How To Start a Medical Practice Checklist:

Step no 1 is ALWAYS Get Your Website Ready 60 to 90 Days Before Launch

Opening Your New Medical Practice and Clinic – 3 Examples and 10 Important Steps

Many new business owners who start or purchase an existing medical clinic have a prevailing misconception that starting a medical practice will automatically result in new patients. Many business owners look at the demographics data, competitive landscape – as it exists at the moment, not as would be if 3 new clinics opened within 20 mile radius. Some business owners are still waiting for the “progressive and steady patient increase” to happen after opening, with minimal patient increases until they ran out of funds – very tragic.

As you launch your practice, your strategy should be to get to the revenue “break-even” point as soon as possible.

This could mean 3 to 6 patients a day for high ticket procedure oriented practices (like a procedure that nets $2K per patient). For family care/internal medicine this could be 10-13 patients per day. For urgent care centers, this is typically 17 to 23 patients per day. These are average numbers. So if you are in a high overhead area, with 10 exam rooms, your fixed costs will be higher and you will need a lot more patients to break even. Compare this to a clinic with 4 exam rooms. So these are just guidelines.  But what is the difference between 3 clinic launches?  Here are 3 good examples. 

Example 1:  Medical practice – practice manager/provider too naive and lack of business acumen.

In this example, practice opened and medical marketing and advertising was an after-thought. Although the practice manager/provider is a very capable and reputable physician, marketing has never been important for them. Assumption was that by opening the practice, have a basic website (cost $1400 one time) and buying some posters and local announcements, the practice will start thriving. There is no advertising or marketing budget or strategy.  Although the practice manager/provider is very competent, there is a lack of business acumen. Even after 16 months of struggle, finally the practice manager/provider decided to get some help, and went online and searched for “advertising for doctors” on Google and found PatientGain. 

Example 2:  Medical practice – practice manager/provider with a good business partner.

Before opening the practice – business partner and medical provider researched how medical marketing for doctors works and decided to invest in a website.  Allocated some advertising and marketing budget $2000 / month. $1000 was allocated to offline, printed media, local newspaper,   mailers and flyers.  Website created  and paid $3500  for one time creation of a nice looking website.  Facebook and Google my business accounts were also created.  $1000 per month allocated for the practice’s online advertising and marketing, primarily to social media.  So this business contacted PatientGain after being in business for 2 years. They had seen growth and seen increase in patients.  However they were not at the level where they could feel good about their profitability. 

Example 3:  Medical practice – practice manager/provider with a good business acumen

Business acumen can be divided in 3 main areas. 1) Financial acumen   2)  Marketing and sales acumen   3) Business systems or business operations acumen.  If a medical practice owner has these 3, in some combination,  they are likely to succeed.   By understanding that medical marketing for doctors is constantly changing and focusing on results of top medical practices, it is easy to decide that spending money and efforts on medical advertising and software is in an investment, not an expense. This results in clear thinking and progressive awareness that patient behaviour is changing; channels on how patients are acquired are no longer the same as they were even a few years ago.  So having a focus on the end result makes a big difference.  Selecting a business partner, rather than a vendor is equally important. Selecting a medical marketing company like PatientGain provides you with software, business domain knowledge, HIPAA compliance  and technical advantage over your competitors. 

After your medical practice is launched, you want to focus on building your brand also. This is a very good starting page. 

Many times, doctors reach out to us and ask us what are the key steps to make sure that I have a successful launch of new location or practice.  Of course you will need the lease agreed upon, staff credentialing, buildup of the clinic, insurance, staff and many more steps.

Step no 1: Get your website ready – 60 to 90 days prior to launch, your website should be live and launched. 

Get your website ready with proper content, software and HIPAA compliance.  Beyond this,  here are 7 important steps we should do – This is a very good checklist : 

2. Google My Business page (GMB) : Claim and verify the page. Then optimize the page with complete business information and add 3 to 4 posts – Announcing your opening date. GMB will mail a physical post card with a code. This code needs to be entered in your GMB account. This verifies that you are legitimate business with a physical address. 

3. Facebook Business page: Claim and verify the page. Then optimize the page with complete business information and add 3 to 4 posts – Announcing your opening date. Make sure all 4 PatientGain.com’s Social Media apps are installed. 

4. Monthly Newsletter checked. Every month PatientGain.com creates Ready-To-Go Newsletters.  Check the content, links and CTA  (Call To Action)

5. Promotions Updated on Website and Facebook Business page:  PatientGain.com system has apps to promote your Promotions – PatientGain.com’s designers create attractive and compelling promotions for your medical practice. 

6. Banner App updated with your opening announcement:  PatientGain.com’s banner app is simple to use and allows you to change the Banner on your Website, Mobile site from a mobile device. 

7. Sweepstakes Promotion App launch on FB and on Website:  PatientGain.com’s Sweepstakes app allows you to create a campaign on your Website, Facebook and Newsletters.  Using this app allows you to create buzz, before you open and even after. 

8. Paid ads strategy: One day before you open, your Google ads should be started. There are many ways to advertise online, for example, Instagram, Yahoo, Bing Ads, Facebook Ads, Re-Marketing ads – and so on.  There are unlimited choices. We recommend starting with Google PPC Ads.  Our data shows that your online success is tied to Google, more than anything else. 

9.  Reviews Strategy:  As you open doors for your business, be prepared that you would want to proactively manage your online reputation. There are 4 apps to maximize positive reviews and minimize negative reviews. Setup and test the apps so you can easily start acquiring positive reviews. 

10.  Conversion Strategy:  As you launch your website, you will learn that it is not how many patients visit your website, it is how many convert and how many actual become paying patients.  Medical ChatBotApp from PatientGain increases you conversion by 5% to 8%. We recommend installing it. 

PatientGain.com is a proven new patient marketing solution, includes apps, websites, SEO, HIPAA compliance and account management.