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Business Builders
Copyright © 2012, Business Builders. All rights reserved. None of this material may be copied or reproduced without expressed written permission from Business Builders.
Services We provide:
Patient referral building
Physician referral building
Patient relations programs
Insurance/IPA contracting
Employee morale building
Strategic planning
Promotion design
Website design
Blogs and social networking
Advertising design
Identity packages
Yellow page advertising
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The Prerequisite to Effective Medical Practice Marketing:
Superiority
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You can create the most effective promotion possible only if you provide superior services to your competitors in terms of quality of care and customer service (patient relations). Why? Marketing's aim is to convince potential patients they would be making a mistake to choose one of your competitors over your practice. Providing superior services to your competitors allows the opportunity to implement a more aggressive, yet ethical, marketing approach that will drive in an abundance of patients from professional referral sources and patients, as well as directly from promotion.
Quality of Care
Numerous surveys have revealed that, in the case of most medical specialties, patients are unable to accurately judge the quality of care of their medical providers. (This holds less true for dentists). Rather, patients resort to measuring health care practitioners by their communications skills, warmth and compassion, and the amount of time their provider spends with them.
This, however, does not necessarily hold true for professional referral sources. Physicians, for example, usually form opinions concerning the degree of competence of their colleagues. Hospital nurses may inadvertently spread their opinions about the medical and surgical skills of the physicians they serve. A medical specialist we knew, for example, who had a handful of problems with surgical outcomes, saw his reputation become so tarnished within his medical community that his referrals from primary care physicians fell to near zero. As a result, he was forced to move his practice to another community!
Patient Relations
We have seen dozens of medical and dental practices suffer because their patient relations left much to be desired. Some offices are disorganized and dirty. Others treat patients as though they are a nuisance. You need to assess every point of a patient's experience, from the initial contact through the patients' exit from your office. Specifically, these points include: How staff handle phone calls, parking, ease of access to the office, cleanliness of the office, attractiveness of the office, comfort of the reception area and patient rooms, friendliness and professionalism of your staff, waiting time in reception, waiting time in patient rooms, communications skills of your back office staff, your communication skills, and whether patients receive concerned and friendly phone calls from you or your staff a few days after their visits.
Your office needs to be organized for efficiency and promote "high touch." This means developing an organization chart, job descriptions, written employment policies, written practice procedure policies, clarity of authority, proper delegation of responsibilities, and a nurturing environment for employees that produces high morale. If you choose to hire a marketing firm, make sure they are capable of implementing systems that will improve efficiency and the attitude of employees, as well as developing effective promotion.
Why Providing Superb Quality of Care and Excellent Patient Relations Is Essential to Your Marketing Efforts
No marketer can implement an aggressive marketing campaign that will result in long-term growth unless the practice is perceived as providing the highest quality care and the best patient relations. An assertive campaign that will drive in a sizable volume of new patients must make strong promises. If you cannot deliver what you promise, such a campaign will recoil on the practice and result in a decline in volume and profitability. Otherwise, you will only be able to create a soft campaign that will deliver nominal results. (Promises must be carefully crafted so they do not violate advertising regulations set by your state medical or dental board, HIPAA, the AMA (or ADA), FDA and FTC. An adept marketing firm with several years experience in medical marketing will know how to achieve this).
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