marketing for business

Membership Medicine

Practicing as an in-network provider can be the path of least resistance in terms of new patient acquisition. But if you want your dream practice, a membership medicine practice is worth the effort.

In-Network

It’s understandable that some practitioners choose to be in-network with insurance companies when they first open their practices. A new doctor hasn’t yet established a patient base, and when you’re in-network, you don’t have to work as hard to bring new patients indoor doors. The insurance company sends people to you by listing you as an in-network provider. open-966315_1280

All you have to do is hang out your shingle, and the patients (and insurance checks) start rolling in. It seems too good to be true and eventually, you start to understand why it is.

Less Money, More Hassle

There’s a lot of overhead involved when you’re an in-network provider. You have to hire someone to do your billing and to chase down missing payments. And let’s not forget the copious paperwork; sending corrected claims, sending requested progress notes, and filling out paperwork for pre-authorization. Doing all of this costs time and money. If you run a busy practice, the details can start to fall through the cracks. By the time you figure out why the insurance companies aren’t paying up, you’re drowning in overdue business-19156_1280 paperwork.

When the checks finally do start coming in, you might wonder if there are some missing zeros somewhere. There aren’t. As we’re all aware, insurance companies reimburse for “customary and reasonable” expenses. But that number is reasonable to them, not necessarily to you.

In addition, almost every doctor I’ve ever spoken with is fed up with insurance company “paper-pushers” interfering with the clinical care of their patients. Often, the insurance company employees responsible for approving or denying claims have little to no clinical training. To keep it in perspective, let’s not forget that most insurance businesses are publicly traded companies trying to make a profit. While you’re trying to look after your patients, they’re trying to look after their bottom line.

Membership Medicine

If the above paragraph sounds too familiar, there’s a solution; membership medicine. This practice structure cuts out much of the insurance company hassles and puts care decisions back into the hands of practitioners and their patients. You charge a fee; it can be yearly, monthly, quarterly, whatever works best for you and your patients, and that fee covers a variety of treatments, services, and procedures. Patients are encouraged to keep a catastrophic policy with a high deductible, but most of their routine care is covered by the membership fee.

There are many ways to structure a membership medicine practice, and they go by a few different names, but what they all have in common is eliminating the headache, expense, and interference from insurance companies. However, a membership medicine practice has its own challenges.

Education, Promotion, Connection

Dr Kelley Mulhern increasing costs Building a membership medicine practice takes work. Once you extricate yourself from the insurance companies, they’ll no longer send patients your way. And there are a lot of people who won’t even consider seeing an out-of-network practitioner. Who can blame them? Consumers pay an exorbitant amount of money for health insurance and they want to use it! People think medical care is expensive, and they’re right. When a third-party (insurance company) is involved, prices are artificially inflated to handle the costs associated with dealing with them.

When you eliminate insurance companies from the equation, it’s entirely possible to provide a high level of care. Often you can provide a higher level of care than you could when you were in-network. You aren’t under pressure to see more patients in less time in order to make a living. And the insurance companies no longer get a say in what’s best for your patients.

Some patients don’t understand this. All they hear is “out-of-network” and they simply find someone who’s in-network. It’s up to you to educate your patients on what membership medicine is; the benefits and the costs.

Transitioning from a traditional practice to a membership practice is less scary than starting day one as a membership practice because some of your existing patients will stay with you through the transition, particularly if you’ve properly educated them on the advantages.

But you’ll lose some patients and the insurance companies won’t be sending you new ones, so you have to promote your practice yourself. Start by setting some marketing goals. Understand who your patients are and how your practice can give them solutions to problems. For example, a common patient complaint is the lack of time a practitioner spends with them. In a membership medicine practice, patients get the time and attention they want and need, neutralizing this issue. stop-watch-1135771_640

If you go out-of-network, you’ll have to connect with your community in a way you didn’t before. Put yourself out there, go to health fairs, give workshops and lectures at schools, churches, and community centers. These are the places where you can introduce yourself and your type of practice to potential patients.

Is It Worth It?

This may sound like a lot of work compared to letting insurance companies send patients to you. So is it worth it? That depends. If you like freedom and flexibility, a membership medicine practice is absolutely worth it. Under this model, you can make more money in less time, eliminate interference in clinical decision-making, and eliminate a lot of paperwork and overhead.

If that sounds better than what you’re dealing with now, perhaps you should explore membership medicine further.

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!

The Mystery of the Disappearing Healthcare Patient

by Dr. Kelley Mulhern Leave a Comment

Think back to that disappearing healthcare patient who’s been tickling the back of your brain. You know the one – we all have them. The patient who you thought was doing well…getting better…seemed happy…and then one day, just disappeared from your private healthcare practice. Perhaps they were a relatively new patient, or maybe they’d been part of your practice for years. Why did they leave? Did they move away? Were you so successful in your treatment they didn’t need you anymore? Maybe they got laid off and now can’t afford your services.

There are dozens of reasons why a patient may leave your healthcare practice that have nothing to do with you or the quality of your services. But what if they’re not happy with you? Prior to an unsatisfied patient leaving your practice, they may stick around for a while…waiting to see if the issue corrects on its own. When you have a patient who doesn’t complain, do you assume they’re completely happy with the care and services you’ve provided? How do you know for sure?

When a patient disappears from your healthcare practice, how do you respond? Do you just continue on your merry way or do you reach out and try to determine why they left your practice? Obviously you don’t want to pester people…or spend all of your time following up on previous patients. But having a simple and efficient process in place to find out why patients have left your healthcare practice can be invaluable.

Finally, recent research reveals that for every complaint expressed by a customer, there can be up to 25 additional unregistered complaints¹. In terms of your independent healthcare practice, this means that for every patient who tells you they’re unsatisfied with your care or services, there are up to 25 more who say nothing. That’s right…they just walk out your door and never come back. And while they may say nothing to your face, what are they saying about you to their friends, relatives, and acquaintances?

Do you have a process in place to touch base with patients who’ve disappeared from your practice? If so, share it with us in the comments section. Together we can help each other solve the mystery of the disappearing patient!

¹Wysocki, AF, Kepner, KW, Glasser, MW. Customer Complaints and Types of Customers. University of Florida IFAS Extension. 2012; http://edis.ifas.efl.edu/hr005. Accessed September 2, 2014.

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!

The Cost of Good Employees

by Dr. Kelley Mulhern Leave a Comment

Employees can make or break a practice. Even the best doctor can’t overcome a bad staff. If you want to keep your practice successful, you need to understand the cost of good employees. cost

The Front Line

We all know the cliché that your staff is the front line of your practice. They’re the first impression potential patients and patients get of your practice when they call or come into your office. And many of us emphasize this ad naseum to our employees.

But if they don’t feel valued and appreciated, they aren’t going to give their best. Once you understand the cost of good employees, their frustrations, and how you can reward them, your practice will thrive.

The Real Cost

The real cost of keeping good employees is high, very high. It’s estimated that it costs between 6-9 months of salary to replace a salaried employee. For high turnover, low paid positions, which account for many medical office jobs, it costs 16% of the annual salary to replace employees making less than $30,000 per year.

dollar To replace employees making between $30-50,000 a year, the cost is 20% of the salary. These costs account for things like hiring and training expenses.

We all know the cost in time and stress can be even higher. The hiring process is ponderous and frustrating. And some people interview really well, but turn out to be less than ideal once hired. It puts additional stress and responsibility on your long term employees too. They have to pick up the slack of constant turnover, and spend time training new co-workers. If you’ve ever trained someone you know how tiring it can be.

Hard vs Easy

Some positions in a practice are not necessarily hard, as in difficult to perform or requiring a lot of skill. And that’s why many people in those jobs are paid a low hourly wage, don’t get health insurance, retirement plans, paid holidays, paid vacation or even paid sick days.

But believe me, as someone who has been on both sides of the desk, just because a job isn’t hard doesn’t mean it’s always easy. Patients take out their frustrations on front desk and nursing staff in a way they wouldn’t dare with their doctor.

Reward Them

Not all practices are raking it in all the time and so can’t always afford to reward staff with pay increases. However, if you’re doing well, that certainly isn’t due to your efforts alone. Your staff is part of your success and you should share it with them.

There are other ways to reward your staff so they feel appreciated. Remember their birthdays and buy them a gift. Bring in lunch for the office occasionally. Give them a gift card when they’ve gone above and beyond for a patient. clouds

Even just asking if everything is all right when it seems like they’re having a bad day can go a long way to making sure they feel appreciated.

Listen to Your Staff

From time to time have individual meetings with each member of your staff. Ask them if they have any concerns or problems that need to be addressed. Sometimes a good venting session is all they need to feel better.

Have Their Back

We all know that when you deal with the public there are just certain things you have to put up with and most people are generally pleasant enough. But every office has a patient or two who are a real challenge.

You probably know more about the reasons behind that than your staff. You see a person frustrated by a health problem. Your staff just knows there’s someone who is nasty to them during every interaction. If your staff understands the reason behind the behavior, they’ll be more understanding.

That said, no patient has the right to abuse your staff. If you have a patient who consistently does so, you need to address their behavior directly with that patient. No one should be expected to accept abuse as part of their job.

Cheaper to Keep Them

It’s cheaper to keep good employees happy in terms of money, time, and aggravation. (Not to mention the well being of your practice.) Things run more smoothly when a team has been working together for a long time.

It gives a better impression of your practice when patients see and speak to the same people each time. When there’s a lot of turnover, people start to wonder if the problem is you.

It’s better for everyone, yourself included, when the office has a positive energy or feel. Patients will pick up on a happy office and want to be a part of it!

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.

Financial Challenges Facing Physicians

by Dr. Kelley Mulhern Leave a Comment

There are unique financial challenges facing physicians. We earn more than the average person but we have some problems that our contemporaries do not.

Student Loan Debt

The average student loan debt for recent medical school graduates is nearly a staggering $200,000. The average salary for a primary care physician is $195,000 per year, the average for a specialist is $284,000, the average for an “alternative care provider” can be anywhere from $30,000 to $150,000. Add on another $8,000 in non-education related debt (most likely due to credit cards) and perhaps a mortgage. Being a resident or new in practice may not pay well, and there isn’t time for a second job, so a lot of life’s expenses get charged.

You Have a Late Start: Part One

Doctors start their careers full time much later than their contemporaries. Most people who attend college will start working full time in their early to mid-twenties. A doctor may not start earning full-time money until their early thirties. That also means they get a later start on paying back student loans.

You Live the “Doctor Lifestyle”

Rolex You worked hard to become a doctor, and you want to reap the benefits of that hard work. For many doctors, that means living the “doctor lifestyle” complete with big house, fancy car, expensive watches, vacation home; you get the idea. All of that not only adds up, but it might also be distracting you from paying off your student loans and investing.

You Have a Late Start: Part Two

Because doctors spend so many years pursuing education, they get a later start at other important things too; namely starting a family and investing. Delaying parenthood means you have less time to save for college if you want to help fund your children’s education. Currently, the average cost of one year of college ranges from $9,410-$32,405 depending on whether the college is public or private. By the time a newly minted doctor’s kids are ready for college, we can only shudder at how much higher those numbers will be.

The most important way to grow your money through investing isn’t how much you invest but how long you invest. Here’s an example of the power of time when it comes to investing:

Person A invests $10,000, and because they started young, that money is invested for 40 years. Person B, a doctor, gets a later start and invests $50,000 for 20 years. Both get a rate of return of 7%, which is average over a long period of time. Neither person invests any more money, just those initial amounts.

At the end of 40 years, Person A’s $10,000 has turned into $149,744.58. The doctor’s $50,000 has turned into $193,484.22. The doctor only made $43,739.64 more even though they invested five times more than what Person A invested. That is the power of time when it comes to investing your money.

What Can You Do?

The first thing to focus on is debt repayment, especially credit card debt which can have interest rates well into the 20% range. Student loan debt usually has a lower interest rate, so that can be secondary to credit card debt. You need a plan to pay off debt, just throwing whatever is left over at the end of the month isn’t good enough. It’ll take longer and cost you more. Follow either the stack or snowball method of debt repayment. Both have their pros and cons, but both are effective methods of debt repayment. Snow

Once you have all, or at least a big chunk, of your debt out of the way, you can focus on investing. Don’t let the fact that you’re late to the party make you ignore one of the most important tenets of investing; limiting risk. The same rules apply to you that apply to any other investors, ignore them at your (portfolio’s) peril.

Another big factor is avoiding “the doctor lifestyle” and lifestyle inflation, which can happen to anyone. Lifestyle inflation means that every bump in income means a big upgrade in lifestyle, a bigger house, a newer car, first-class flights and five-star resorts instead of flying coach and booking an AirBnB. Invest those income bumps rather than upgrading every facet of your life.

If the thought of managing your money is just too much to deal with when you’re busy with your career and family, there’s nothing wrong with getting some help and advice. There are a lot of generic financial advisors out there, but because of the unique situations doctors find themselves in, look for one who specializes in helping doctors manage their finances. One size does not fit all when it comes to financial advice.

You Still Have an Advantage

Don’t let all this get you down. As a physician, you have a great deal of earning power and, unlike some jobs where you’ll be pushed out upon reaching a certain age or physically unable to do a job anymore, you have many years ahead of you to earn money.

Up for Review

by Dr. Kelley Mulhern Leave a Comment

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Even if you haven’t intentionally created an on-line presence, you may still have an on-line presence. Whether you’re aware of it or not, you and your practice are up for review.

Buyer Beware

If you’re thinking of trying a new restaurant or hair salon, do you hop onto a site like Yelp to find out what others had to say about them? Many of us do, and increasingly, patients are doing the same before choosing a practitioner. A lot of patients are doing this, and as much of 85% of patients let these reviews influence their decision.

Consumers have a lot of sites to choose from for reviews including, Vitals, ZocDoc, Healthgrades, and even Yelp.

On-Line Word of Mouth

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Many practitioners rely on “word of mouth” for new patients. On-line reviews are “word of mouth” shouted through a megaphone! That can be good, and it can be bad. Good reviews can bring in lots of new patients, and bad reviews can slow the flow to a trickle.

We all know some people simply aren’t happy no matter what we do. And whatever you might think of being reviewed on these rating sites, you can’t ignore the impact on-line reviews can have on your practice.

Welcome the Feedback

It can be daunting, but dive in and read your reviews. Many unhappy patients won’t complain in person; they just don’t come back. To use the restaurant analogy again; think of the last meal you had that you didn’t like. Did you say anything at the time or did you just decide you wouldn’t return?

Because review sites give people a non-confrontational outlet, they’ll use them to complain. Try to stay objective and don’t take negative reviews personally. As hard as it may be to read negative reviews, you can use that information to improve your practice and your ratings. Remember, it can be frustrating because the things you think make a good practitioner may not be what patients are judging you on.

For example, you’re up for review on things like how well you listen, how long the wait after arriving on-time for an appointment is, and how well the staff interacts with patients. Patient reviews are less focused on things like the effectiveness of your treatment and their overall health outcome.

How to Handle Bad Reviews

If you get a bad review, do not comment back to the patient on the review site. You might think the response is measured, apologetic, or resolves the problem, but you don’t know how the reviewer will react. It can escalate the situation for everyone to see.

Ideally, you should reach out privately to the patient and ask how you can resolve the issues that prompted the bad review. Hopefully, your good will gesture will prompt the patient to delete or at least to amend the review, although you shouldn’t ask them to do so.

If the review contains false information, most sites have a protocol in place that allows you to dispute and possibly remove it.

Get Good Reviews

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One of the best things you can do is to simply let positive reviews counter and overwhelm any bad ones. But you have to be proactive in getting good reviews. People are much more likely to complain about something they didn’t like than to praise something they did like.

So ask for reviews and tell your staff to do the same. You can be tactful about it. If a patient pays you or your office a compliment, ask them if they would kindly write a review saying the same thing. Make it easy for them. Make an instruction form for reviews and hand out copies to willing patients.

Make sure to include the web address of your preferred site. You might need reviews on ZocDoc, but the patient may not even know that site exists and was going to leave a review on Yelp instead. They can take the instructions home and type the information into your preferred review site, or fill it out in the office and give it to your staff to enter.

And remember, if a patient takes time out of their day to leave you a positive review, let them know how grateful you are. They have given you and a great gift and you want them to know you appreciate it!

Look at the Average

If most of your patients are happy, and your practice is thriving, don’t let bad reviews get you down. Consider how you look at reviews of other businesses yourself. You probably disregard the over-the-top glowing ones (figuring those were written by the owner’s mom) and do the same with the over-the-top bad ones because you figure it’s the competition attempting a little on-line sabotage.

On-line reviews are a powerful tool but don’t let them take up too much real estate in your head. Address the legitimate complaints and watch the good reviews pour in!

Choosing Membership Services

by Dr. Kelley Mulhern Leave a Comment

Once you decide to become a membership practice, the next step is choosing membership services for your patients. We know the benefits for providers: A smaller patient load, reduced overhead, and less record-keeping. But what services will you offer your patients?

Ask Your Patients What Membership Services They Want

When some people think of a membership practice, they think of fluffy robes and private waiting rooms. Those things are nice extras, but they don’t do much to make a patient’s experience better. Ask your patients what would improve their experience. The most common things patients are looking for all relate to time: Faster access to appointments, longer appointments, and a practitioner who listens (which takes time!).

How Available Do You Want to Be?

From a patients’ perspective, one of the most attractive things about a membership practice is the increased access they have to their provider. What used to be handled with an in-office visit can now be handled on the phone or over email. Simple follow up questions that used to take days to get answered can now be answered in hours or even minutes.

But this kind of access means that the provider no longer leaves work when he or she leaves the office. You’ll be tethered to your practice in a way that traditional providers are not. And while most patients won’t take advantage of this 24/7 access, there are bound to be a few who do pick up the phone for every little thing. So consider if you can handle providing that level of availability. Open

For patients used to the old model, simply being able to schedule same or next day appointments, and not having to wait once they arrive for that appointment, will be an incredible improvement. So if you’re unsure about 24/7 access, you can still provide much greater access than what your patients have been used to.

Consider Your Demographics

If your practice is in a very affluent area, then luxuries like fluffy robes and private waiting rooms may indeed be something you want to offer your patients. If your patients are seniors, they may want help navigating the healthcare maze, things like coordinating specialist referrals and appointments and medical records. For patients with limited mobility, house calls would be an attractive feature and something well worth paying a membership fee for.

If your patients are focused on wellness and preventative care, they desire services that cater to their healthy lifestyle. You might consider hiring alternative therapists like an acupuncturist, naturopath, or nutritionist and adding an on-site lab to provide simple blood tests for things like vitamin deficiencies and lipid levels. Phone

Tech-savvy patients will appreciate patient portals, so they can do things like make appointments, access medical records and get lab results on-line. Even better if you have a patient portal app so they can do all of that right on their phone!

A Perfect Match

Choosing membership services to include in your practice is a matter of finding the right balance between what is best for your patients and for you. This shouldn’t be too difficult because providers and patients often share many of the same frustrations with traditional practice models. Therefore, what makes your patients happy can make you happy too.

Healthcare Marketing and Zonkies [Dare to be Different!]

by Dr. Kelley Mulhern Leave a Comment

Healthcare marketing and Zonkies? Seriously, what’s the connection? Healthcare providers often do the same, old, tired events and activities for their healthcare marketing. Certainly there’s a place for those things…they became “standard marketing” (or “workhorses”) because they were effective or provided useful information. We don’t want to throw them out completely…but consider enhancing them with some new, fresh, and interesting healthcare marketing activities where you dare to be different! (The zonkey!)

That’s right! Think outside of the box. Pretend there is no box! Be clever. Be unique with your marketing. Stand out from the crowd of healthcare providers clamoring for the public’s attention…

But how?

That’s a great question…

And I don’t have a specific answer for you.

Why not? Because your marketing should be as unique in your community as you are…and I don’t know you personally to be able to give you the perfect answer. Instead, look for general ideas. Then see what resonates with you…what looks like it would be fun…what your community needs…and tweak it to fit your situation. For example:

Develop a unique twist on an old standard. For instance, if 5Ks are a favorite stand-by, freshen them up by creating a new theme. Some fun runs that have been popular lately include zombie runs, color runs, and bubble runs.

Ramp up your professional use of social media. There are an infinite number of ways to creatively use social media and market your practice. There are even ways to systematize and automate it so it doesn’t suck time from your busy schedule. Refer back to my May 2015 Marketing Tip of the Month Newsletter for more on this topic of social media automation.

One newer social media tool to make a splash is “Periscope” by Twitter. Set up a free account, then dive in to real-time video experiences. Sure…there are people “scoping” strange things…but it can be very useful from a professional perspective. Imagine hosting a patient dinner or delivering a healthcare talk and having people drop in from all over the world! They can see and hear you…and interact with you via chat. Viewers can even send “hearts” (by tapping on their screen) to give you applause or to show their agreement. Or imagine a patient “scoping” their appointment with you…how else could you use it in your practice?

What fun and unique practice marketing activities have been successful for you in the past? Please share them in the comments section so we can continue the conversation!

External Marketing for Healthcare Practices [Easy Definition]

by Dr. Kelley Mulhern Leave a Comment

We examined the concept of internal marketing for healthcare practices in a previous blog. Let’s turn our attention now to the concept of external marketing for healthcare practices. Simply stated, [external marketing] for healthcare practices is any activity or event done outside the walls of your office to promote your practice. The most effective marketing strategies utilize a combination of internal and external marketing for practice success.

What are some examples of external marketing for healthcare practices? Effective and attractive business cards and brochures you give to prospective patients at events…a healthcare talk or series of healthcare talks hosted off-site…providing services at an athletic event…sponsoring a 5K…and so on. (Remember, don’t get caught up in the labeling because it is possible for an item or activity to be used for internal and external marketing.)

When establishing your marketing calendar each year, start by scheduling one external and one internal marketing event or activity each month. You may be tempted to schedule more than one of each, but resist the temptation. Consequently, you may overwhelm yourself, your staff, or your available resources. Then when the event occurs, you’ll likely be exhausted and unable to project the best image of your practice. You can always add more activities and events to your calendar throughout the year as your resources and energy permit.

Once the events are scheduled you can begin the planning process. Create a system to organize all your event information and materials. Try a 3-ring binder or a digital folder structure, depending on your preference. This way, the next time you host the same (or similar) event, you don’t have to start from scratch! Establish reasonable goals for what you hope to accomplish with your marketing activity (i.e.: New patients, increased awareness, raise money for a charity, etc.). Determine how you’ll track the progress of those goals. Research, collaborate, delegate, and modify as needed.

Finally, with proper preparation, you can relax and enjoy the event when the day arrives. Afterwards, debrief with staff and volunteers. (If you can get feedback from participants that’s even better!) Discuss what went well, what could have gone better, and what to change for next time.

I’d love to hear from you! What types of events and activities does your practice do for external marketing? Share your most creative and successful ideas in the comments section below!