Marketing

Once you have created your business and are practicing, patients need to know that you are in practice. Whether you have been in practice for several years or are brand new the information here should help in gaining more patients, thus more revenue. The first most important form of marketing is insurance member handbooks. This is usually the first place patients go to find provider due mainly to the fact that they know you are covered by their insurance. There is no cost to be included in the insurance directories. To be listed you must become paneled buy that particular insurance company. Everyone is listed the same and usually in alphabetical order by specialty. The insurance companies will not allow you to pay for placement or bold type. What is impressive about this listing is that it will generate the most new patients with no cost to you. We surveyed our patients and found greater than 70% were from insurance directories. If you are new to practice, my advice is to become paneled with as many insurance companies as possible. This will maximize your exposure. Yes, it is true that some companies pay less than others and are more difficult to work with, but you can weed them out when your practice is full. One note of interest, many Medicaid programs do not reimburse enough to break even in costs. This translates to having double your work for the same reimbursement from private payers. I do not recommend accepting Medicaid insurance; however some hospitals and localities will force you to.

Once you have some insurance contracts behind you, the next step in marketing involves name recognition. Locate your office as visible as possible. We generate a lot of walk-in business just by being on a major street. If you are in an office building make sure your sign is visible on the outside and your office is easy to find. Other ways of name recognition are advertisements. Try running an advertisement in the local paper or community paper with the name of your practice and what you do. Although you may not see instant results from this is getting your name out and will drive future business. Other things you may want to include in advertisements are: free blood pressure screening, free diabetes screening, $5 off your co-pay with first visit, etc.

Another marketing strategy is referrals from other providers. Get out and meet other providers in your area that you will be referring to or will be referring to you. Do not just drop off business cards, but spend some time with them and learn what their needs are for referrals. Communication between providers is crucial for future referrals. If you are in a specialty, it is imperative that you call or send a letter back to the primary care provider of your findings and plan and thanking them for their referral.

Once you have had an encounter with a new patient, take the time to write them form letter thanking them for coming in and give them the opportunity to express any criticisms of their visit. With our practice management software we automatically generate letters at the end of each week to all new patients. It is very little work, two key strokes and stuffing envelopes. I also include my card and signature with each letter. In addition to new patient letters it is also great marketing to send out birthday letters in the month of the patient’s birthday. Besides “Happy Birthday” we include a message reminding the patient of the need for their yearly physical, again marketing. This takes my staff one minute of processing and then stuffing all the envelopes. The software we use will generate the letters with addresses and the birthday message of any date range I specify, usually the first two weeks then the last two weeks of a given month. I have read that you will only retain 30% of your new patients, so anything that will help retain current patients, do it.

Other marketing strategies include open houses, giving away free services, such as teeth whitening, chiropractic adjustments, vitamins, cholesterol tests, etc, and television advertisements. All of these I have seen with limited success, but using electronic media can help. I highly recommend that you develop a web site that contains all of your critical information; address, telephone number, fax number, etc. You can register a domain name at places like godaddy.com for around eight dollars a year and hosting will cost approx fifty dollars per year. More and more people are turning to the internet for their information and you should keep up with technology. Don’t be afraid to include pictures of you and your staff and biographies. This will allow a prospective patient to have some personal knowledge before they meet you. I have recently seen practices doing on-line prescription refills with their websites. It is relatively easy to create and upload a site using Microsoft FrontPage, which includes pre-made templates.