Here are five quick and easy ways to grow spine practice patient volume. 1. Set up social media pages. The internet also allows patients to communicate with each other. Potential patients can speak with former patients about their experience and, if it's positive, their comments could drive more people to the practice.
"We had a patient post on our social networking pages information about her surgery being great and someone responded asking whether the surgery could work for him," says Cheryl Zapata, Chief Development Officer of Texas Back Institute. "The first patient talked the person who responded into scheduling an appointment. We've seen that happen numerous times with social networking, and patients are able to mutually support each other."
It takes relatively few resources to coordinate social networking space online for your practice or surgeons, and patients can connect independently.
2. Maintain good interpersonal skills. Patient satisfaction is about more than good outcomes and if surgeons don't have excellent interpersonal skills, the patient will often be dissatisfied regardless of the outcome. Have good bedside manner and make sure you have good people on the phones. Some practices have established a code of conduct to make sure patients are treated appropriately. Surgeons should introduce themselves when they enter the patient's room, smile at the patient and stand without their arms crossed when engaging in conversation. Use appropriate language to discuss the patient's treatment and make sure they understand every step of the process. When patients have an outstanding experience, they will rave about it to their friends and online community.
3. Tell patients they can recommend you to their friends. While orthopedic surgeons assume patients with a good experience will tell their friends, asking them to refer your services goes further to promote the ever-important word-of-mouth reputation. "You’re your patients that the best way to show they are happy with their care is to refer family and friends if they are seeking orthopedic services," says Karen Rocks, principle consultant and owner of Sparkfire Marketing. "Just hearing this from their physicians really enforces that idea."
4. Improve office accessibility for referring physicians. Make sure your office is easy to access for primary care physicians. When they are referring patients to your office, they need to easily connect with your staff and schedule an appointment. This may mean creating a special line for primary care physicians to call that would bypass an automated system patients usually go through to reach your office. Make it easy for primary care physicians to schedule appointments for their patients, and both patients and physicians will have a better experience.
5. Market your strengths to the local hospital systems. In many communities, healthcare systems and hospitals employ primary care physicians, and if you want access to them, you must have a good relationship with the hospital. You can market your expertise to hospital administrators through statistics that show you have good outcomes and few complications. You can also present patient outcome reviews to accomplish this goal.
More Articles on Spine:
6 Trends for Successful Spine Practice Models of the Future
Holland Hospital $10M Spine Expansion Nears Completion
5 Steps to Jumpstart Your Spine Practice Online Video Marketing