Healthy Hospital Market : Hispanocare Focuses on Latino Population

In a move that underscores growing competition in the local health care industry, Mercy Hospital and Medical Center has developed a marketing program designed to snare a larger percentage of the region’s growing Latino population.

Hispanocare, which has attracted 6,500 members since its formation a year ago, hopes to finish 1992 with 10,000 members. The program offers primary and specialty care from nearly 130 doctors on staff at Mercy, most of whom are bilingual.

Hispanocare also offers a 20% discount on members’ out-of-pocket medical expenses after required deductibles are paid. The discount applies both for doctors’ bills and hospital charges, and can be used in conjunction with existing health-care plans.

Health-care industry analysts described Hispanocare, an outgrowth of a successful Chicago-based program that also has expanded into Texas, as an example of escalating competition for patients among doctors and hospitals.

While patients receive the discount and a complete listing of participating bilingual physicians, Hispanocare gives Mercy and its affiliated doctors access to patients who are outside of their normal marketing reach.

“It’s a marketing strategy,” said Ralph Ocampo, a general vascular surgeon in San Diego and Hispanocare’s medical director. “It’s similar to programs that Mercy has to target senior citizens.”

Mercy Hospital was the first institution outside of Chicago to license the Hispanocare name and concept. Illinois Masonic Medical Center developed Hispanocare in late 1989 to help draw patients from Chicago’s growing Latino population.

But expansion outside Chicago came as “a surprise,” acknowledged Hispanocare’s chief executive, Lucy Aquino. “We never thought that we’d leave Chicago, but Hispanocare was written up in (a national health-care magazine), and, all of a sudden, we were getting requests for licenses.”

The Chicago Hispanocare program, which has 8,000 members, is expected to grow to 15,000 members by December. More than 200 doctors and affiliated health-care providers have joined. Hispanocare is now affiliated with six Chicago-area hospitals.

Aquino learned first-hand of the need for programs that make health care more accessible to Spanish-speaking patients.

“When I was young, my parents were constantly pulling me out of school to translate for them in doctors’ offices,” Aquino said. “But there are some things that parents won’t talk to their children about, so the doctor wasn’t getting the full details.”

With Hispanocare, patients who don’t speak English “can pick and choose their hospitals and physicians on the basis of who speaks their language and understands their culture,” Aquino said. “That’s important in (our neighborhood) because the demographics are changing.”

The Chicago program, which is licensed with Illinois regulators as a preferred provider organization (PPO), charges upfront membership fees of $10 for individuals and $25 for families.

In contrast, the San Diego-based operation “is not a PPO or an insurance company,” Ocampo said. “We were hoping to charge fees, but California law evidently doesn’t allow that.” Consequently, Hispanocare’s licensing, administrative and advertising costs in San Diego are borne by the hospital and associated physicians, Ocampo said.

Although primary-care physicians must be bilingual, specialists who do not speak Spanish are allowed to join the program “as long as they have staff who are bilingual,” said Norma Colunga, marketing director for Mercy’s program. Hispanocare made that distinction because of the relative dearth of bilingual specialists in San Diego, Colunga said.

Hispanocare has been advertising in San Diego on Spanish-language radio and television. It will soon begin advertisements on English-language radio stations, Colunga said. Although the program is designed for the Latino community, anyone can join. “There are lots of individuals who may not benefit from bilingual care but who could benefit from a 20% discount,” Colunga said.

The Chicago-based Hispanocare has licensed a hospital in San Antonio to begin a marketing program. The nonprofit organization also expects to license programs in Los Angeles, Miami and other cities with significant Latino populations, Aquino said.