In the rapidly evolving landscape of addiction treatment, legacy providers are increasingly under pressure to adapt without abandoning the principles that built their reputations.
Few organizations embody this balancing act better than Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation, one of the nation’s largest nonprofit providers of substance use disorder (SUD) care, recovery resources, and related prevention and education services.
One of the key leaders helping with this balancing act is Bob Poznanovich, the organization’s chief growth officer. In his role, Poznanovich is guiding Hazelden Betty Ford through an ongoing transformation – one that maintains its established legacy while pushing for innovation, operational excellence and margin upside.
Behavioral Health Business recently caught up with Poznanovich, who shared some candid insights into what “product strategy” means for a mission-driven organization like Hazelden. Poznanovich additionally discussed how lifetime patient value is reshaping the SUD space, and why retention is just as critical as acquisition.
Highlights from BHB’s conversation with Poznanovich are below, edited for length and clarity. He’ll be further discussing the below topics at BHB’s Addiction Treatment Forum on July 17 in Chicago in a panel titled “Designing for Lifetime Value: Patient-Centric Innovation in SUD,” with co-speakers including Boulder Care COO Rose Bromka and Cityblock’s head of behavioral health, Ruby Mehta.
BHB: When we talk about “product strategy” in addiction treatment, what does that mean in the context of a nonprofit legacy provider like Hazelden Betty Ford?
Poznanovich: As a mission-driven leader, Hazelden Betty Ford must balance our history with innovation.
Our product and service-line strategy allows our organization to modernize services, differentiate in a competitive market and make market-informed decisions – without compromising clinical quality or core values.
From both a clinical and business lens, how do you evaluate whether a new service or program is worth launching? What kind of research or vetting goes into that decision?
Evaluating a new service or program requires an intentional approach that blends clinical integrity with business discipline.
For us, that starts with defining the need or problem that we are working to solve. Then, we go to work identifying the clinical gaps and following the evidence/science that supports a new service line.
On the business side, factors we’d look at would include market demand and competitive positioning. We’d also do a margin analysis.
But more than anything, we need to make sure that the service aligns with our organizational mission, values and brand promise.
There’s a lot of talk about “lifetime value” in health care. What does the concept of lifetime value of a patient or family look like in addiction treatment? How should SUD providers be thinking about that?
Lifetime value, or LTV, is a shift in thinking. It’s going from transactional care delivery to the long-term relationship with patients and families. That can begin with the first call, and it continues to promote life-long recovery.
A comprehensive product and service line strategy should include the long-term view of the patient, the family and long-term care.
As an industry, we can learn a lot from the major retailers who have always looked at the life-time value of a customer compared to our space, which has generally viewed it more as an episode of care.
What role does patient retention play in your broader growth strategy — and how do you think about retention across different levels of care?
Patient retention is huge – both in terms of our care and also growth strategy.
Retention and length of engagement improves outcomes, which is key to our brand promise. It also drives alumni involvement and word of mouth. And it supports the lifetime value of the patient strategy – and reduces the patient acquisition cost
Startups are often lauded for their creativity and speed in getting new offerings to market. How do larger or more established providers avoid being left behind when it comes to innovation?
Startup organizations typically are more agile, better funded and bring a growth mindset to the business.
The legacy nonprofits, at times, are at a disadvantage since innovation takes capital, which is a challenge. It’s something that needs to be funded from margin or donors.
But from my view, they – legacy nonprofits, broadly – can avoid being out-marketed by intentionally building the organizational structuring that supports innovation and product development.
The advantage the legacy providers have is their ability to leverage scale, trust and clinical credibility while, at the same time, adopting the agility, risk tolerance and experimentation mindset of startups.
Can you walk me through a recent example of a new program Hazelden Betty Ford has launched and how that process unfolded?
Sure. The high amount of web visitors and inquiries we receive compared to patients we served was the problem/opportunity we wanted to solve.
We did a profile review of these individuals, and the feedback was that most wanted more self-serve and easier on-ramps to care. So, under the leadership of our first product manager, we launched a team with marketing, admissions and IT, which was chartered to develop and deliver in six weeks a new digital patient pathway and fast access-to-care solution.
As a result, we built and launched our WayFinder solution.
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