The BEST Healthcare Practice Building Advice I Can Give

Meet Dr. Kelley

I’m going to break a cardinal rule of online content marketing today. What rule is that, you ask? I’m going to share – in my very first blog – the single best piece of small business marketing advice I could give to a healthcare professional. I’m not going to make you pay for it. I’m not even going to make you wait for it. Are you ready? Here it is: The absolute best piece of relationship marketing advice I can give to a healthcare professional looking to grow their practice is to connect with your community. Sound simple enough? Let me explain. Best Practice Blue

Chances are, if you’ve found your way to my website, you’re a healthcare professional who’s looking to build their practice. Perhaps you’re about to graduate or are new in practice. Maybe you’ve been in practice for years but continue to struggle. Or, perhaps you’ve had a successful practice but you’re getting bored with your same old marketing events. No matter which category describes you, connecting with your community can help to ramp up and reinvigorate your practice. But what does connecting with your community mean?

The best way to build a successful private healthcare practice is to become involved in the local community, build genuine relationships, and leverage those relationships to the benefit of all involved. In other words, connect with your community, and allow those community connections to help you build the practice and life of your dreams.

Community building is a key component of success. The health and well-being of your community should be in the forefront every day, which means that you need to connect with them on all levels: physically (through office hours), emotionally (by caring for their needs) and intellectually as they are not just patients but friends too. Connecting with those who support my healthcare practice has been one invaluable resource I’ve used to grow my business!

Dr. Kelley 5k Community Event

When I was new in practice, I had lots of time on my hands. I decided to give back to my community by hosting free health workshops for the local Fire Department. I donated thousands of hours to participate in ride-alongs, to create and deliver the workshops, and to create and sponsor 5 K runs to benefit specific Fire Fighters. The 9 workshops became part of a “curriculum” which all First Responders had to go through and covered physical health, nutrition, and stress management. I created a lasting relationship with this Fire Department focused on their needs. But guess what? Over time, as they got to know and trust me, when they required the services of a chiropractor, many of them turned to me.

Dr. Kelley Pendleton Connecting with her Community

Dr. Kelley Mulhern Connecting with her Community

Connecting with your community doesn’t need to take a lot of time, nor does it need to cost you a lot of money. Find a cause or a population you’re passionate about and figure out a way you can make a meaningful difference for them. Remember – it’s not about you…it’s about your community. But if you take care of them, they’ll take care of you! How can you connect with your community?

Continuing Care

by Dr. Kelley Mulhern Leave a Comment

One of the best areas to focus your marketing and patient education on is continuing care, especially if you are running or hoping to transition to a concierge practice.

Marketing Strategies for Massage Therapists Part 1

Cheaper to Keep ‘Em

Just as it’s less expensive to keep good employees than to continually hire new ones, it’s also cheaper to keep existing patients coming back than to always be marketing to find new ones. Happy patients also do a lot of the marketing work for you. They refer their family and friends to you. That kind of marketing costs you nothing and is the best endorsement you can receive.

Keep ‘Em Coming Back

If you’re practicing in a concierge model, you obviously need to sell continuing care. People aren’t going to join a membership practice if they only need to see you once a year or can stop coming in after the initial complaint is (or feels) resolved.

You have to show them the value of continued care, that it’s good value for the money they spend and for their health too.

Continuing Care Requires Continuing Education

If you want patients to keep coming back to your practice, you have to educate them on how they can benefit from continuing care. You aren’t just selling your specialty; you’re selling overall health and wellness. It’s common sense to us as practitioners that what we do impacts more than the initial issues that brought a patient into our office.

But not all people have been educated on matters of holistic wellness. When we do A, B through Z can be impacted, negatively or positively. I once worked with a chiropractor who told all his patients, “Always run it by your chiropractor.” What he meant was, no matter what health problem you’re having, even if you think it’s unrelated to what he does, let him know about it. Chiropractic does a lot more than heal a sore back or neck. pain

Even if their complaint is something you can’t help with, you can help guide them to the proper resources. That helps build trust between you and your patient, and helps to keep you involved in their overall health.

Structured Education

You shouldn’t take a haphazard approach to patient education. You want to have a structured program in place and apply it to everyone who comes into your practice. The first step is to educate potential patients on the structure of your practice. As soon as some people see “concierge practice,” they think it’ll be too expensive.

We know that isn’t true, especially for patients with high-deductible plans. But we have to show them it’s an affordable model.

Once you get past the money hurdle, you have to educate them on the value of continuing care. You can frame it like a subscription service. Rather than getting a package of makeup or snacks every month for a monthly fee, they get robust health!

You should devote part of your education plan to the benefits of continuing visits after the initial problem they sought help for has been resolved. This is the most important part of educating your patients. You want to build a relationship with your patients that lasts for many years, not just see them when they’re suffering and in pain.

Always Teaching

You want to have steady contact with your patients, but you want there to be value in every e-mail, newsletter, or mailing. If there isn’t that value, people start to think of stuff from your office as spam or junk mail, and they’ll treat it accordingly. spam

Everything you send to patients should have a component of education in it; when you alert them to your holiday hours, you can include information on how regular chiropractic visits can help to improve immune function. If you’re sending out information on chiropractic and kids, let them know you’re holding a clinic on the proper use of backpacks (this is a great one to get people back in the office if they’ve been putting it off during the summer).

It’s the education they’re receiving that creates value in their minds.

Make Your Job Easier

Educating your patients on the importance of continuing care makes your job easier. Patients are more compliant, they’ll trust you more, and they’ll keep coming back!

For more information on building community connections, I encourage you to read my new book Community Connections! Relationship Marketing for Healthcare Professionals. If you want more valuable information about how to Connect with YOUR Community, you can find FREE healthcare practice marketing content, PowerPoint Presentation Jumpstart Kits, workbooks, blog articles, and my FREE “Practice Marketing Planner” Now!

Metrics to Measure By

by Dr. Kelley Mulhern Leave a Comment

In order to gauge the success of your practice, you need to track certain data. In a sea of numbers, you need to know what metrics to measure by. ruler

Revenue Per Visit

It’s never easy to raise your fees but sometimes it’s necessary. You don’t want to do it arbitrarily, on January 1 for example, because it will seem to your patients, well, arbitrary!

You should have a solid number to base rate increases on. That’s what revenue per visit will give you. To calculate your revenue per visit, calculate the average amount you collect from patients and subtract the average cost of conducting a visit. Now that you have that number, you can determine if you need to increase your fees. (For additional information and guidelines, you can consult the most recent edition of the Physicians’ Fee Reference book.)

Not Always Dollars

Revenue isn’t the only metric you should judge your practice on. If you want to have long term success, you need to have a high patient satisfaction rating. You can design a brief survey for patients to fill out rating you on things like waiting time, ease of scheduling, how well you listen, and how helpful your staff is. A simple 1-10 rating on a few key questions is all that’s required to get some good data here.

stars-1128772_1280 If patients don’t feel they can address these issues with your office, you can bet they’ll address them on public forums like Yelp and Zocdoc and give you a poor review. Give them the chance to explain any frustrations to you.

Not Always Patients

It’s not only patient satisfaction you should be concerned about. How happy is your staff? How much turnover do you have? Unhappy employees aren’t going to treat patients the way you’d like them to be treated. Unhappy staff quit, and it’s frustrating for patients to see a different face each time they come in. It makes you look bad and it’s expensive to continuously hire and train new staff.

And honestly, a lot of doctors don’t know how to run the front desk. Some don’t even know how to schedule an appointment, let alone the complicated stuff like insurance billing or sending out blood for lab testing . If your entire staff quit without notice (whether that’s one person or several), how bad off would you be? You probably don’t want to find out.

You likely give feed back when a staff member does something you’re unhappy about. Give them the same opportunity to provide feedback to you. And make an effort to tell your staff when they’re doing something right!

Traffic Patterns

What times of day are you busy and slow? Do you open at 10:00 and wait until 12:00 for your first patient to come in? It’s easier for working people to come in before work or during lunch than late morning or late afternoon. Would your patients benefit from evening appointments? open

Start asking your patients if they’d have any interest in Saturday appointments. For people who are paid hourly, they lose money if they aren’t at work. Saturday appointments might work really well for them and increase patient satisfaction for you!

There’s a lot to be said for working a typical 9-5 schedule, but even if you were available one late evening a week or one Saturday a month, it might help increase your patient load.

Slow Times

Make note of busy and slow times of year too. Summer is typically slow for many practices. Use those times to go on vacation, to do renovations, or to do major systems upgrades. Sometimes if makes financial sense just to close the office rather than pay staff when it’s quiet.

Referrals

You should know where every patient who comes into your practice was referred from. By an existing patient, a Facebook ad, Google, another physician? If you want to grow you practice,you need to know where to concentrate your energy and money when it comes to attracting new patients.

If you aren’t getting patient referrals, something is wrong with your patient satisfaction or education. How can you fix it? If you aren’t getting a lot of referrals from people who were Googling, you need to improve your SEO.

If you aren’t getting traffic from ads you’re paying for, you need to rethink your advertising strategy. If you aren’t getting doctor referrals, you need to work harder at building relationships with your colleagues.

If You Don’t Measure It, You Can’t Improve It

You should always be striving to improve every aspect of your practice. And maybe you are, but if you aren’t using metrics to measure your improvements, you don’t know what impact those improvements are having. Or not having. And that wastes money, time and energy. If you don’t measure it, you can’t improve it.

Transitioning To A Concierge Practice

by Dr. Kelley Mulhern Leave a Comment

To transition or not to transition, that is the question. What are the factors involved in transitioning to a concierge practice?

Education

The biggest fear most doctors have when they consider transitioning to a concierge practice is the loss of patients. When many patients hear the words “concierge practice” they think they can’t afford it.

This is where education comes in. Educating your patients on what this transition means is the single biggest factor that will determine whether your transition succeeds or fails. That means you will have to go above and beyond to help your patients understand that yes, they can still see you and no, they won’t go broke doing so.

Sending out a letter detailing the changes is a good way to start the education process. Next, you many consider scheduling one on one meetings with each patient or with those you think would be interested in the idea or conversely, those you think will be most resistant, to explain what the transition will entail.

If you have too many patients for one on one meetings, you can hold an informal “Ask the doctor” night where patients or potential patients, are free to ask any questions about the new practice model.

Preparing Staff

Your staff is more important than ever when you are transitioning to a concierge practice. The first thing most prospective patients will ask is if you accept insurance. If all they get in reply is a curt, “No,” most will hang up, and you will lose a patient.

There are many ways to structure a concierge practice. It doesn’t automatically mean that patients can’t use their insurance. Will your office file on their behalf and assign the benefits to them? That means that they are paying out of pocket up front, but you want the first half of this sentence to be the first thing your staff tells a potential patient, not the second half.

If you are going to eliminate insurance from your practice entirely, people will feel much more comfortable if they know the pricing up front. Think about it, would you order from a restaurant that had no prices on the menu? Establish a price list for your services and make it widely available; on your site, in your office, and included with any advertising you do.

Realistic Expectations

While you may eventually make more money with a concierge practice, it may not happen right away. And not all of the money will come from your patients. A lot of what makes concierge medicine appealing is the ability to get rid of lots of overhead which will save you money over time.

You need a big runway to launch this; some experts recommend having as much as $100,000-250,000 set aside to sustain your practice during the transition.

The ability to see fewer patients, spend more time with each one and make more money is also appealing, but when people are paying out of pocket, some will demand greater access to the doctor. Know that you may be dealing with patients after office hours than you are currently. Your days may not be as rushed and hectic as they were when you had a traditional practice, but they may be more intense.

Market, Market, Market

While some existing patients may not be interested in being with a concierge practice, there are plenty of people out there who would love to find one and so far haven’t found one in the area. There are also people who have not yet heard of the concept but will be really interested in this kind of care.

When you decide you’re transitioning to a concierge, you need to be prepared to mount a full-on marketing blitz. If you have been frugal with your marketing budget, you may need to spend some real money while you’re transitioning to a concierge practice. You need to do some market research to make sure the money you are spending is reaching a receptive audience.

Find Support

Concierge medicine is in its infancy but it’s been around for about two decades now so plenty have come before you. Some have failed, and some have succeeded, and both have advice to share. Seek out other practitioners and ask if they would be willing to talk to you about what worked and what did not work for them.

A Worthwhile Transition

If you are considering transitioning to a concierge practice because you think it will make you wildly rich, you’re doing it for the wrong reason and it likely won’t. But if you’re doing it because you want to provide your patients with a higher level of care, the transition will be worthwhile.

Healthcare Marketing Mastermind Group

by Dr. Kelley Mulhern Leave a Comment

Mastermind groups have been around for several decades, but have you ever thought of creating or joining a healthcare marketing mastermind group? A mastermind is a group that meets on a regular basis (typically monthly or quarterly) to share challenges, successes, and ask for feedback. The participants can be from the same profession or from a variety of professions. For a healthcare marketing mastermind, I’d recommend working with practitioners from various healthcare disciplines.

In its simplest form, the mastermind meeting allows each participant to introduce themselves, share a win, and share a challenge. The group is then able to offer advice or feedback regarding the challenges. However, the meeting format can be changed to suit the needs of the people involved. For example, the content discussed can be very general, concerning anything to do with business. Or, the discussion content can be narrowed down to a specific area such as goals/goal-setting, practice marketing, leadership, or practice procedures.

Topics for discussion in a healthcare marketing mastermind group could include wins, challenges, collaborative opportunities to educate the local community, evaluation of prospective marketing events, evaluation of completed marketing efforts, development of marketing plans (marketing calendars, “Connections CalendarsTM”), and so on.

One key piece to the success of such a mastermind group is the intent of the people involved. Each person must approach the group in a spirit of helpfulness and cooperation. This is not about competition. It’s about helping each healthcare practice to showcase itself in the community. This enhances local health awareness and increases the potential success of everyone involved. It’s been said that “a rising tide raises all ships in the harbor.”

Think of the local market as a pie. Each slice of the pie represents a “market share.” The bigger your slice of pie, the more patients you have and the more successful your practice becomes. A healthcare marketing mastermind group could help all healthcare providers. As the community becomes more educated about health and their healthcare options, the metaphorical pie (and your slice) gets bigger. As you help your peers, you also help yourself!

If the term “mastermind” doesn’t appeal to you, try another such as “Healthcare Marketing Forum,” or have the members collaborate on a name during the first meeting. A new meeting type that is gaining in popularity is the “accountability group.” These groups may be smaller than a mastermind group and meet more frequently as their goal is to help hold each member accountable to reach their goals.

What do you think? Would you be interested in creating or joining a healthcare marketing mastermind group? How have masterminds worked for you in the past? Leave your comments in the section below and help us create our own virtual mastermind group!

For more information on building community connections, I encourage you to read my new book Community Connections! Relationship Marketing for Healthcare Professionals. If you want more valuable information about how to Connect with YOUR Community, you can find FREE healthcare practice marketing content, PowerPoint Presentation Jumpstart Kits, workbooks, blog articles, and my FREE “Practice Marketing Planner” Now!

Healthcare Marketing Mindset I

by Dr. Kelley Mulhern Leave a Comment

Healthcare Marketing Mindset I

If you spend any amount of time speaking with healthcare professionals in private practice, it’ll quickly become clear as to their healthcare marketing mindset. In other words, what do they think about the concept of marketing their healthcare practice? I find this topic so interesting that I decided to write a series of blogs on the subject of practice marketing mindsets. This first installation will discuss the two main mental perceptions regarding the financial aspect of healthcare marketing.

We all know marketing takes time and money. The question is, how do you view that expenditure of resources? Some healthcare professionals focus on the expense involved, while others accept the cost as an investment into their practice. Have you ever had this conversation with a patient? Where they saw the cost of care in your practice as an expense and you tried to help them see it as an investment into their health and future?

When you view something as an expense – in this case, your marketing efforts – the tendency is to want to minimize the expense. Every decision becomes about the bottom line – dollars and cents – instead of how it could impact your practice or community in multiple ways. An expense is part of the cost of maintaining a business, but doesn’t necessarily help it to grow and thrive.

Conversely, when you view something as an investment, there’s a willingness to commit the necessary resources to make sure it’s successful. The hope is that the investment will pay off in some form in the end. An investment seeks a long-term outcome such as practice growth.

It can be easy to fall into the habit of seeing marketing as just another expense…dollars flowing out of your accounts, never to be seen again. And actually, that can be the reality if you aren’t monitoring, measuring, tracking, and modifying your marketing activities to implement the ones that work best for you.

A better approach is to look at your healthcare practice marketing from the perspective of an investment. Do your research. Determine your goals (what are you hoping to achieve with your healthcare marketing?). Consider your options carefully. Obtain expert guidance when necessary. Have a plan. Invest in the future growth of your practice and your life by financing those activities that successfully grow your practice.

A word of caution – not every marketing activity will produce spectacular results in terms of new patients or revenue. In fact, not every healthcare marketing activity is intended to produce patients or revenue, so be clear on your goals. (For example, perhaps you host an event simply to raise awareness of a serious health condition.)

I’d like to hear from you! How do you perceive the commitment of time and resources necessary to market your healthcare practice? Have you recently switched from seeing healthcare practice marketing as an expense to an investment? How did that happen for you? Please share your thoughts and experiences in the comments section below!