If you want to overcome objections to switching to the Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE), help people see that other people have overcome the same objections.
PACE "Objections Testimonials" and how they are different
In a typical testimonial, PACE is the hero:
Before I found PACE, life was not good. Then I found PACE, and life was great. Everything and everyone at PACE is good. Thank you PACE.
These are nice and many PO’s and the NPA have versions of this "PACE is wonderful" testimonial.
More powerful are testimonials that make the participant the hero, and their own journey starts BEFORE they join PACE.
When outreach teams are in the community building awareness of PACE, there are key knee-jerk, immediate universal doubts about PACE.
- I don't want to change my healthcare plan.
- I don't want to change my doctor.
- I don't want to change my home-health aide.
Lean Into Objections to PACE
To overcome these initial hurdles when introducing PACE to the public we should lean into these objections. Eg.,
1. I didn't want to change my healthcare plan, but....
2. I was nervous about changing my doctor, but...
3. At first I didn't want to give up my county home care aide, but...
How to get a PACE Objections Testimonial
Identify participants, family caregivers and referral sources who are appropriate for testimonials and agree to your "media release" form. Turn on your phone's voice recorder (or record a video, if your participant has agreed).
Ask them “before they joined PACE, what were they worried about specific to PACE?" And go from there.
Examples of PACE testimonials using this framework
These are actual (but anonymized) testimonials our client secured using this framework:
Change My Doctor
“My PACE doctor is a wonderful, informative person. I appreciate the clinic doing tests to find out what is wrong and my doctor calls me personally. They found something wrong with my heart and I believe my heart caused my stroke. We worked together before and after my stroke to make sure things weren't as bad as they could be.”
“At first I did not want to change my doctor. For twenty years I had the same doctor, but I found out that PACE was contracted with him and I and was able to still see them along with a great new primary doctor, Dr. R. My PACE nurse has been instrumental in my care along with the clinic. The whole team has made my life so much easier. They take of everything, which is so wonderful.”
Our Son Gave Up Being our County-Paid Caregiver
“Our son was our full-time home care worker before we joined PACE and we were worried about losing that personal level of care. However, what PACE has given us as a healthcare plan is so much more than what we expected. We have home care, we get rides to the center and our appointments, we get meals delivered to us, we go on outings, we play games and we are around people who speak our language. We even made friends at the center. We absolutely love PACE.”
Here is one more example of a PACE participant testimonial that incorporates objections:
