Insights on Healthcare Marketing

We live and work in the electronic age. More and more, personal and professional communication occurs via text messages, e-mails, social media, etc. We simply don’t have as many face-to-face communications as we once did. While all this technology can be great -- enhancing efficiency, accessibility and accountability -- we sometimes sacrifice quality of communication for quantity.

In this information age, real relationships are more important than ever. Don’t lose sight of the power they hold, especially when nurturing referral relationships.

1. Place a prominent announcement banner and link on the home page of your Web site.

2. Put posters in your reception area/waiting rooms. Better yet, include a laptop station or two where patients can sign up/register.

3. E-mail your patients with a link to the portal.

4. Create postcards/flyers to hand out at registration/check-out and/or snail mail if necessary.

5. Share the news on your social media sites (Facebook, Twitter, blog, etc.).

1. Access: Patients can more readily and easily communicate with you on a convenient, secure channel.

2. Accommodation: Demonstrates that you understand and respond to patient needs. Makes it easier for them to interact with you and obtain their health information.

3. Availability: Patients can communicate with you when it is convenient for them, 24/7, and get more timely responses.

4. Accountability:  Improves accuracy and efficiency. Provides transparency.

What can a patient portal do for your patients and your practice?

1. Online registration
2. Medical history/forms
3. Appointment requests/scheduling
4. Prescription refills
5. Online bill pay
6. Communicate lab/test results
7. Specialist referrals

... and all more conveniently and more efficiently than the “old” way of doing things.  Now that is effective medical marketing.

Here are just a few powerful benefits:

1. Enhance access.

2. Improve communication and patient satisfaction.

3. Strengthen physician-patient relationships.

4. Achieve organizational efficiencies/cost savings

5. Build stronger connections with referring physicians.

What are you waiting for?

Everything.

With the demands of Electronic Health Records (EHR) and meaningful use criteria, more medical practices are embracing and implementing patient portals, a secure, web-based technology that allows patients to interact with your practice. Portals allow your patients to schedule appointments, register, complete forms, obtain test results, pay bills and renew prescriptions all in the comfort of their home or office at a time that is convenient to them.

Access.  Accommodation. Availability. Accountability. These are the four A’s of effective medical marketing, and patient portals are just one more way you can achieve them. Attract, delight and retain patients. Isn’t that what it is all about?  Are you ready?

ORLANDO, Fla. – Medical Marketing, Inc. (MMI), a national healthcare marketing and public relations consulting firm based in Orlando, celebrates 25 years of service this month.

Waiting.  It is probably one of the top complaints patients have.

Although there are certainly ways to reduce patient wait times, in health care, there will always be times when waiting is inevitable … whether it be for an appointment, in the exam room, for a test result, in the ER, etc.

Do you seize those times as an opportunity?  You should.

Too often, we don’t. We’re busy. We triage. We move onto other patients and issues.

If you are the one waiting, you could be feeling anxious, frustrated, worried, nervous, and depending on the situation, maybe even scared.

What can you as the healthcare provider do?

It’s quite simple:  Communicate.

Want to maximize your Web site’s performance?  Want to increase your exposure and awareness in the community?  Want to improve patient satisfaction?  Want to be viewed and valued as an expert in your field?

Seems like a lot to tackle, but there is one simple way to help achieve all these goals:  spend a couple hours and write a good article on a hot topic in your field of expertise.

We’ve all heard the excuses, the most common being, “I don’t have time.”  I would argue the return on the small amount of time spent writing will be multiplied.

Just how many legs can one article have?

In a world where our lives are more public than ever before thanks to social media, privacy has become an increasingly valuable and fiercely guarded commodity. Many patients prefer to keep their medical condition(s) private for a number of reasons. And while health care privacy laws abound, many medical practices still miss key opportunities to meet this need of their patients.