

Albert and team knew the importance that listings played in a patient's healthcare journey, but initially found it difficult to communicate their value to decision makers. To solve this problem and maintain alignment on digital marketing priorities, LCMC Health developed an advanced solution that leveraged insights from listings. "We matched Yext analytics to data from Epic, our electronic medical record system, to build an end-to-end attribution model that shows the value of listings in terms of booked and completed appointments," says Albert. "The ability to generate that kind of information from our listings has made it far easier to demonstrate ROI to key stakeholders across the organization."

The need for scalable review response was more intuitive, since user feedback plays such a crucial role in any consumer's path to purchase. LCMC Health had first-party reviews and plenty of helpful content on its website, but also recognized that many users don't make it that far when evaluating their options in search results. Since adopting Yext's Reputation Management solution, LCMC Health can provide peer-to-peer insights and meet patients where they are, to help them make the best healthcare choices for themselves and their families.

"Yext has helped our small Marketing and Communications teams have a streamlined process for reputation management," says Albert. "We can now quickly and seamlessly respond to reviews to offer a solution, a listening ear, or next steps for patients with questions about their healthcare. We've seen instances where just by responding, by letting a patient know, 'Hey, we hear you,' the experience has improved to the point where they go back to edit or even remove their negative review."

"With Yext, we can feel confident that our online listings and reputation management strategy are also delivering our brand promise – to give that little extra. At its core, LCMC Health is all about heart, and having a listings program in place allows us to live up to those values, wherever patients are finding us," says Albert.

After launching Yext and enabling its internal teams on best practices, LCMC Health increased its review response rate from 4% to 93% despite a 3x uptick in review volume within the same timeframe. This concentrated effort to improve review response allowed LCMC Health to increase its average monthly rating by 0.5 stars across all listings for providers and practices.

LCMC Health patient satisfaction improved considerably, as evidenced by a 231% increase in overall review sentiment and a 145% increase in sentiment specifically pertaining to the user's "experience."

All of these transformation efforts contributed to a significant increase in the health system's online discoverability. Users searching for local healthcare discovered listings for LCMC Health 2.26x more after implementing Yext. This led to more phone calls, directions, and scheduled appointments, as evidenced by a 19% surge in traffic to LCMC Health websites from Yext-powered listings.

"I would absolutely recommend Yext to other healthcare organizations. The Yext team has been super helpful in leading training sessions and generally being a resource for our marketing teams. We've really worked hand-in-hand, and the partnership has been invaluable as we continue to grow as a healthcare system," says Albert.

*Figures referenced are based on a comparison of data from 3/2021-5/2021 vs. 3/2019-5/2019. Data from 2020 were not used to exclude the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.