How To Grow Your Medical Practice
8 Key Steps To Help You Grow Your Medical Practice. Used By The Top Clinics in USA. Proven and Ready-To-Go System Includes Website, SEO, Advertising, Facebook, Instagram, Email Marketing, SMS Texting, Promotions and Conversion Software with HIPAA Compliance plus a Project Manager to Assist You. Costs $799/mon to $1299/mon.
Growing your medical practice involves a strategic blend of enhancing service quality, patient satisfaction, and effective marketing. Here’s a comprehensive guide on how to expand your medical practice, incorporating patient acquisition strategies:
1. Develop a Strong Online Presence
- Professional Website: Ensure your practice has a user-friendly, mobile-friendly website that provides comprehensive information about your services, staff qualifications, and patient testimonials.
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Implement SEO best practices to improve your website’s ranking in search engine results pages, making it easier for potential patients to find you.
2. Leverage Digital Marketing Strategies
- Social Media Marketing: Build a strong social media presence on platforms frequented by your target audience. Create informative and engaging content, participate in conversations, and run targeted ads to reach a wider audience.
- Content Marketing: Publish informative blog posts, videos, and newsletters that address common patient concerns and showcase your expertise.
- Email Marketing: Build an email list to send appointment reminders, healthcare tips, and news about your practice.
- Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising: Invest in PPC campaigns on platforms like Google Ads to target potential patients actively searching for medical services you offer.
3. Improve Patient Experience
- Streamline Appointment Scheduling: Offer online booking and ensure the scheduling process is quick and efficient.
- Reduce Waiting Times: Minimize waiting times both in scheduling appointments and in-office waiting.
- Follow-Up Care: Implement follow-up procedures to check on patients after appointments, which can improve satisfaction and help manage any ongoing health issues.
4. Expand Your Services and Community Engagement
- New Specialties and Advanced Technology: Add new specialties or invest in the latest medical technology to improve treatment outcomes and attract more patients.
- Community Involvement: Participate in community health fairs, school events, and other local activities to raise awareness about your practice.
5. Referral Programs
- Patient Referral Programs: Encourage existing patients to refer friends and family by offering incentives or loyalty programs.
- Physician-to-Physician Referrals: Build relationships with other physicians in your area who can refer patients to your practice when appropriate.
6. Online Directories
- Explore Online Directories: Ensure your practice is listed in relevant online directories and healthcare provider databases to enhance visibility.
7. Collect and Act on Feedback
- Patient Surveys and Online Reviews: Regularly collect patient feedback to identify areas for improvement and monitor/respond to online reviews to manage your practice’s reputation.
8. Monitor Performance and Adapt
- Analytics and Reporting: Use practice management software to track and analyze business performance, identifying trends and areas for improvement.
So what is the secret sauce for your success?
No 1. Your own patient care, and focus on providing awesome service to your patients
No 2. Your online medical marketing and online advertising strategy – PatientGain can help you with this
You must first realize that the most important website & mobile site on the world-wide-web is your own website/mobile site and second most important Website/Company related to your internet success is Google and then Facebook. SEO Rankings for your medical website is only one part of the complete strategy- there are many additional strategies and factors involved in generating leads and new customers. Focusing only on free clicks/traffic (Free SEO/Organic clicks/traffic) is not very likely to generate leads and new customers for your business. If someone approaches you with the latest low-cost/cost-free SEO Magic Wand- they are simply not being honest with you. Some sales tactics start by providing you with a free “Ranking Report” and obviously the sales person will show you “how low” your website ranks for certain keywords etc. These are all sales techniques to get your attention.
Patient marketing for your medical practice is key to the success of your healthcare business. Consider this:
1. You will not be able to grow your business if you do not increase your patient count.
2. You cannot improve your patient count if your community does not know your medical practice exists and the services you offer.
3. Therefore, you must advertise and market effectively to bring awareness to your target audience. Understand that marketing for healthcare is not equal to advertising for healthcare. Cost of advertising is in addition to marketing.
Operational Optimization For Your Healthcare Practice
and Online Optimization Go Hand in Hand.
Why patient care is important for your medical practice?
When you open a medical practice, there are many essential marketing strategies you should follow. However, no matter how many SEO optimizations you make, marketing techniques you use, or the amount of technology you deploy, patient care and trust is key to building your practice. Without these two critical factors, your medical practice will flail without gaining any traction in your community. The secret to your success is excellent patient care and building patient trust with the community your serve and the audience you target in your marketing efforts.
Ask yourself 2 fundamental questions:
1. How do I provide excellent patient care?
2. How do I build patient trust?
First and foremost, you need to have a capable team working for you at your medical practice. The staff are going to be the ones that provide patient care. No amount of medical marketing is going to overcome constant negative experiences at your facility. Your employees from the front desk to the doctor who sees a patient should be friendly, helpful, and qualified to meet, diagnose, and treat any patient who walks in through your front door. Provide opportunities for additional training, be it medical or customer service related, to improve the team’s quality of work when helping patients at your clinic.
Rarely does anyone look forward to going to a doctor’s office. It would be best if you tried to make it as easy as possible for your patients to get the medical care they need. Allow them to make online appointments so they can control their healthcare decisions. Ensure that appointments are spaced out to reduce wait times. When a wait is unavoidable, make certain that your waiting room is comfortable in terms of furniture and environmental controls. Having tea, water, or coffee available for patients will show them that their comfort is your top priority as well as their patient care
Patient care is not a one way street. You expect patients to listen to you when you give medical advice and instructions. However, many patients hope their doctors to listen to them also. Granted, not every complaint is valid. Not every complaint is going to change a doctor’s diagnosis radically. However, listening to patients does allow a doctor to catch something that may require follow up testing to confirm. More importantly, if a patient feels that they are “heard” they will be more satisfied with their visit and be much more likely to share how they feel in the future. The more open a patient is with their physician, the easier it is to provide effective patient care.
Another great way to improve your patient care at your medical clinic is to provide trusted resources to patients to educate themselves. The more they understand a condition or a disease, the more they will know what you are saying to them. It will be much easier to treat them if they comprehend what you are saying, and they will be less anxious or frustrated. There are plenty of useful websites you can provide a patient to follow up with when leaving your clinic after an appointment. Take some time and research excellent resources for you to share with your patients.
Finally, excellent patient care continues when your patient leaves your office. Follow up with them a few days after their visit to check to see how they are doing. Ensure that the treatment you gave them is improving their condition, and there are no side effects. A patient may be a little hesitant or stubborn to call back. Proactively checking in with them will ensure a successful treatment of their ailment. If they came in to get a diagnostic test, call them immediately when their results come back. Avoid having a patient call you to get their test results. If there is an unforeseen delay, update them and let them know, so they are in the loop.
How do I build patient trust?
Building patient trust is much like building trust among anyone else in your life. It would be best if you got to know your patients, and they need to get to know you. The patient seeking care from you is not just a record you file away after you bill insurance and collect a copay. This person is an individual and needs to be treated as such. Have a conversation with a patient and avoid lecturing them or engaging in a strict Q&A session. Be sure to address your patients on a first-name basis and try to take some personal notes about them to refer to before you see them again. Taking an interest in their lives, and asking a few questions about how things have been doing for them can help build trust.
Checking their records for notes from past visits is part of another critical way to build trust: Being prepared for appointments. Before you or your provider steps into the room with a patient, review their file. This includes why they are there, any recent test results, and possibly their medical issue. Please don’t waste time walking in, picking up a file for the first time, and then trying to figure out the nature of their visit. By reading their files and re familiarizing yourself their medical history, you can anticipate their needs. Build trust by suggesting they get a flu shot, update their vaccinations, or recommend running some blood work to make sure their numbers are good. Looking out for them with some preventive care will help you build trust with them.
A significant factor in trust in any relationship is admitting you do not know something or someone else is better capable of helping. Patients will trust you immensely if you refer them to another specialized provider for treatment or diagnosis. You should not be expected to know every single thing in the medical world. Develop positive relationships with fellow medical providers in the area when your patients need their specialized help. Set up a streamlined way to transfer medical data to them so it is seamless for your patient to get the help they need.
Finally, go the extra mile for your patients when you can. Show them you appreciate that they have put their trust into you for their medical care. It would help if you made your office available to them when they need to contact you for medical advice. It also doesn’t hurt to send out a holiday card and birthday card throughout the year, reminding them of a yearly check-up. When things are a little slow at your office, call a patient you haven’t seen in awhile and check up on them to see how they are feeling.
If you can build patient trust and provide fantastic patient care at your medical practice, it will only enhance your medical marketing plan. It is much easier to promote a great practice with a great marketing plan than a below-average practice with a great marketing plan. PatientGain.com can help you with some areas and show you what our other clients have done with success.
9 Key Steps To Help You Grow Your Medical Practice
You must start and end with having unique, quality content about your business, your services, your products, your patients & clients, and how you help your patients & clients. If this is the foundation for your business, you are likely to succeed and have discovered the secret sauce for successful SEO Rankings. Once you have added quality content to your site and search engines pick up on it, you next need to ADVERTISE. Start with “PPC Search” and cover all of the following aspects:
Step 1: Content is the King – Your SEO (Search Engine Optimization) depends on it
Step 2: Advertise on digital mediums (Google, Facebook, Instagram)
Step 3: Smart Mobile Medical Website with Intelligence
Step 4: Email Marketing For Medical Practices
Step 5: Facebook Business Page & Social Media
Step 6: Positive Reviews Strategy
Step 7: Automation & Analytics
Step 8: Phone Call Tracking & Automatic Follow-Up
Step 9: Refine
PatientGain.com has the technology and best practices to help you achieve better results- Please contact us so that we can help your business and answer any questions that you might have.