Fabric Medical
Better practice marketing
Medical practice marketing
Is it possible to improve patient care and increase your bottom line?
Erlend Wilhelmsen
President
by Erlend Wilhelmsen
August 1, 2005
Every doctor knows that patient referrals are essential to healthy practice growth. A patient who has a positive experience with your practice refers more patients. As you know, there's no marketing better than 'free' referral marketing.
But what makes for a positive experience? How do you make your patients into your best advocates? While medical care is important, it's not always the prime reason why patients become advocates. Patients become advocates as a result of the sum of everything that happens from first contact to repeat visit.
Unlike many behind-the-scenes functions in your practice, the quality of medical and patient care impacts both cost and revenue. Therefore, patient care is very important to your bottom line and critical to practice growth.
Let's look at an example: Cindy is considering the ThermaCool procedure, and she's seen your ad. Now she's at your Web site, and she has questions. When her questions are not answered online, she calls your staff. Your staff takes the call, but they can't answer her question because the doctor is not available. Cindy finds another Web site with better information and requests a $3,500 appointment with your competitor.
With the example above, the immediate lost revenue is obvious. But did Cindy actually cost you something as well? Unfortunately, the answer is yes. Poorly developed marketing materials or lack of information on your Web site means that your staff has to spend more time on the phone with patients - or non-paying prospects - answering questions. If you are growing your practice, it is not productive for your staff to waste their time on such tasks. If they had more time, they could focus on revenue-generating activities, such as creating a positive patient experience for existing patients.
So, if you believe that you could increase revenue and decrease cost by improving patient experience in your practice, how do you know where you stand? You could find out by doing a small survey. Ask your patients about the entire experience - from the first time they saw your ad to the call, the consultation, your availability, and the information on your brochures and Website. Remember that small things matter - that's where you can make a difference.
Of course, sometimes you can skip the formal research. Patients have told you what needs fixing. You know what's wrong; you just need to fix it. Either way, focus on fixing small things first. Make a short list of five things you can fix within 90 days. Make your staff accountable for improvements and reward them for results.
In our work, we have discovered that practices can easily move from average to good - or even very good - if just a few adjustments are made.
Here are three ideas you can use
1. High quality information matters
Many practices do not provide their prospects enough information on the procedures they offer. The information should be patient centric. When patients ask questions about a procedure or your patient care, take notes and develop a Q&A for later use. This can be included in your marketing materials and on your Web site. If 80 percent of your patients are women, remember that women really care about details; it's all about developing trust. The practice with the best information is always ahead. No in-house resources? Hire an expert to develop better information.
2. Go the extra mile
Do you have an information package you send to patients who call your practice to schedule appointments? If you have a high number of dropped appointments - try it. When someone calls to make an appointment, take an address and mail the information. Even if the person doesn't show, you've demonstrated that you care, made a positive impression, and communicated your messages directly to one more person. You've also done something almost no other practice does. Don't be surprised when your appointment drop rates go down.
3. Take advantage of the power of interactive communication
Make it easy for patients to ask questions about specific procedures. Use your Web site as the hub for all information and invite questions from visitors. Don't be afraid of too many questions - it's a luxury problem. Once you get to the point that you have good information outlined on your site, answering those few questions that have not been answered before should take no more than a few minutes per day. The up-side? You become one of the most caring practices around. That's a differentiating point you can use to your advantage. Result? More referrals, guaranteed.
Ready to grow your practice? Let's talk!