Going Beyond Medical Marketing

Medical Marketing

Impact on Finances for Medical Practices

Looking at the new direction of how independent physicians’ practices have gone recently has also lead to indirect effects on the finances of an office. As a result, hospitals have been paying their non-physician staff more, making it even more difficult for the independent doctors to compete.

For example, nearly all hospitals are paying non physician staff a more than independent practitioner, which is causing them to have to raise their pay to attract employees that they would normally lose to the hospital. This is an indirect expense the many doctors have had to absorb due to hospital policies that many people do not see on the outside looking in.

So what can the little guys do? It’s not simple, but here are some tips for doctors. The easiest solution is to start by trying to increase your revenue stream by attracting new and high quality patients to your practice by hiring a medical practice consultant to provide representation for your practice.

Other avenues that can be used to generate revenue are physician advertising and implementing internet marketing. Depending on the type of your practice, it can be extremely beneficial to get in your community to attract referrals.


Marketing Ideas for Your Medical Practice

Running your own medical practice can be a daunting task with the evolution and constant change of the business and medical environment. Keeping up with the times can be tough, but simple marketing ideas can change the entire outlook and presence of your practice in the community and on the web. Here are a few marketing tips for doctors that will act as an ally to assist you:

1) Brainstorm Marketing Ideas- Sit down with your office staff and brainstorm ideas for how you want to portray your message to the community. Creating a monthly flyer with a new logo that you can implement on your business cards may be just what you need to start marketing your practice effectively.

2) Establish Strategies for MarketingOften doctors or office managers have an idea of what they want to do in regards of marketing, however, they do not know where to start or what steps to take in order to successfully deliver their specific message to the community and new patients. Create a marketing strategy for your practice that everyone in the office is aware of and incorporates in to the daily routine.

By just taking a few moments out of your week to recognize the effects of marketing and how you can incorporate it with your practice is a step in the right direction for many medical practices.


Physician Representation

Many doctors are aware of the importance that medical marketing can bring to their practice. However, some are unaware of the extent and reach of marketing for medical practices. The medical field is a constantly changing environment that a physician must align themselves in to remain competitive in the market.

A closer look of the evolving healthcare market shows the increasing importance of establishing and maintaining representation for your medical practice. One aspect to look further into is the evolution from traditional in-house referrals to utilizing a physician referral marketing strategy by a medical practice consulting firm. The traditional method of referral attainment through face to face interaction between doctors at events has largely shifted online, diminishing the networking and other social events that normally generate relationships, and in return, referrals.  The new method of medical referral marketing includes using a marketing professional to pass your marketing message along in the community by informing patients and physicians about the presence of your medical practice in the community in a favorable manner to attract new patient referrals.

If you feel that your medical practice is in need of proven market professionals to deliver this message to the medical community on your behalf, give MD Practice Consulting a call today at (877) 972-6372 to learn more about obtaining representation for your medical practice.


Medical Practice Building

Graduating from school may be the most difficult task for a medical professional. Unfortunately, that’s just the beginning of the challenges that are inherent in the field of medicine. Running a medical practice requires many different skills. Like any other business, your practice is either rising or falling. Ensuring that your practice thrives requires “out of the box” thinking.

Ideally, you could simply focus on medicine and improving your patients’ health. But with the proliferation of practices and health care providers in our community, there is often a rough and tumble scramble to attract customers. Physician marketing services could make all the difference for your practice. This is a relatively low cost service that can cause your revenue to trend sharply upward.

By outsourcing your marketing strategies, you accomplish two things simultaneously. Firstly, you ensure that your practice stays on an even keel. But perhaps most importantly, paying for physician marketing strategies that work ensures that you can remain focused on healing people. After carefully selecting the marketing professional that you hire, you will know that your physician marketing strategies are of the highest quality.

Many practice owners feel that marketing and advertising are below them and their practice. Medical practices fail as well, dashing dreams of independence. If your own practice is stagnating, you mustn’t be too proud to hire physician marketing services from a qualified medical marketing consultant. Why not hire a proven market professional and get back to the profession that you love? MD Practice Consulting can help. Give us a call today at (877) 972-6372 for a free practice assessment.


Medical Practice Marketing

Marketing your medical practice is the key to successfully navigating difficult economic time and to competing against other practices in an effort to build a larger base of patients. Although medical practice advertising may seem unnatural at first, it’s important to realize that your practice is a business just like any other company. Getting the word out about your excellent products and services, therefore, is key to your future success.

There are outstanding partners that will join with you in marketing your medical practice. They will talk with you, see your business and work with you to formulate a medical practice advertising plan that is right for you. Several tactics that may include referral development programs, online marketing strategies, traditional external advertising and operational marketing methods will work together in a strategic plan that looks at ways to develop the entire practice from a marketing perspective.

Whether you operate a traditional physicians office, medical center,  or other health care organization, marketing your medical practice is important in order to stay relevant in the modern economy, especially with the major changes to the health care system that are coming about from recent federal legislation.

When looking for a medical practice advertising, be sure to find one that has a proven track record in the business that has the resources to operate full marketing campaigns, staffing workshops and business analysis to help make your medical practice more visible in the community and more profitable. Give MD Practice Consulting a call today at (877) 972-6372 to learn more about advertising your practice.


Marketing Your Medical Practice

MD Practice Consulting, Inc. is a medical marketing firm that goes far beyond what most comparable firms offer. Not only do we offer ideas for advertising and marketing your medical practice, but we are also true medical practice consultants. We will work hands on with your physicians and staff in any way necessary to grow your business and increase your medical practice revenue.

At MD Practice Consulting we are ready to help take healthcare organizations and medical practices to the next level. Whether it be discussing a medical marketing concern, an operational tracking issue, professional referral development strategies, or any other potential areas of opportunities for us to work together, we are here for you. For a free medical practice assessment and consultation call us today at (877) 972-6372.


Our Fuzzy Boundary with the Online World

by Bryan Vartabedian, MD

We like to see ourselves as online or offline but nowhere in between.  But the two have begun to overlap.  In 2009 I read Clay Shirky’s Here Comes Everybody.  At the time it didn’t impress me like it does now.  Here’s what he said:

The old view of online as a separate space, cyberspace, apart from the real world, is fading.  Our social media tools aren’t an alternative to real life, they’re part of it.  They are increasingly the coordinating tools for events in the physical world.”  – Clay Shirky

I’m more impressed now.

But ultimately we’ll stop talking about this line that divides analog and digital.  The connections between doctor and patient will move from IRL and episodic to online and more background.  The annual, one-point-in-time physical exam that traditionally marked our touch with the health care system (“doc listened to my heart.  Says I’m fine!”) will evolve into something closer to real-time monitoring of your body’s API – possibly by software systems, not doctors.  Unplugging, at least from this ambient monitoring, might become unrealistic, impossible, or against medical advice.

The duality is played out as good and evil:  Online is bad and offline is good.  Studies showcasing the dangers of doctors online are published in the world’s leading journals and echoed in media outlets.  But the ideas about what good can come out of our digital transition don’t fit what we think we already know about doctors online.

Fortunately, as the line separating online and off grows less distinct, the vilification of a doctor’s daily activity in the digital realm will wane.  It’ll ultimately all be one big space.

 From 33charts.com

http://33charts.com/2012/03/the-fuzzy-boundary.html

Posted: 3/29/2012


Will Things Really Get Worse for Doctors Online?

by Bryan Vartabedian, MD

The more I read the more warnings I hear about doctors online.  It seems that as more doctors interact online, the more problems we can expect to encounter.  According to authorities, things are about to get worse for all of us.  Imagine the clinical chaos we can expect come 2050.

Or maybe not.

The problem with this pessimistic view is what Matt Ridley has referred to asextrapolationism: the assumption that the future is just a bigger version of the past.  What’s bad now will be worse later.

But as history has taught us, the future is not simply an extension of the past.  We have a remarkable capacity to correct ourselves.

Going forward:

  • Doctors will learn from experience.
  • Digital professionalism will be part of every medical student’s curriculum
  • We’ll be smarter.

So pay no attention to the apocaholics who have hijacked the public discourse on doctors and social media.   And don’t expect the sky to fall any time soon.

 From 33charts.com

http://33charts.com/

Posted: 4/5/2012


Medical Marketing

As a medical doctor, you have a passion to help your patients. However, you also need your business to be profitable. If the profits from your medical practice have been decreasing, or if you just want suggestions for improvement, you can contact a medical practice consultant. There are many types of services available from a medical practice consultant. The consultant can work with you remotely via e-mail and phone calls. However, the consultant will be most effective if she visits your office and evaluates your routines and practices in-person. Make sure that you choose a consultant from a recognized firm, who has a reputation for excellence. One thing that many consultants note is that doctors do not invest enough money and/or effort into medical practice advertising. In today’s down economy, you might have to be creative with your advertising methods. It has been proven that word of mouth is one of the most effective forms of advertising, so you need to encourage your current patients to refer others.  You can also explore other methods of medical practice advertising. Consider purchasing ads in the local newspaper or in magazines. Make sure that the ads are colorful, professional and attention-grabbing. Some physicians have found great success by hosting open house events. During an open house, your office will be open to the public, and they have a chance to meet you and your staff in a relaxed setting.


Medical Marketing

Marketing is a vital part of creating a successful business. Even medical doctors need to properly market their business to bring in more customers. Without patients who come for treatment, it is not possible for a doctor’s practice to become successful. By working on methods of getting the name of the physician and his or her practice out to the public, it is possible to gain attention as a medical doctor. The first part of getting a doctor’s name out into the public is turning to a professional in marketing. Medical practice consulting is an excellent option for any doctor who is opening a new practice. The medical practice consulting firm or individual is a professional who specifically helps medical doctors with their business development, physician referrals and direct marketing. By hiring the firm, the marketing becomes much easier because they are aware of the various options to bring in more patients. Physician marketing ideas should never stop with just consulting a professional. Doctors should also come up with new marketing ideas and help the consultant pick out physician marketing ideas that relate to a particular doctor. Marketing a doctor’s strengths and particular special abilities is a key part of bringing in more customers. A medical practice is a type of business and it is important for all doctors to recognize this fact and work on marketing their company. Only through marketing with a professional team of consultants and finding marketing ideas is it possible to gain enough attention to create a successful medical practice.


Patient-Friendly Websites

Physicians and hospitals must make websites more patient-friendly, study says

Pamela Lewis Dolan

If physicians are planning to launch a new website or revamp an old one, a study says they’re better off not looking at other medical sites for inspiration — especially on how to write or present their content.

A study in the January/February issue of the Journal of Healthcare Management looked at what makes an effective website and measured how some of the nation’s hospitals and health systems are doing.

Consumers compare health system websites with other consumer sites such as Amazon and eBay, according to the report. That comparison can influence perceptions of the health organizations.

The study examined elements that contribute to a good website user experience, including accessibility, content, marketing and technology. Researchers analyzed 636 websites listed in the American Hospital Assn. directory. They used a webcrawler to assess the websites’ ability to be found on a search engine. The researchers used weighted, multi-item scales to assess each element based on current benchmarks. Websites were graded on each element, then an overall score was calculated.

The accessibility scale assessed ease of use; the content scale assessed overall quality of the content; the marketing scale assessed how readily information is found using search engines; and the technology scale looked at how well each site was designed.

Of all the elements that make a good consumer experience, accessibility is especially relevant to health care organizations, said Eric Ford, PhD, a study author and professor of business at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. The study said accessibility is often lacking on health organization websites.

Health care organization websites need to reach as many people as possible, the study said. This means the content should be accessible to those with low computer literacy levels as well as those who have physical disabilities that limit their ability to use a mouse or who use nonstandard browsers.

“Given the service domain in health care, the issue of accessibility is all the more important,” the study’s authors wrote.

Ford said the general rule for most consumer sites is to write at an 11th-grade reading level. The study’s analysis found that many hospital sites write to a graduate degree level, he said.

He said many health care organization sites use jargon-heavy language that the average person has a hard time understanding. For example, some websites have data related to ventilator-acquired pneumonia, but they used only the acronym. Or they used “nosocomial infections” instead of the more understandable term “hospital-acquired infections.”

“While it makes sense to those of us who work in the field day in and day out, to the average person just trying to figure out what’s going on, it requires a fair amount of health care-specific knowledge and probably not where we need to be on the front page of most hospital websites,” Ford said.

The report notes that as more organizations serve as accountable care organizations, the accessibility of their websites will be even more important.

“If organizations are to serve as ACOs, then it stands to reason that consumers are going to use their websites as a portal to their personal health record as a means to coordinate care and as a tool for assessing provider quality,” the report said.

In general, Ford said, hospitals and health systems have “good, not great websites.” But they are gradually improving and have shown gains from a similar analysis a year ago, he said. Two areas he suspects will present challenges during the next few years are social media and quality reporting on the websites.

The importance of social media is growing, the report said.

“The absence of a Twitter account usually indicates that a website has no following in the social media domain,” the authors wrote. Ford said several organizations had Twitter feeds or Facebook pages, but they were very limited and not drawing much Web traffic.

From amednews.com

http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2012/03/05/bisb0305.htm 

Posted: 3/5/2012


Medical Practice Consulting

As a medical doctor, you have a passion to help your patients. However, you also need your business to be profitable. If the profits from your medical practice have been decreasing, or if you just want suggestions for improvement, you can contact a medical practice consultant. There are many types of services available from a medical practice consultant. The consultant can work with you remotely via e-mail and phone calls. However, the consultant will be most effective if she visits your office and evaluates your routines and practices in-person. Make sure that you choose a consultant from a recognized firm, who has a reputation for excellence. One thing that many consultants note is that doctors do not put enough money and effort into medical practice advertising, often looking at it as a cost instead of an investment. In today’s down economy, you might have to be creative with your advertising methods. It has been proven that word of mouth is one of the most effective forms of advertising, so you need to encourage your current patients to refer others. You can also explore other methods of medical practice advertising. Consider purchasing ads in the local newspaper or in magazines. Make sure that the ads are colorful, professional and attention-grabbing. Some physicians have found great success by hosting open house events. During an open house, your office will be open to the public, and they have a chance to meet you and your staff in a relaxed setting.


Marketing Your Medical Practice

In today’s increasing competition for patients, a medical practice needs to do more than open the doors and hope patients will come. Most mid-size towns and larger have any number of general and specialize care facilities. In marketing your medical practice, you need to reach out to your potential patients, be accessible and become visible to the community. Begin with a plan of marketing ideas for your medical practice. Include the focus for your practice, the type of patients you wish to serve and where these potential patients look for information. Profile your practice and your patients to narrow down what type of practice you plan to have. Some people still get most of their information from the print media or from television. Others receive their information from social networking. Use the Media Positive stories assist in marketing physician practices. Marketing ideas for medical practices include regular press releases about your practice. Shares stories about opening, hiring new physicians, using new or updated technologies and human interest stories about staff members. Send in media features about charity donations, giving free physicals, doing medical work oversees or in areas in the US that have been devastated by weather or accidents. Giving the media reasons for doing stories helps in marketing your medical practice. Be accessible. Use email and social networking as an aid in marketing physician practices. Highlight your practice on social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Make sure patients can contact someone from your office at any time, and keeping in touch with email adds a personal touch.


MD Practice Consulting Provides Practical Marketing Ideas for Medical Practices

Author

MD Practice Consulting, Inc.

From Webwire.com

MD Practice Consulting Provides Practical Marketing Ideas for Medical Practices

Posted: 1/23/12

When every healthcare dollar is carefully scrutinized before spending, marketing your medical practice can be a daunting task. With so many rules, regulations and risks, marketing physician practices can actually be quite a chore.

Strength in Numbers
Attempting to totally “go it alone” generally results in frustration, confusion and endless complications. Knowing where to look for marketing ideas for medical practices and, just as importantly, knowing which ones will prove to be the most profitable investment, is the secret to success. Most of the time, the answer is to join forces with an established marketing firm that intimately understands the unique concerns and goals of the medical practice community.

Full-Spectrum Services
This means creating comprehensive campaigns that encompass all of the areas that matter, ranging from branding and identity, creative and graphic design, direct marketing, external marketing, internal marketing, Internet marketing, print ads, professional development and public relations.

Niche Specialization
Furthermore, MD Practice Consulting Inc. has also branched out to include specialized services regarding social media marketing, SEO, video marketing and even basic website development for those who are truly in the infant stages of their business idea – all with a keen, insider insight into the particular needs of those in the physician and otherwise medical practice sector.