Insights on Healthcare Marketing

We’ve all experienced it at some point — a genuine greeting that instantly brightens our day or puts us at ease. Earlier this week I walked into a new medical building in my community, and their “concierge” at the desk warmly welcomed me and personally directed me to where I needed to be. It felt good, and it made me feel good about coming there. 

Are your patients experiencing the same sort of greeting? 

Your employees are a direct extension of you and often have even more direct interaction and conversation with your patients than you do. At times, they are quite literally your right hand, your voice, and sometimes even your memory.

Are they happy? Do they feel appreciated?

Here are a few simple ways to reconnect with them:

What have you done for me lately? 

It is a trite statement, but one that rings true for many referring physicians if they don’t feel recognized and appreciated. 

Here are a few simple ways to reconnect with them:

It’s so easy to go through our work lives thinking no news is good news. If no one is complaining — patients, staff or referral sources — life must be good.

Yet, despite our increased “connection” through technology, we, as a society, tend to be more disconnected than ever before — in some cases this is actually because of technology. 

Rather than directly addressing conflicts or concerns with you, patients and referral sources may simply move on. And often, by the time a practice realizes that has occurred, it is too late — new relationships have already been established.

So how can you prevent this?  Reconnect.  

There are a lot of simple ways you can do this. Let’s start with patients:

It is the title of a current pop song, but it also rings true for our healthcare system.

We may be more “connected” then ever before thanks to technology and electronic health records, but we are having less human interaction and fewer genuine conversations. Yet, one-on-one interaction is key to developing and strengthening any successful relationship — personal or professional.

You can’t single handedly change the entire “system,” but you can take steps to initiate conversations within your own practice and community — among staff, among your partners, with patients, with your referral sources, and with your neighbors. Find out what is important to them. Solicit their ideas and feedback. And because very few do this anymore, people will take notice. 

This is probably one of the most common questions I hear from physician practices. No one likes to hear criticism or bad news, especially when it is broadcast on the Internet for all to see. 

While the temptation is to just delete the comment if possible, negative reviews can be relationship-building opportunities in disguise. They provide a platform to engage, to be human, to be transparent, to take accountability, to correct, and to repair.

So, how should you respond?

1. Acknowledge that you have heard the complaint.
2. Apologize for their experience.
3. Reinforce your commitment to patient care, safety and satisfaction.
4. Diffuse the situation and take the conversation offline by offering a contact person and phone # to call.

In my last post, I talked about how trust throughout society is dwindling, and trust of physicians and healthcare organizations are no exception. In general, consumers have become more skeptical of everyone and everything, including traditional marketing and advertising.

So who do people turn to when making purchasing decisions?  

In just about every sector, including healthcare, people are increasingly turning to their friends, family members, neighbors and colleagues for recommendations. This is because they trust their experiences and opinions. 

And thanks to social media, these opinions are more readily available. We even turn to the opinions of complete strangers who happen to share our life experiences, health challenges or purchasing decisions.  

Trust. It is the foundation of any sustainable relationship — personal or professional. 

In your medical practice, building trust — with patients, referring physicians, your own staff, and others in your community — has become more important and yet more difficult at the same time.

We live in an era of skepticism, amplified by social media and allegations of “fake news,” where people are finding it harder and harder to trust. Combine this with how rapidly the world of healthcare changes, and we have our work cut out for us. 

This makes each of your one-to-one relationships and interactions with patients and referral sources all the more important. 

I often talk about the 4 A’s that I believe are the cornerstones of physician survival and success:  Access, Availability, Accountability and Accommodation. However, I believe there is a 5th A that is just as critical and perhaps the linchpin to the other four:  

Action

We can think and plan and develop and strategize and analyze, and all of those things are important. However, if at the end of the day, we don’t act on those ideas and do so in a timely manner, we miss opportunities — opportunities to meet, to connect, to communicate, to thank and to grow. Opportunities to forge new relationships and to strengthen existing ones.

Acting on the little things everyday — that is what makes the biggest difference.

Woody Allen has been quoted as saying, “80 percent of success is showing up.” 

And showing up means more than just your physical presence going through the motions of the day. It means being being accessible, listening, asking, understanding others’ needs, adapting, learning, improving, evaluating, thanking, and always making the human connection. 

In the technology-driven world we all live in, this is more important than ever before. And it applies to new and established practices alike. In fact, sometimes established practices need this reminder the most. We see it happen in business and sports all the time — successful companies and teams start to rest on their laurels. They begin to take their success for granted and stop “showing up.”  So,