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Your patients are talking: Isn’t it time you take responsibility for your online reputation?
In a web-focused world, it should not take much convincing that monitoring your online reputation is time well spent. For some of us, it may be hard to believe that online reviews have evolved beyond restaurants and plumbers, but today your patients are flocking to the Internet to read and leave reviews about you, your staff, and your services. What can you do to protect your online reputation?
We first addressed this topic in December 2014 (“Using the Internet in your practice. Part 4: Reputation management—how to gather kudos and combat negative online reviews”1). Have you implemented any of the tactics we offered then? We hope that you do take proactive steps to protect your online image.
What is a physician’s most precious asset?
You might answer this question with, “my patients” or “the training and education that I have obtained to practice my craft.” But the real answer is that your most precious asset is your reputation.
Physicians live and die by their reputations. We spend our entire medical careers polishing and protecting this status. The Internet dramatically has altered the way people gather information. It is sad but true that a single comment that only takes a few seconds and a single mouse-click to post can be seen by thousands and ruin that life-long effort.
How are physicians rated on the web?
Online physician reviews are positive 70% to 90% of the time.2 Most physicians have 5 or fewer reviews on any one site.3 Of the approximately 30 sites that monitor physicians and hospitals online, one of the most popular is AngiesList.com. This site requires registration and a fee; a member can review a physician every 6 months. On free websites such as Yelp.com and doctorsscorecard.com the reviewer can comment once. Other sites such as vitals.com or DrScore.com limit the reviews from 1 source, which prevents an angry patient from stuffing the ballot box.2
Pay attention
At a minimum, physicians should be monitoring their reputation by conducting periodic searches—“Googling” their name and practice name—to identify what information is already online. You may find that 3, 4, or even 10 reviews appear on various sites. If you are lucky, these reviews will be positive. Don’t be surprised, however, if 1 or 2 are not. Let’s face it: even the most accredited and experienced physician cannot possibly satisfy every patient who walks through the door.
Neil Baum, MD, and Ron Romano have offered tips on ways to manage online reputations in the past,1 and they urge Ob-Gyns to take an active role in this process in order to increase positive exposure to patients and maintain an active practice. Is active reputation management something that ObGyns are spending their valuable time on? To find out, OBG Management reached out to its Virtual Editorial Board. We found that many readers are paying attention to patient satisfaction. Some are soliciting online reviews and maintaining active upkeep on their online reputation. Here are a few responses we received from practicing ObGyns across the United States.
William E. McGrath Jr, MD, of Fernandina Beach, Florida, says that his office provides patients with a list of 5 popular review websites during their visits, and that approximately 1 in 10 will follow up with a review. Patient reviews are also prominently posted on his practice’s website. The large, private, single-specialty group to which his practice belongs requires patient satisfaction surveys for quality assurance review and insurance contract negotiations. “It is all about physician-patient communication,” he says.
Keith S. Merlin, MD, of Brockton, Massachusetts, says that he has checked online reviews to ensure their accuracy. His practice uses surveys, a suggestion box, and a mystery shopper to measure patient satisfaction, a worthwhile effort he says to understand where the practice is doing well and what needs to be done better.
Wesley Hambright, MD, of Jacksonville, North Carolina, reports that he has established a Google Alert to monitor for new content relating to his practice.
Patrick Pevoto, MD, MBA, of Austin, Texas, informs us that he has just started to think about ways to manage his online reputation. He has created a website and is writing a monthly blog, which he posts on his site. He acknowledges the importance of assessing patient satisfaction in his practice but is not applying large-scale measurement techniques yet. To keep his patients happy, he handles concerns that arise on a personal, case-by-case basis.
John Armstrong, MD, MS, of Napa, California, also reports that management of his online reputation is in the beginning stages. He uses focus groups and feels that listening to his patients when they do comment on their experience is important to his overall practice. Listening helps to “identify areas to improve and reaffirms when we are doing well,” he says. To keep his patients happy, he strives to “give extraordinary care and simply be nice to people.” When issues arise, making it right and being polite are important elements, he asserts.
Delos J. Clow, DO, MS, of Chillicothe, Missouri, does measure patient satisfaction, and feels this is very important to his practice in order to identify and correct any negative trends. He does not actively monitor his practice reputation online.
Robert del Rosario, MD, of Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, similarly does not actively manage an online reputation, but does focus on patient satisfaction. To enhance satisfaction, he tries to de-emphasize the electronic medical record to “make visits more personal and less interrogative.” Additionally, his practice objectively gauges aspects of care that might be able to be improved upon.
Reference
- Romano R, Baum NH. Using the Internet in your practice. Part 4: Reputation management—how to gather kudos and combat negative online reviews. OBG Manag. 2014;26(12):23,24,26,28.
Tell your own story
As physicians, you may not have control over what others say about you, but you can take ownership of your online presence by establishing a website, blog, and social media platforms, ensuring your story is being properly communicated. Without an online presence, you are entirely at the mercy of directory and review sites.
Optimize your website
A site that successfully uses search engine optimization (SEO) will have the upper hand when patients hunt for a physician in your area because the information will be posted at the top of the search page, well above the reviews and listings left by patients and other third-party sources. This is a critical step for your online brand because it will be difficult for other sites to mask your credibility. This should motivate you to develop an online presence, regularly update information, and participate in Internet dialog with other sites.
Generate quality, natural reviews
If your site is in good standing in search results, the next step is to implement a patient reviews strategy to start acquiring positive online reviews. A third-party provider can work with you to launch a local search engine optimization strategy and a natural reviews management program tailored for your practice’s needs. For the most part, however, we do not recommend using an online reputation management company. It is far better and more economical to ask satisfied patients to provide reviews.
At first, you may be tempted to actively petition or solicit reviews through survey software, but this method is manipulative and can lead to reputation problems for your practice. Google actively tracks where reviews originate and uses advanced algorithms to determine the review’s integrity. A petitioned review is classified as less valid, and therefore Google will assume it was not written under the same pretense as a natural, unsolicited review.
Quality customer service and outstanding patient care are often what achieve the organic reviews you are striving for. To encourage a steady flow, administer a process that encourages your most satisfied, loyal patients to review your practice.
Keep the process simple. Capture positive compliments at the point of service. Before a patient leaves your office, hand her a card (FIGURE) with easy steps for posting an online review, or offer her a tablet that links directly to your website review section. If your patient is not computer savvy, ask her to complete a 4- to 5-question survey and give her a clipboard and a pen. Then have a staff member post it on your website.
In Dr. Baum’s practice, there is a poster in every exam room and in the reception area where patients can scan the quick response (QR) code and immediately submit a testimonial. Using this system, the practice is able to collect 3 to 5 positive reviews every day.
A patient pleased with your staff’s service will happily take 5 minutes to submit a review. Acquire 5 to 10 reviews monthly and within a year’s time you will have generated enough positive reviews to negate any damaging comments that inevitably will emerge from time to time.
CASE Patient criticizes physician in a review forum
A physician with a robust Internet presence will have his or her name and the practice appear at the top of search engine results pages (as is the case with Dr. Neil Baum when “urologist” plus “New Orleans” is typed into the Google search engine window). By far most of Dr. Baum’s reviews are positive. In one instance, however, a patient on a physician review website referred to Dr. Baum as “technologically advanced but more motivated to increase his income by performing too many diagnostic tests.”
If you find a negative comment in an online directory or review website, what should you do?
The Office for Civil Rights (OCR) within the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is responsible for handling Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA)1 complaints. Deven McGraw, OCR’s deputy director of health information privacy, states that “just because patients have rated their health provider publicly doesn’t give their health provider permission to rate them in return.”2,3 In fact, some health care providers who responded to poor online reviews ran into trouble with privacy rules established by HIPAA.2,3
Mr. McGraw notes that, when responding to online reviews, health professionals should speak generally about the way they treat patients while complying with HIPAA regulations. He suggests, “If the complaint is about poor patient care … say, ‘I provide all of my patients with good patient care’ and ‘I’ve been reviewed in other contexts and have good reviews.’”2,3
According to Yelp’s senior director of litigation, Aaron Schur, most patient complaints center on practice-based concerns such as wait times, office staff, and billing, not about the medical service delivered. Although most physicians do not respond, says Mr. Schur, those who do, tend to ask patients to discuss the matter in private or to apologize.2,3
What are the consequences of a HIPAA violation?
OCR Director Jocelyn Samuels says that the office’s primary role is to help health providers follow HIPAA regulations.2,5 The OCR can resolve HIPPA violations privately and informally, impose fines of up to $50,000 per violation, or it can file criminal charges against violators.2,4
The majority of the office’s investigation and enforcement of HIPAA has been against large medical data breaches.2,5 Small privacy breaches by large health care providers (eg, CVS, Walmart, Lab Corp, Quest Diagnostics, and others) generally do not result in legal consequences; the providers are privately warned. According to ProPublica, even repeated HIPAA violations tend not to be fined.2,4
Small-scale infractions can be more damaging on a personal level to both patients and physicians. However, the OCR does not typically become involved in privacy breaches that include only a few individuals. Health care providers are rarely punished for small HIPPA breaches; instead, the OCR typically settles for pledges to fix any problems and issues reminders of HIPPA requirements.2,5
Although the OCR is often the only place patients can go to seek vindication, HIPAA does not support the right to sue for violation of personal privacy. People who seek a legal remedy must find another means, which is easier in some states than in others.2,5
Health care providers have tried myriad ways to attempt to combat negative reviews. Some have sued patients, attracting a flood of attention but achieving little legal success. Others have asked patients to remove their complaints.2,3
Best practices
Create and circulate a policy. Medical privacy breaches involving sensitive health details can occur when office or hospital staff share patient information due to personal hostility or lack of understanding of HIPPA policy.2,5 Have a practice policy for responding to online reviews by patients, and make sure the staff members who have access to the practice’s online accounts understand your policy and the possible repercussions of not following it. Teach and continue to remind your staff about HIPPA regulations and hold them to a high ethical level of privacy.
Solicit reviews on an ongoing basis. Jeffrey Segal, a review site critic, says that all reviews are valuable. Physicians should respond carefully to negative comments and encourage satisfied patients to post positive reviews. “’For doctors who get bent out of shape to get rid of negative reviews, it’s a denominator problem,’ he said. ‘If they only have three reviews and two are negative, the denominator is the problem. … If you can figure out a way to cultivate reviews from hundreds of patients rather than a few patients, the problem is solved.’”2,3
CASE Resolved
Dr. Baum never responded directly to the negative patient review, and others he has received. He balances the rare negative response with numerous and plentiful positive responses by making it a practice to encourage reviews from all of his patients.
References
- HIPAA for Professionals. US Department of Health & Human Services. http://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-professionals/index.html. Accessed October 11, 2016.
- Hall SD. Providers responding to Yelp reviews must be mindful of HIPAA. FierceHealthcare. http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/it/providers-responding-to-yelp-reviews-must-be-mindful-hipaa. Published May 31, 2016. Accessed October 7, 2016.
- Ornstein C. Stung by Yelp reviews, health providers spill patient secrets. ProPublica. https://www.propublica.org/article/stung-by-yelp-reviews-health -providers-spill-patient-secrets. Published May 27, 2016. Accessed October 11, 2016.
- Ornstein C, Waldman A. Few consequences for health privacy law’s repeat offenders. ProPublica. https://www.propublica.org/article/few-consequences-for-health-privacy-law-repeat-offenders. Published December 29, 2015. Accessed October 11, 2016.
- Ornstein C. Small-scale violations of medical privacy often cause the most harm. ProPublica. https://www.propublica.org/article/small-scale-violations-of-medical-privacy-often-cause-the-most-harm. Published December 10, 2015. Accessed October 11, 2016.
The bottom line
Patients are seeking and leaving reviews about you and your practice online and you need to actively manage your online reputation. Do not let one disgruntled patient ruin your reputation. Our advice: Do not wait for a negative review to begin your reputation management. Take an active role and generate positive reviews to drown out negative remarks made by an occasional patient. This is an inexpensive process that does work.
Share your thoughts! Send your Letter to the Editor to rbarbieri@frontlinemedcom.com. Please include your name and the city and state in which you practice.
- Romano R, Baum NH. Using the Internet in your practice. Part 4: Reputation management-how to gather kudos and combat negative online reviews. OBG Manag. 2014;26(12):23,24,26,28.
- Lagu T, Hannon NS, Rothberg MB, Lindenauer PK. Patients' evaluations of health care providers in the era of social networking: an analysis of physician rating websites. J Gen Intern Med. 2010;25(9):942-946.
- Gunter J. For better or maybe, worse, patients are judging your care online. OBG Manag. 2011;23(3):47-51.
The authors report no financial relationships relevant to this article.
The authors report no financial relationships relevant to this article.
The authors report no financial relationships relevant to this article.
In a web-focused world, it should not take much convincing that monitoring your online reputation is time well spent. For some of us, it may be hard to believe that online reviews have evolved beyond restaurants and plumbers, but today your patients are flocking to the Internet to read and leave reviews about you, your staff, and your services. What can you do to protect your online reputation?
We first addressed this topic in December 2014 (“Using the Internet in your practice. Part 4: Reputation management—how to gather kudos and combat negative online reviews”1). Have you implemented any of the tactics we offered then? We hope that you do take proactive steps to protect your online image.
What is a physician’s most precious asset?
You might answer this question with, “my patients” or “the training and education that I have obtained to practice my craft.” But the real answer is that your most precious asset is your reputation.
Physicians live and die by their reputations. We spend our entire medical careers polishing and protecting this status. The Internet dramatically has altered the way people gather information. It is sad but true that a single comment that only takes a few seconds and a single mouse-click to post can be seen by thousands and ruin that life-long effort.
How are physicians rated on the web?
Online physician reviews are positive 70% to 90% of the time.2 Most physicians have 5 or fewer reviews on any one site.3 Of the approximately 30 sites that monitor physicians and hospitals online, one of the most popular is AngiesList.com. This site requires registration and a fee; a member can review a physician every 6 months. On free websites such as Yelp.com and doctorsscorecard.com the reviewer can comment once. Other sites such as vitals.com or DrScore.com limit the reviews from 1 source, which prevents an angry patient from stuffing the ballot box.2
Pay attention
At a minimum, physicians should be monitoring their reputation by conducting periodic searches—“Googling” their name and practice name—to identify what information is already online. You may find that 3, 4, or even 10 reviews appear on various sites. If you are lucky, these reviews will be positive. Don’t be surprised, however, if 1 or 2 are not. Let’s face it: even the most accredited and experienced physician cannot possibly satisfy every patient who walks through the door.
Neil Baum, MD, and Ron Romano have offered tips on ways to manage online reputations in the past,1 and they urge Ob-Gyns to take an active role in this process in order to increase positive exposure to patients and maintain an active practice. Is active reputation management something that ObGyns are spending their valuable time on? To find out, OBG Management reached out to its Virtual Editorial Board. We found that many readers are paying attention to patient satisfaction. Some are soliciting online reviews and maintaining active upkeep on their online reputation. Here are a few responses we received from practicing ObGyns across the United States.
William E. McGrath Jr, MD, of Fernandina Beach, Florida, says that his office provides patients with a list of 5 popular review websites during their visits, and that approximately 1 in 10 will follow up with a review. Patient reviews are also prominently posted on his practice’s website. The large, private, single-specialty group to which his practice belongs requires patient satisfaction surveys for quality assurance review and insurance contract negotiations. “It is all about physician-patient communication,” he says.
Keith S. Merlin, MD, of Brockton, Massachusetts, says that he has checked online reviews to ensure their accuracy. His practice uses surveys, a suggestion box, and a mystery shopper to measure patient satisfaction, a worthwhile effort he says to understand where the practice is doing well and what needs to be done better.
Wesley Hambright, MD, of Jacksonville, North Carolina, reports that he has established a Google Alert to monitor for new content relating to his practice.
Patrick Pevoto, MD, MBA, of Austin, Texas, informs us that he has just started to think about ways to manage his online reputation. He has created a website and is writing a monthly blog, which he posts on his site. He acknowledges the importance of assessing patient satisfaction in his practice but is not applying large-scale measurement techniques yet. To keep his patients happy, he handles concerns that arise on a personal, case-by-case basis.
John Armstrong, MD, MS, of Napa, California, also reports that management of his online reputation is in the beginning stages. He uses focus groups and feels that listening to his patients when they do comment on their experience is important to his overall practice. Listening helps to “identify areas to improve and reaffirms when we are doing well,” he says. To keep his patients happy, he strives to “give extraordinary care and simply be nice to people.” When issues arise, making it right and being polite are important elements, he asserts.
Delos J. Clow, DO, MS, of Chillicothe, Missouri, does measure patient satisfaction, and feels this is very important to his practice in order to identify and correct any negative trends. He does not actively monitor his practice reputation online.
Robert del Rosario, MD, of Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, similarly does not actively manage an online reputation, but does focus on patient satisfaction. To enhance satisfaction, he tries to de-emphasize the electronic medical record to “make visits more personal and less interrogative.” Additionally, his practice objectively gauges aspects of care that might be able to be improved upon.
Reference
- Romano R, Baum NH. Using the Internet in your practice. Part 4: Reputation management—how to gather kudos and combat negative online reviews. OBG Manag. 2014;26(12):23,24,26,28.
Tell your own story
As physicians, you may not have control over what others say about you, but you can take ownership of your online presence by establishing a website, blog, and social media platforms, ensuring your story is being properly communicated. Without an online presence, you are entirely at the mercy of directory and review sites.
Optimize your website
A site that successfully uses search engine optimization (SEO) will have the upper hand when patients hunt for a physician in your area because the information will be posted at the top of the search page, well above the reviews and listings left by patients and other third-party sources. This is a critical step for your online brand because it will be difficult for other sites to mask your credibility. This should motivate you to develop an online presence, regularly update information, and participate in Internet dialog with other sites.
Generate quality, natural reviews
If your site is in good standing in search results, the next step is to implement a patient reviews strategy to start acquiring positive online reviews. A third-party provider can work with you to launch a local search engine optimization strategy and a natural reviews management program tailored for your practice’s needs. For the most part, however, we do not recommend using an online reputation management company. It is far better and more economical to ask satisfied patients to provide reviews.
At first, you may be tempted to actively petition or solicit reviews through survey software, but this method is manipulative and can lead to reputation problems for your practice. Google actively tracks where reviews originate and uses advanced algorithms to determine the review’s integrity. A petitioned review is classified as less valid, and therefore Google will assume it was not written under the same pretense as a natural, unsolicited review.
Quality customer service and outstanding patient care are often what achieve the organic reviews you are striving for. To encourage a steady flow, administer a process that encourages your most satisfied, loyal patients to review your practice.
Keep the process simple. Capture positive compliments at the point of service. Before a patient leaves your office, hand her a card (FIGURE) with easy steps for posting an online review, or offer her a tablet that links directly to your website review section. If your patient is not computer savvy, ask her to complete a 4- to 5-question survey and give her a clipboard and a pen. Then have a staff member post it on your website.
In Dr. Baum’s practice, there is a poster in every exam room and in the reception area where patients can scan the quick response (QR) code and immediately submit a testimonial. Using this system, the practice is able to collect 3 to 5 positive reviews every day.
A patient pleased with your staff’s service will happily take 5 minutes to submit a review. Acquire 5 to 10 reviews monthly and within a year’s time you will have generated enough positive reviews to negate any damaging comments that inevitably will emerge from time to time.
CASE Patient criticizes physician in a review forum
A physician with a robust Internet presence will have his or her name and the practice appear at the top of search engine results pages (as is the case with Dr. Neil Baum when “urologist” plus “New Orleans” is typed into the Google search engine window). By far most of Dr. Baum’s reviews are positive. In one instance, however, a patient on a physician review website referred to Dr. Baum as “technologically advanced but more motivated to increase his income by performing too many diagnostic tests.”
If you find a negative comment in an online directory or review website, what should you do?
The Office for Civil Rights (OCR) within the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is responsible for handling Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA)1 complaints. Deven McGraw, OCR’s deputy director of health information privacy, states that “just because patients have rated their health provider publicly doesn’t give their health provider permission to rate them in return.”2,3 In fact, some health care providers who responded to poor online reviews ran into trouble with privacy rules established by HIPAA.2,3
Mr. McGraw notes that, when responding to online reviews, health professionals should speak generally about the way they treat patients while complying with HIPAA regulations. He suggests, “If the complaint is about poor patient care … say, ‘I provide all of my patients with good patient care’ and ‘I’ve been reviewed in other contexts and have good reviews.’”2,3
According to Yelp’s senior director of litigation, Aaron Schur, most patient complaints center on practice-based concerns such as wait times, office staff, and billing, not about the medical service delivered. Although most physicians do not respond, says Mr. Schur, those who do, tend to ask patients to discuss the matter in private or to apologize.2,3
What are the consequences of a HIPAA violation?
OCR Director Jocelyn Samuels says that the office’s primary role is to help health providers follow HIPAA regulations.2,5 The OCR can resolve HIPPA violations privately and informally, impose fines of up to $50,000 per violation, or it can file criminal charges against violators.2,4
The majority of the office’s investigation and enforcement of HIPAA has been against large medical data breaches.2,5 Small privacy breaches by large health care providers (eg, CVS, Walmart, Lab Corp, Quest Diagnostics, and others) generally do not result in legal consequences; the providers are privately warned. According to ProPublica, even repeated HIPAA violations tend not to be fined.2,4
Small-scale infractions can be more damaging on a personal level to both patients and physicians. However, the OCR does not typically become involved in privacy breaches that include only a few individuals. Health care providers are rarely punished for small HIPPA breaches; instead, the OCR typically settles for pledges to fix any problems and issues reminders of HIPPA requirements.2,5
Although the OCR is often the only place patients can go to seek vindication, HIPAA does not support the right to sue for violation of personal privacy. People who seek a legal remedy must find another means, which is easier in some states than in others.2,5
Health care providers have tried myriad ways to attempt to combat negative reviews. Some have sued patients, attracting a flood of attention but achieving little legal success. Others have asked patients to remove their complaints.2,3
Best practices
Create and circulate a policy. Medical privacy breaches involving sensitive health details can occur when office or hospital staff share patient information due to personal hostility or lack of understanding of HIPPA policy.2,5 Have a practice policy for responding to online reviews by patients, and make sure the staff members who have access to the practice’s online accounts understand your policy and the possible repercussions of not following it. Teach and continue to remind your staff about HIPPA regulations and hold them to a high ethical level of privacy.
Solicit reviews on an ongoing basis. Jeffrey Segal, a review site critic, says that all reviews are valuable. Physicians should respond carefully to negative comments and encourage satisfied patients to post positive reviews. “’For doctors who get bent out of shape to get rid of negative reviews, it’s a denominator problem,’ he said. ‘If they only have three reviews and two are negative, the denominator is the problem. … If you can figure out a way to cultivate reviews from hundreds of patients rather than a few patients, the problem is solved.’”2,3
CASE Resolved
Dr. Baum never responded directly to the negative patient review, and others he has received. He balances the rare negative response with numerous and plentiful positive responses by making it a practice to encourage reviews from all of his patients.
References
- HIPAA for Professionals. US Department of Health & Human Services. http://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-professionals/index.html. Accessed October 11, 2016.
- Hall SD. Providers responding to Yelp reviews must be mindful of HIPAA. FierceHealthcare. http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/it/providers-responding-to-yelp-reviews-must-be-mindful-hipaa. Published May 31, 2016. Accessed October 7, 2016.
- Ornstein C. Stung by Yelp reviews, health providers spill patient secrets. ProPublica. https://www.propublica.org/article/stung-by-yelp-reviews-health -providers-spill-patient-secrets. Published May 27, 2016. Accessed October 11, 2016.
- Ornstein C, Waldman A. Few consequences for health privacy law’s repeat offenders. ProPublica. https://www.propublica.org/article/few-consequences-for-health-privacy-law-repeat-offenders. Published December 29, 2015. Accessed October 11, 2016.
- Ornstein C. Small-scale violations of medical privacy often cause the most harm. ProPublica. https://www.propublica.org/article/small-scale-violations-of-medical-privacy-often-cause-the-most-harm. Published December 10, 2015. Accessed October 11, 2016.
The bottom line
Patients are seeking and leaving reviews about you and your practice online and you need to actively manage your online reputation. Do not let one disgruntled patient ruin your reputation. Our advice: Do not wait for a negative review to begin your reputation management. Take an active role and generate positive reviews to drown out negative remarks made by an occasional patient. This is an inexpensive process that does work.
Share your thoughts! Send your Letter to the Editor to rbarbieri@frontlinemedcom.com. Please include your name and the city and state in which you practice.
In a web-focused world, it should not take much convincing that monitoring your online reputation is time well spent. For some of us, it may be hard to believe that online reviews have evolved beyond restaurants and plumbers, but today your patients are flocking to the Internet to read and leave reviews about you, your staff, and your services. What can you do to protect your online reputation?
We first addressed this topic in December 2014 (“Using the Internet in your practice. Part 4: Reputation management—how to gather kudos and combat negative online reviews”1). Have you implemented any of the tactics we offered then? We hope that you do take proactive steps to protect your online image.
What is a physician’s most precious asset?
You might answer this question with, “my patients” or “the training and education that I have obtained to practice my craft.” But the real answer is that your most precious asset is your reputation.
Physicians live and die by their reputations. We spend our entire medical careers polishing and protecting this status. The Internet dramatically has altered the way people gather information. It is sad but true that a single comment that only takes a few seconds and a single mouse-click to post can be seen by thousands and ruin that life-long effort.
How are physicians rated on the web?
Online physician reviews are positive 70% to 90% of the time.2 Most physicians have 5 or fewer reviews on any one site.3 Of the approximately 30 sites that monitor physicians and hospitals online, one of the most popular is AngiesList.com. This site requires registration and a fee; a member can review a physician every 6 months. On free websites such as Yelp.com and doctorsscorecard.com the reviewer can comment once. Other sites such as vitals.com or DrScore.com limit the reviews from 1 source, which prevents an angry patient from stuffing the ballot box.2
Pay attention
At a minimum, physicians should be monitoring their reputation by conducting periodic searches—“Googling” their name and practice name—to identify what information is already online. You may find that 3, 4, or even 10 reviews appear on various sites. If you are lucky, these reviews will be positive. Don’t be surprised, however, if 1 or 2 are not. Let’s face it: even the most accredited and experienced physician cannot possibly satisfy every patient who walks through the door.
Neil Baum, MD, and Ron Romano have offered tips on ways to manage online reputations in the past,1 and they urge Ob-Gyns to take an active role in this process in order to increase positive exposure to patients and maintain an active practice. Is active reputation management something that ObGyns are spending their valuable time on? To find out, OBG Management reached out to its Virtual Editorial Board. We found that many readers are paying attention to patient satisfaction. Some are soliciting online reviews and maintaining active upkeep on their online reputation. Here are a few responses we received from practicing ObGyns across the United States.
William E. McGrath Jr, MD, of Fernandina Beach, Florida, says that his office provides patients with a list of 5 popular review websites during their visits, and that approximately 1 in 10 will follow up with a review. Patient reviews are also prominently posted on his practice’s website. The large, private, single-specialty group to which his practice belongs requires patient satisfaction surveys for quality assurance review and insurance contract negotiations. “It is all about physician-patient communication,” he says.
Keith S. Merlin, MD, of Brockton, Massachusetts, says that he has checked online reviews to ensure their accuracy. His practice uses surveys, a suggestion box, and a mystery shopper to measure patient satisfaction, a worthwhile effort he says to understand where the practice is doing well and what needs to be done better.
Wesley Hambright, MD, of Jacksonville, North Carolina, reports that he has established a Google Alert to monitor for new content relating to his practice.
Patrick Pevoto, MD, MBA, of Austin, Texas, informs us that he has just started to think about ways to manage his online reputation. He has created a website and is writing a monthly blog, which he posts on his site. He acknowledges the importance of assessing patient satisfaction in his practice but is not applying large-scale measurement techniques yet. To keep his patients happy, he handles concerns that arise on a personal, case-by-case basis.
John Armstrong, MD, MS, of Napa, California, also reports that management of his online reputation is in the beginning stages. He uses focus groups and feels that listening to his patients when they do comment on their experience is important to his overall practice. Listening helps to “identify areas to improve and reaffirms when we are doing well,” he says. To keep his patients happy, he strives to “give extraordinary care and simply be nice to people.” When issues arise, making it right and being polite are important elements, he asserts.
Delos J. Clow, DO, MS, of Chillicothe, Missouri, does measure patient satisfaction, and feels this is very important to his practice in order to identify and correct any negative trends. He does not actively monitor his practice reputation online.
Robert del Rosario, MD, of Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, similarly does not actively manage an online reputation, but does focus on patient satisfaction. To enhance satisfaction, he tries to de-emphasize the electronic medical record to “make visits more personal and less interrogative.” Additionally, his practice objectively gauges aspects of care that might be able to be improved upon.
Reference
- Romano R, Baum NH. Using the Internet in your practice. Part 4: Reputation management—how to gather kudos and combat negative online reviews. OBG Manag. 2014;26(12):23,24,26,28.
Tell your own story
As physicians, you may not have control over what others say about you, but you can take ownership of your online presence by establishing a website, blog, and social media platforms, ensuring your story is being properly communicated. Without an online presence, you are entirely at the mercy of directory and review sites.
Optimize your website
A site that successfully uses search engine optimization (SEO) will have the upper hand when patients hunt for a physician in your area because the information will be posted at the top of the search page, well above the reviews and listings left by patients and other third-party sources. This is a critical step for your online brand because it will be difficult for other sites to mask your credibility. This should motivate you to develop an online presence, regularly update information, and participate in Internet dialog with other sites.
Generate quality, natural reviews
If your site is in good standing in search results, the next step is to implement a patient reviews strategy to start acquiring positive online reviews. A third-party provider can work with you to launch a local search engine optimization strategy and a natural reviews management program tailored for your practice’s needs. For the most part, however, we do not recommend using an online reputation management company. It is far better and more economical to ask satisfied patients to provide reviews.
At first, you may be tempted to actively petition or solicit reviews through survey software, but this method is manipulative and can lead to reputation problems for your practice. Google actively tracks where reviews originate and uses advanced algorithms to determine the review’s integrity. A petitioned review is classified as less valid, and therefore Google will assume it was not written under the same pretense as a natural, unsolicited review.
Quality customer service and outstanding patient care are often what achieve the organic reviews you are striving for. To encourage a steady flow, administer a process that encourages your most satisfied, loyal patients to review your practice.
Keep the process simple. Capture positive compliments at the point of service. Before a patient leaves your office, hand her a card (FIGURE) with easy steps for posting an online review, or offer her a tablet that links directly to your website review section. If your patient is not computer savvy, ask her to complete a 4- to 5-question survey and give her a clipboard and a pen. Then have a staff member post it on your website.
In Dr. Baum’s practice, there is a poster in every exam room and in the reception area where patients can scan the quick response (QR) code and immediately submit a testimonial. Using this system, the practice is able to collect 3 to 5 positive reviews every day.
A patient pleased with your staff’s service will happily take 5 minutes to submit a review. Acquire 5 to 10 reviews monthly and within a year’s time you will have generated enough positive reviews to negate any damaging comments that inevitably will emerge from time to time.
CASE Patient criticizes physician in a review forum
A physician with a robust Internet presence will have his or her name and the practice appear at the top of search engine results pages (as is the case with Dr. Neil Baum when “urologist” plus “New Orleans” is typed into the Google search engine window). By far most of Dr. Baum’s reviews are positive. In one instance, however, a patient on a physician review website referred to Dr. Baum as “technologically advanced but more motivated to increase his income by performing too many diagnostic tests.”
If you find a negative comment in an online directory or review website, what should you do?
The Office for Civil Rights (OCR) within the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is responsible for handling Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA)1 complaints. Deven McGraw, OCR’s deputy director of health information privacy, states that “just because patients have rated their health provider publicly doesn’t give their health provider permission to rate them in return.”2,3 In fact, some health care providers who responded to poor online reviews ran into trouble with privacy rules established by HIPAA.2,3
Mr. McGraw notes that, when responding to online reviews, health professionals should speak generally about the way they treat patients while complying with HIPAA regulations. He suggests, “If the complaint is about poor patient care … say, ‘I provide all of my patients with good patient care’ and ‘I’ve been reviewed in other contexts and have good reviews.’”2,3
According to Yelp’s senior director of litigation, Aaron Schur, most patient complaints center on practice-based concerns such as wait times, office staff, and billing, not about the medical service delivered. Although most physicians do not respond, says Mr. Schur, those who do, tend to ask patients to discuss the matter in private or to apologize.2,3
What are the consequences of a HIPAA violation?
OCR Director Jocelyn Samuels says that the office’s primary role is to help health providers follow HIPAA regulations.2,5 The OCR can resolve HIPPA violations privately and informally, impose fines of up to $50,000 per violation, or it can file criminal charges against violators.2,4
The majority of the office’s investigation and enforcement of HIPAA has been against large medical data breaches.2,5 Small privacy breaches by large health care providers (eg, CVS, Walmart, Lab Corp, Quest Diagnostics, and others) generally do not result in legal consequences; the providers are privately warned. According to ProPublica, even repeated HIPAA violations tend not to be fined.2,4
Small-scale infractions can be more damaging on a personal level to both patients and physicians. However, the OCR does not typically become involved in privacy breaches that include only a few individuals. Health care providers are rarely punished for small HIPPA breaches; instead, the OCR typically settles for pledges to fix any problems and issues reminders of HIPPA requirements.2,5
Although the OCR is often the only place patients can go to seek vindication, HIPAA does not support the right to sue for violation of personal privacy. People who seek a legal remedy must find another means, which is easier in some states than in others.2,5
Health care providers have tried myriad ways to attempt to combat negative reviews. Some have sued patients, attracting a flood of attention but achieving little legal success. Others have asked patients to remove their complaints.2,3
Best practices
Create and circulate a policy. Medical privacy breaches involving sensitive health details can occur when office or hospital staff share patient information due to personal hostility or lack of understanding of HIPPA policy.2,5 Have a practice policy for responding to online reviews by patients, and make sure the staff members who have access to the practice’s online accounts understand your policy and the possible repercussions of not following it. Teach and continue to remind your staff about HIPPA regulations and hold them to a high ethical level of privacy.
Solicit reviews on an ongoing basis. Jeffrey Segal, a review site critic, says that all reviews are valuable. Physicians should respond carefully to negative comments and encourage satisfied patients to post positive reviews. “’For doctors who get bent out of shape to get rid of negative reviews, it’s a denominator problem,’ he said. ‘If they only have three reviews and two are negative, the denominator is the problem. … If you can figure out a way to cultivate reviews from hundreds of patients rather than a few patients, the problem is solved.’”2,3
CASE Resolved
Dr. Baum never responded directly to the negative patient review, and others he has received. He balances the rare negative response with numerous and plentiful positive responses by making it a practice to encourage reviews from all of his patients.
References
- HIPAA for Professionals. US Department of Health & Human Services. http://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-professionals/index.html. Accessed October 11, 2016.
- Hall SD. Providers responding to Yelp reviews must be mindful of HIPAA. FierceHealthcare. http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/it/providers-responding-to-yelp-reviews-must-be-mindful-hipaa. Published May 31, 2016. Accessed October 7, 2016.
- Ornstein C. Stung by Yelp reviews, health providers spill patient secrets. ProPublica. https://www.propublica.org/article/stung-by-yelp-reviews-health -providers-spill-patient-secrets. Published May 27, 2016. Accessed October 11, 2016.
- Ornstein C, Waldman A. Few consequences for health privacy law’s repeat offenders. ProPublica. https://www.propublica.org/article/few-consequences-for-health-privacy-law-repeat-offenders. Published December 29, 2015. Accessed October 11, 2016.
- Ornstein C. Small-scale violations of medical privacy often cause the most harm. ProPublica. https://www.propublica.org/article/small-scale-violations-of-medical-privacy-often-cause-the-most-harm. Published December 10, 2015. Accessed October 11, 2016.
The bottom line
Patients are seeking and leaving reviews about you and your practice online and you need to actively manage your online reputation. Do not let one disgruntled patient ruin your reputation. Our advice: Do not wait for a negative review to begin your reputation management. Take an active role and generate positive reviews to drown out negative remarks made by an occasional patient. This is an inexpensive process that does work.
Share your thoughts! Send your Letter to the Editor to rbarbieri@frontlinemedcom.com. Please include your name and the city and state in which you practice.
- Romano R, Baum NH. Using the Internet in your practice. Part 4: Reputation management-how to gather kudos and combat negative online reviews. OBG Manag. 2014;26(12):23,24,26,28.
- Lagu T, Hannon NS, Rothberg MB, Lindenauer PK. Patients' evaluations of health care providers in the era of social networking: an analysis of physician rating websites. J Gen Intern Med. 2010;25(9):942-946.
- Gunter J. For better or maybe, worse, patients are judging your care online. OBG Manag. 2011;23(3):47-51.
- Romano R, Baum NH. Using the Internet in your practice. Part 4: Reputation management-how to gather kudos and combat negative online reviews. OBG Manag. 2014;26(12):23,24,26,28.
- Lagu T, Hannon NS, Rothberg MB, Lindenauer PK. Patients' evaluations of health care providers in the era of social networking: an analysis of physician rating websites. J Gen Intern Med. 2010;25(9):942-946.
- Gunter J. For better or maybe, worse, patients are judging your care online. OBG Manag. 2011;23(3):47-51.
In this Article
- How your peers manage online reputation
- Should you respond to a negative review?
- Generate quality, natural reviews
4 technology tools ObGyns can apply in practice
Over the past 15 years a technological tsunami has swept through the health care industry, and few physicians were prepared for the changes wrought by this tidal wave. It now is clear, however, that we are and will have to continue to navigate a future increasingly powered and populated by technology if we are to be successful clinicians. In addition, we must learn to take advantage of all that technology has to offer without compromising the quality of care and compassion we offer our patients. We are fortunate that technology has much to offer to enhance patient care.
One big change under way: Technology is leveling the playing field between doctors—once the high priests of medicine—and ordinary people. SMART (social, mobile, aware, and real-time) technologies such as cloud computing will broaden the setting of health care interventions from hospital rooms and doctors’ offices to patients’ everyday lives. Cloud computing involves the use of a network of remote servers hosted on the Internet to store, manage, and process data, rather than a local server or a desktop computer located in the doctor’s office. It is possible that, instead of being episodic, health care will be conducted continuously—and anywhere the patient wants it.
Without a doubt, the pace at which new technology affects our lives is increasing at lightning speeds. Today, 29% of Americans say their phone is the first and the last thing they look at each day, a telling sign of how dependent we are becoming on technology.1 In this article, we look at 4 technologies that can be effective in the clinical setting, attracting new patients and enhancing productivity, communication, and patient care.
1. A mobile-friendly Web site
According to Wikipedia, there are 327,577,529 mobile phones in the United States, give or take a few thousand. As of July 4, 2014, the US population was 318,881,992. That means there are more mobile phones in this country than there are people!2
Mobile phones are becoming more like personal assistants than phones. People are not just making calls, they’re buying movie tickets, checking the weather, sending and receiving emails, texting, making reservations, checking Web sites … and the list goes on.
According to a recent report from the Pew Research Center, almost two-thirds of Americans own a smartphone, and 62% of smartphone owners have used it to look up information on a health condition.3 Moreover, 15% of smartphone owners say they have a limited number of ways to access the Internet other than their cell phone.3
All the more reason for your Web site to be mobile-friendly. With a mobile- friendly site, the content is displayed in a more streamlined fashion on mobile phones, with larger type to make it more readable. See, for example, the FIGURE, which shows Dr. Baum’s regular Web site side by side with the mobile-friendly view.
There is another reason why you should ensure that your site is mobile-friendly: Google recently changed its algorithms so that, when someone searches for information on a mobile phone, only mobile- friendly sites make it into the top search results. Google wants mobile phone users to have a positive experience online. It is so adamant about this desire that it will lower your rankings or not show your Web site at all in search results if you fail to comply.
New patient acquisition is critical for any ObGyn practice, and we already know that just about everyone goes online to search for health information and solutions to their medical problems. If you want your practice to survive and thrive, you need to attract new patients online. If a visitor to your site cannot read the text and has to keep resizing the screen and scrolling left and right, you will lose that visitor in a hurry.
We all want to find what we are looking for quickly. In our experience, when we check Google Analytics reports for our ObGyn clients, we find that visitors to a nonresponsive site spend much less time there and do not visit as many pages as they do when a site is mobile-responsive.
To check your Web site’s mobile rating, go to http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly. Google also offers tips on making your site mobile-friendly at https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6001177?hl=en.
Once your site is up to snuff, you should test it from multiple devices to ensure that the pages are easily readable on all types of phones and computers.
2. Voice recognition software
Speech recognition is the ability of a machine or program to identify words and phrases in spoken language and convert them to a digital format. This tool can help you generate clinical notes and charting without having to stop and type into a computer. This can enhance your interactions with patients by freeing you from the computer during examinations and counseling and allows you to look at the patient and not at the computer.
According to data from June 2000, approximately 5% of physicians used speech recognition to generate text in their offices.4 A white paper from 2008 found that approximately 20% of physicians are using more advanced, more reliable voice recognition technology and saving both time and money.5 This report cited 2007 data showing that:
- 76% of clinicians who used “desktop speech recognition” (directly controlling an electronic health record [EHR] system via speech) reported faster turnaround time, better patient care, and quicker reimbursement
- Nearly 30% reported lower costs and increased productivity as benefits. The lower costs arise from reduced transcription and overhead expenses associated with billings and collection.5
The voice recognition software used in Dr. Neil Baum’s office is Dragon Medical Practice Edition 2 (www.dragonmedicalpractice.com). Dragon requires a good processor and a minimum of 4 gigabytes of RAM and will run with VMware, Boot Camp, Parallels, and other programs for Mac users. The software contains 80 subspecialty medical vocabularies and is easy to install. After a few minutes, the program learns how you speak and will understand you well with remarkable accuracy. However, to get the greatest benefit from the technology, you will need to invest in training, implementation, and workflow services to allow you to use the program to its full potential in record time.
Dr. Baum uses The Dragon People voice recognition software (www.thedragonpeople.com).
Although voice recognition software can reduce or eliminate transcription costs, improve documentation time, and boost the quality of medical notes, it is critical that you investigate how a particular program fits with your EHR prior to purchasing it—and a salesperson may try to gloss over this issue. In addition, the more you use voice recognition instead of checking off pull-down boxes for your clinical notes, the more difficult it will be to mine your data for quality metrics and pay-for-performance information. For that reason, voice recognition technology may be strongly discouraged by your employer or governing organization.
3. Online lab result reporting
TeleVox’s automated lab results (www .televox.com/lab-test-results-delivery) allow physicians or staff to assign lab result messages quickly and easily with the click of a mouse. Patients call an 800 number or use an Internet connection to retrieve their results, using a unique PIN to ensure privacy.
Practices that implement this technology see immediate improvements in 3 areas:
- Streamlined operations. This technology allows lab result messages to be assigned to patients with a few mouse clicks, saving time spent on phone calls and mailing coordination.
- Reduced costs. Automated lab result reporting reduces staff labor and mailing costs.
- Ease of access. Patients have round-the-clock access to their information—no more waiting for mail delivery or a phone call. Patients also can choose to be notified when their results are ready, which helps alleviate anxiety.
4. Automated wait-time notification
The most common complaint patients have about their health care experience is the excessive wait times they often experience. Now there are technologies that can provide automated information to let patients know how long they will have to wait to be seen.
A program such as MedWaitTime (www.medwaittime.com) can alert patients about the estimated wait time at a cost of approximately $50 per month per physician. Patients access the service for free.
In addition, many EHRs include practice management features to notify the staff and physician whether he or she is on time. These features may include a tie-in to alert patients as well.
The bottom line
Carefully selected technological tools have much to offer busy clinicians. By ensuring that your practice Web site is mobile- friendly, you stand to attract new patients. And the time you save with voice recognition software and computerized lab test result notification can allow you to spend more time with your patients. It can also help eliminate the lag in your patient schedule, keeping the women in your waiting room happy. Remember, a happy patient means a happy doctor!
Share your thoughts! Send your Letter to the Editor to rbarbieri@frontlinemedcom.com. Please include your name and the city and state in which you practice.
- Your Wireless Life: Results of TIME’s Mobility Poll. http://content.time.com/time/interactive/0,31813,2122187,00.html. Accessed July 29, 2015.
- Wikipedia: List of Countries by Number of Mobile Phones in Use. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_mobile_phones_in_use. Accessed July 29, 2015.
- Smith A. US Smartphone Use in 2015. Pew Research Center. http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/04/01/us-smartphone-use-in-2015. Published April 1, 2015. Accessed July 29, 2015.
- Maisel JM, Wisnicki HJ. Documenting the medical encounter with speech recognition. Ophthalmol Times. 2002;27(5):38.
- Nuance Communications. Speech recognition: accelerating the adoption of electronic medical records. http://www.nuance.com/healthcare/pdf/wp_healthcareMDEMRadopt.pdf. Published 2008. Accessed July 30, 2015.
Ron Romano and Neil H. Baum, MD
Mr. Romano is President of www.YourInternetDoctor.com and CEO of Instant Marketing Systems. He co-authored The Internet Survival Guide for Doctors (2014, Instant Marketing Systems) and No B.S. Direct Marketing (2006, Entrepreneur Press) and contributed to the Walking with the Wise series (2004, Mentors Publishing). He is an Internet marketing consultant, speaker, and creator of “The Implementation Blueprint System.”
Dr. Baum practices urology in New Orleans, Louisiana. He is Associate Clinical Professor of Urology at Tulane Medical School and Louisiana State University School of Medicine, both in New Orleans. He is also on the medical staff at Touro Infirmary in New Orleans, and East Jefferson General Hospital in Metairie, Louisiana. He is the author of several books, including Social Media for the Healthcare Professional (2012, Greenbranch) and Marketing Your Clinical Practice: Ethically, Effectively, Economically (4th edition, 2009; Jones & Bartlett).Dr. Baum is a Contributing Editor for OBG Management.
Mr. Romano reports that he is CEO of Instant Marketing Systems, which provides consulting advice, marketing plans, and Internet marketing services for businesses and medical practices. Dr. Baum reports no financial relationships relevant to
this article.
Ron Romano and Neil H. Baum, MD
Mr. Romano is President of www.YourInternetDoctor.com and CEO of Instant Marketing Systems. He co-authored The Internet Survival Guide for Doctors (2014, Instant Marketing Systems) and No B.S. Direct Marketing (2006, Entrepreneur Press) and contributed to the Walking with the Wise series (2004, Mentors Publishing). He is an Internet marketing consultant, speaker, and creator of “The Implementation Blueprint System.”
Dr. Baum practices urology in New Orleans, Louisiana. He is Associate Clinical Professor of Urology at Tulane Medical School and Louisiana State University School of Medicine, both in New Orleans. He is also on the medical staff at Touro Infirmary in New Orleans, and East Jefferson General Hospital in Metairie, Louisiana. He is the author of several books, including Social Media for the Healthcare Professional (2012, Greenbranch) and Marketing Your Clinical Practice: Ethically, Effectively, Economically (4th edition, 2009; Jones & Bartlett).Dr. Baum is a Contributing Editor for OBG Management.
Mr. Romano reports that he is CEO of Instant Marketing Systems, which provides consulting advice, marketing plans, and Internet marketing services for businesses and medical practices. Dr. Baum reports no financial relationships relevant to
this article.
Ron Romano and Neil H. Baum, MD
Mr. Romano is President of www.YourInternetDoctor.com and CEO of Instant Marketing Systems. He co-authored The Internet Survival Guide for Doctors (2014, Instant Marketing Systems) and No B.S. Direct Marketing (2006, Entrepreneur Press) and contributed to the Walking with the Wise series (2004, Mentors Publishing). He is an Internet marketing consultant, speaker, and creator of “The Implementation Blueprint System.”
Dr. Baum practices urology in New Orleans, Louisiana. He is Associate Clinical Professor of Urology at Tulane Medical School and Louisiana State University School of Medicine, both in New Orleans. He is also on the medical staff at Touro Infirmary in New Orleans, and East Jefferson General Hospital in Metairie, Louisiana. He is the author of several books, including Social Media for the Healthcare Professional (2012, Greenbranch) and Marketing Your Clinical Practice: Ethically, Effectively, Economically (4th edition, 2009; Jones & Bartlett).Dr. Baum is a Contributing Editor for OBG Management.
Mr. Romano reports that he is CEO of Instant Marketing Systems, which provides consulting advice, marketing plans, and Internet marketing services for businesses and medical practices. Dr. Baum reports no financial relationships relevant to
this article.
Over the past 15 years a technological tsunami has swept through the health care industry, and few physicians were prepared for the changes wrought by this tidal wave. It now is clear, however, that we are and will have to continue to navigate a future increasingly powered and populated by technology if we are to be successful clinicians. In addition, we must learn to take advantage of all that technology has to offer without compromising the quality of care and compassion we offer our patients. We are fortunate that technology has much to offer to enhance patient care.
One big change under way: Technology is leveling the playing field between doctors—once the high priests of medicine—and ordinary people. SMART (social, mobile, aware, and real-time) technologies such as cloud computing will broaden the setting of health care interventions from hospital rooms and doctors’ offices to patients’ everyday lives. Cloud computing involves the use of a network of remote servers hosted on the Internet to store, manage, and process data, rather than a local server or a desktop computer located in the doctor’s office. It is possible that, instead of being episodic, health care will be conducted continuously—and anywhere the patient wants it.
Without a doubt, the pace at which new technology affects our lives is increasing at lightning speeds. Today, 29% of Americans say their phone is the first and the last thing they look at each day, a telling sign of how dependent we are becoming on technology.1 In this article, we look at 4 technologies that can be effective in the clinical setting, attracting new patients and enhancing productivity, communication, and patient care.
1. A mobile-friendly Web site
According to Wikipedia, there are 327,577,529 mobile phones in the United States, give or take a few thousand. As of July 4, 2014, the US population was 318,881,992. That means there are more mobile phones in this country than there are people!2
Mobile phones are becoming more like personal assistants than phones. People are not just making calls, they’re buying movie tickets, checking the weather, sending and receiving emails, texting, making reservations, checking Web sites … and the list goes on.
According to a recent report from the Pew Research Center, almost two-thirds of Americans own a smartphone, and 62% of smartphone owners have used it to look up information on a health condition.3 Moreover, 15% of smartphone owners say they have a limited number of ways to access the Internet other than their cell phone.3
All the more reason for your Web site to be mobile-friendly. With a mobile- friendly site, the content is displayed in a more streamlined fashion on mobile phones, with larger type to make it more readable. See, for example, the FIGURE, which shows Dr. Baum’s regular Web site side by side with the mobile-friendly view.
There is another reason why you should ensure that your site is mobile-friendly: Google recently changed its algorithms so that, when someone searches for information on a mobile phone, only mobile- friendly sites make it into the top search results. Google wants mobile phone users to have a positive experience online. It is so adamant about this desire that it will lower your rankings or not show your Web site at all in search results if you fail to comply.
New patient acquisition is critical for any ObGyn practice, and we already know that just about everyone goes online to search for health information and solutions to their medical problems. If you want your practice to survive and thrive, you need to attract new patients online. If a visitor to your site cannot read the text and has to keep resizing the screen and scrolling left and right, you will lose that visitor in a hurry.
We all want to find what we are looking for quickly. In our experience, when we check Google Analytics reports for our ObGyn clients, we find that visitors to a nonresponsive site spend much less time there and do not visit as many pages as they do when a site is mobile-responsive.
To check your Web site’s mobile rating, go to http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly. Google also offers tips on making your site mobile-friendly at https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6001177?hl=en.
Once your site is up to snuff, you should test it from multiple devices to ensure that the pages are easily readable on all types of phones and computers.
2. Voice recognition software
Speech recognition is the ability of a machine or program to identify words and phrases in spoken language and convert them to a digital format. This tool can help you generate clinical notes and charting without having to stop and type into a computer. This can enhance your interactions with patients by freeing you from the computer during examinations and counseling and allows you to look at the patient and not at the computer.
According to data from June 2000, approximately 5% of physicians used speech recognition to generate text in their offices.4 A white paper from 2008 found that approximately 20% of physicians are using more advanced, more reliable voice recognition technology and saving both time and money.5 This report cited 2007 data showing that:
- 76% of clinicians who used “desktop speech recognition” (directly controlling an electronic health record [EHR] system via speech) reported faster turnaround time, better patient care, and quicker reimbursement
- Nearly 30% reported lower costs and increased productivity as benefits. The lower costs arise from reduced transcription and overhead expenses associated with billings and collection.5
The voice recognition software used in Dr. Neil Baum’s office is Dragon Medical Practice Edition 2 (www.dragonmedicalpractice.com). Dragon requires a good processor and a minimum of 4 gigabytes of RAM and will run with VMware, Boot Camp, Parallels, and other programs for Mac users. The software contains 80 subspecialty medical vocabularies and is easy to install. After a few minutes, the program learns how you speak and will understand you well with remarkable accuracy. However, to get the greatest benefit from the technology, you will need to invest in training, implementation, and workflow services to allow you to use the program to its full potential in record time.
Dr. Baum uses The Dragon People voice recognition software (www.thedragonpeople.com).
Although voice recognition software can reduce or eliminate transcription costs, improve documentation time, and boost the quality of medical notes, it is critical that you investigate how a particular program fits with your EHR prior to purchasing it—and a salesperson may try to gloss over this issue. In addition, the more you use voice recognition instead of checking off pull-down boxes for your clinical notes, the more difficult it will be to mine your data for quality metrics and pay-for-performance information. For that reason, voice recognition technology may be strongly discouraged by your employer or governing organization.
3. Online lab result reporting
TeleVox’s automated lab results (www .televox.com/lab-test-results-delivery) allow physicians or staff to assign lab result messages quickly and easily with the click of a mouse. Patients call an 800 number or use an Internet connection to retrieve their results, using a unique PIN to ensure privacy.
Practices that implement this technology see immediate improvements in 3 areas:
- Streamlined operations. This technology allows lab result messages to be assigned to patients with a few mouse clicks, saving time spent on phone calls and mailing coordination.
- Reduced costs. Automated lab result reporting reduces staff labor and mailing costs.
- Ease of access. Patients have round-the-clock access to their information—no more waiting for mail delivery or a phone call. Patients also can choose to be notified when their results are ready, which helps alleviate anxiety.
4. Automated wait-time notification
The most common complaint patients have about their health care experience is the excessive wait times they often experience. Now there are technologies that can provide automated information to let patients know how long they will have to wait to be seen.
A program such as MedWaitTime (www.medwaittime.com) can alert patients about the estimated wait time at a cost of approximately $50 per month per physician. Patients access the service for free.
In addition, many EHRs include practice management features to notify the staff and physician whether he or she is on time. These features may include a tie-in to alert patients as well.
The bottom line
Carefully selected technological tools have much to offer busy clinicians. By ensuring that your practice Web site is mobile- friendly, you stand to attract new patients. And the time you save with voice recognition software and computerized lab test result notification can allow you to spend more time with your patients. It can also help eliminate the lag in your patient schedule, keeping the women in your waiting room happy. Remember, a happy patient means a happy doctor!
Share your thoughts! Send your Letter to the Editor to rbarbieri@frontlinemedcom.com. Please include your name and the city and state in which you practice.
Over the past 15 years a technological tsunami has swept through the health care industry, and few physicians were prepared for the changes wrought by this tidal wave. It now is clear, however, that we are and will have to continue to navigate a future increasingly powered and populated by technology if we are to be successful clinicians. In addition, we must learn to take advantage of all that technology has to offer without compromising the quality of care and compassion we offer our patients. We are fortunate that technology has much to offer to enhance patient care.
One big change under way: Technology is leveling the playing field between doctors—once the high priests of medicine—and ordinary people. SMART (social, mobile, aware, and real-time) technologies such as cloud computing will broaden the setting of health care interventions from hospital rooms and doctors’ offices to patients’ everyday lives. Cloud computing involves the use of a network of remote servers hosted on the Internet to store, manage, and process data, rather than a local server or a desktop computer located in the doctor’s office. It is possible that, instead of being episodic, health care will be conducted continuously—and anywhere the patient wants it.
Without a doubt, the pace at which new technology affects our lives is increasing at lightning speeds. Today, 29% of Americans say their phone is the first and the last thing they look at each day, a telling sign of how dependent we are becoming on technology.1 In this article, we look at 4 technologies that can be effective in the clinical setting, attracting new patients and enhancing productivity, communication, and patient care.
1. A mobile-friendly Web site
According to Wikipedia, there are 327,577,529 mobile phones in the United States, give or take a few thousand. As of July 4, 2014, the US population was 318,881,992. That means there are more mobile phones in this country than there are people!2
Mobile phones are becoming more like personal assistants than phones. People are not just making calls, they’re buying movie tickets, checking the weather, sending and receiving emails, texting, making reservations, checking Web sites … and the list goes on.
According to a recent report from the Pew Research Center, almost two-thirds of Americans own a smartphone, and 62% of smartphone owners have used it to look up information on a health condition.3 Moreover, 15% of smartphone owners say they have a limited number of ways to access the Internet other than their cell phone.3
All the more reason for your Web site to be mobile-friendly. With a mobile- friendly site, the content is displayed in a more streamlined fashion on mobile phones, with larger type to make it more readable. See, for example, the FIGURE, which shows Dr. Baum’s regular Web site side by side with the mobile-friendly view.
There is another reason why you should ensure that your site is mobile-friendly: Google recently changed its algorithms so that, when someone searches for information on a mobile phone, only mobile- friendly sites make it into the top search results. Google wants mobile phone users to have a positive experience online. It is so adamant about this desire that it will lower your rankings or not show your Web site at all in search results if you fail to comply.
New patient acquisition is critical for any ObGyn practice, and we already know that just about everyone goes online to search for health information and solutions to their medical problems. If you want your practice to survive and thrive, you need to attract new patients online. If a visitor to your site cannot read the text and has to keep resizing the screen and scrolling left and right, you will lose that visitor in a hurry.
We all want to find what we are looking for quickly. In our experience, when we check Google Analytics reports for our ObGyn clients, we find that visitors to a nonresponsive site spend much less time there and do not visit as many pages as they do when a site is mobile-responsive.
To check your Web site’s mobile rating, go to http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly. Google also offers tips on making your site mobile-friendly at https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6001177?hl=en.
Once your site is up to snuff, you should test it from multiple devices to ensure that the pages are easily readable on all types of phones and computers.
2. Voice recognition software
Speech recognition is the ability of a machine or program to identify words and phrases in spoken language and convert them to a digital format. This tool can help you generate clinical notes and charting without having to stop and type into a computer. This can enhance your interactions with patients by freeing you from the computer during examinations and counseling and allows you to look at the patient and not at the computer.
According to data from June 2000, approximately 5% of physicians used speech recognition to generate text in their offices.4 A white paper from 2008 found that approximately 20% of physicians are using more advanced, more reliable voice recognition technology and saving both time and money.5 This report cited 2007 data showing that:
- 76% of clinicians who used “desktop speech recognition” (directly controlling an electronic health record [EHR] system via speech) reported faster turnaround time, better patient care, and quicker reimbursement
- Nearly 30% reported lower costs and increased productivity as benefits. The lower costs arise from reduced transcription and overhead expenses associated with billings and collection.5
The voice recognition software used in Dr. Neil Baum’s office is Dragon Medical Practice Edition 2 (www.dragonmedicalpractice.com). Dragon requires a good processor and a minimum of 4 gigabytes of RAM and will run with VMware, Boot Camp, Parallels, and other programs for Mac users. The software contains 80 subspecialty medical vocabularies and is easy to install. After a few minutes, the program learns how you speak and will understand you well with remarkable accuracy. However, to get the greatest benefit from the technology, you will need to invest in training, implementation, and workflow services to allow you to use the program to its full potential in record time.
Dr. Baum uses The Dragon People voice recognition software (www.thedragonpeople.com).
Although voice recognition software can reduce or eliminate transcription costs, improve documentation time, and boost the quality of medical notes, it is critical that you investigate how a particular program fits with your EHR prior to purchasing it—and a salesperson may try to gloss over this issue. In addition, the more you use voice recognition instead of checking off pull-down boxes for your clinical notes, the more difficult it will be to mine your data for quality metrics and pay-for-performance information. For that reason, voice recognition technology may be strongly discouraged by your employer or governing organization.
3. Online lab result reporting
TeleVox’s automated lab results (www .televox.com/lab-test-results-delivery) allow physicians or staff to assign lab result messages quickly and easily with the click of a mouse. Patients call an 800 number or use an Internet connection to retrieve their results, using a unique PIN to ensure privacy.
Practices that implement this technology see immediate improvements in 3 areas:
- Streamlined operations. This technology allows lab result messages to be assigned to patients with a few mouse clicks, saving time spent on phone calls and mailing coordination.
- Reduced costs. Automated lab result reporting reduces staff labor and mailing costs.
- Ease of access. Patients have round-the-clock access to their information—no more waiting for mail delivery or a phone call. Patients also can choose to be notified when their results are ready, which helps alleviate anxiety.
4. Automated wait-time notification
The most common complaint patients have about their health care experience is the excessive wait times they often experience. Now there are technologies that can provide automated information to let patients know how long they will have to wait to be seen.
A program such as MedWaitTime (www.medwaittime.com) can alert patients about the estimated wait time at a cost of approximately $50 per month per physician. Patients access the service for free.
In addition, many EHRs include practice management features to notify the staff and physician whether he or she is on time. These features may include a tie-in to alert patients as well.
The bottom line
Carefully selected technological tools have much to offer busy clinicians. By ensuring that your practice Web site is mobile- friendly, you stand to attract new patients. And the time you save with voice recognition software and computerized lab test result notification can allow you to spend more time with your patients. It can also help eliminate the lag in your patient schedule, keeping the women in your waiting room happy. Remember, a happy patient means a happy doctor!
Share your thoughts! Send your Letter to the Editor to rbarbieri@frontlinemedcom.com. Please include your name and the city and state in which you practice.
- Your Wireless Life: Results of TIME’s Mobility Poll. http://content.time.com/time/interactive/0,31813,2122187,00.html. Accessed July 29, 2015.
- Wikipedia: List of Countries by Number of Mobile Phones in Use. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_mobile_phones_in_use. Accessed July 29, 2015.
- Smith A. US Smartphone Use in 2015. Pew Research Center. http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/04/01/us-smartphone-use-in-2015. Published April 1, 2015. Accessed July 29, 2015.
- Maisel JM, Wisnicki HJ. Documenting the medical encounter with speech recognition. Ophthalmol Times. 2002;27(5):38.
- Nuance Communications. Speech recognition: accelerating the adoption of electronic medical records. http://www.nuance.com/healthcare/pdf/wp_healthcareMDEMRadopt.pdf. Published 2008. Accessed July 30, 2015.
- Your Wireless Life: Results of TIME’s Mobility Poll. http://content.time.com/time/interactive/0,31813,2122187,00.html. Accessed July 29, 2015.
- Wikipedia: List of Countries by Number of Mobile Phones in Use. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_mobile_phones_in_use. Accessed July 29, 2015.
- Smith A. US Smartphone Use in 2015. Pew Research Center. http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/04/01/us-smartphone-use-in-2015. Published April 1, 2015. Accessed July 29, 2015.
- Maisel JM, Wisnicki HJ. Documenting the medical encounter with speech recognition. Ophthalmol Times. 2002;27(5):38.
- Nuance Communications. Speech recognition: accelerating the adoption of electronic medical records. http://www.nuance.com/healthcare/pdf/wp_healthcareMDEMRadopt.pdf. Published 2008. Accessed July 30, 2015.
In this Article
- Voice recognition software lets you look at your patient
- Patients can retrieve online lab results
Get more patients with backlinks
The medical profession has its jargon. So does the Internet world. Some of that jargon can be important to your success. “Backlinks” or “inbound links” are terms that should get your attention.
Why?
By developing them, you can attract more patients to your practice.
Backlinks are one piece of the Internet marketing puzzle that can help get your Web site on the first page of Google search results.
And just how important is it to be on page 1?
Well, consider that 91.5% of Web surfers do not go beyond the first page of results. That’s what an online advertising network called Chitika found when it examined tens of millions of online ad impressions in which the user was referred to the page via a Google search.1
Just what are backlinks? They are links to your Web page from another site. In basic link terminology, a backlink is any link received by a Web page, directory, Web site, or top-level domain from another, similar site. In this article we discuss the importance of these links and ways to use them in your social media to attract new patients to your site and your practice.
Start with good site design
If you can get listed on the first page of Google search results for the keywords your patients are using, more traffic will come to your Web site. That won’t help if you have a poorly designed site that has no patient conversion strategies, techniques, and systems to transform Web site visitors to patients.
You see, everything has to work together in a coordinated, integrated manner if you want to increase the number of patients who are looking for your services online. We’ve covered many of the basics in earlier articles on Web site design and improvement (see the box below). If you have a nonoptimal site, consider starting with these articles.
Articles on Web design and Internet usage by Ron Romano and Neil H. Baum, MD
5 ways to wake up your Web site
April 2015
Using the Internet in your practice
Part 1: Why social media are important and how to get started
February 2014
Part 2: Generating new patients using social media
April 2014
Part 3: Maximizing your online reach through SEO and pay-per-click
September 2014
Part 4: Reputation management: How to gather kudos and combat negative online reviews
December 2014
These articles are available in the archive at obgmanagement.com
Why backlinks are important
Google uses more than 200 algorithms to rank your Web site. Some are more important than others and have a greater influence on search engine positioning. Backlinks are one of those important influencers.
The number of backlinks you have is an indication of the popularity or importance of your Web site. Google considers a site more significant or relevant than others if it has a large number of quality backlinks from other directories, ezines, blogs, and social media Web sites. These backlinks must be relevant to your keywords. For example, because you are a medical professional, a link to your site from the American Cancer Society or the Mayo Clinic is considered more credible than a link from a local spa or health club.
A search engine such as Google considers the content of the sites it places at the top of the search results page. When links to your site come from other credible and popular sites, and those sites have content related to your site, these backlinks are considered more relevant to your site.
If backlinks come from sites with unrelated content, they are considered less relevant. You may even be penalized by Google for adding backlinks that have no content value.
For example, if a Web master has a site that focuses on urinary incontinence and receives a backlink from another site with information or articles about urinary incontinence, that backlink will be considered more relevant than a link from a site about mortgages that somehow also includes urinary incontinence on its page. Therefore, the higher the relevance of the site linking back to yours, the better the quality of that link.
Top 7 inbound links—and how to obtain them
1. Directories
Directories are indexes of online sites, typically organized by category. You want to ensure that each of your keywords is manually submitted to each directory so it is listed separately. This way you get maximum link value for each keyword.
Links back to your site from directories such as Yahoo Directory and DMOZ.org are valuable. DMOZ.org is edited by humans. Although it is free, it may take some time for your site to be added. A listing in Yahoo’s Directory costs $299 per year.
2. Press releases
If you are writing press releases, make sure they contain keywords that someone would use to find a business like yours. Also ensure that they include links back to your site.
Once the press release is written, submit it to all the news agencies. Then you must wait and see if any of them pick it up and publish it.
You may want to consider having a press release professionally written and distributed by a public relations firm to boost your chances of having the release picked up. PRWeb.com has an excellent reputation. Its distribution network includes the search engines Google, Yahoo, and Bing; media outlets such as USA Today, CNN, and the Wall Street Journal; Associated Press distribution through major newspapers; and health and medical digests such as the Mayo Clinic, WebMD, Women’s Health, and many more.
3. Article directories
By writing and distributing articles through high-traffic article directories, such as EzineArticles.com, Articles.org, and Hubpages.com, you can attract valuable inbound links from a high-traffic site. Craft an effective link at the close of your article to drive traffic back to your site. An example of what your link might say is, “To view a short video on Kegel exercises for pelvic organ prolapse, visit our Web site at www.neilbaum.com/videos.”
4. Social bookmarking
Like Web browser bookmarks, social bookmarking sites such as Digg.com, Reddit.com, and Del.icio.us.com store individual pages (bookmarks) online and allow users to tag (with keywords), organize, search, and manage these bookmarks as well as share them with others. If you bookmark your content on these sites, you get a link from the service. By producing content that your readers enjoy and bookmark to their friends, you gain a link that increases in search engine optimization (SEO) value.
5. Blog comments
To find blog posts on which to comment, you can use blog-specific search engines such as Google Blog Search. Make sure these are blogs read by your target market, not your colleagues. Brand yourself by always using the same name and remember to link back to your site. Always leave a comment that adds to the conversation.
6. Social media
Google also indexes your Twitter updates and social networking profiles. Add that to Web 2.0 hubsites like Scribd or HubPage and you’ve got a way to create many inbound links in a very short time. Scribd is a digital library featuring an ebook and audiobook subscription service that includes New York Times best sellers and classics. HubPages is a user-generated content, revenue-sharing Web site.
7. Video syndication
YouTube is one of the most visited sites online, and the number of sites that syndicate videos is growing every day. These sites often allow you to link to your site in your video’s description, on your profile page, or both.
The importance of being consistent—and honest
For best results, you need to build these links monthly with regularity, and over time, you will reap the benefits of improved rankings. While it is fairly easy to modify your Web pages to make them more SEO-friendly, it is harder to influence other Web sites and get them to link to yours. This is the reason search engines consider backlinks such an important factor.
Moreover, search engines’ criteria for quality backlinks have gotten tougher, thanks to unscrupulous Web masters trying to achieve these backlinks by deceptive techniques, such as hidden links or automatically generated pages whose sole purpose is to provide backlinks to Web sites. These pages are called link farms. Not only are they disregarded by search engines, but linking to one could get your site banned entirely. This strategy is often referred to as “black hat” linking and is to be avoided.
“White hat” methods to increase backlinks
Blog posting is one of the easiest, least expensive, and most effective ways to garner links from other sites. However, to reap this benefit, you must post blog entries consistently. We suggest posting at least once weekly. Your blog will gain more attention if you have something newsworthy to report. For example, if you attend a meeting where a revolutionary new development is reported, and you write about it before the media, you can be sure others will want to connect and link to your site.
Conduct a survey and share your results on your site. Others will want to link to your report.
Share any templates your office uses to be more efficient and productive. For example, Dr. Baum has a template, or checklist, for starting and ending every day in the office. It is shared on his Web site so that other sites can link to it and make use of it.
Show your funny bone. Humor often travels in a viral direction. If something funny happens in your practice, share it with others and they will frequently link to the source.
Join a forum. Forums are a great source of high-quality traffic and links. You can use a forum to reach out to a specific community.By placing valid, useful contributions, you gain legitimate authority for your site.
The bottom line
You want to attract as many visitors to your Web site as possible. Your own content and the frequency of your postings are mainstays of making your Web site relevant to existing and potential patients. Also useful are backlinks. The number and quality of your inbound links are major factors in SEO. Search engines place high value on trust and authority, and an inbound link from a very high-ranking and trusted Web site tells the search engine that someone trusted also trusts you. So start linking.
Reference
1. The value of Google result positioning. Chitika.com. http://chitika.com/google-positioning-value. Updated June 12, 2013. Accessed June 9, 2015.
Ron Romano and Neil H. Baum, MD
Mr. Romano is President of YourInternetDoctor.com and CEO of Instant Marketing Systems. He co-authored The Internet Survival Guide for Doctors (2014, Instant Marketing Systems) and No B.S. Direct Marketing (2006, Entrepreneur Press) and contributed to the Walking with the Wise series (2004, Mentors Publishing). He is an Internet marketing consultant, speaker, and creator of “The Implementation Blueprint System.”
Dr. Baum practices urology in New Orleans, Louisiana. He is Associate Clinical Professor of Urology at Tulane Medical School and Louisiana State University School of Medicine, both in New Orleans. He is also on the medical staff at Touro Infirmary in New Orleans, and East Jefferson General Hospital in Metairie, Louisiana. And he is the author of several books, including Social Media for the Healthcare Professional (2012, Greenbranch), and Marketing Your Clinical Practice: Ethically, Effectively, Economically (4th edition, 2009; Jones & Bartlett). Dr. Baum is a Contributing Editor for OBG Management.
Mr. Romano reports that he is CEO of Instant Marketing Systems, which provides consulting advice, marketing plans, and Internet marketing services for businesses and medical practices. Dr. Baum reports no financial relationships relevant to this article.
Ron Romano and Neil H. Baum, MD
Mr. Romano is President of YourInternetDoctor.com and CEO of Instant Marketing Systems. He co-authored The Internet Survival Guide for Doctors (2014, Instant Marketing Systems) and No B.S. Direct Marketing (2006, Entrepreneur Press) and contributed to the Walking with the Wise series (2004, Mentors Publishing). He is an Internet marketing consultant, speaker, and creator of “The Implementation Blueprint System.”
Dr. Baum practices urology in New Orleans, Louisiana. He is Associate Clinical Professor of Urology at Tulane Medical School and Louisiana State University School of Medicine, both in New Orleans. He is also on the medical staff at Touro Infirmary in New Orleans, and East Jefferson General Hospital in Metairie, Louisiana. And he is the author of several books, including Social Media for the Healthcare Professional (2012, Greenbranch), and Marketing Your Clinical Practice: Ethically, Effectively, Economically (4th edition, 2009; Jones & Bartlett). Dr. Baum is a Contributing Editor for OBG Management.
Mr. Romano reports that he is CEO of Instant Marketing Systems, which provides consulting advice, marketing plans, and Internet marketing services for businesses and medical practices. Dr. Baum reports no financial relationships relevant to this article.
Ron Romano and Neil H. Baum, MD
Mr. Romano is President of YourInternetDoctor.com and CEO of Instant Marketing Systems. He co-authored The Internet Survival Guide for Doctors (2014, Instant Marketing Systems) and No B.S. Direct Marketing (2006, Entrepreneur Press) and contributed to the Walking with the Wise series (2004, Mentors Publishing). He is an Internet marketing consultant, speaker, and creator of “The Implementation Blueprint System.”
Dr. Baum practices urology in New Orleans, Louisiana. He is Associate Clinical Professor of Urology at Tulane Medical School and Louisiana State University School of Medicine, both in New Orleans. He is also on the medical staff at Touro Infirmary in New Orleans, and East Jefferson General Hospital in Metairie, Louisiana. And he is the author of several books, including Social Media for the Healthcare Professional (2012, Greenbranch), and Marketing Your Clinical Practice: Ethically, Effectively, Economically (4th edition, 2009; Jones & Bartlett). Dr. Baum is a Contributing Editor for OBG Management.
Mr. Romano reports that he is CEO of Instant Marketing Systems, which provides consulting advice, marketing plans, and Internet marketing services for businesses and medical practices. Dr. Baum reports no financial relationships relevant to this article.
The medical profession has its jargon. So does the Internet world. Some of that jargon can be important to your success. “Backlinks” or “inbound links” are terms that should get your attention.
Why?
By developing them, you can attract more patients to your practice.
Backlinks are one piece of the Internet marketing puzzle that can help get your Web site on the first page of Google search results.
And just how important is it to be on page 1?
Well, consider that 91.5% of Web surfers do not go beyond the first page of results. That’s what an online advertising network called Chitika found when it examined tens of millions of online ad impressions in which the user was referred to the page via a Google search.1
Just what are backlinks? They are links to your Web page from another site. In basic link terminology, a backlink is any link received by a Web page, directory, Web site, or top-level domain from another, similar site. In this article we discuss the importance of these links and ways to use them in your social media to attract new patients to your site and your practice.
Start with good site design
If you can get listed on the first page of Google search results for the keywords your patients are using, more traffic will come to your Web site. That won’t help if you have a poorly designed site that has no patient conversion strategies, techniques, and systems to transform Web site visitors to patients.
You see, everything has to work together in a coordinated, integrated manner if you want to increase the number of patients who are looking for your services online. We’ve covered many of the basics in earlier articles on Web site design and improvement (see the box below). If you have a nonoptimal site, consider starting with these articles.
Articles on Web design and Internet usage by Ron Romano and Neil H. Baum, MD
5 ways to wake up your Web site
April 2015
Using the Internet in your practice
Part 1: Why social media are important and how to get started
February 2014
Part 2: Generating new patients using social media
April 2014
Part 3: Maximizing your online reach through SEO and pay-per-click
September 2014
Part 4: Reputation management: How to gather kudos and combat negative online reviews
December 2014
These articles are available in the archive at obgmanagement.com
Why backlinks are important
Google uses more than 200 algorithms to rank your Web site. Some are more important than others and have a greater influence on search engine positioning. Backlinks are one of those important influencers.
The number of backlinks you have is an indication of the popularity or importance of your Web site. Google considers a site more significant or relevant than others if it has a large number of quality backlinks from other directories, ezines, blogs, and social media Web sites. These backlinks must be relevant to your keywords. For example, because you are a medical professional, a link to your site from the American Cancer Society or the Mayo Clinic is considered more credible than a link from a local spa or health club.
A search engine such as Google considers the content of the sites it places at the top of the search results page. When links to your site come from other credible and popular sites, and those sites have content related to your site, these backlinks are considered more relevant to your site.
If backlinks come from sites with unrelated content, they are considered less relevant. You may even be penalized by Google for adding backlinks that have no content value.
For example, if a Web master has a site that focuses on urinary incontinence and receives a backlink from another site with information or articles about urinary incontinence, that backlink will be considered more relevant than a link from a site about mortgages that somehow also includes urinary incontinence on its page. Therefore, the higher the relevance of the site linking back to yours, the better the quality of that link.
Top 7 inbound links—and how to obtain them
1. Directories
Directories are indexes of online sites, typically organized by category. You want to ensure that each of your keywords is manually submitted to each directory so it is listed separately. This way you get maximum link value for each keyword.
Links back to your site from directories such as Yahoo Directory and DMOZ.org are valuable. DMOZ.org is edited by humans. Although it is free, it may take some time for your site to be added. A listing in Yahoo’s Directory costs $299 per year.
2. Press releases
If you are writing press releases, make sure they contain keywords that someone would use to find a business like yours. Also ensure that they include links back to your site.
Once the press release is written, submit it to all the news agencies. Then you must wait and see if any of them pick it up and publish it.
You may want to consider having a press release professionally written and distributed by a public relations firm to boost your chances of having the release picked up. PRWeb.com has an excellent reputation. Its distribution network includes the search engines Google, Yahoo, and Bing; media outlets such as USA Today, CNN, and the Wall Street Journal; Associated Press distribution through major newspapers; and health and medical digests such as the Mayo Clinic, WebMD, Women’s Health, and many more.
3. Article directories
By writing and distributing articles through high-traffic article directories, such as EzineArticles.com, Articles.org, and Hubpages.com, you can attract valuable inbound links from a high-traffic site. Craft an effective link at the close of your article to drive traffic back to your site. An example of what your link might say is, “To view a short video on Kegel exercises for pelvic organ prolapse, visit our Web site at www.neilbaum.com/videos.”
4. Social bookmarking
Like Web browser bookmarks, social bookmarking sites such as Digg.com, Reddit.com, and Del.icio.us.com store individual pages (bookmarks) online and allow users to tag (with keywords), organize, search, and manage these bookmarks as well as share them with others. If you bookmark your content on these sites, you get a link from the service. By producing content that your readers enjoy and bookmark to their friends, you gain a link that increases in search engine optimization (SEO) value.
5. Blog comments
To find blog posts on which to comment, you can use blog-specific search engines such as Google Blog Search. Make sure these are blogs read by your target market, not your colleagues. Brand yourself by always using the same name and remember to link back to your site. Always leave a comment that adds to the conversation.
6. Social media
Google also indexes your Twitter updates and social networking profiles. Add that to Web 2.0 hubsites like Scribd or HubPage and you’ve got a way to create many inbound links in a very short time. Scribd is a digital library featuring an ebook and audiobook subscription service that includes New York Times best sellers and classics. HubPages is a user-generated content, revenue-sharing Web site.
7. Video syndication
YouTube is one of the most visited sites online, and the number of sites that syndicate videos is growing every day. These sites often allow you to link to your site in your video’s description, on your profile page, or both.
The importance of being consistent—and honest
For best results, you need to build these links monthly with regularity, and over time, you will reap the benefits of improved rankings. While it is fairly easy to modify your Web pages to make them more SEO-friendly, it is harder to influence other Web sites and get them to link to yours. This is the reason search engines consider backlinks such an important factor.
Moreover, search engines’ criteria for quality backlinks have gotten tougher, thanks to unscrupulous Web masters trying to achieve these backlinks by deceptive techniques, such as hidden links or automatically generated pages whose sole purpose is to provide backlinks to Web sites. These pages are called link farms. Not only are they disregarded by search engines, but linking to one could get your site banned entirely. This strategy is often referred to as “black hat” linking and is to be avoided.
“White hat” methods to increase backlinks
Blog posting is one of the easiest, least expensive, and most effective ways to garner links from other sites. However, to reap this benefit, you must post blog entries consistently. We suggest posting at least once weekly. Your blog will gain more attention if you have something newsworthy to report. For example, if you attend a meeting where a revolutionary new development is reported, and you write about it before the media, you can be sure others will want to connect and link to your site.
Conduct a survey and share your results on your site. Others will want to link to your report.
Share any templates your office uses to be more efficient and productive. For example, Dr. Baum has a template, or checklist, for starting and ending every day in the office. It is shared on his Web site so that other sites can link to it and make use of it.
Show your funny bone. Humor often travels in a viral direction. If something funny happens in your practice, share it with others and they will frequently link to the source.
Join a forum. Forums are a great source of high-quality traffic and links. You can use a forum to reach out to a specific community.By placing valid, useful contributions, you gain legitimate authority for your site.
The bottom line
You want to attract as many visitors to your Web site as possible. Your own content and the frequency of your postings are mainstays of making your Web site relevant to existing and potential patients. Also useful are backlinks. The number and quality of your inbound links are major factors in SEO. Search engines place high value on trust and authority, and an inbound link from a very high-ranking and trusted Web site tells the search engine that someone trusted also trusts you. So start linking.
The medical profession has its jargon. So does the Internet world. Some of that jargon can be important to your success. “Backlinks” or “inbound links” are terms that should get your attention.
Why?
By developing them, you can attract more patients to your practice.
Backlinks are one piece of the Internet marketing puzzle that can help get your Web site on the first page of Google search results.
And just how important is it to be on page 1?
Well, consider that 91.5% of Web surfers do not go beyond the first page of results. That’s what an online advertising network called Chitika found when it examined tens of millions of online ad impressions in which the user was referred to the page via a Google search.1
Just what are backlinks? They are links to your Web page from another site. In basic link terminology, a backlink is any link received by a Web page, directory, Web site, or top-level domain from another, similar site. In this article we discuss the importance of these links and ways to use them in your social media to attract new patients to your site and your practice.
Start with good site design
If you can get listed on the first page of Google search results for the keywords your patients are using, more traffic will come to your Web site. That won’t help if you have a poorly designed site that has no patient conversion strategies, techniques, and systems to transform Web site visitors to patients.
You see, everything has to work together in a coordinated, integrated manner if you want to increase the number of patients who are looking for your services online. We’ve covered many of the basics in earlier articles on Web site design and improvement (see the box below). If you have a nonoptimal site, consider starting with these articles.
Articles on Web design and Internet usage by Ron Romano and Neil H. Baum, MD
5 ways to wake up your Web site
April 2015
Using the Internet in your practice
Part 1: Why social media are important and how to get started
February 2014
Part 2: Generating new patients using social media
April 2014
Part 3: Maximizing your online reach through SEO and pay-per-click
September 2014
Part 4: Reputation management: How to gather kudos and combat negative online reviews
December 2014
These articles are available in the archive at obgmanagement.com
Why backlinks are important
Google uses more than 200 algorithms to rank your Web site. Some are more important than others and have a greater influence on search engine positioning. Backlinks are one of those important influencers.
The number of backlinks you have is an indication of the popularity or importance of your Web site. Google considers a site more significant or relevant than others if it has a large number of quality backlinks from other directories, ezines, blogs, and social media Web sites. These backlinks must be relevant to your keywords. For example, because you are a medical professional, a link to your site from the American Cancer Society or the Mayo Clinic is considered more credible than a link from a local spa or health club.
A search engine such as Google considers the content of the sites it places at the top of the search results page. When links to your site come from other credible and popular sites, and those sites have content related to your site, these backlinks are considered more relevant to your site.
If backlinks come from sites with unrelated content, they are considered less relevant. You may even be penalized by Google for adding backlinks that have no content value.
For example, if a Web master has a site that focuses on urinary incontinence and receives a backlink from another site with information or articles about urinary incontinence, that backlink will be considered more relevant than a link from a site about mortgages that somehow also includes urinary incontinence on its page. Therefore, the higher the relevance of the site linking back to yours, the better the quality of that link.
Top 7 inbound links—and how to obtain them
1. Directories
Directories are indexes of online sites, typically organized by category. You want to ensure that each of your keywords is manually submitted to each directory so it is listed separately. This way you get maximum link value for each keyword.
Links back to your site from directories such as Yahoo Directory and DMOZ.org are valuable. DMOZ.org is edited by humans. Although it is free, it may take some time for your site to be added. A listing in Yahoo’s Directory costs $299 per year.
2. Press releases
If you are writing press releases, make sure they contain keywords that someone would use to find a business like yours. Also ensure that they include links back to your site.
Once the press release is written, submit it to all the news agencies. Then you must wait and see if any of them pick it up and publish it.
You may want to consider having a press release professionally written and distributed by a public relations firm to boost your chances of having the release picked up. PRWeb.com has an excellent reputation. Its distribution network includes the search engines Google, Yahoo, and Bing; media outlets such as USA Today, CNN, and the Wall Street Journal; Associated Press distribution through major newspapers; and health and medical digests such as the Mayo Clinic, WebMD, Women’s Health, and many more.
3. Article directories
By writing and distributing articles through high-traffic article directories, such as EzineArticles.com, Articles.org, and Hubpages.com, you can attract valuable inbound links from a high-traffic site. Craft an effective link at the close of your article to drive traffic back to your site. An example of what your link might say is, “To view a short video on Kegel exercises for pelvic organ prolapse, visit our Web site at www.neilbaum.com/videos.”
4. Social bookmarking
Like Web browser bookmarks, social bookmarking sites such as Digg.com, Reddit.com, and Del.icio.us.com store individual pages (bookmarks) online and allow users to tag (with keywords), organize, search, and manage these bookmarks as well as share them with others. If you bookmark your content on these sites, you get a link from the service. By producing content that your readers enjoy and bookmark to their friends, you gain a link that increases in search engine optimization (SEO) value.
5. Blog comments
To find blog posts on which to comment, you can use blog-specific search engines such as Google Blog Search. Make sure these are blogs read by your target market, not your colleagues. Brand yourself by always using the same name and remember to link back to your site. Always leave a comment that adds to the conversation.
6. Social media
Google also indexes your Twitter updates and social networking profiles. Add that to Web 2.0 hubsites like Scribd or HubPage and you’ve got a way to create many inbound links in a very short time. Scribd is a digital library featuring an ebook and audiobook subscription service that includes New York Times best sellers and classics. HubPages is a user-generated content, revenue-sharing Web site.
7. Video syndication
YouTube is one of the most visited sites online, and the number of sites that syndicate videos is growing every day. These sites often allow you to link to your site in your video’s description, on your profile page, or both.
The importance of being consistent—and honest
For best results, you need to build these links monthly with regularity, and over time, you will reap the benefits of improved rankings. While it is fairly easy to modify your Web pages to make them more SEO-friendly, it is harder to influence other Web sites and get them to link to yours. This is the reason search engines consider backlinks such an important factor.
Moreover, search engines’ criteria for quality backlinks have gotten tougher, thanks to unscrupulous Web masters trying to achieve these backlinks by deceptive techniques, such as hidden links or automatically generated pages whose sole purpose is to provide backlinks to Web sites. These pages are called link farms. Not only are they disregarded by search engines, but linking to one could get your site banned entirely. This strategy is often referred to as “black hat” linking and is to be avoided.
“White hat” methods to increase backlinks
Blog posting is one of the easiest, least expensive, and most effective ways to garner links from other sites. However, to reap this benefit, you must post blog entries consistently. We suggest posting at least once weekly. Your blog will gain more attention if you have something newsworthy to report. For example, if you attend a meeting where a revolutionary new development is reported, and you write about it before the media, you can be sure others will want to connect and link to your site.
Conduct a survey and share your results on your site. Others will want to link to your report.
Share any templates your office uses to be more efficient and productive. For example, Dr. Baum has a template, or checklist, for starting and ending every day in the office. It is shared on his Web site so that other sites can link to it and make use of it.
Show your funny bone. Humor often travels in a viral direction. If something funny happens in your practice, share it with others and they will frequently link to the source.
Join a forum. Forums are a great source of high-quality traffic and links. You can use a forum to reach out to a specific community.By placing valid, useful contributions, you gain legitimate authority for your site.
The bottom line
You want to attract as many visitors to your Web site as possible. Your own content and the frequency of your postings are mainstays of making your Web site relevant to existing and potential patients. Also useful are backlinks. The number and quality of your inbound links are major factors in SEO. Search engines place high value on trust and authority, and an inbound link from a very high-ranking and trusted Web site tells the search engine that someone trusted also trusts you. So start linking.
Reference
1. The value of Google result positioning. Chitika.com. http://chitika.com/google-positioning-value. Updated June 12, 2013. Accessed June 9, 2015.
Reference
1. The value of Google result positioning. Chitika.com. http://chitika.com/google-positioning-value. Updated June 12, 2013. Accessed June 9, 2015.
5 ways to wake up your Web site
Web sites are not like wine and cheese—they don’t necessarily get better with age. You may have started your Web page 20 years ago by moving your 3-color trifold brochure onto the Internet. It may have worked then, but to compete today you must have a robust, interactive, attractive Web site that is continuously being updated with new content. What prospective patients are looking for in a Web site has evolved rapidly. How to get these patients to take action and call for an appointment requires a process or a system.
Trying to keep your Web site current can be daunting for most medical practices. If you find that your Web site is not generating new patients and that your existing patients are not using the site in an interactive fashion, then it is time to upgrade. In this article we suggest 5 practical ways to make your Web site a useful adjunct to your medical practice—an automatic patient conversion system.
1. Go mobile
Make your Web site “thumb friendly.” Mobile technology has taken over the desktop and laptop worlds. Now nearly everyone is using a hand-held smartphone or tablet for their Internet needs.
To attract patients your Web page must be responsive to the screen size of a smartphone or tablet—very different from your Web site, which is accessed from a desktop or a laptop computer. The majority of users navigate not with a mouse but with their fingers and thumbs. To ensure they can find their way on your Web page on a mobile device, the screen view should adjust automatically to the mobile device being used. Whether that is accomplished through a mobile responsive design or an entirely different mobile Web site, you do not want the user to have to resize, zoom, or pinch their way through the page in order to read the content. All the buttons must be large enough to be easily pressed without having to zoom in, and the font should be easy-to-read in style and size.
Having your current Web site programmed to be responsive to these devices will increase the time a mobile user spends on your site and make it easier for her to make an appointment.
2. Add patient reviews
What others say about you is far more important than anything you can say about yourself. Almost half of prospective patients will check out your online reviews before calling you to schedule an appointment.1 Therefore, it is very important that you ask for positive feedback from your patients and post it to your Web site. We recommend that you capture compliments from your existing patients when they are in the office. Have a computer or iPad handy for them to create a positive review; patients who “promise” to do it when they get back to the office or home rarely follow through. Testimonials should be visible on your homepage and can link to another testimonial page or review site.
“as many as 8 out of 10 people will look online for information about individual doctors. And all of that happens long before they make an appointment … and what they find—positive, negative, neutral or nothing at all—influences their decision to call or not to call.”2
Always invite your patients to evaluate you, your practice partners, and the practice online. There are numerous patient review Web sites, including: Google Plus, http://www.RateMDs.com, http://www.Vitals.com, and http://www.HealthGrades.com. And check out what your patients are saying about you on a regular basis. Just type “Reviews for Dr. <your name>” into your search bar to find the results.
Although we hope they will, happy patients rarely fill out these online reviews. However, it takes just 2 or 3 unhappy patients to ruin your online reputation. That could be costing you tens of thousands of dollars in lost billing.
3. Share your videos
What’s hot and what’s not? To answer that, just take a look at how many people watch videos on YouTube every day! People don’t want to read anymore; they want to be entertained and spoon-fed information.
Take advantage of this trend by placing videos on your homepage. Post a video that introduces your practice, provides testimonials of satisfied patients, explains some of the procedures you perform, or shows you describing the latest breakthrough in medical technology.
Your videos don’t have to be long. One to 2 minutes is plenty. They don’t have to feature you talking about medical symptoms or procedures (what’s called a talking head video). Use a PowerPoint presentation with voice overlay—and you don’t have to be the one talking.
Your Web site isn’t the only place you’ll want to post your videos. YouTube is second only to Google as the most popular search engine.3 Just about everyone goes to YouTube to view videos on whatever interests them. See our April 2014 article, titled “Using the Internet in your practice. Part 2: Generating new patients using social media,” to learn more on getting started with YouTube.
Videos will improve your Web site rankings and will increase the time visitors spend on the site. When done properly—labeling the videos with relevant keywords, making the videos short, and presenting information in layman’s language with reasons why it is important to seek a professional if the viewer is experiencing these types of symptoms—they are a great way to convert visitors to patients.
4. Hook‘em on the homepage
If you want your Web site to create a favorable first impression, your homepage should reflect that positive impression. Remember, the homepage, as the face of your practice, is the first thing that a patient will see long before she picks up the phone or comes to the office.
A potential patient visiting your site will make a snap judgment within a few seconds. Think of your homepage as a highway billboard. There are about 3 seconds to make an impression and for a driver to decide whether or not she will exit the highway to buy gas or eat at a restaurant or even contact a business in the future by telephone or, most likely, online. A visit to your Web site has the same attraction timing.
Your homepage must be attractive; provide useful, current information; and have pleasing graphics—all without requiring the visitor to scroll down too far. Your Web site is your opportunity to create a good first impression—an opportunity that won’t happen again.
Use compelling headlines with keyword-related content. You want to make sure you use keywords that a prospective patient might search for in a main headline and in the main body of your homepage. But patients are not the only ones who spot those key terms. Search engines also crawl your Web site for keywords that prospective patients may type into the Google search bar—words like gynecologist, ObGyn, urinary leakage, breast lump, pelvic pain, menopause, etc. Using those keywords helps your site to be found more often by patients and helps those prospective patients find information relevant to their medical needs.
5. Place calls to action on every page
Contact us! This is so rudimentary, yet many Web sites do not have easy-to-find contact information on their homepages. Be sure to include your phone number (which could be different than your regular phone office number so you can track how many calls you get from your Web site).
Add a “schedule an appointment” icon in a prominent position on the homepage so the visitor does not have to scroll down to search for it. But don’t just stop at the homepage. Your contact information should be on every page so that, when the visitor is on a page reading about a condition or procedure, the “schedule an appointment” button is right there for her to click.
Be sure to evaluate your contact page. Make sure it’s easy for patients to find multiple ways to connect with you and your office: phone, fax, email, and snail mail.
Interactivity is important. Why not have an “Ask the doctor your question” field? It makes the site interactive and gives you the opportunity to communicate and develop a relationship with your patients.
Additional interactivity
Social media is the new buzz word-of-mouth. Your patients use Facebook, YouTube, blogging, and Twitter every day. It is the easiest way to stay connected and make your practice and your brand part of their daily lives. Social media builds loyalty. Integrating social media into your Web site provides new opportunities to engage your existing patients and to attract new ones to your practice.
Connect to medical records. Your Web site should have an easy portal for patients to connect to their medical records and laboratory results in a secure, encrypted fashion to comply with HIPAA regulations.
You can do this yourself!
You and your staff should be able to make changes on your Web site without having to contact your Web developer, even if you do not have full-time IT assistance. For example, in Dr. Baum’s practice, his support staff can add testimonials, content, and pictures without contacting the Web developer or knowing code.
Make sure that function is designed into your site and that your Web developer teaches you and your staff how to keep your site updated.
The bottom line
Web sites are like a farmer’s fence, they are always under construction. Merely having a Web site, regardless of the size, specialty, or location of your practice, is not enough. Be sure your site attracts, holds, and converts viewers into paying patients. We hope you will consider these 5 suggestions as a roadmap to develop a robust site, so that when you ask a patient who referred her to your practice, her answer will be “your Web site” or “the Internet.” This will bring cockles to your heart and bucks in your bank account.
Share your thoughts! Send your Letter to the Editor to rbarbieri@frontlinemedcom.com. Please include your name and the city and state in which you practice.
1. Online reputation management for doctors. Vanguard Communications Web site. http://vanguardcommuni cations.net/medical-marketing-portfolio/reputation-management. Accessed March 17, 2015.
2. Gandolf S. Ten commandments of online reputation management for physicians [Part one]. Healthcare Success Web site. http://www.healthcaresuccess.com/blog/internet-marketing-advertising/10-commandments-online-reputation-management-physicians-2.html. Published May 12, 2014. Accessed March 9, 2015.
3. YouTube—The 2nd Largest Search Engine. Mushroom Networks Web site. http://www.mushroomnetworks.com/infographics/youtube---the-2nd-largest-search-engine-infographic. Accessed March 17, 2015.
Ron Romano and Neil H. Baum, MD
Ron Romano is President of www.YourInternetDoctor.com and CEO of Instant Marketing Systems. He co-authored The Internet Survival Guide for Doctors (2014, Instant Marketing Systems) and No B.S. Direct Marketing (2006, Entrepreneur Press) and contributed to the Walking with the Wise series (2004, Mentors Publishing). He is an Internet marketing consultant, speaker, and creator of “The Implementation Blueprint System.”
Neil H. Baum, MD, practices urology in New Orleans, Louisiana. He is Associate Clinical Professor of Urology at Tulane Medical School and Louisiana State University School of Medicine, both in New Orleans. He is also on the medical staff at Touro Infirmary in New Orleans, and East Jefferson General Hospital in Metairie, Louisiana. He is the author of several books, including Social Media for the Healthcare Professional (2012, Greenbranch) and Marketing Your Clinical Practice: Ethically, Effectively, Economically (4th edition, 2009; Jones & Bartlett).
Mr. Romano reports that he is CEO of Instant Marketing Systems, which provides consulting advice, marketing plans, and Internet marketing services for businesses and medical practices. Dr. Baum reports no financial relationships relevant to this article.
Ron Romano and Neil H. Baum, MD
Ron Romano is President of www.YourInternetDoctor.com and CEO of Instant Marketing Systems. He co-authored The Internet Survival Guide for Doctors (2014, Instant Marketing Systems) and No B.S. Direct Marketing (2006, Entrepreneur Press) and contributed to the Walking with the Wise series (2004, Mentors Publishing). He is an Internet marketing consultant, speaker, and creator of “The Implementation Blueprint System.”
Neil H. Baum, MD, practices urology in New Orleans, Louisiana. He is Associate Clinical Professor of Urology at Tulane Medical School and Louisiana State University School of Medicine, both in New Orleans. He is also on the medical staff at Touro Infirmary in New Orleans, and East Jefferson General Hospital in Metairie, Louisiana. He is the author of several books, including Social Media for the Healthcare Professional (2012, Greenbranch) and Marketing Your Clinical Practice: Ethically, Effectively, Economically (4th edition, 2009; Jones & Bartlett).
Mr. Romano reports that he is CEO of Instant Marketing Systems, which provides consulting advice, marketing plans, and Internet marketing services for businesses and medical practices. Dr. Baum reports no financial relationships relevant to this article.
Ron Romano and Neil H. Baum, MD
Ron Romano is President of www.YourInternetDoctor.com and CEO of Instant Marketing Systems. He co-authored The Internet Survival Guide for Doctors (2014, Instant Marketing Systems) and No B.S. Direct Marketing (2006, Entrepreneur Press) and contributed to the Walking with the Wise series (2004, Mentors Publishing). He is an Internet marketing consultant, speaker, and creator of “The Implementation Blueprint System.”
Neil H. Baum, MD, practices urology in New Orleans, Louisiana. He is Associate Clinical Professor of Urology at Tulane Medical School and Louisiana State University School of Medicine, both in New Orleans. He is also on the medical staff at Touro Infirmary in New Orleans, and East Jefferson General Hospital in Metairie, Louisiana. He is the author of several books, including Social Media for the Healthcare Professional (2012, Greenbranch) and Marketing Your Clinical Practice: Ethically, Effectively, Economically (4th edition, 2009; Jones & Bartlett).
Mr. Romano reports that he is CEO of Instant Marketing Systems, which provides consulting advice, marketing plans, and Internet marketing services for businesses and medical practices. Dr. Baum reports no financial relationships relevant to this article.
Web sites are not like wine and cheese—they don’t necessarily get better with age. You may have started your Web page 20 years ago by moving your 3-color trifold brochure onto the Internet. It may have worked then, but to compete today you must have a robust, interactive, attractive Web site that is continuously being updated with new content. What prospective patients are looking for in a Web site has evolved rapidly. How to get these patients to take action and call for an appointment requires a process or a system.
Trying to keep your Web site current can be daunting for most medical practices. If you find that your Web site is not generating new patients and that your existing patients are not using the site in an interactive fashion, then it is time to upgrade. In this article we suggest 5 practical ways to make your Web site a useful adjunct to your medical practice—an automatic patient conversion system.
1. Go mobile
Make your Web site “thumb friendly.” Mobile technology has taken over the desktop and laptop worlds. Now nearly everyone is using a hand-held smartphone or tablet for their Internet needs.
To attract patients your Web page must be responsive to the screen size of a smartphone or tablet—very different from your Web site, which is accessed from a desktop or a laptop computer. The majority of users navigate not with a mouse but with their fingers and thumbs. To ensure they can find their way on your Web page on a mobile device, the screen view should adjust automatically to the mobile device being used. Whether that is accomplished through a mobile responsive design or an entirely different mobile Web site, you do not want the user to have to resize, zoom, or pinch their way through the page in order to read the content. All the buttons must be large enough to be easily pressed without having to zoom in, and the font should be easy-to-read in style and size.
Having your current Web site programmed to be responsive to these devices will increase the time a mobile user spends on your site and make it easier for her to make an appointment.
2. Add patient reviews
What others say about you is far more important than anything you can say about yourself. Almost half of prospective patients will check out your online reviews before calling you to schedule an appointment.1 Therefore, it is very important that you ask for positive feedback from your patients and post it to your Web site. We recommend that you capture compliments from your existing patients when they are in the office. Have a computer or iPad handy for them to create a positive review; patients who “promise” to do it when they get back to the office or home rarely follow through. Testimonials should be visible on your homepage and can link to another testimonial page or review site.
“as many as 8 out of 10 people will look online for information about individual doctors. And all of that happens long before they make an appointment … and what they find—positive, negative, neutral or nothing at all—influences their decision to call or not to call.”2
Always invite your patients to evaluate you, your practice partners, and the practice online. There are numerous patient review Web sites, including: Google Plus, http://www.RateMDs.com, http://www.Vitals.com, and http://www.HealthGrades.com. And check out what your patients are saying about you on a regular basis. Just type “Reviews for Dr. <your name>” into your search bar to find the results.
Although we hope they will, happy patients rarely fill out these online reviews. However, it takes just 2 or 3 unhappy patients to ruin your online reputation. That could be costing you tens of thousands of dollars in lost billing.
3. Share your videos
What’s hot and what’s not? To answer that, just take a look at how many people watch videos on YouTube every day! People don’t want to read anymore; they want to be entertained and spoon-fed information.
Take advantage of this trend by placing videos on your homepage. Post a video that introduces your practice, provides testimonials of satisfied patients, explains some of the procedures you perform, or shows you describing the latest breakthrough in medical technology.
Your videos don’t have to be long. One to 2 minutes is plenty. They don’t have to feature you talking about medical symptoms or procedures (what’s called a talking head video). Use a PowerPoint presentation with voice overlay—and you don’t have to be the one talking.
Your Web site isn’t the only place you’ll want to post your videos. YouTube is second only to Google as the most popular search engine.3 Just about everyone goes to YouTube to view videos on whatever interests them. See our April 2014 article, titled “Using the Internet in your practice. Part 2: Generating new patients using social media,” to learn more on getting started with YouTube.
Videos will improve your Web site rankings and will increase the time visitors spend on the site. When done properly—labeling the videos with relevant keywords, making the videos short, and presenting information in layman’s language with reasons why it is important to seek a professional if the viewer is experiencing these types of symptoms—they are a great way to convert visitors to patients.
4. Hook‘em on the homepage
If you want your Web site to create a favorable first impression, your homepage should reflect that positive impression. Remember, the homepage, as the face of your practice, is the first thing that a patient will see long before she picks up the phone or comes to the office.
A potential patient visiting your site will make a snap judgment within a few seconds. Think of your homepage as a highway billboard. There are about 3 seconds to make an impression and for a driver to decide whether or not she will exit the highway to buy gas or eat at a restaurant or even contact a business in the future by telephone or, most likely, online. A visit to your Web site has the same attraction timing.
Your homepage must be attractive; provide useful, current information; and have pleasing graphics—all without requiring the visitor to scroll down too far. Your Web site is your opportunity to create a good first impression—an opportunity that won’t happen again.
Use compelling headlines with keyword-related content. You want to make sure you use keywords that a prospective patient might search for in a main headline and in the main body of your homepage. But patients are not the only ones who spot those key terms. Search engines also crawl your Web site for keywords that prospective patients may type into the Google search bar—words like gynecologist, ObGyn, urinary leakage, breast lump, pelvic pain, menopause, etc. Using those keywords helps your site to be found more often by patients and helps those prospective patients find information relevant to their medical needs.
5. Place calls to action on every page
Contact us! This is so rudimentary, yet many Web sites do not have easy-to-find contact information on their homepages. Be sure to include your phone number (which could be different than your regular phone office number so you can track how many calls you get from your Web site).
Add a “schedule an appointment” icon in a prominent position on the homepage so the visitor does not have to scroll down to search for it. But don’t just stop at the homepage. Your contact information should be on every page so that, when the visitor is on a page reading about a condition or procedure, the “schedule an appointment” button is right there for her to click.
Be sure to evaluate your contact page. Make sure it’s easy for patients to find multiple ways to connect with you and your office: phone, fax, email, and snail mail.
Interactivity is important. Why not have an “Ask the doctor your question” field? It makes the site interactive and gives you the opportunity to communicate and develop a relationship with your patients.
Additional interactivity
Social media is the new buzz word-of-mouth. Your patients use Facebook, YouTube, blogging, and Twitter every day. It is the easiest way to stay connected and make your practice and your brand part of their daily lives. Social media builds loyalty. Integrating social media into your Web site provides new opportunities to engage your existing patients and to attract new ones to your practice.
Connect to medical records. Your Web site should have an easy portal for patients to connect to their medical records and laboratory results in a secure, encrypted fashion to comply with HIPAA regulations.
You can do this yourself!
You and your staff should be able to make changes on your Web site without having to contact your Web developer, even if you do not have full-time IT assistance. For example, in Dr. Baum’s practice, his support staff can add testimonials, content, and pictures without contacting the Web developer or knowing code.
Make sure that function is designed into your site and that your Web developer teaches you and your staff how to keep your site updated.
The bottom line
Web sites are like a farmer’s fence, they are always under construction. Merely having a Web site, regardless of the size, specialty, or location of your practice, is not enough. Be sure your site attracts, holds, and converts viewers into paying patients. We hope you will consider these 5 suggestions as a roadmap to develop a robust site, so that when you ask a patient who referred her to your practice, her answer will be “your Web site” or “the Internet.” This will bring cockles to your heart and bucks in your bank account.
Share your thoughts! Send your Letter to the Editor to rbarbieri@frontlinemedcom.com. Please include your name and the city and state in which you practice.
Web sites are not like wine and cheese—they don’t necessarily get better with age. You may have started your Web page 20 years ago by moving your 3-color trifold brochure onto the Internet. It may have worked then, but to compete today you must have a robust, interactive, attractive Web site that is continuously being updated with new content. What prospective patients are looking for in a Web site has evolved rapidly. How to get these patients to take action and call for an appointment requires a process or a system.
Trying to keep your Web site current can be daunting for most medical practices. If you find that your Web site is not generating new patients and that your existing patients are not using the site in an interactive fashion, then it is time to upgrade. In this article we suggest 5 practical ways to make your Web site a useful adjunct to your medical practice—an automatic patient conversion system.
1. Go mobile
Make your Web site “thumb friendly.” Mobile technology has taken over the desktop and laptop worlds. Now nearly everyone is using a hand-held smartphone or tablet for their Internet needs.
To attract patients your Web page must be responsive to the screen size of a smartphone or tablet—very different from your Web site, which is accessed from a desktop or a laptop computer. The majority of users navigate not with a mouse but with their fingers and thumbs. To ensure they can find their way on your Web page on a mobile device, the screen view should adjust automatically to the mobile device being used. Whether that is accomplished through a mobile responsive design or an entirely different mobile Web site, you do not want the user to have to resize, zoom, or pinch their way through the page in order to read the content. All the buttons must be large enough to be easily pressed without having to zoom in, and the font should be easy-to-read in style and size.
Having your current Web site programmed to be responsive to these devices will increase the time a mobile user spends on your site and make it easier for her to make an appointment.
2. Add patient reviews
What others say about you is far more important than anything you can say about yourself. Almost half of prospective patients will check out your online reviews before calling you to schedule an appointment.1 Therefore, it is very important that you ask for positive feedback from your patients and post it to your Web site. We recommend that you capture compliments from your existing patients when they are in the office. Have a computer or iPad handy for them to create a positive review; patients who “promise” to do it when they get back to the office or home rarely follow through. Testimonials should be visible on your homepage and can link to another testimonial page or review site.
“as many as 8 out of 10 people will look online for information about individual doctors. And all of that happens long before they make an appointment … and what they find—positive, negative, neutral or nothing at all—influences their decision to call or not to call.”2
Always invite your patients to evaluate you, your practice partners, and the practice online. There are numerous patient review Web sites, including: Google Plus, http://www.RateMDs.com, http://www.Vitals.com, and http://www.HealthGrades.com. And check out what your patients are saying about you on a regular basis. Just type “Reviews for Dr. <your name>” into your search bar to find the results.
Although we hope they will, happy patients rarely fill out these online reviews. However, it takes just 2 or 3 unhappy patients to ruin your online reputation. That could be costing you tens of thousands of dollars in lost billing.
3. Share your videos
What’s hot and what’s not? To answer that, just take a look at how many people watch videos on YouTube every day! People don’t want to read anymore; they want to be entertained and spoon-fed information.
Take advantage of this trend by placing videos on your homepage. Post a video that introduces your practice, provides testimonials of satisfied patients, explains some of the procedures you perform, or shows you describing the latest breakthrough in medical technology.
Your videos don’t have to be long. One to 2 minutes is plenty. They don’t have to feature you talking about medical symptoms or procedures (what’s called a talking head video). Use a PowerPoint presentation with voice overlay—and you don’t have to be the one talking.
Your Web site isn’t the only place you’ll want to post your videos. YouTube is second only to Google as the most popular search engine.3 Just about everyone goes to YouTube to view videos on whatever interests them. See our April 2014 article, titled “Using the Internet in your practice. Part 2: Generating new patients using social media,” to learn more on getting started with YouTube.
Videos will improve your Web site rankings and will increase the time visitors spend on the site. When done properly—labeling the videos with relevant keywords, making the videos short, and presenting information in layman’s language with reasons why it is important to seek a professional if the viewer is experiencing these types of symptoms—they are a great way to convert visitors to patients.
4. Hook‘em on the homepage
If you want your Web site to create a favorable first impression, your homepage should reflect that positive impression. Remember, the homepage, as the face of your practice, is the first thing that a patient will see long before she picks up the phone or comes to the office.
A potential patient visiting your site will make a snap judgment within a few seconds. Think of your homepage as a highway billboard. There are about 3 seconds to make an impression and for a driver to decide whether or not she will exit the highway to buy gas or eat at a restaurant or even contact a business in the future by telephone or, most likely, online. A visit to your Web site has the same attraction timing.
Your homepage must be attractive; provide useful, current information; and have pleasing graphics—all without requiring the visitor to scroll down too far. Your Web site is your opportunity to create a good first impression—an opportunity that won’t happen again.
Use compelling headlines with keyword-related content. You want to make sure you use keywords that a prospective patient might search for in a main headline and in the main body of your homepage. But patients are not the only ones who spot those key terms. Search engines also crawl your Web site for keywords that prospective patients may type into the Google search bar—words like gynecologist, ObGyn, urinary leakage, breast lump, pelvic pain, menopause, etc. Using those keywords helps your site to be found more often by patients and helps those prospective patients find information relevant to their medical needs.
5. Place calls to action on every page
Contact us! This is so rudimentary, yet many Web sites do not have easy-to-find contact information on their homepages. Be sure to include your phone number (which could be different than your regular phone office number so you can track how many calls you get from your Web site).
Add a “schedule an appointment” icon in a prominent position on the homepage so the visitor does not have to scroll down to search for it. But don’t just stop at the homepage. Your contact information should be on every page so that, when the visitor is on a page reading about a condition or procedure, the “schedule an appointment” button is right there for her to click.
Be sure to evaluate your contact page. Make sure it’s easy for patients to find multiple ways to connect with you and your office: phone, fax, email, and snail mail.
Interactivity is important. Why not have an “Ask the doctor your question” field? It makes the site interactive and gives you the opportunity to communicate and develop a relationship with your patients.
Additional interactivity
Social media is the new buzz word-of-mouth. Your patients use Facebook, YouTube, blogging, and Twitter every day. It is the easiest way to stay connected and make your practice and your brand part of their daily lives. Social media builds loyalty. Integrating social media into your Web site provides new opportunities to engage your existing patients and to attract new ones to your practice.
Connect to medical records. Your Web site should have an easy portal for patients to connect to their medical records and laboratory results in a secure, encrypted fashion to comply with HIPAA regulations.
You can do this yourself!
You and your staff should be able to make changes on your Web site without having to contact your Web developer, even if you do not have full-time IT assistance. For example, in Dr. Baum’s practice, his support staff can add testimonials, content, and pictures without contacting the Web developer or knowing code.
Make sure that function is designed into your site and that your Web developer teaches you and your staff how to keep your site updated.
The bottom line
Web sites are like a farmer’s fence, they are always under construction. Merely having a Web site, regardless of the size, specialty, or location of your practice, is not enough. Be sure your site attracts, holds, and converts viewers into paying patients. We hope you will consider these 5 suggestions as a roadmap to develop a robust site, so that when you ask a patient who referred her to your practice, her answer will be “your Web site” or “the Internet.” This will bring cockles to your heart and bucks in your bank account.
Share your thoughts! Send your Letter to the Editor to rbarbieri@frontlinemedcom.com. Please include your name and the city and state in which you practice.
1. Online reputation management for doctors. Vanguard Communications Web site. http://vanguardcommuni cations.net/medical-marketing-portfolio/reputation-management. Accessed March 17, 2015.
2. Gandolf S. Ten commandments of online reputation management for physicians [Part one]. Healthcare Success Web site. http://www.healthcaresuccess.com/blog/internet-marketing-advertising/10-commandments-online-reputation-management-physicians-2.html. Published May 12, 2014. Accessed March 9, 2015.
3. YouTube—The 2nd Largest Search Engine. Mushroom Networks Web site. http://www.mushroomnetworks.com/infographics/youtube---the-2nd-largest-search-engine-infographic. Accessed March 17, 2015.
1. Online reputation management for doctors. Vanguard Communications Web site. http://vanguardcommuni cations.net/medical-marketing-portfolio/reputation-management. Accessed March 17, 2015.
2. Gandolf S. Ten commandments of online reputation management for physicians [Part one]. Healthcare Success Web site. http://www.healthcaresuccess.com/blog/internet-marketing-advertising/10-commandments-online-reputation-management-physicians-2.html. Published May 12, 2014. Accessed March 9, 2015.
3. YouTube—The 2nd Largest Search Engine. Mushroom Networks Web site. http://www.mushroomnetworks.com/infographics/youtube---the-2nd-largest-search-engine-infographic. Accessed March 17, 2015.
Using the Internet in your practice. Part 4: Reputation management—how to gather kudos and combat negative online reviews
“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and 5 minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.”
—Warren Buffet
CASE: Decline in new patients
A well-respected physician—one of the best in his field—notices that the number of new patients in his practice has fallen off drastically over the past year. Baffled, he hires a consultant, who discovers that the doctor’s online reputation has plummeted, thanks to four negative reviews and no positive ones.
What can the physician do to remedy the situation and restore his reputation?
The problem can be fixed, but it takes time—like major surgery. Rather than wait until negative reviews are posted, we recommend that you become proactive and take steps as soon as possible to secure your online reputation. That way, you won’t get caught by surprise when one or two unhappy patients try to smear your good name. In this article, we step you through a number of remedies and proactive strategies for boosting positive online reviews and combating negative ones.
The Internet: A one-stop source of information
The Internet has become everyone’s go-to source for pretty much any kind of data, including details on products, services, and people. Anyone can access all kinds of information simply by asking.
Today, people research medical conditions on the Web, often using Google. If you have done your search engine optimization, your Web site will come up in the first page of search results, making it possible for prospective patients to click through to your homepage. (For the scoop on search engine optimization, see Part 3 of this series, “Maximizing your online reach through SEO and pay-per-click,” which appeared in the September 2014 issue of OBG Management.)
If visitors like what they see at your site, they may make an appointment. But they are more likely to visit three or four other sites before making a decision. And in all likelihood, they will research each physician to find out what patients have to say about her or him. It’s no different than looking at the reviews of hotels or products you are considering.
You are an open book on the Internet. Only a few short years ago, your peers and patients knew your reputation primarily through word of mouth, which traveled at the speed of molasses. For the most part, that information was favorable. Today your exposure is much greater, and negative comments about you can be viewed by thousands of potential patients. The speed of information has increased, as well. What is posted on the Internet can become readily available to hundreds, thousands, and even millions of Web users in a nanosecond.
The Internet provides a forum for people to say whatever they want about their experiences, both positive and negative. Regrettably, the positive experiences do not find their way online nearly as often as the negative ones!
The bottom line? In today’s Internet-savvy world, you need to pay regular attention to your online reputation. You need to take steps to ensure that your name and practice look their best and to negate any complaints that may appear.
What patients share about their experience with you
Many online review sites provide an opportunity for your patients to describe their experience with you and your practice. To name a few: RateMDs.com, Vitals.com, ZocDoc.com, healthgrades.com, UcompareHealth.com, Citysearch.com, yelp.com, and, of course, Google Plus reviews.
And when patients post comments on the Internet, you likely will be rated on:
- the patient’s wait time
- how your staff treated the patient
- the diagnosis
- your attitude
- the level of trust in your decisions
- treatment and outcome.
The online surfer searching for a reputable physician is likely to believe whatever he or she finds on the leading review sites.
The good news: Most physicians have a very favorable rating, averaging 9.3 out of 10 on a scale of 1 to 10. In fact, 70% of doctors have perfect scores!1
The bad news: Someone who is unhappy with her treatment or outcome will go out of her way to find every online review site possible and proclaim your faults to the cyber-world, using the Internet as a forum, whether her facts are straight or not. Patients who are pleased and satisfied rarely bother to place a positive review.
How you can control your online reputation
It is incumbent upon you to keep an eye on your online reputation at all times. Here are some tips for taking charge:
- If someone posts a negative review, respond to them directly in the review site. Doing so does not violate privacy laws as long as you do not mention the patient’s name or give other identifying details. Explain your side of the story without confirming or denying that the reviewer is or was a patient. Do not mention the specifics of any patient’s condition.
- If you feel that a negative review is completely unjustified, file a dispute with the review site. Many review sites will remove the unfavorable content if you can convince them that the patient is merely ranting.
- To protect your reputation over the long term, use your name or practice name to set up an alert with Google Alerts by visiting the site Google.com/alerts.
- Do a Google search of your name and the name of your practice at least once a month and check out all the review sites that come up. Read the comments!
Develop a proactive system
You have a lot of control when it comes to protecting your online reputation, provided you are willing to take the time to set up a system to regularly request feedback or testimonials from your patients.
Regrettably, this is where most medical practices fall short, by failing to establish a system to solicit positive reviews.
The process need not be complicated. Such a system can be set in motion by scheduling a quick meeting with your staff to announce your plans to solicit testimonials from patients. Often there will be a flurry of activity for a couple of weeks before the task is forgotten. To keep your system from falling through the cracks, make a checklist and decide who on your staff is responsible for each step in the process. Go over the results in your staff meetings on a regular basis—ie, at least monthly.
You want to solicit positive reviews for use in two places:
- your Web site
- the review sites we mentioned earlier.
Posting testimonials on your Web site
Your site is the place prospective patients visit when they are looking for information about you and your services. Here are a few tips on gathering and posting testimonials:
- The best time to solicit feedback from the patient is after the follow-up appointment, when her needs have been met and she has had at least two experiences with your practice. If she is happy with her outcome, she is likely to be receptive to the idea of providing a testimonial while the details are fresh in her mind.
- Post testimonials on your homepage and every other page at your site. They should be visible when each page loads without the need to scroll down. A testimonial is worthless if it can’t be easily seen.
- Post testimonials in italics, with quotation marks around the comments to distinguish them from other elements on the page.
- Give each testimonial a headline in bold italics. Use key words likely to resonate with the reader. For example, if the patient reports: “I had a surgical procedure and it was a game changer. You turned my life around! Thank you!” the headline might be: “You turned my life around.”
- Create a Web page just for testimonials and order the comments and headlines so that they will appeal to a diversity of prospective patients. The visitor may not read every testimonial, but she will at least read and scroll through the headlines.
Gathering feedback: Your options
- One option for automating the gathering of feedback is to include a patient feedback survey on your Web site. It’s a convenient way to ask for comments. When the patient is in the office, you or your staff can simply ask her to visit the survey page on your site and answer the questions. The problem with this approach is that many patients will agree to complete the survey but few will actually follow through.
- A far more effective way to get patients to complete a survey while they are still in your office is to have the receptionist hand the patient an iPad after her appointment and ask her to take a couple of minutes to complete the survey. You can then transcribe her comments and post them on your site.
- Asking patients to post positive comments on review sites such as healthgrades.com is another option—but, again, patients are unlikely to follow through unless you make it as easy and fast as possible. The best way to do this is to provide your patient with a blueprint for how to proceed. We offer a “patient feedback” form that contains four or five questions (FIGURE). The answers to these questions will provide a great testimonial for the doctor and the practice. Providing your patients with the right questions to elicit an emotional response will help them describe their experiences more fully. If you let the patient create a testimonial on her own, you’ll probably just receive comments such as, “I’m very happy with my results” or “She is a great doctor.”
- Also provide patients with a step-by-step process for entering their feedback on the desired review sites. This can be a daunting task for your patient, so your instructions should be clear and simple. Better yet, have someone on your staff sit with the patient at a computer or iPad to help her through the process.
- Another way to control your online reputation is to capture positive comments at the point of service. In our practice, we have a testimonial poster in every exam room as well as the reception area. It contains a quick response (QR) code that can be scanned to allow the patient to submit a testimonial about her experience with the practice. With this system, we are able to collect three to five positive reviews every day.
FIGURE: Patient follow-up satisfaction survey
| It is our intention to provide our patients with the absolute best medical care available to produce optimal results. Your feedback about your procedure and patient care is an important measure of our performance. Please take the time to let us know how you feel about your results:
Your name: _______________________________ Date: ________ Thank you for telling us about the results of your procedure. How you feel about your experience helps us better understand the physical and emotional needs of our patients. We would like to share your experience with others who might be struggling with the same issues. By signing this form, you agree to let us share this information on our Web site and informational material to help other patients understand the benefits of having these types of procedures performed. |
CASE: Resolved
The physician institutes a process in his practice to gather testimonials and positive feedback, and his staff takes time to help willing patients post their reviews online. He also disputes the negative comments that have already been posted online, offering an objective response to the complaints and asking the Web sites to take down the reviews that are merely ranting. In addition, he posts selected testimonials on the homepage of his Web site and adds a page that is just for testimonials.
Within a few weeks, the number of new patients scheduling appointments with him begins to increase until he once again enjoys a bustling practice.
Share your thoughts on this article! Send your Letter to the Editor to rbarbieri@frontlinemedcom.com. Please include your name and the city and state in which you practice.
Reference
- Schwartz SK. Online patient feedback: what to do. Physicianspractice.com. http://www.physicianspractice.com/health-it/online-patient-feedback-what-do. Published December 27, 2012. Accessed November 15, 2014.
Ron Romano and Neil H. Baum, MD
Ron Romano is President of www.YourInternetDoctor.com and CEO of Instant Marketing Systems. He co-authored The Internet Survival Guide for Doctors (2014, Instant Marketing Systems) and No B.S. Direct Marketing (2006, Entrepreneur Press) and contributed to the Walking with the Wise series (2004, Mentors Publishing). He is an Internet marketing consultant, speaker, and creator of “The Implementation Blueprint System.”
Neil H. Baum, MD, practices urology in New Orleans, Louisiana. He is Associate Clinical Professor of Urology at Tulane Medical School and Louisiana State University School of Medicine, both in New Orleans. He is also on the medical staff at Touro Infirmary in New Orleans, and East Jefferson General Hospital in Metairie, Louisiana. And he is the author of several books, including Social Media for the Healthcare Professional (2012, Greenbranch), and Marketing Your Clinical Practice: Ethically, Effectively, Economically (4th edition, 2009; Jones & Bartlett). Dr. Baum serves on the OBG Management Board of Contributing Editors.
Mr. Romano reports that he is CEO of Instant Marketing Systems, which provides consulting advice, marketing plans, and Internet marketing services for businesses and medical practices. Dr. Baum reports no financial relationships relevant to this article.
Ron Romano and Neil H. Baum, MD
Ron Romano is President of www.YourInternetDoctor.com and CEO of Instant Marketing Systems. He co-authored The Internet Survival Guide for Doctors (2014, Instant Marketing Systems) and No B.S. Direct Marketing (2006, Entrepreneur Press) and contributed to the Walking with the Wise series (2004, Mentors Publishing). He is an Internet marketing consultant, speaker, and creator of “The Implementation Blueprint System.”
Neil H. Baum, MD, practices urology in New Orleans, Louisiana. He is Associate Clinical Professor of Urology at Tulane Medical School and Louisiana State University School of Medicine, both in New Orleans. He is also on the medical staff at Touro Infirmary in New Orleans, and East Jefferson General Hospital in Metairie, Louisiana. And he is the author of several books, including Social Media for the Healthcare Professional (2012, Greenbranch), and Marketing Your Clinical Practice: Ethically, Effectively, Economically (4th edition, 2009; Jones & Bartlett). Dr. Baum serves on the OBG Management Board of Contributing Editors.
Mr. Romano reports that he is CEO of Instant Marketing Systems, which provides consulting advice, marketing plans, and Internet marketing services for businesses and medical practices. Dr. Baum reports no financial relationships relevant to this article.
Ron Romano and Neil H. Baum, MD
Ron Romano is President of www.YourInternetDoctor.com and CEO of Instant Marketing Systems. He co-authored The Internet Survival Guide for Doctors (2014, Instant Marketing Systems) and No B.S. Direct Marketing (2006, Entrepreneur Press) and contributed to the Walking with the Wise series (2004, Mentors Publishing). He is an Internet marketing consultant, speaker, and creator of “The Implementation Blueprint System.”
Neil H. Baum, MD, practices urology in New Orleans, Louisiana. He is Associate Clinical Professor of Urology at Tulane Medical School and Louisiana State University School of Medicine, both in New Orleans. He is also on the medical staff at Touro Infirmary in New Orleans, and East Jefferson General Hospital in Metairie, Louisiana. And he is the author of several books, including Social Media for the Healthcare Professional (2012, Greenbranch), and Marketing Your Clinical Practice: Ethically, Effectively, Economically (4th edition, 2009; Jones & Bartlett). Dr. Baum serves on the OBG Management Board of Contributing Editors.
Mr. Romano reports that he is CEO of Instant Marketing Systems, which provides consulting advice, marketing plans, and Internet marketing services for businesses and medical practices. Dr. Baum reports no financial relationships relevant to this article.
“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and 5 minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.”
—Warren Buffet
CASE: Decline in new patients
A well-respected physician—one of the best in his field—notices that the number of new patients in his practice has fallen off drastically over the past year. Baffled, he hires a consultant, who discovers that the doctor’s online reputation has plummeted, thanks to four negative reviews and no positive ones.
What can the physician do to remedy the situation and restore his reputation?
The problem can be fixed, but it takes time—like major surgery. Rather than wait until negative reviews are posted, we recommend that you become proactive and take steps as soon as possible to secure your online reputation. That way, you won’t get caught by surprise when one or two unhappy patients try to smear your good name. In this article, we step you through a number of remedies and proactive strategies for boosting positive online reviews and combating negative ones.
The Internet: A one-stop source of information
The Internet has become everyone’s go-to source for pretty much any kind of data, including details on products, services, and people. Anyone can access all kinds of information simply by asking.
Today, people research medical conditions on the Web, often using Google. If you have done your search engine optimization, your Web site will come up in the first page of search results, making it possible for prospective patients to click through to your homepage. (For the scoop on search engine optimization, see Part 3 of this series, “Maximizing your online reach through SEO and pay-per-click,” which appeared in the September 2014 issue of OBG Management.)
If visitors like what they see at your site, they may make an appointment. But they are more likely to visit three or four other sites before making a decision. And in all likelihood, they will research each physician to find out what patients have to say about her or him. It’s no different than looking at the reviews of hotels or products you are considering.
You are an open book on the Internet. Only a few short years ago, your peers and patients knew your reputation primarily through word of mouth, which traveled at the speed of molasses. For the most part, that information was favorable. Today your exposure is much greater, and negative comments about you can be viewed by thousands of potential patients. The speed of information has increased, as well. What is posted on the Internet can become readily available to hundreds, thousands, and even millions of Web users in a nanosecond.
The Internet provides a forum for people to say whatever they want about their experiences, both positive and negative. Regrettably, the positive experiences do not find their way online nearly as often as the negative ones!
The bottom line? In today’s Internet-savvy world, you need to pay regular attention to your online reputation. You need to take steps to ensure that your name and practice look their best and to negate any complaints that may appear.
What patients share about their experience with you
Many online review sites provide an opportunity for your patients to describe their experience with you and your practice. To name a few: RateMDs.com, Vitals.com, ZocDoc.com, healthgrades.com, UcompareHealth.com, Citysearch.com, yelp.com, and, of course, Google Plus reviews.
And when patients post comments on the Internet, you likely will be rated on:
- the patient’s wait time
- how your staff treated the patient
- the diagnosis
- your attitude
- the level of trust in your decisions
- treatment and outcome.
The online surfer searching for a reputable physician is likely to believe whatever he or she finds on the leading review sites.
The good news: Most physicians have a very favorable rating, averaging 9.3 out of 10 on a scale of 1 to 10. In fact, 70% of doctors have perfect scores!1
The bad news: Someone who is unhappy with her treatment or outcome will go out of her way to find every online review site possible and proclaim your faults to the cyber-world, using the Internet as a forum, whether her facts are straight or not. Patients who are pleased and satisfied rarely bother to place a positive review.
How you can control your online reputation
It is incumbent upon you to keep an eye on your online reputation at all times. Here are some tips for taking charge:
- If someone posts a negative review, respond to them directly in the review site. Doing so does not violate privacy laws as long as you do not mention the patient’s name or give other identifying details. Explain your side of the story without confirming or denying that the reviewer is or was a patient. Do not mention the specifics of any patient’s condition.
- If you feel that a negative review is completely unjustified, file a dispute with the review site. Many review sites will remove the unfavorable content if you can convince them that the patient is merely ranting.
- To protect your reputation over the long term, use your name or practice name to set up an alert with Google Alerts by visiting the site Google.com/alerts.
- Do a Google search of your name and the name of your practice at least once a month and check out all the review sites that come up. Read the comments!
Develop a proactive system
You have a lot of control when it comes to protecting your online reputation, provided you are willing to take the time to set up a system to regularly request feedback or testimonials from your patients.
Regrettably, this is where most medical practices fall short, by failing to establish a system to solicit positive reviews.
The process need not be complicated. Such a system can be set in motion by scheduling a quick meeting with your staff to announce your plans to solicit testimonials from patients. Often there will be a flurry of activity for a couple of weeks before the task is forgotten. To keep your system from falling through the cracks, make a checklist and decide who on your staff is responsible for each step in the process. Go over the results in your staff meetings on a regular basis—ie, at least monthly.
You want to solicit positive reviews for use in two places:
- your Web site
- the review sites we mentioned earlier.
Posting testimonials on your Web site
Your site is the place prospective patients visit when they are looking for information about you and your services. Here are a few tips on gathering and posting testimonials:
- The best time to solicit feedback from the patient is after the follow-up appointment, when her needs have been met and she has had at least two experiences with your practice. If she is happy with her outcome, she is likely to be receptive to the idea of providing a testimonial while the details are fresh in her mind.
- Post testimonials on your homepage and every other page at your site. They should be visible when each page loads without the need to scroll down. A testimonial is worthless if it can’t be easily seen.
- Post testimonials in italics, with quotation marks around the comments to distinguish them from other elements on the page.
- Give each testimonial a headline in bold italics. Use key words likely to resonate with the reader. For example, if the patient reports: “I had a surgical procedure and it was a game changer. You turned my life around! Thank you!” the headline might be: “You turned my life around.”
- Create a Web page just for testimonials and order the comments and headlines so that they will appeal to a diversity of prospective patients. The visitor may not read every testimonial, but she will at least read and scroll through the headlines.
Gathering feedback: Your options
- One option for automating the gathering of feedback is to include a patient feedback survey on your Web site. It’s a convenient way to ask for comments. When the patient is in the office, you or your staff can simply ask her to visit the survey page on your site and answer the questions. The problem with this approach is that many patients will agree to complete the survey but few will actually follow through.
- A far more effective way to get patients to complete a survey while they are still in your office is to have the receptionist hand the patient an iPad after her appointment and ask her to take a couple of minutes to complete the survey. You can then transcribe her comments and post them on your site.
- Asking patients to post positive comments on review sites such as healthgrades.com is another option—but, again, patients are unlikely to follow through unless you make it as easy and fast as possible. The best way to do this is to provide your patient with a blueprint for how to proceed. We offer a “patient feedback” form that contains four or five questions (FIGURE). The answers to these questions will provide a great testimonial for the doctor and the practice. Providing your patients with the right questions to elicit an emotional response will help them describe their experiences more fully. If you let the patient create a testimonial on her own, you’ll probably just receive comments such as, “I’m very happy with my results” or “She is a great doctor.”
- Also provide patients with a step-by-step process for entering their feedback on the desired review sites. This can be a daunting task for your patient, so your instructions should be clear and simple. Better yet, have someone on your staff sit with the patient at a computer or iPad to help her through the process.
- Another way to control your online reputation is to capture positive comments at the point of service. In our practice, we have a testimonial poster in every exam room as well as the reception area. It contains a quick response (QR) code that can be scanned to allow the patient to submit a testimonial about her experience with the practice. With this system, we are able to collect three to five positive reviews every day.
FIGURE: Patient follow-up satisfaction survey
| It is our intention to provide our patients with the absolute best medical care available to produce optimal results. Your feedback about your procedure and patient care is an important measure of our performance. Please take the time to let us know how you feel about your results:
Your name: _______________________________ Date: ________ Thank you for telling us about the results of your procedure. How you feel about your experience helps us better understand the physical and emotional needs of our patients. We would like to share your experience with others who might be struggling with the same issues. By signing this form, you agree to let us share this information on our Web site and informational material to help other patients understand the benefits of having these types of procedures performed. |
CASE: Resolved
The physician institutes a process in his practice to gather testimonials and positive feedback, and his staff takes time to help willing patients post their reviews online. He also disputes the negative comments that have already been posted online, offering an objective response to the complaints and asking the Web sites to take down the reviews that are merely ranting. In addition, he posts selected testimonials on the homepage of his Web site and adds a page that is just for testimonials.
Within a few weeks, the number of new patients scheduling appointments with him begins to increase until he once again enjoys a bustling practice.
Share your thoughts on this article! Send your Letter to the Editor to rbarbieri@frontlinemedcom.com. Please include your name and the city and state in which you practice.
“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and 5 minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.”
—Warren Buffet
CASE: Decline in new patients
A well-respected physician—one of the best in his field—notices that the number of new patients in his practice has fallen off drastically over the past year. Baffled, he hires a consultant, who discovers that the doctor’s online reputation has plummeted, thanks to four negative reviews and no positive ones.
What can the physician do to remedy the situation and restore his reputation?
The problem can be fixed, but it takes time—like major surgery. Rather than wait until negative reviews are posted, we recommend that you become proactive and take steps as soon as possible to secure your online reputation. That way, you won’t get caught by surprise when one or two unhappy patients try to smear your good name. In this article, we step you through a number of remedies and proactive strategies for boosting positive online reviews and combating negative ones.
The Internet: A one-stop source of information
The Internet has become everyone’s go-to source for pretty much any kind of data, including details on products, services, and people. Anyone can access all kinds of information simply by asking.
Today, people research medical conditions on the Web, often using Google. If you have done your search engine optimization, your Web site will come up in the first page of search results, making it possible for prospective patients to click through to your homepage. (For the scoop on search engine optimization, see Part 3 of this series, “Maximizing your online reach through SEO and pay-per-click,” which appeared in the September 2014 issue of OBG Management.)
If visitors like what they see at your site, they may make an appointment. But they are more likely to visit three or four other sites before making a decision. And in all likelihood, they will research each physician to find out what patients have to say about her or him. It’s no different than looking at the reviews of hotels or products you are considering.
You are an open book on the Internet. Only a few short years ago, your peers and patients knew your reputation primarily through word of mouth, which traveled at the speed of molasses. For the most part, that information was favorable. Today your exposure is much greater, and negative comments about you can be viewed by thousands of potential patients. The speed of information has increased, as well. What is posted on the Internet can become readily available to hundreds, thousands, and even millions of Web users in a nanosecond.
The Internet provides a forum for people to say whatever they want about their experiences, both positive and negative. Regrettably, the positive experiences do not find their way online nearly as often as the negative ones!
The bottom line? In today’s Internet-savvy world, you need to pay regular attention to your online reputation. You need to take steps to ensure that your name and practice look their best and to negate any complaints that may appear.
What patients share about their experience with you
Many online review sites provide an opportunity for your patients to describe their experience with you and your practice. To name a few: RateMDs.com, Vitals.com, ZocDoc.com, healthgrades.com, UcompareHealth.com, Citysearch.com, yelp.com, and, of course, Google Plus reviews.
And when patients post comments on the Internet, you likely will be rated on:
- the patient’s wait time
- how your staff treated the patient
- the diagnosis
- your attitude
- the level of trust in your decisions
- treatment and outcome.
The online surfer searching for a reputable physician is likely to believe whatever he or she finds on the leading review sites.
The good news: Most physicians have a very favorable rating, averaging 9.3 out of 10 on a scale of 1 to 10. In fact, 70% of doctors have perfect scores!1
The bad news: Someone who is unhappy with her treatment or outcome will go out of her way to find every online review site possible and proclaim your faults to the cyber-world, using the Internet as a forum, whether her facts are straight or not. Patients who are pleased and satisfied rarely bother to place a positive review.
How you can control your online reputation
It is incumbent upon you to keep an eye on your online reputation at all times. Here are some tips for taking charge:
- If someone posts a negative review, respond to them directly in the review site. Doing so does not violate privacy laws as long as you do not mention the patient’s name or give other identifying details. Explain your side of the story without confirming or denying that the reviewer is or was a patient. Do not mention the specifics of any patient’s condition.
- If you feel that a negative review is completely unjustified, file a dispute with the review site. Many review sites will remove the unfavorable content if you can convince them that the patient is merely ranting.
- To protect your reputation over the long term, use your name or practice name to set up an alert with Google Alerts by visiting the site Google.com/alerts.
- Do a Google search of your name and the name of your practice at least once a month and check out all the review sites that come up. Read the comments!
Develop a proactive system
You have a lot of control when it comes to protecting your online reputation, provided you are willing to take the time to set up a system to regularly request feedback or testimonials from your patients.
Regrettably, this is where most medical practices fall short, by failing to establish a system to solicit positive reviews.
The process need not be complicated. Such a system can be set in motion by scheduling a quick meeting with your staff to announce your plans to solicit testimonials from patients. Often there will be a flurry of activity for a couple of weeks before the task is forgotten. To keep your system from falling through the cracks, make a checklist and decide who on your staff is responsible for each step in the process. Go over the results in your staff meetings on a regular basis—ie, at least monthly.
You want to solicit positive reviews for use in two places:
- your Web site
- the review sites we mentioned earlier.
Posting testimonials on your Web site
Your site is the place prospective patients visit when they are looking for information about you and your services. Here are a few tips on gathering and posting testimonials:
- The best time to solicit feedback from the patient is after the follow-up appointment, when her needs have been met and she has had at least two experiences with your practice. If she is happy with her outcome, she is likely to be receptive to the idea of providing a testimonial while the details are fresh in her mind.
- Post testimonials on your homepage and every other page at your site. They should be visible when each page loads without the need to scroll down. A testimonial is worthless if it can’t be easily seen.
- Post testimonials in italics, with quotation marks around the comments to distinguish them from other elements on the page.
- Give each testimonial a headline in bold italics. Use key words likely to resonate with the reader. For example, if the patient reports: “I had a surgical procedure and it was a game changer. You turned my life around! Thank you!” the headline might be: “You turned my life around.”
- Create a Web page just for testimonials and order the comments and headlines so that they will appeal to a diversity of prospective patients. The visitor may not read every testimonial, but she will at least read and scroll through the headlines.
Gathering feedback: Your options
- One option for automating the gathering of feedback is to include a patient feedback survey on your Web site. It’s a convenient way to ask for comments. When the patient is in the office, you or your staff can simply ask her to visit the survey page on your site and answer the questions. The problem with this approach is that many patients will agree to complete the survey but few will actually follow through.
- A far more effective way to get patients to complete a survey while they are still in your office is to have the receptionist hand the patient an iPad after her appointment and ask her to take a couple of minutes to complete the survey. You can then transcribe her comments and post them on your site.
- Asking patients to post positive comments on review sites such as healthgrades.com is another option—but, again, patients are unlikely to follow through unless you make it as easy and fast as possible. The best way to do this is to provide your patient with a blueprint for how to proceed. We offer a “patient feedback” form that contains four or five questions (FIGURE). The answers to these questions will provide a great testimonial for the doctor and the practice. Providing your patients with the right questions to elicit an emotional response will help them describe their experiences more fully. If you let the patient create a testimonial on her own, you’ll probably just receive comments such as, “I’m very happy with my results” or “She is a great doctor.”
- Also provide patients with a step-by-step process for entering their feedback on the desired review sites. This can be a daunting task for your patient, so your instructions should be clear and simple. Better yet, have someone on your staff sit with the patient at a computer or iPad to help her through the process.
- Another way to control your online reputation is to capture positive comments at the point of service. In our practice, we have a testimonial poster in every exam room as well as the reception area. It contains a quick response (QR) code that can be scanned to allow the patient to submit a testimonial about her experience with the practice. With this system, we are able to collect three to five positive reviews every day.
FIGURE: Patient follow-up satisfaction survey
| It is our intention to provide our patients with the absolute best medical care available to produce optimal results. Your feedback about your procedure and patient care is an important measure of our performance. Please take the time to let us know how you feel about your results:
Your name: _______________________________ Date: ________ Thank you for telling us about the results of your procedure. How you feel about your experience helps us better understand the physical and emotional needs of our patients. We would like to share your experience with others who might be struggling with the same issues. By signing this form, you agree to let us share this information on our Web site and informational material to help other patients understand the benefits of having these types of procedures performed. |
CASE: Resolved
The physician institutes a process in his practice to gather testimonials and positive feedback, and his staff takes time to help willing patients post their reviews online. He also disputes the negative comments that have already been posted online, offering an objective response to the complaints and asking the Web sites to take down the reviews that are merely ranting. In addition, he posts selected testimonials on the homepage of his Web site and adds a page that is just for testimonials.
Within a few weeks, the number of new patients scheduling appointments with him begins to increase until he once again enjoys a bustling practice.
Share your thoughts on this article! Send your Letter to the Editor to rbarbieri@frontlinemedcom.com. Please include your name and the city and state in which you practice.
Reference
- Schwartz SK. Online patient feedback: what to do. Physicianspractice.com. http://www.physicianspractice.com/health-it/online-patient-feedback-what-do. Published December 27, 2012. Accessed November 15, 2014.
Reference
- Schwartz SK. Online patient feedback: what to do. Physicianspractice.com. http://www.physicianspractice.com/health-it/online-patient-feedback-what-do. Published December 27, 2012. Accessed November 15, 2014.
Using the Internet in your practice. Part 3: Maximizing your online reach through SEO and pay-per-click
It’s high time to go beyond relying on YellowPages.com to attract patients to your practice. According to research and analysis company BIA/Kelsey, “nearly all consumers (97%) now use online media to shop locally.”1 Today’s patients are Internet savvy and expect their ObGyn not only to be a good physician who diagnoses and treats their conditions but also to demonstrate his or her electronic technical abilities, through online communication, a Web site, email newsletter outreach, and, yes, a social media presence.
Yet, being the best in your field or having an incredible Web site won’t matter if your existing patients and potential new patients can’t find you on the Internet. The solution? Get your Web site onto the first page of Google’s search results. Why? Google is still by far the dominant search engine in the United States, and it has the overwhelming ability to offer you an endless supply of patients. And can your practice survive without a steady flow of new patients?
Type a keyword into the Google search window and dozens, hundreds, or thousands of sites may become visible. Google lists 10 sites per page, however, and when was the last time you went to the second, third, or fourth results page looking for something? If your Web site does not appear on the first results page, you are essentially invisible. The good news is that you can easily and inexpensively reach the top of a search engine’s results page by knowing and applying best practices for effective search engine optimization (SEO; a free endeavor, although your time investment should considered) and/or utilizing a pay-per-click (PPC) service (for a fee that’s comparable to what you used to pay for your old Yellow Pages listing). In this article, we aim to provide to you the know-how to embark on these endeavors by defining SEO and PPC and relaying effective principles for marketing your practice to potential new patients.
What is SEO?
SEO refers to techniques that help your Web site rank higher in organic (natural) results, which helps your site, and you, become more visible to people who are seeking your services. Search engines specialize in offering Web surfers the best information about their search terms, or keywords. To do this, Google uses more than 200 different algorithms, some of which we know but most of which are not published.
The algorithms are used to determine where your Web site ranks according to a number of factors relevant to the content and set-up of each page of your Web site (on-page SEO) as well as everything you do outside of your Web site (off-page SEO) to enhance your SEO rankings. This relevance is calculated by looking at both on-page and off-page factors, including:
- what you are doing in relation to your competition
- how long your Web site has been active
- search engine submission
- article submission
- directory submission
- linking strategies.
You have to work on both on-page and off-page factors many times a month to convince the search engines that you are a Web site worth visiting. Over time, your site will start to rise in the rankings and gain qualified traffic. Then you can concentrate on converting those Web site visitors to office-based patients.
A warning: If you use unethical tactics to get your Web site on the first page of the search results, Google will catch up to you—and your Web-site rankings will plummet.
Five important steps to increase SEO
There’s a system to reach the top of any search engine’s results page. The most important steps are to:
- Use keywords in your Web site coding, or page description (called meta tags).
- Use keywords in your Web site copy.
- Develop in-bound links.
- Post new keyword-related content regularly—typically accomplished through a blog.
- Integrate your keywords in social media postings.
1 and 2. Keywords are key
Keywords are what an Internet surfer enters into a search function and what the search engine crawlers hunt for. The crawlers then direct the surfer to the Web site that is perceived as the best source of information.
Here are the most popular keywords used by potential patients looking for ObGyns: obstetrician, gynecologist, gynecology, vaginal discharge, vaginal dryness, breast self-exam, breast cancer screening, prolapsed bladder, pelvic pain, and adolescent gynecology. You also should include your city’s name as a keyword.
Use keywords in Web site coding and copy. Unless you are experienced in Web development, you’re better off hiring a professional who knows Internet coding to help you develop HTML meta tags, anchor text, a sitemap, etc. You easily can incorporate keywords in the copy on your Web site, but the keyword density should be no more than approximately 3% to 5% of the copy. (If it is more than 5%, it is considered “stuffing,” and not looked on kindly by Google.)
3. In-bound links: Who’s linking to you?
As the search engine crawlers scan Web pages for indexing, they also look for links from other Web sites. The greater number of quality in-bound links a Web site has, the stronger influence or authority it accrues.
In-bound links are weighted differently: a link from a highly authoritative Web site like NYTimes.com will give a Web site a bigger boost than a link from a small blog site. Links from high-ranking sites, such as city directories, hospitals, and online medical directories, improve your Web-site ranking. You should be submitting your Web site address and keyword description to these appropriate directories for in-bound links on a weekly or monthly basis.
4. Develop new content by blogging
Search engines place a high value on new content, and the easiest way to add new keyword-related content is to blog. Writing a 400-word keyword–relevant blog on a regular basis will provide the search engine crawlers with new content to graze.
As an added bonus, there are many medical ezines—small magazines and newsletters distributed by any electronic method—that regularly need content. Publication of your blog article will provide additional back-links to your Web site and improve your SEO rankings. This is your opportunity to go “viral,” have your material read by thousands, and increase visits to your Web site. When your name appears on multiple sites, you create the perception of demonstrating your expertise in various topics, techniques, and therapeutic options.
5. Search engines love social media
Newer technologies are given greater weight in determining Web page ranking. Start with blogging and then add Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. Always remember to link from these sites with relevant keywords to the exact page on your site that contains the best information for those keywords.
Advertise your practice using PPC (Google AdWords)
Google, Yahoo, and other Internet portals make their money by selling advertisements on search-results pages. Both paid and organic listings appear on the search results pages, but they are displayed in different locations. On Google, PPC listings are found on the top and right side of each page under the header “Ads” (FIGURE 1). The organic or natural search (no payment required) is on the left below the ads.
On Google, the PPC function is called “AdWords” (http://www.google.com/adwords). On the AdWords page, a listing is found that offers how many times people type in certain words or phrases—keywords. Google AdWords allows the marketplace to bid on keywords; the higher the bid, the closer to the top position on the first page of the Google search results. Depending on monthly search volume, popularity, and competition, you can pay anywhere from pennies to $25 each time a Web surfer clicks on your ad. In FIGURE 2, you can see that a suggested bid for “Gynecologist Miami” is $2.96.
You must constantly monitor and manage your AdWords account. Test different landing pages, adjust your copy, and change offerings to make sure you are converting your paid traffic to patients. Otherwise, you can spend hundreds of dollars each month without achieving the desired outcome.
By doing your own research with Google AdWords’ keyword planner, you will see the variations of keywords that you can use in the copy of your Web site and related content for organic SE
Patient conversion: Your ultimate goal
Google is only one piece of the Internet marketing puzzle. Once you have invested in mastering the SEO rankings (by doing it yourself or by paying for professional help), it’s up to your Web site to convert the visitor to a paying patient. To maximize your return on investment (ROI), implement marketing strategies and a patient conversion system on your Web site. When a prospective patient lands there, you have less than 10 seconds to engage her. In Part 1of this series, we discuss features that will keep your visitor involved while she navigates the site and make it easy for her to make an appointment. Don’t lose her because she can’t find your contact information hidden at the bottom of the page.2
If you don’t want to spend the time and effort to do it yourself, outsourcing is a cost-effective solution, and a trackable and measurable way for you to calculate your ROI.
Bottom line: Be seen on the Internet. We are all connected to the Internet every waking moment. This is where we go for information; this is how we communicate with each other; and this is where we create relationships. If you want to build your practice, you have to be where your patient can find you—on the top of an Internet search results page.
Share your thoughts on this article! Send your Letter to the Editor to rbarbieri@frontlinemedcom.com. Please include your name and the city and state in which you practice.
1. Pacheco E, Udowitz R. Nearly all consumers (97%) now use online media to shop locally, according to BIA/Kelsey and ConStat [press release]. BIA/Kelsey Web site. http://www.biakelsey.com/company/press-releases/100310-nearly-all-consumers-now-use-online-media-to-shop-locally.asp. Published March 10, 2010. Accessed August 12, 2014.
2. Baum NH, Romano R. Using the Internet in your practice. Part 1: why social media are important and how to get started. OBG Manag. 2014;26(2):25–36.
Ron Romano and Neil H. Baum, MD
Ron Romano is President of www.YourInternetDoctor.com and CEO of Instant Marketing Systems. He co-authored The Internet Survival Guide for Doctors (2014, Instant Marketing Systems) and No B.S. Direct Marketing (2006, Entrepreneur Press) and contributed to the Walking with the Wise series (2004, Mentors Publishing). He is an Internet marketing consultant, speaker, and creator of “The Implementation Blueprint System.”
Neil H. Baum, MD, practices urology in New Orleans, Louisiana. He is Associate Clinical Professor of Urology at Tulane Medical School and Louisiana State University School of Medicine, both in New Orleans. He is also on the medical staff at Touro Infirmary in New Orleans, and East Jefferson General Hospital in Metairie, Louisiana. And he is the author of Marketing Your Clinical Practice: Ethically, Effectively, Economically (4th edition, 2009; Jones & Bartlett).
Mr. Romano reports that he is CEO of Instant Marketing Systems, which provides consulting advice, marketing plans, and Internet marketing services for businesses and medical practices. Dr. Baum reports no financial relationships relevant to this article.
Ron Romano and Neil H. Baum, MD
Ron Romano is President of www.YourInternetDoctor.com and CEO of Instant Marketing Systems. He co-authored The Internet Survival Guide for Doctors (2014, Instant Marketing Systems) and No B.S. Direct Marketing (2006, Entrepreneur Press) and contributed to the Walking with the Wise series (2004, Mentors Publishing). He is an Internet marketing consultant, speaker, and creator of “The Implementation Blueprint System.”
Neil H. Baum, MD, practices urology in New Orleans, Louisiana. He is Associate Clinical Professor of Urology at Tulane Medical School and Louisiana State University School of Medicine, both in New Orleans. He is also on the medical staff at Touro Infirmary in New Orleans, and East Jefferson General Hospital in Metairie, Louisiana. And he is the author of Marketing Your Clinical Practice: Ethically, Effectively, Economically (4th edition, 2009; Jones & Bartlett).
Mr. Romano reports that he is CEO of Instant Marketing Systems, which provides consulting advice, marketing plans, and Internet marketing services for businesses and medical practices. Dr. Baum reports no financial relationships relevant to this article.
Ron Romano and Neil H. Baum, MD
Ron Romano is President of www.YourInternetDoctor.com and CEO of Instant Marketing Systems. He co-authored The Internet Survival Guide for Doctors (2014, Instant Marketing Systems) and No B.S. Direct Marketing (2006, Entrepreneur Press) and contributed to the Walking with the Wise series (2004, Mentors Publishing). He is an Internet marketing consultant, speaker, and creator of “The Implementation Blueprint System.”
Neil H. Baum, MD, practices urology in New Orleans, Louisiana. He is Associate Clinical Professor of Urology at Tulane Medical School and Louisiana State University School of Medicine, both in New Orleans. He is also on the medical staff at Touro Infirmary in New Orleans, and East Jefferson General Hospital in Metairie, Louisiana. And he is the author of Marketing Your Clinical Practice: Ethically, Effectively, Economically (4th edition, 2009; Jones & Bartlett).
Mr. Romano reports that he is CEO of Instant Marketing Systems, which provides consulting advice, marketing plans, and Internet marketing services for businesses and medical practices. Dr. Baum reports no financial relationships relevant to this article.
It’s high time to go beyond relying on YellowPages.com to attract patients to your practice. According to research and analysis company BIA/Kelsey, “nearly all consumers (97%) now use online media to shop locally.”1 Today’s patients are Internet savvy and expect their ObGyn not only to be a good physician who diagnoses and treats their conditions but also to demonstrate his or her electronic technical abilities, through online communication, a Web site, email newsletter outreach, and, yes, a social media presence.
Yet, being the best in your field or having an incredible Web site won’t matter if your existing patients and potential new patients can’t find you on the Internet. The solution? Get your Web site onto the first page of Google’s search results. Why? Google is still by far the dominant search engine in the United States, and it has the overwhelming ability to offer you an endless supply of patients. And can your practice survive without a steady flow of new patients?
Type a keyword into the Google search window and dozens, hundreds, or thousands of sites may become visible. Google lists 10 sites per page, however, and when was the last time you went to the second, third, or fourth results page looking for something? If your Web site does not appear on the first results page, you are essentially invisible. The good news is that you can easily and inexpensively reach the top of a search engine’s results page by knowing and applying best practices for effective search engine optimization (SEO; a free endeavor, although your time investment should considered) and/or utilizing a pay-per-click (PPC) service (for a fee that’s comparable to what you used to pay for your old Yellow Pages listing). In this article, we aim to provide to you the know-how to embark on these endeavors by defining SEO and PPC and relaying effective principles for marketing your practice to potential new patients.
What is SEO?
SEO refers to techniques that help your Web site rank higher in organic (natural) results, which helps your site, and you, become more visible to people who are seeking your services. Search engines specialize in offering Web surfers the best information about their search terms, or keywords. To do this, Google uses more than 200 different algorithms, some of which we know but most of which are not published.
The algorithms are used to determine where your Web site ranks according to a number of factors relevant to the content and set-up of each page of your Web site (on-page SEO) as well as everything you do outside of your Web site (off-page SEO) to enhance your SEO rankings. This relevance is calculated by looking at both on-page and off-page factors, including:
- what you are doing in relation to your competition
- how long your Web site has been active
- search engine submission
- article submission
- directory submission
- linking strategies.
You have to work on both on-page and off-page factors many times a month to convince the search engines that you are a Web site worth visiting. Over time, your site will start to rise in the rankings and gain qualified traffic. Then you can concentrate on converting those Web site visitors to office-based patients.
A warning: If you use unethical tactics to get your Web site on the first page of the search results, Google will catch up to you—and your Web-site rankings will plummet.
Five important steps to increase SEO
There’s a system to reach the top of any search engine’s results page. The most important steps are to:
- Use keywords in your Web site coding, or page description (called meta tags).
- Use keywords in your Web site copy.
- Develop in-bound links.
- Post new keyword-related content regularly—typically accomplished through a blog.
- Integrate your keywords in social media postings.
1 and 2. Keywords are key
Keywords are what an Internet surfer enters into a search function and what the search engine crawlers hunt for. The crawlers then direct the surfer to the Web site that is perceived as the best source of information.
Here are the most popular keywords used by potential patients looking for ObGyns: obstetrician, gynecologist, gynecology, vaginal discharge, vaginal dryness, breast self-exam, breast cancer screening, prolapsed bladder, pelvic pain, and adolescent gynecology. You also should include your city’s name as a keyword.
Use keywords in Web site coding and copy. Unless you are experienced in Web development, you’re better off hiring a professional who knows Internet coding to help you develop HTML meta tags, anchor text, a sitemap, etc. You easily can incorporate keywords in the copy on your Web site, but the keyword density should be no more than approximately 3% to 5% of the copy. (If it is more than 5%, it is considered “stuffing,” and not looked on kindly by Google.)
3. In-bound links: Who’s linking to you?
As the search engine crawlers scan Web pages for indexing, they also look for links from other Web sites. The greater number of quality in-bound links a Web site has, the stronger influence or authority it accrues.
In-bound links are weighted differently: a link from a highly authoritative Web site like NYTimes.com will give a Web site a bigger boost than a link from a small blog site. Links from high-ranking sites, such as city directories, hospitals, and online medical directories, improve your Web-site ranking. You should be submitting your Web site address and keyword description to these appropriate directories for in-bound links on a weekly or monthly basis.
4. Develop new content by blogging
Search engines place a high value on new content, and the easiest way to add new keyword-related content is to blog. Writing a 400-word keyword–relevant blog on a regular basis will provide the search engine crawlers with new content to graze.
As an added bonus, there are many medical ezines—small magazines and newsletters distributed by any electronic method—that regularly need content. Publication of your blog article will provide additional back-links to your Web site and improve your SEO rankings. This is your opportunity to go “viral,” have your material read by thousands, and increase visits to your Web site. When your name appears on multiple sites, you create the perception of demonstrating your expertise in various topics, techniques, and therapeutic options.
5. Search engines love social media
Newer technologies are given greater weight in determining Web page ranking. Start with blogging and then add Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. Always remember to link from these sites with relevant keywords to the exact page on your site that contains the best information for those keywords.
Advertise your practice using PPC (Google AdWords)
Google, Yahoo, and other Internet portals make their money by selling advertisements on search-results pages. Both paid and organic listings appear on the search results pages, but they are displayed in different locations. On Google, PPC listings are found on the top and right side of each page under the header “Ads” (FIGURE 1). The organic or natural search (no payment required) is on the left below the ads.
On Google, the PPC function is called “AdWords” (http://www.google.com/adwords). On the AdWords page, a listing is found that offers how many times people type in certain words or phrases—keywords. Google AdWords allows the marketplace to bid on keywords; the higher the bid, the closer to the top position on the first page of the Google search results. Depending on monthly search volume, popularity, and competition, you can pay anywhere from pennies to $25 each time a Web surfer clicks on your ad. In FIGURE 2, you can see that a suggested bid for “Gynecologist Miami” is $2.96.
You must constantly monitor and manage your AdWords account. Test different landing pages, adjust your copy, and change offerings to make sure you are converting your paid traffic to patients. Otherwise, you can spend hundreds of dollars each month without achieving the desired outcome.
By doing your own research with Google AdWords’ keyword planner, you will see the variations of keywords that you can use in the copy of your Web site and related content for organic SE
Patient conversion: Your ultimate goal
Google is only one piece of the Internet marketing puzzle. Once you have invested in mastering the SEO rankings (by doing it yourself or by paying for professional help), it’s up to your Web site to convert the visitor to a paying patient. To maximize your return on investment (ROI), implement marketing strategies and a patient conversion system on your Web site. When a prospective patient lands there, you have less than 10 seconds to engage her. In Part 1of this series, we discuss features that will keep your visitor involved while she navigates the site and make it easy for her to make an appointment. Don’t lose her because she can’t find your contact information hidden at the bottom of the page.2
If you don’t want to spend the time and effort to do it yourself, outsourcing is a cost-effective solution, and a trackable and measurable way for you to calculate your ROI.
Bottom line: Be seen on the Internet. We are all connected to the Internet every waking moment. This is where we go for information; this is how we communicate with each other; and this is where we create relationships. If you want to build your practice, you have to be where your patient can find you—on the top of an Internet search results page.
Share your thoughts on this article! Send your Letter to the Editor to rbarbieri@frontlinemedcom.com. Please include your name and the city and state in which you practice.
It’s high time to go beyond relying on YellowPages.com to attract patients to your practice. According to research and analysis company BIA/Kelsey, “nearly all consumers (97%) now use online media to shop locally.”1 Today’s patients are Internet savvy and expect their ObGyn not only to be a good physician who diagnoses and treats their conditions but also to demonstrate his or her electronic technical abilities, through online communication, a Web site, email newsletter outreach, and, yes, a social media presence.
Yet, being the best in your field or having an incredible Web site won’t matter if your existing patients and potential new patients can’t find you on the Internet. The solution? Get your Web site onto the first page of Google’s search results. Why? Google is still by far the dominant search engine in the United States, and it has the overwhelming ability to offer you an endless supply of patients. And can your practice survive without a steady flow of new patients?
Type a keyword into the Google search window and dozens, hundreds, or thousands of sites may become visible. Google lists 10 sites per page, however, and when was the last time you went to the second, third, or fourth results page looking for something? If your Web site does not appear on the first results page, you are essentially invisible. The good news is that you can easily and inexpensively reach the top of a search engine’s results page by knowing and applying best practices for effective search engine optimization (SEO; a free endeavor, although your time investment should considered) and/or utilizing a pay-per-click (PPC) service (for a fee that’s comparable to what you used to pay for your old Yellow Pages listing). In this article, we aim to provide to you the know-how to embark on these endeavors by defining SEO and PPC and relaying effective principles for marketing your practice to potential new patients.
What is SEO?
SEO refers to techniques that help your Web site rank higher in organic (natural) results, which helps your site, and you, become more visible to people who are seeking your services. Search engines specialize in offering Web surfers the best information about their search terms, or keywords. To do this, Google uses more than 200 different algorithms, some of which we know but most of which are not published.
The algorithms are used to determine where your Web site ranks according to a number of factors relevant to the content and set-up of each page of your Web site (on-page SEO) as well as everything you do outside of your Web site (off-page SEO) to enhance your SEO rankings. This relevance is calculated by looking at both on-page and off-page factors, including:
- what you are doing in relation to your competition
- how long your Web site has been active
- search engine submission
- article submission
- directory submission
- linking strategies.
You have to work on both on-page and off-page factors many times a month to convince the search engines that you are a Web site worth visiting. Over time, your site will start to rise in the rankings and gain qualified traffic. Then you can concentrate on converting those Web site visitors to office-based patients.
A warning: If you use unethical tactics to get your Web site on the first page of the search results, Google will catch up to you—and your Web-site rankings will plummet.
Five important steps to increase SEO
There’s a system to reach the top of any search engine’s results page. The most important steps are to:
- Use keywords in your Web site coding, or page description (called meta tags).
- Use keywords in your Web site copy.
- Develop in-bound links.
- Post new keyword-related content regularly—typically accomplished through a blog.
- Integrate your keywords in social media postings.
1 and 2. Keywords are key
Keywords are what an Internet surfer enters into a search function and what the search engine crawlers hunt for. The crawlers then direct the surfer to the Web site that is perceived as the best source of information.
Here are the most popular keywords used by potential patients looking for ObGyns: obstetrician, gynecologist, gynecology, vaginal discharge, vaginal dryness, breast self-exam, breast cancer screening, prolapsed bladder, pelvic pain, and adolescent gynecology. You also should include your city’s name as a keyword.
Use keywords in Web site coding and copy. Unless you are experienced in Web development, you’re better off hiring a professional who knows Internet coding to help you develop HTML meta tags, anchor text, a sitemap, etc. You easily can incorporate keywords in the copy on your Web site, but the keyword density should be no more than approximately 3% to 5% of the copy. (If it is more than 5%, it is considered “stuffing,” and not looked on kindly by Google.)
3. In-bound links: Who’s linking to you?
As the search engine crawlers scan Web pages for indexing, they also look for links from other Web sites. The greater number of quality in-bound links a Web site has, the stronger influence or authority it accrues.
In-bound links are weighted differently: a link from a highly authoritative Web site like NYTimes.com will give a Web site a bigger boost than a link from a small blog site. Links from high-ranking sites, such as city directories, hospitals, and online medical directories, improve your Web-site ranking. You should be submitting your Web site address and keyword description to these appropriate directories for in-bound links on a weekly or monthly basis.
4. Develop new content by blogging
Search engines place a high value on new content, and the easiest way to add new keyword-related content is to blog. Writing a 400-word keyword–relevant blog on a regular basis will provide the search engine crawlers with new content to graze.
As an added bonus, there are many medical ezines—small magazines and newsletters distributed by any electronic method—that regularly need content. Publication of your blog article will provide additional back-links to your Web site and improve your SEO rankings. This is your opportunity to go “viral,” have your material read by thousands, and increase visits to your Web site. When your name appears on multiple sites, you create the perception of demonstrating your expertise in various topics, techniques, and therapeutic options.
5. Search engines love social media
Newer technologies are given greater weight in determining Web page ranking. Start with blogging and then add Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. Always remember to link from these sites with relevant keywords to the exact page on your site that contains the best information for those keywords.
Advertise your practice using PPC (Google AdWords)
Google, Yahoo, and other Internet portals make their money by selling advertisements on search-results pages. Both paid and organic listings appear on the search results pages, but they are displayed in different locations. On Google, PPC listings are found on the top and right side of each page under the header “Ads” (FIGURE 1). The organic or natural search (no payment required) is on the left below the ads.
On Google, the PPC function is called “AdWords” (http://www.google.com/adwords). On the AdWords page, a listing is found that offers how many times people type in certain words or phrases—keywords. Google AdWords allows the marketplace to bid on keywords; the higher the bid, the closer to the top position on the first page of the Google search results. Depending on monthly search volume, popularity, and competition, you can pay anywhere from pennies to $25 each time a Web surfer clicks on your ad. In FIGURE 2, you can see that a suggested bid for “Gynecologist Miami” is $2.96.
You must constantly monitor and manage your AdWords account. Test different landing pages, adjust your copy, and change offerings to make sure you are converting your paid traffic to patients. Otherwise, you can spend hundreds of dollars each month without achieving the desired outcome.
By doing your own research with Google AdWords’ keyword planner, you will see the variations of keywords that you can use in the copy of your Web site and related content for organic SE
Patient conversion: Your ultimate goal
Google is only one piece of the Internet marketing puzzle. Once you have invested in mastering the SEO rankings (by doing it yourself or by paying for professional help), it’s up to your Web site to convert the visitor to a paying patient. To maximize your return on investment (ROI), implement marketing strategies and a patient conversion system on your Web site. When a prospective patient lands there, you have less than 10 seconds to engage her. In Part 1of this series, we discuss features that will keep your visitor involved while she navigates the site and make it easy for her to make an appointment. Don’t lose her because she can’t find your contact information hidden at the bottom of the page.2
If you don’t want to spend the time and effort to do it yourself, outsourcing is a cost-effective solution, and a trackable and measurable way for you to calculate your ROI.
Bottom line: Be seen on the Internet. We are all connected to the Internet every waking moment. This is where we go for information; this is how we communicate with each other; and this is where we create relationships. If you want to build your practice, you have to be where your patient can find you—on the top of an Internet search results page.
Share your thoughts on this article! Send your Letter to the Editor to rbarbieri@frontlinemedcom.com. Please include your name and the city and state in which you practice.
1. Pacheco E, Udowitz R. Nearly all consumers (97%) now use online media to shop locally, according to BIA/Kelsey and ConStat [press release]. BIA/Kelsey Web site. http://www.biakelsey.com/company/press-releases/100310-nearly-all-consumers-now-use-online-media-to-shop-locally.asp. Published March 10, 2010. Accessed August 12, 2014.
2. Baum NH, Romano R. Using the Internet in your practice. Part 1: why social media are important and how to get started. OBG Manag. 2014;26(2):25–36.
1. Pacheco E, Udowitz R. Nearly all consumers (97%) now use online media to shop locally, according to BIA/Kelsey and ConStat [press release]. BIA/Kelsey Web site. http://www.biakelsey.com/company/press-releases/100310-nearly-all-consumers-now-use-online-media-to-shop-locally.asp. Published March 10, 2010. Accessed August 12, 2014.
2. Baum NH, Romano R. Using the Internet in your practice. Part 1: why social media are important and how to get started. OBG Manag. 2014;26(2):25–36.
Using the Internet in your practice. Part 2: Generating new patients using social media
With this article, we intend to illustrate the value of having a social media presence and how you can use social media to attract new patients. One of us (NHB) has been using social media to promote his medical practice for 3 years and can be found on the first page of Google search results for several of the medical conditions he treats. As a result of these high search rankings, he is able to generate two to four new patient visits every day.
You can achieve the same results using the techniques described in this article. You certainly can buy banner ads and buy traffic to your page, but we want to show you how to get on the first page of Google using the natural, organic method.
PUSH VS PULL
Social media can be used in different ways to build your practice. What you employ depends on what you want to accomplish and the time and energy you want to devote to each of these social media opportunities.
By its very definition, social media is social engagement—and what is known as a “pull” technology. There are two ways to share your information with people on the Internet:
- “Pull” Web site surfers to your information
- “Push” your information to them.
Push occurs when you initiate the process by placing your information in front of the Web site surfer. They get it or see it because of the actions you have taken. Sending e-mails is one way to push information to your target audience, or potential patients, to your practice. Another way to push your Web site and its contents is to get listed on the first page of search engine results. You want to “push” your Web site in plain view of the person who has typed in keywords or keyword phrases that relate to your practice (ie, “OBGYN” plus “<your city>,” “tubal ligation” plus “<your city>,” or “loss of urine” plus “<your zip code>.” Push techniques are the best way to market your services and offer the best return on your marketing investment.
Using social media, you are able to “pull” your audience of potential patients to you and your practice. In other words, your target market of potential patients has to take the time and make the effort to type in your Web site address in order to come to you. The information or message you have on your social media sites has to be strong enough and of sufficient compelling interest that patients want to come to read what you have to say. Web surfers are looking for online relationships for information sharing. It is this interaction with your potential patients that makes social media unique. Using this pull technology, you have the opportunity to interact and develop a relationship with a patient before she picks up the phone to make an appointment, before she comes to the office to see you eyeball to eyeball.
FACEBOOK AND HOW IT RELATES TO YOUR PRACTICE
Originally, Facebook was developed as a way for people to see what was going on in each other’s lives, a method to stay in contact with one another. In the beginning, it was friends, family members, or groups of like-minded individuals frequenting each other’s Facebook pages. Typically, they would keep tabs on who was having a party or post pictures of their kids for family members to see.
Facebook has evolved. Today, companies, businesses, and, yes, medical practices are trying to “pull” more Web site visitors to their Facebook pages. To do this, they hold contests with prizes; offer great content, coupons, and videos; and provide special offers to get Web surfers to their site. Large companies and large group practices like the Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, and MD Anderson Cancer Center, have whole social media departments that post regularly, respond to comments left on their pages, and answer questions posted by those who “like” their page or site.
Individual practicing clinicians, and most smaller ObGyn practices, do not have the budget for a social media team. They also don’t have the time or the training to write effective copy that is so compelling that Web surfers are drawn or “pulled” to their Facebook page. The reality is, your patients expect you to have a Facebook page, and they expect you to have quality information that is helpful and relevant to their well-being. But, the question remains…
Related article: Four pillars of a successful practice: 1. Keep your current patients happy Neal H. Baum, MD (Practice Management, March 2013)
Can Facebook generate new patients?
You and your practice certainly can place a lot of information and pictures on Facebook, and potential patients can leave comments or ask questions easily. You can start a dialog with a patient without providing medical advice and motivate her to see that you are providing medical value before the doctor–patient relationship is established. Still, does a Facebook page generate new patients? It depends on the information you post and how you use Facebook to acquire new patients.
For instance, your practice is probably restricted to a local area—a few zip codes surrounding your office and hospital—which means you really only want patients who are in your area to visit your practice’s Facebook page because those are the only ones who are likely to call and make an appointment. Unless you are highly specialized in a particular field, such as fistula repair, robotic surgery, or the treatment of mesh complications, the Facebook surfer from New York isn’t likely to hop on a plane to come to your practice on the West Coast for gynecologic or obstetric care.
Related article: Four pillars of a successful practice: 2. Attract new patients Neal H. Baum, MD (Practice Management, May 2013)
On the surface, it appears that it is impossible to compete with larger practices and hospitals that have more dedicated staff to draw prospective patients to a practice through Facebook. However, the real, overarching challenge is to improve your Web site rankings on the major search engines, to be on the first page of Google, Bing, and Yahoo search results. And what we do know is that Google has placed a high value on Web site rankings through social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube—that is, of course, as long as your Facebook page provides content that has keywords relevant to your target market and the content on your page links back to your Web site.
Therefore, it is not necessary to devote an inordinate amount of time to your social media presence to obtain results. You will, on the other hand, get more visitors to your Web site if it is found on the first page of search engine results because of your Facebook posts. Of course, if your Web site is not set up properly for easy visitor navigation and visitor conversion, you may not be able to obtain the desired result of gaining new patients even if they do find your site. You need to have a Web site with marketing and patient conversion systems built into it; don’t overlook the layout of your Web site. For more on this issue, see Part 1 of this series.
Related article: Using the Internet in your practice. Part 1: Why social media are important and how to get started Neal H. Baum, MD, and Ron Romano (Practice Management, February 2014)
YOUTUBE VIDEOS AND YOUR PRACTICE
YouTube has become a significant search engine for virtually every product and service you offer your patients. There are millions of videos on YouTube, and you can search topics simply by typing in any topic that your patients might be interested in, from birth control to cancer.
There are five ways your practice can benefit from a video posted on YouTube:
- Web site traffic driver. To achieve this “pull,” you must label your posted video correctly, with keyword phrases that are relevant to the type of patient or conditions you are looking for, and offer a description that would make a viewer want to see the video. You also must provide a link back to your Web site, which increases your chances of gaining a new patient from YouTube.
- Boost your search engine optimization. Google places a high-ranking factor on videos posted to YouTube that are keyword-relevant.
- A video library can position you as an expert in the field. You can create your own YouTube channel and keep adding videos. One of us (NHB) has more than
70 medical videos on his YouTube channel. If someone views one of these videos, they will have immediate access to the rest of the video collection even though they may be labelled with other keywords. This further positions you as the knowledgeable expert in your field. - Video embedding capability. Any video you have posted to YouTube can be placed on your Web site, in a format that keeps the viewer on your site. This means the viewer has less of a chance of getting distracted with other video offerings and landing on someone else’s Web site.
- Free video storage. Because you have stored the video on YouTube, you are not using the resources on your Web site when someone, or several people, view the video at the same time.
Getting started with YouTube
Making a video can be easier than you think. First, a video can simply be a PowerPoint presentation. Studies have demonstrated that it is more about the content of the video than a physician being in front of a camera. There are lots of Web sites you can use to record a presentation; one of the most popular and easy to use is http://www.GoToWebinar.com. There are computer programs that make it easy to record and then simply upload the recording to YouTube. Cam Studio (http://camstudio.org) is a free open-source program available that has a lot of flexibility for editing audio and video files, and it is easy to use. Camtasia (http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia.html) is a popular program that costs about $300 and has a lot of features for advanced editing. Camtasia also has a simple navigation system for the nontechnical person.
Content is key. You can select a few frequently asked questions (FAQs) that your patients regularly ask and simply record yourself giving the answers. Take a look at what is new, relevant, or controversial in regard to the procedures you perform. Or just look at all the pages on your Web site that have the procedures and services you provide and make a video on those topics. The ideal video is 3 to 5 minutes in length.
ATTRACTING PATIENTS VIA TWITTER
The most amazing example of social media and building a fan base is Twitter. Here’s a question: Who are the people that have the biggest following on Twitter? The answer: Celebrities, rock stars, and athletes. As a society, we are obsessed with these groups and want to know their every thought, what they like, what they had for lunch, what they think, and who they think about.
Now how, as a practicing ObGyn, do you expect to build a base of Web site surfers who want to know your every thought on urinary incontinence? The harsh reality is, if you think you are going to get new patients by making posts on Twitter of 140 characters or less every day, you will be disappointed.
However, the return from using Twitter is, similar to Facebook and YouTube, related to the fact that Twitter is one of the top accessed Web sites in the world. Linking your own content from such a Web site increases the search placement of your content when a potential patient performs a general Google search.
ARE SOCIAL MEDIA EFFECTIVE?
The effective use of social media can result in attracting new patients every day to your practice—if you post quality information on a regular basis that is helpful to your existing patients and especially to potential new patients. Overall, social media can help you get new patients through search engine rankings. Even if you don’t want to do any work on your social media sites, you can hire companies that will do it for you.
However, the return from using Twitter is, similar to Facebook and YouTube, related to the fact that Twitter is one of the top accessed Web sites in the world. Linking your own content from such a Web site increases the search placement of your content when a potential patient performs a general Google search.
The bottom line
There will be many ObGyns who will read this article, throw up their hands and say, “Makes sense, but this is over my head.” Because it sounds so technical, many clinicians will just ignore social media and hope it goes away. If your plans for the next 5 years include practicing medicine, we don’t recommend that you take that approach. The Internet and social media are the “places” in which patients of today are searching for their doctors. Trust us—potential new patients are no longer using the Yellow Pages.
The patients of tomorrow will be increasingly technologically sophisticated, and these social media techniques will continue to evolve. Don’t get left behind. And don’t let your competitors dominate one of the most important sources of new patients you have, along with patient referrals and physician referrals. Jump into this world yourself, and you will be richly rewarded. The social media train is leaving the station, and we hope that we have shown you how to hitch a ride. See you online!
WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU!
Drop us a line and let us know what you think about this or other current articles, which topics you'd like to see covered in future issues, and what challenges you face in daily practice. Tell us what you think by emailing us at: obg@frontlinemedcom.com Please include your name, city and state.
Ron Romano is President of www.YourInternetDoctor.com and CEO of Instant Marketing Systems. He co-authored The Internet Survival Guide for Doctors (2014, Instant Marketing Systems) and No B.S. Direct Marketing (2006, Entrepreneur Press) and contributed to the Walking with the Wise series (2004, Mentors Publishing). He is an Internet marketing consultant, speaker, and creator of “The Implementation Blueprint System.”
Neil H. Baum, MD, practices urology in New Orleans, Louisiana. He is Associate Clinical Professor of Urology at Tulane Medical School and Louisiana State University School of Medicine, both in New Orleans. He is also on the medical staff at Touro Infirmary in New Orleans, and East Jefferson General Hospital in Metairie, Louisiana. He is the author of Social Media for the Healthcare Professional (2012, Greenbranch) and Marketing Your Clinical Practice: Ethically, Effectively, Economically (4th edition, 2009; Jones & Bartlett).
The authors report no financial relationships relevant to this article.
Ron Romano is President of www.YourInternetDoctor.com and CEO of Instant Marketing Systems. He co-authored The Internet Survival Guide for Doctors (2014, Instant Marketing Systems) and No B.S. Direct Marketing (2006, Entrepreneur Press) and contributed to the Walking with the Wise series (2004, Mentors Publishing). He is an Internet marketing consultant, speaker, and creator of “The Implementation Blueprint System.”
Neil H. Baum, MD, practices urology in New Orleans, Louisiana. He is Associate Clinical Professor of Urology at Tulane Medical School and Louisiana State University School of Medicine, both in New Orleans. He is also on the medical staff at Touro Infirmary in New Orleans, and East Jefferson General Hospital in Metairie, Louisiana. He is the author of Social Media for the Healthcare Professional (2012, Greenbranch) and Marketing Your Clinical Practice: Ethically, Effectively, Economically (4th edition, 2009; Jones & Bartlett).
The authors report no financial relationships relevant to this article.
Ron Romano is President of www.YourInternetDoctor.com and CEO of Instant Marketing Systems. He co-authored The Internet Survival Guide for Doctors (2014, Instant Marketing Systems) and No B.S. Direct Marketing (2006, Entrepreneur Press) and contributed to the Walking with the Wise series (2004, Mentors Publishing). He is an Internet marketing consultant, speaker, and creator of “The Implementation Blueprint System.”
Neil H. Baum, MD, practices urology in New Orleans, Louisiana. He is Associate Clinical Professor of Urology at Tulane Medical School and Louisiana State University School of Medicine, both in New Orleans. He is also on the medical staff at Touro Infirmary in New Orleans, and East Jefferson General Hospital in Metairie, Louisiana. He is the author of Social Media for the Healthcare Professional (2012, Greenbranch) and Marketing Your Clinical Practice: Ethically, Effectively, Economically (4th edition, 2009; Jones & Bartlett).
The authors report no financial relationships relevant to this article.
With this article, we intend to illustrate the value of having a social media presence and how you can use social media to attract new patients. One of us (NHB) has been using social media to promote his medical practice for 3 years and can be found on the first page of Google search results for several of the medical conditions he treats. As a result of these high search rankings, he is able to generate two to four new patient visits every day.
You can achieve the same results using the techniques described in this article. You certainly can buy banner ads and buy traffic to your page, but we want to show you how to get on the first page of Google using the natural, organic method.
PUSH VS PULL
Social media can be used in different ways to build your practice. What you employ depends on what you want to accomplish and the time and energy you want to devote to each of these social media opportunities.
By its very definition, social media is social engagement—and what is known as a “pull” technology. There are two ways to share your information with people on the Internet:
- “Pull” Web site surfers to your information
- “Push” your information to them.
Push occurs when you initiate the process by placing your information in front of the Web site surfer. They get it or see it because of the actions you have taken. Sending e-mails is one way to push information to your target audience, or potential patients, to your practice. Another way to push your Web site and its contents is to get listed on the first page of search engine results. You want to “push” your Web site in plain view of the person who has typed in keywords or keyword phrases that relate to your practice (ie, “OBGYN” plus “<your city>,” “tubal ligation” plus “<your city>,” or “loss of urine” plus “<your zip code>.” Push techniques are the best way to market your services and offer the best return on your marketing investment.
Using social media, you are able to “pull” your audience of potential patients to you and your practice. In other words, your target market of potential patients has to take the time and make the effort to type in your Web site address in order to come to you. The information or message you have on your social media sites has to be strong enough and of sufficient compelling interest that patients want to come to read what you have to say. Web surfers are looking for online relationships for information sharing. It is this interaction with your potential patients that makes social media unique. Using this pull technology, you have the opportunity to interact and develop a relationship with a patient before she picks up the phone to make an appointment, before she comes to the office to see you eyeball to eyeball.
FACEBOOK AND HOW IT RELATES TO YOUR PRACTICE
Originally, Facebook was developed as a way for people to see what was going on in each other’s lives, a method to stay in contact with one another. In the beginning, it was friends, family members, or groups of like-minded individuals frequenting each other’s Facebook pages. Typically, they would keep tabs on who was having a party or post pictures of their kids for family members to see.
Facebook has evolved. Today, companies, businesses, and, yes, medical practices are trying to “pull” more Web site visitors to their Facebook pages. To do this, they hold contests with prizes; offer great content, coupons, and videos; and provide special offers to get Web surfers to their site. Large companies and large group practices like the Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, and MD Anderson Cancer Center, have whole social media departments that post regularly, respond to comments left on their pages, and answer questions posted by those who “like” their page or site.
Individual practicing clinicians, and most smaller ObGyn practices, do not have the budget for a social media team. They also don’t have the time or the training to write effective copy that is so compelling that Web surfers are drawn or “pulled” to their Facebook page. The reality is, your patients expect you to have a Facebook page, and they expect you to have quality information that is helpful and relevant to their well-being. But, the question remains…
Related article: Four pillars of a successful practice: 1. Keep your current patients happy Neal H. Baum, MD (Practice Management, March 2013)
Can Facebook generate new patients?
You and your practice certainly can place a lot of information and pictures on Facebook, and potential patients can leave comments or ask questions easily. You can start a dialog with a patient without providing medical advice and motivate her to see that you are providing medical value before the doctor–patient relationship is established. Still, does a Facebook page generate new patients? It depends on the information you post and how you use Facebook to acquire new patients.
For instance, your practice is probably restricted to a local area—a few zip codes surrounding your office and hospital—which means you really only want patients who are in your area to visit your practice’s Facebook page because those are the only ones who are likely to call and make an appointment. Unless you are highly specialized in a particular field, such as fistula repair, robotic surgery, or the treatment of mesh complications, the Facebook surfer from New York isn’t likely to hop on a plane to come to your practice on the West Coast for gynecologic or obstetric care.
Related article: Four pillars of a successful practice: 2. Attract new patients Neal H. Baum, MD (Practice Management, May 2013)
On the surface, it appears that it is impossible to compete with larger practices and hospitals that have more dedicated staff to draw prospective patients to a practice through Facebook. However, the real, overarching challenge is to improve your Web site rankings on the major search engines, to be on the first page of Google, Bing, and Yahoo search results. And what we do know is that Google has placed a high value on Web site rankings through social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube—that is, of course, as long as your Facebook page provides content that has keywords relevant to your target market and the content on your page links back to your Web site.
Therefore, it is not necessary to devote an inordinate amount of time to your social media presence to obtain results. You will, on the other hand, get more visitors to your Web site if it is found on the first page of search engine results because of your Facebook posts. Of course, if your Web site is not set up properly for easy visitor navigation and visitor conversion, you may not be able to obtain the desired result of gaining new patients even if they do find your site. You need to have a Web site with marketing and patient conversion systems built into it; don’t overlook the layout of your Web site. For more on this issue, see Part 1 of this series.
Related article: Using the Internet in your practice. Part 1: Why social media are important and how to get started Neal H. Baum, MD, and Ron Romano (Practice Management, February 2014)
YOUTUBE VIDEOS AND YOUR PRACTICE
YouTube has become a significant search engine for virtually every product and service you offer your patients. There are millions of videos on YouTube, and you can search topics simply by typing in any topic that your patients might be interested in, from birth control to cancer.
There are five ways your practice can benefit from a video posted on YouTube:
- Web site traffic driver. To achieve this “pull,” you must label your posted video correctly, with keyword phrases that are relevant to the type of patient or conditions you are looking for, and offer a description that would make a viewer want to see the video. You also must provide a link back to your Web site, which increases your chances of gaining a new patient from YouTube.
- Boost your search engine optimization. Google places a high-ranking factor on videos posted to YouTube that are keyword-relevant.
- A video library can position you as an expert in the field. You can create your own YouTube channel and keep adding videos. One of us (NHB) has more than
70 medical videos on his YouTube channel. If someone views one of these videos, they will have immediate access to the rest of the video collection even though they may be labelled with other keywords. This further positions you as the knowledgeable expert in your field. - Video embedding capability. Any video you have posted to YouTube can be placed on your Web site, in a format that keeps the viewer on your site. This means the viewer has less of a chance of getting distracted with other video offerings and landing on someone else’s Web site.
- Free video storage. Because you have stored the video on YouTube, you are not using the resources on your Web site when someone, or several people, view the video at the same time.
Getting started with YouTube
Making a video can be easier than you think. First, a video can simply be a PowerPoint presentation. Studies have demonstrated that it is more about the content of the video than a physician being in front of a camera. There are lots of Web sites you can use to record a presentation; one of the most popular and easy to use is http://www.GoToWebinar.com. There are computer programs that make it easy to record and then simply upload the recording to YouTube. Cam Studio (http://camstudio.org) is a free open-source program available that has a lot of flexibility for editing audio and video files, and it is easy to use. Camtasia (http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia.html) is a popular program that costs about $300 and has a lot of features for advanced editing. Camtasia also has a simple navigation system for the nontechnical person.
Content is key. You can select a few frequently asked questions (FAQs) that your patients regularly ask and simply record yourself giving the answers. Take a look at what is new, relevant, or controversial in regard to the procedures you perform. Or just look at all the pages on your Web site that have the procedures and services you provide and make a video on those topics. The ideal video is 3 to 5 minutes in length.
ATTRACTING PATIENTS VIA TWITTER
The most amazing example of social media and building a fan base is Twitter. Here’s a question: Who are the people that have the biggest following on Twitter? The answer: Celebrities, rock stars, and athletes. As a society, we are obsessed with these groups and want to know their every thought, what they like, what they had for lunch, what they think, and who they think about.
Now how, as a practicing ObGyn, do you expect to build a base of Web site surfers who want to know your every thought on urinary incontinence? The harsh reality is, if you think you are going to get new patients by making posts on Twitter of 140 characters or less every day, you will be disappointed.
However, the return from using Twitter is, similar to Facebook and YouTube, related to the fact that Twitter is one of the top accessed Web sites in the world. Linking your own content from such a Web site increases the search placement of your content when a potential patient performs a general Google search.
ARE SOCIAL MEDIA EFFECTIVE?
The effective use of social media can result in attracting new patients every day to your practice—if you post quality information on a regular basis that is helpful to your existing patients and especially to potential new patients. Overall, social media can help you get new patients through search engine rankings. Even if you don’t want to do any work on your social media sites, you can hire companies that will do it for you.
However, the return from using Twitter is, similar to Facebook and YouTube, related to the fact that Twitter is one of the top accessed Web sites in the world. Linking your own content from such a Web site increases the search placement of your content when a potential patient performs a general Google search.
The bottom line
There will be many ObGyns who will read this article, throw up their hands and say, “Makes sense, but this is over my head.” Because it sounds so technical, many clinicians will just ignore social media and hope it goes away. If your plans for the next 5 years include practicing medicine, we don’t recommend that you take that approach. The Internet and social media are the “places” in which patients of today are searching for their doctors. Trust us—potential new patients are no longer using the Yellow Pages.
The patients of tomorrow will be increasingly technologically sophisticated, and these social media techniques will continue to evolve. Don’t get left behind. And don’t let your competitors dominate one of the most important sources of new patients you have, along with patient referrals and physician referrals. Jump into this world yourself, and you will be richly rewarded. The social media train is leaving the station, and we hope that we have shown you how to hitch a ride. See you online!
WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU!
Drop us a line and let us know what you think about this or other current articles, which topics you'd like to see covered in future issues, and what challenges you face in daily practice. Tell us what you think by emailing us at: obg@frontlinemedcom.com Please include your name, city and state.
With this article, we intend to illustrate the value of having a social media presence and how you can use social media to attract new patients. One of us (NHB) has been using social media to promote his medical practice for 3 years and can be found on the first page of Google search results for several of the medical conditions he treats. As a result of these high search rankings, he is able to generate two to four new patient visits every day.
You can achieve the same results using the techniques described in this article. You certainly can buy banner ads and buy traffic to your page, but we want to show you how to get on the first page of Google using the natural, organic method.
PUSH VS PULL
Social media can be used in different ways to build your practice. What you employ depends on what you want to accomplish and the time and energy you want to devote to each of these social media opportunities.
By its very definition, social media is social engagement—and what is known as a “pull” technology. There are two ways to share your information with people on the Internet:
- “Pull” Web site surfers to your information
- “Push” your information to them.
Push occurs when you initiate the process by placing your information in front of the Web site surfer. They get it or see it because of the actions you have taken. Sending e-mails is one way to push information to your target audience, or potential patients, to your practice. Another way to push your Web site and its contents is to get listed on the first page of search engine results. You want to “push” your Web site in plain view of the person who has typed in keywords or keyword phrases that relate to your practice (ie, “OBGYN” plus “<your city>,” “tubal ligation” plus “<your city>,” or “loss of urine” plus “<your zip code>.” Push techniques are the best way to market your services and offer the best return on your marketing investment.
Using social media, you are able to “pull” your audience of potential patients to you and your practice. In other words, your target market of potential patients has to take the time and make the effort to type in your Web site address in order to come to you. The information or message you have on your social media sites has to be strong enough and of sufficient compelling interest that patients want to come to read what you have to say. Web surfers are looking for online relationships for information sharing. It is this interaction with your potential patients that makes social media unique. Using this pull technology, you have the opportunity to interact and develop a relationship with a patient before she picks up the phone to make an appointment, before she comes to the office to see you eyeball to eyeball.
FACEBOOK AND HOW IT RELATES TO YOUR PRACTICE
Originally, Facebook was developed as a way for people to see what was going on in each other’s lives, a method to stay in contact with one another. In the beginning, it was friends, family members, or groups of like-minded individuals frequenting each other’s Facebook pages. Typically, they would keep tabs on who was having a party or post pictures of their kids for family members to see.
Facebook has evolved. Today, companies, businesses, and, yes, medical practices are trying to “pull” more Web site visitors to their Facebook pages. To do this, they hold contests with prizes; offer great content, coupons, and videos; and provide special offers to get Web surfers to their site. Large companies and large group practices like the Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, and MD Anderson Cancer Center, have whole social media departments that post regularly, respond to comments left on their pages, and answer questions posted by those who “like” their page or site.
Individual practicing clinicians, and most smaller ObGyn practices, do not have the budget for a social media team. They also don’t have the time or the training to write effective copy that is so compelling that Web surfers are drawn or “pulled” to their Facebook page. The reality is, your patients expect you to have a Facebook page, and they expect you to have quality information that is helpful and relevant to their well-being. But, the question remains…
Related article: Four pillars of a successful practice: 1. Keep your current patients happy Neal H. Baum, MD (Practice Management, March 2013)
Can Facebook generate new patients?
You and your practice certainly can place a lot of information and pictures on Facebook, and potential patients can leave comments or ask questions easily. You can start a dialog with a patient without providing medical advice and motivate her to see that you are providing medical value before the doctor–patient relationship is established. Still, does a Facebook page generate new patients? It depends on the information you post and how you use Facebook to acquire new patients.
For instance, your practice is probably restricted to a local area—a few zip codes surrounding your office and hospital—which means you really only want patients who are in your area to visit your practice’s Facebook page because those are the only ones who are likely to call and make an appointment. Unless you are highly specialized in a particular field, such as fistula repair, robotic surgery, or the treatment of mesh complications, the Facebook surfer from New York isn’t likely to hop on a plane to come to your practice on the West Coast for gynecologic or obstetric care.
Related article: Four pillars of a successful practice: 2. Attract new patients Neal H. Baum, MD (Practice Management, May 2013)
On the surface, it appears that it is impossible to compete with larger practices and hospitals that have more dedicated staff to draw prospective patients to a practice through Facebook. However, the real, overarching challenge is to improve your Web site rankings on the major search engines, to be on the first page of Google, Bing, and Yahoo search results. And what we do know is that Google has placed a high value on Web site rankings through social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube—that is, of course, as long as your Facebook page provides content that has keywords relevant to your target market and the content on your page links back to your Web site.
Therefore, it is not necessary to devote an inordinate amount of time to your social media presence to obtain results. You will, on the other hand, get more visitors to your Web site if it is found on the first page of search engine results because of your Facebook posts. Of course, if your Web site is not set up properly for easy visitor navigation and visitor conversion, you may not be able to obtain the desired result of gaining new patients even if they do find your site. You need to have a Web site with marketing and patient conversion systems built into it; don’t overlook the layout of your Web site. For more on this issue, see Part 1 of this series.
Related article: Using the Internet in your practice. Part 1: Why social media are important and how to get started Neal H. Baum, MD, and Ron Romano (Practice Management, February 2014)
YOUTUBE VIDEOS AND YOUR PRACTICE
YouTube has become a significant search engine for virtually every product and service you offer your patients. There are millions of videos on YouTube, and you can search topics simply by typing in any topic that your patients might be interested in, from birth control to cancer.
There are five ways your practice can benefit from a video posted on YouTube:
- Web site traffic driver. To achieve this “pull,” you must label your posted video correctly, with keyword phrases that are relevant to the type of patient or conditions you are looking for, and offer a description that would make a viewer want to see the video. You also must provide a link back to your Web site, which increases your chances of gaining a new patient from YouTube.
- Boost your search engine optimization. Google places a high-ranking factor on videos posted to YouTube that are keyword-relevant.
- A video library can position you as an expert in the field. You can create your own YouTube channel and keep adding videos. One of us (NHB) has more than
70 medical videos on his YouTube channel. If someone views one of these videos, they will have immediate access to the rest of the video collection even though they may be labelled with other keywords. This further positions you as the knowledgeable expert in your field. - Video embedding capability. Any video you have posted to YouTube can be placed on your Web site, in a format that keeps the viewer on your site. This means the viewer has less of a chance of getting distracted with other video offerings and landing on someone else’s Web site.
- Free video storage. Because you have stored the video on YouTube, you are not using the resources on your Web site when someone, or several people, view the video at the same time.
Getting started with YouTube
Making a video can be easier than you think. First, a video can simply be a PowerPoint presentation. Studies have demonstrated that it is more about the content of the video than a physician being in front of a camera. There are lots of Web sites you can use to record a presentation; one of the most popular and easy to use is http://www.GoToWebinar.com. There are computer programs that make it easy to record and then simply upload the recording to YouTube. Cam Studio (http://camstudio.org) is a free open-source program available that has a lot of flexibility for editing audio and video files, and it is easy to use. Camtasia (http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia.html) is a popular program that costs about $300 and has a lot of features for advanced editing. Camtasia also has a simple navigation system for the nontechnical person.
Content is key. You can select a few frequently asked questions (FAQs) that your patients regularly ask and simply record yourself giving the answers. Take a look at what is new, relevant, or controversial in regard to the procedures you perform. Or just look at all the pages on your Web site that have the procedures and services you provide and make a video on those topics. The ideal video is 3 to 5 minutes in length.
ATTRACTING PATIENTS VIA TWITTER
The most amazing example of social media and building a fan base is Twitter. Here’s a question: Who are the people that have the biggest following on Twitter? The answer: Celebrities, rock stars, and athletes. As a society, we are obsessed with these groups and want to know their every thought, what they like, what they had for lunch, what they think, and who they think about.
Now how, as a practicing ObGyn, do you expect to build a base of Web site surfers who want to know your every thought on urinary incontinence? The harsh reality is, if you think you are going to get new patients by making posts on Twitter of 140 characters or less every day, you will be disappointed.
However, the return from using Twitter is, similar to Facebook and YouTube, related to the fact that Twitter is one of the top accessed Web sites in the world. Linking your own content from such a Web site increases the search placement of your content when a potential patient performs a general Google search.
ARE SOCIAL MEDIA EFFECTIVE?
The effective use of social media can result in attracting new patients every day to your practice—if you post quality information on a regular basis that is helpful to your existing patients and especially to potential new patients. Overall, social media can help you get new patients through search engine rankings. Even if you don’t want to do any work on your social media sites, you can hire companies that will do it for you.
However, the return from using Twitter is, similar to Facebook and YouTube, related to the fact that Twitter is one of the top accessed Web sites in the world. Linking your own content from such a Web site increases the search placement of your content when a potential patient performs a general Google search.
The bottom line
There will be many ObGyns who will read this article, throw up their hands and say, “Makes sense, but this is over my head.” Because it sounds so technical, many clinicians will just ignore social media and hope it goes away. If your plans for the next 5 years include practicing medicine, we don’t recommend that you take that approach. The Internet and social media are the “places” in which patients of today are searching for their doctors. Trust us—potential new patients are no longer using the Yellow Pages.
The patients of tomorrow will be increasingly technologically sophisticated, and these social media techniques will continue to evolve. Don’t get left behind. And don’t let your competitors dominate one of the most important sources of new patients you have, along with patient referrals and physician referrals. Jump into this world yourself, and you will be richly rewarded. The social media train is leaving the station, and we hope that we have shown you how to hitch a ride. See you online!
WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU!
Drop us a line and let us know what you think about this or other current articles, which topics you'd like to see covered in future issues, and what challenges you face in daily practice. Tell us what you think by emailing us at: obg@frontlinemedcom.com Please include your name, city and state.
THE SERIES: USING THE INTERNET IN YOUR PRACTICE
Part 1: Why social media are important and how to get started (February 2014)
Part 3: Search engine optimization
Part 4: Online reputation management
(Look for Parts 3 and 4 in 2014)
Using the Internet in your practice. Part 1: Why social media are important and how to get started
Let’s rewind to the year 2000, the dawning of a new millennium. It was then that many physicians decided the time was ripe to establish a Web presence. It wasn’t that difficult, after all: Just take the practice’s three-color, trifold brochure and convert it into a Web-site template. A teenager could do it—and many did, sometimes guided by a college student in computer sciences.
These early implementers were confident that they could cruise into the 21st Century with this new technology. They had no idea how much the Internet would change…or how fast…but their basic impulse was a wise one, to harness the power of the Internet for the good of their patients and their practices.
In this four-part series, we focus on the rapidly expanding utilization of the Internet for health-related purposes. In Part 1, we focus on why it’s important to address the Web, particularly social media, and we zoom in on creating a blog for your practice. In Part 2, our focus will be the “big three”: Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. We will take up search engine optimization and online reputation management in Parts 3 and 4, respectively.
WHY IS THE INTERNET IMPORTANT?
It isn’t uncommon for patients to arrive in their doctor’s office with a stack of pages downloaded from the Internet that describe their disease state or tests they are about to undergo. Many patients also are beginning to expect to interact with their physicians through Web sites, blogs, and Facebook and Twitter accounts.
Related Article: Why (and how) you should encourage your patients' search for health information on the Web Jennifer Gunter, MD (December 2011)
In fact, so much of health care is moving online that many physicians assume that everybody uses the Internet. The most recent data from the Pew Internet & American Life Project indicate that, in the United States, one in three adults have gone online to find out more about a medical condition, and 59% of all adults use the Internet to search for health information (TABLE 1).1,2 Eight in 10 people who regularly use the Internet look online for health information, making it the third most popular online pursuit tracked by the Pew project, after reading and sending email and using a search engine.
What types of health information do US adults look for online? Most people (66%) who use the Web to search for health information look for information on a specific disease or medical problem (see TABLE 2 for a list of other common health topics).3
The Pew Research Center also found that some demographic groups are more likely than others to seek health information online. They include:
- adults who have provided unpaid care to a parent, child, friend, or other loved one in the past 12 months
- women
- white adults
- adults aged 18 to 49 years
- adults with at least some college education
- adults in higher-income households.1
Check out the QUICK POLL on the OBG Management home page. To give your answer and see how other physicians have responded, Click Here.
WHAT ARE SOCIAL MEDIA AND WHY DO WE NEED THEM?
Social media encompass Web sites and other online communication applications used for social networking. Three of the most widely used media are Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.
When someone once asked hockey great Wayne Gretzky about his sport strategy, he replied: “I don’t skate to where the puck is or where the puck has been; I skate to where the puck is going to be.” Social media are where the puck (ie, our patients) are going to be today and tomorrow.
If we review other media launches, we discover that it took nearly 40 years for radio to attract 50 million listeners, and 13 years for television to reach 50 million viewers. But it took only 4 years for the Internet to achieve 50 million users. Facebook alone reached 100 million users in just 9 months!
Just a decade ago, the Mayo Clinic relied on standard marketing techniques using radio, TV, and print media to attract new patients. Today, the Mayo Clinic makes use of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, podcasts, and blogging. The Mayo Clinic even has developed a Center for Social Media to focus on the use of social media for its centers in Rochester, Minnesota; Jacksonville, Florida; and Phoenix, Arizona. If something is good for the Mayo Clinic, it has to be OK for the rest of us.
Social media also make it possible for smaller practices to compete with much larger practices that have huge marketing budgets. With very little expense, small practices—even solo practices—can develop a social media presence that can rival those of larger competitors.
HOW TO GET STARTED
There are four major social media programs to consider: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and blogging. We suggest that ObGyns who are ready to develop a social media presence begin with blogging, the focus of this article. We will cover Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube in Part 2 of this series.
Blogging is the easiest way to enter the world of social media. It’s free, can be accomplished reasonably quickly, and allows you to communicate with existing patients and attract new patients to your practice.
What is a blog? A blog is a Web site that is maintained with regular entries (posts) that invite comments from readers. Blogging allows feedback from people who visit your site and offers you the opportunity to respond to their comments. This creates a dialogue between you, your existing patients, and potential patients that is hard to achieve on an ordinary Web site.
The only expense for a blog is the cost of your time. There are several sites that will host your blog:
- WordPress.com offers free traffic stats, anti-spam features, search engine optimization, and more. Its platform is used by many popular blogs, including Forbes, Flickr, and CNN.
- Blogger.com (powered by Google) offers a user-friendly interface and smooth integration with the blogger’s Google account
- Blog.com provides the same basic features as other blog-hosting platforms, including free templates, but it charges a fee to keep ads off your site
- MovableType.com is a high-end hosting platform that charges a fee for its use
- LiveJournal.com provides its basic service at no charge but, like Blog.com, charges a fee to keep ads off your site.
We prefer WordPress.com because it was recommended in The Social Media Bible. WordPress.com offers tutorials that help you create a blog, enter content, and publish your material. You can access them at http://learn.wordpress.com.
We suggest that you develop your blog by incorporating a “hook” or other enticement to capture readers’ attention, keep your message relevant to their lives, and link the blog to your Web site so readers can find solutions to their medical problems.
Social media experts agree that regular posting is the key to success, particularly in regard to blogging. Commit to posting at least weekly. Visitors are more likely to return to your blog when they can count on regular updates.
Related Article: To blog or not to blog? What's the answer for you and your practice? Jennifer Gunter, MD (August 2011)
How to tell your story
One way to start your post is by offering a startling statistic or analogy. For example, if you are writing about breast cancer, you might begin by observing that more than 1,000 women under age 40 died of the disease in 2013—or that only lung cancer causes more cancer deaths in women.
Humor is another way to engage readers. We have found that people are attracted to funny anecdotes and stories. For example, when Dr. Baum is writing about erectile dysfunction, he might tell a story about arriving at a hotel and finding only 32 cents in his pocket to tip the bellman. When he offered the young bellman a copy of his new book, Impotence: It’s Reversible, the bellman replied, “Dr. Baum, if it’s all right with you, I’d just like to have the 32 cents.” In a blog post about this exchange, Dr. Baum might explain that the article is intended to give readers a little more than 32 cents’ worth of information about erectile dysfunction. The post would carry on from there.
Another option is to relate a compelling story about a recent patient (without using her name) that describes how you identified a problem, made a diagnosis, and resolved the patient’s complaint.
At the end of each blog post, we recommend that you invite readers to submit open-ended questions and comments. This motivates them to respond and starts a dialogue between your practice and potential new patients. Also include a call to action, preferably with a link from your blog to your Web site, inviting readers to visit your site or contact your practice to become a patient.
Most comments on your blog are likely to be positive, or to consist of requests for clarification or specific information. And most blog-hosting platforms allow you to review comments before they are published to your blog site. Any unnecessarily harsh or abusive comments can simply be rejected.
Once you have created a blog and begun to post regularly, we recommend that you check traffic to the site using the built-in analytics available through most hosting platforms. The traffic stats give you information on the number of visitors you have, how long they are spending at your blog, and how many are connecting to your main Web site. You can use this valuable information to identify what is working and tweak your blog posts accordingly.
Catchy titles make a difference
Strive to create titles that will capture the attention of your readers. People often decide whether or not to read a blog post on the basis of its title alone. Think of an effective title as a billboard. Drivers are speeding down the highway and have only 3 or 4 seconds to read the billboard and decide whether they will visit the restaurant, buy the product, or call for more information. The same holds true for titles on your blogs.
For example, Dr. Baum once titled a blog post “Urinary incontinence: Diagnosis and treatment.” It drew few readers. When he changed the title to “Urinary incontinence: You don’t have to depend on Depends,” nearly 1,000 readers commented on the post. Same article, different title.
Four pillars of a successful practice: 2. Attract new patients Neil H. Baum, MD (Four-part series, May 2013)
Pay attention to your practice Web site
We mentioned getting visitors from your blog site to your practice’s Web site. Once they arrive, two strategies are vital:
- visitor navigation
- patient-conversion systems.
Visitor navigation. The visitor comes to your Web site to get information that provides a solution to her problem. Once she lands on your site, you have less than 10 seconds to engage her; otherwise, she’ll leave instantly with the click of the mouse. Make it easy for her to find what she is looking for. For example, are the procedures and treatments you offer listed prominently so that the visitor can see them immediately and click on the link she wants? How about adding an icon, at the top right on every page, that says: “Schedule an appointment” or “Schedule a consultation.” The words you use (and their placement) are critically important if you want the visitor to become a patient!
Related Article: My #1 strategy for retaining patients Neil H. Baum, MD (Audiocast, March 2013)
Patient-conversion systems. Many Web sites are designed by people other than marketers. Even many Web-design companies focus on the look of the site rather than its main purpose: to convert visitors to patients.
If you want to get a Web-site visitor to schedule an appointment, your phone number should be clearly visible (along with the “Schedule an appointment” icon) on every page above the fold. “Above the fold” simply means that the visitor does not have to scroll down the page to see it. Believe it or not, many fancy Web sites fail to put these items in plain view!
And because you want to position yourself as a trusted authority in your field, patient testimonials are an important feature to include on your home page. And keep the information simple—stay away from technical jargon that the visitor will not understand.
Capture the visitor’s email address and use an auto-responder to follow up. You can get the visitor’s email address by offering something of value, such as a complimentary medical guide to a common condition. Once you have her email address, you have a way to stay in touch with the prospective patient and build a relationship of trust and confidence in your ability to solve her problem.
BOTTOM LINE: SOCIAL MEDIA ARE WORTH THE EFFORT
Social media marketing is a tool that most medical practices will be considering in the near future. A blog is a social media tool that can educate and inform existing patients and attract new ones to your practice. It is inexpensive, effective, and well worth the time and effort required to create a presence.
WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU!
Drop us a line and let us know what you think about current articles, which topics you'd like to see covered in future issues, and what challenges you face in daily practice. Tell us what you think by emailing us at: obg@frontlinemedcom.com
- Fox S, Duggan M. Health Online 2013: Summary of Findings. Pew Internet & American Life Project. http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2013/Health-online/Summary-of-Findings.aspx. Published January 15, 2013. Accessed January 9, 2014.
- Fox S. Health Topics: Health Information is a Popular Pursuit Online. Pew Internet & American Life Project. http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2011/HealthTopics/Part-1.aspx. Published February 1, 2011. Accessed January 9, 2014.
- Fox S. Health Topics: Eight in Ten Adult Internet Users Look for Information Online. Pew Internet & American Life Project. http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2011/Social-Life-of-Health-Info/Part-2/Section-1.aspx. Published May 12, 2011. Accessed January 9, 2014.
Neil H. Baum, MD, practices urology in New Orleans, Louisiana. He is Associate Clinical Professor of Urology at Tulane Medical School and Louisiana State University School of Medicine, both in New Orleans. He is also on the medical staff at Touro Infirmary in New Orleans, and East Jefferson General Hospital in Metairie, Louisiana. And he is the author of Marketing Your Clinical Practice: Ethically, Effectively, Economically (4th edition, 2009; Jones & Bartlett).
Ron Romano is CEO of Instant Marketing Systems in Toronto, Ontario.
The authors report no financial relationships relevant to this article.
Neil H. Baum, MD, practices urology in New Orleans, Louisiana. He is Associate Clinical Professor of Urology at Tulane Medical School and Louisiana State University School of Medicine, both in New Orleans. He is also on the medical staff at Touro Infirmary in New Orleans, and East Jefferson General Hospital in Metairie, Louisiana. And he is the author of Marketing Your Clinical Practice: Ethically, Effectively, Economically (4th edition, 2009; Jones & Bartlett).
Ron Romano is CEO of Instant Marketing Systems in Toronto, Ontario.
The authors report no financial relationships relevant to this article.
Neil H. Baum, MD, practices urology in New Orleans, Louisiana. He is Associate Clinical Professor of Urology at Tulane Medical School and Louisiana State University School of Medicine, both in New Orleans. He is also on the medical staff at Touro Infirmary in New Orleans, and East Jefferson General Hospital in Metairie, Louisiana. And he is the author of Marketing Your Clinical Practice: Ethically, Effectively, Economically (4th edition, 2009; Jones & Bartlett).
Ron Romano is CEO of Instant Marketing Systems in Toronto, Ontario.
The authors report no financial relationships relevant to this article.
Let’s rewind to the year 2000, the dawning of a new millennium. It was then that many physicians decided the time was ripe to establish a Web presence. It wasn’t that difficult, after all: Just take the practice’s three-color, trifold brochure and convert it into a Web-site template. A teenager could do it—and many did, sometimes guided by a college student in computer sciences.
These early implementers were confident that they could cruise into the 21st Century with this new technology. They had no idea how much the Internet would change…or how fast…but their basic impulse was a wise one, to harness the power of the Internet for the good of their patients and their practices.
In this four-part series, we focus on the rapidly expanding utilization of the Internet for health-related purposes. In Part 1, we focus on why it’s important to address the Web, particularly social media, and we zoom in on creating a blog for your practice. In Part 2, our focus will be the “big three”: Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. We will take up search engine optimization and online reputation management in Parts 3 and 4, respectively.
WHY IS THE INTERNET IMPORTANT?
It isn’t uncommon for patients to arrive in their doctor’s office with a stack of pages downloaded from the Internet that describe their disease state or tests they are about to undergo. Many patients also are beginning to expect to interact with their physicians through Web sites, blogs, and Facebook and Twitter accounts.
Related Article: Why (and how) you should encourage your patients' search for health information on the Web Jennifer Gunter, MD (December 2011)
In fact, so much of health care is moving online that many physicians assume that everybody uses the Internet. The most recent data from the Pew Internet & American Life Project indicate that, in the United States, one in three adults have gone online to find out more about a medical condition, and 59% of all adults use the Internet to search for health information (TABLE 1).1,2 Eight in 10 people who regularly use the Internet look online for health information, making it the third most popular online pursuit tracked by the Pew project, after reading and sending email and using a search engine.
What types of health information do US adults look for online? Most people (66%) who use the Web to search for health information look for information on a specific disease or medical problem (see TABLE 2 for a list of other common health topics).3
The Pew Research Center also found that some demographic groups are more likely than others to seek health information online. They include:
- adults who have provided unpaid care to a parent, child, friend, or other loved one in the past 12 months
- women
- white adults
- adults aged 18 to 49 years
- adults with at least some college education
- adults in higher-income households.1
Check out the QUICK POLL on the OBG Management home page. To give your answer and see how other physicians have responded, Click Here.
WHAT ARE SOCIAL MEDIA AND WHY DO WE NEED THEM?
Social media encompass Web sites and other online communication applications used for social networking. Three of the most widely used media are Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.
When someone once asked hockey great Wayne Gretzky about his sport strategy, he replied: “I don’t skate to where the puck is or where the puck has been; I skate to where the puck is going to be.” Social media are where the puck (ie, our patients) are going to be today and tomorrow.
If we review other media launches, we discover that it took nearly 40 years for radio to attract 50 million listeners, and 13 years for television to reach 50 million viewers. But it took only 4 years for the Internet to achieve 50 million users. Facebook alone reached 100 million users in just 9 months!
Just a decade ago, the Mayo Clinic relied on standard marketing techniques using radio, TV, and print media to attract new patients. Today, the Mayo Clinic makes use of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, podcasts, and blogging. The Mayo Clinic even has developed a Center for Social Media to focus on the use of social media for its centers in Rochester, Minnesota; Jacksonville, Florida; and Phoenix, Arizona. If something is good for the Mayo Clinic, it has to be OK for the rest of us.
Social media also make it possible for smaller practices to compete with much larger practices that have huge marketing budgets. With very little expense, small practices—even solo practices—can develop a social media presence that can rival those of larger competitors.
HOW TO GET STARTED
There are four major social media programs to consider: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and blogging. We suggest that ObGyns who are ready to develop a social media presence begin with blogging, the focus of this article. We will cover Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube in Part 2 of this series.
Blogging is the easiest way to enter the world of social media. It’s free, can be accomplished reasonably quickly, and allows you to communicate with existing patients and attract new patients to your practice.
What is a blog? A blog is a Web site that is maintained with regular entries (posts) that invite comments from readers. Blogging allows feedback from people who visit your site and offers you the opportunity to respond to their comments. This creates a dialogue between you, your existing patients, and potential patients that is hard to achieve on an ordinary Web site.
The only expense for a blog is the cost of your time. There are several sites that will host your blog:
- WordPress.com offers free traffic stats, anti-spam features, search engine optimization, and more. Its platform is used by many popular blogs, including Forbes, Flickr, and CNN.
- Blogger.com (powered by Google) offers a user-friendly interface and smooth integration with the blogger’s Google account
- Blog.com provides the same basic features as other blog-hosting platforms, including free templates, but it charges a fee to keep ads off your site
- MovableType.com is a high-end hosting platform that charges a fee for its use
- LiveJournal.com provides its basic service at no charge but, like Blog.com, charges a fee to keep ads off your site.
We prefer WordPress.com because it was recommended in The Social Media Bible. WordPress.com offers tutorials that help you create a blog, enter content, and publish your material. You can access them at http://learn.wordpress.com.
We suggest that you develop your blog by incorporating a “hook” or other enticement to capture readers’ attention, keep your message relevant to their lives, and link the blog to your Web site so readers can find solutions to their medical problems.
Social media experts agree that regular posting is the key to success, particularly in regard to blogging. Commit to posting at least weekly. Visitors are more likely to return to your blog when they can count on regular updates.
Related Article: To blog or not to blog? What's the answer for you and your practice? Jennifer Gunter, MD (August 2011)
How to tell your story
One way to start your post is by offering a startling statistic or analogy. For example, if you are writing about breast cancer, you might begin by observing that more than 1,000 women under age 40 died of the disease in 2013—or that only lung cancer causes more cancer deaths in women.
Humor is another way to engage readers. We have found that people are attracted to funny anecdotes and stories. For example, when Dr. Baum is writing about erectile dysfunction, he might tell a story about arriving at a hotel and finding only 32 cents in his pocket to tip the bellman. When he offered the young bellman a copy of his new book, Impotence: It’s Reversible, the bellman replied, “Dr. Baum, if it’s all right with you, I’d just like to have the 32 cents.” In a blog post about this exchange, Dr. Baum might explain that the article is intended to give readers a little more than 32 cents’ worth of information about erectile dysfunction. The post would carry on from there.
Another option is to relate a compelling story about a recent patient (without using her name) that describes how you identified a problem, made a diagnosis, and resolved the patient’s complaint.
At the end of each blog post, we recommend that you invite readers to submit open-ended questions and comments. This motivates them to respond and starts a dialogue between your practice and potential new patients. Also include a call to action, preferably with a link from your blog to your Web site, inviting readers to visit your site or contact your practice to become a patient.
Most comments on your blog are likely to be positive, or to consist of requests for clarification or specific information. And most blog-hosting platforms allow you to review comments before they are published to your blog site. Any unnecessarily harsh or abusive comments can simply be rejected.
Once you have created a blog and begun to post regularly, we recommend that you check traffic to the site using the built-in analytics available through most hosting platforms. The traffic stats give you information on the number of visitors you have, how long they are spending at your blog, and how many are connecting to your main Web site. You can use this valuable information to identify what is working and tweak your blog posts accordingly.
Catchy titles make a difference
Strive to create titles that will capture the attention of your readers. People often decide whether or not to read a blog post on the basis of its title alone. Think of an effective title as a billboard. Drivers are speeding down the highway and have only 3 or 4 seconds to read the billboard and decide whether they will visit the restaurant, buy the product, or call for more information. The same holds true for titles on your blogs.
For example, Dr. Baum once titled a blog post “Urinary incontinence: Diagnosis and treatment.” It drew few readers. When he changed the title to “Urinary incontinence: You don’t have to depend on Depends,” nearly 1,000 readers commented on the post. Same article, different title.
Four pillars of a successful practice: 2. Attract new patients Neil H. Baum, MD (Four-part series, May 2013)
Pay attention to your practice Web site
We mentioned getting visitors from your blog site to your practice’s Web site. Once they arrive, two strategies are vital:
- visitor navigation
- patient-conversion systems.
Visitor navigation. The visitor comes to your Web site to get information that provides a solution to her problem. Once she lands on your site, you have less than 10 seconds to engage her; otherwise, she’ll leave instantly with the click of the mouse. Make it easy for her to find what she is looking for. For example, are the procedures and treatments you offer listed prominently so that the visitor can see them immediately and click on the link she wants? How about adding an icon, at the top right on every page, that says: “Schedule an appointment” or “Schedule a consultation.” The words you use (and their placement) are critically important if you want the visitor to become a patient!
Related Article: My #1 strategy for retaining patients Neil H. Baum, MD (Audiocast, March 2013)
Patient-conversion systems. Many Web sites are designed by people other than marketers. Even many Web-design companies focus on the look of the site rather than its main purpose: to convert visitors to patients.
If you want to get a Web-site visitor to schedule an appointment, your phone number should be clearly visible (along with the “Schedule an appointment” icon) on every page above the fold. “Above the fold” simply means that the visitor does not have to scroll down the page to see it. Believe it or not, many fancy Web sites fail to put these items in plain view!
And because you want to position yourself as a trusted authority in your field, patient testimonials are an important feature to include on your home page. And keep the information simple—stay away from technical jargon that the visitor will not understand.
Capture the visitor’s email address and use an auto-responder to follow up. You can get the visitor’s email address by offering something of value, such as a complimentary medical guide to a common condition. Once you have her email address, you have a way to stay in touch with the prospective patient and build a relationship of trust and confidence in your ability to solve her problem.
BOTTOM LINE: SOCIAL MEDIA ARE WORTH THE EFFORT
Social media marketing is a tool that most medical practices will be considering in the near future. A blog is a social media tool that can educate and inform existing patients and attract new ones to your practice. It is inexpensive, effective, and well worth the time and effort required to create a presence.
WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU!
Drop us a line and let us know what you think about current articles, which topics you'd like to see covered in future issues, and what challenges you face in daily practice. Tell us what you think by emailing us at: obg@frontlinemedcom.com
Let’s rewind to the year 2000, the dawning of a new millennium. It was then that many physicians decided the time was ripe to establish a Web presence. It wasn’t that difficult, after all: Just take the practice’s three-color, trifold brochure and convert it into a Web-site template. A teenager could do it—and many did, sometimes guided by a college student in computer sciences.
These early implementers were confident that they could cruise into the 21st Century with this new technology. They had no idea how much the Internet would change…or how fast…but their basic impulse was a wise one, to harness the power of the Internet for the good of their patients and their practices.
In this four-part series, we focus on the rapidly expanding utilization of the Internet for health-related purposes. In Part 1, we focus on why it’s important to address the Web, particularly social media, and we zoom in on creating a blog for your practice. In Part 2, our focus will be the “big three”: Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. We will take up search engine optimization and online reputation management in Parts 3 and 4, respectively.
WHY IS THE INTERNET IMPORTANT?
It isn’t uncommon for patients to arrive in their doctor’s office with a stack of pages downloaded from the Internet that describe their disease state or tests they are about to undergo. Many patients also are beginning to expect to interact with their physicians through Web sites, blogs, and Facebook and Twitter accounts.
Related Article: Why (and how) you should encourage your patients' search for health information on the Web Jennifer Gunter, MD (December 2011)
In fact, so much of health care is moving online that many physicians assume that everybody uses the Internet. The most recent data from the Pew Internet & American Life Project indicate that, in the United States, one in three adults have gone online to find out more about a medical condition, and 59% of all adults use the Internet to search for health information (TABLE 1).1,2 Eight in 10 people who regularly use the Internet look online for health information, making it the third most popular online pursuit tracked by the Pew project, after reading and sending email and using a search engine.
What types of health information do US adults look for online? Most people (66%) who use the Web to search for health information look for information on a specific disease or medical problem (see TABLE 2 for a list of other common health topics).3
The Pew Research Center also found that some demographic groups are more likely than others to seek health information online. They include:
- adults who have provided unpaid care to a parent, child, friend, or other loved one in the past 12 months
- women
- white adults
- adults aged 18 to 49 years
- adults with at least some college education
- adults in higher-income households.1
Check out the QUICK POLL on the OBG Management home page. To give your answer and see how other physicians have responded, Click Here.
WHAT ARE SOCIAL MEDIA AND WHY DO WE NEED THEM?
Social media encompass Web sites and other online communication applications used for social networking. Three of the most widely used media are Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.
When someone once asked hockey great Wayne Gretzky about his sport strategy, he replied: “I don’t skate to where the puck is or where the puck has been; I skate to where the puck is going to be.” Social media are where the puck (ie, our patients) are going to be today and tomorrow.
If we review other media launches, we discover that it took nearly 40 years for radio to attract 50 million listeners, and 13 years for television to reach 50 million viewers. But it took only 4 years for the Internet to achieve 50 million users. Facebook alone reached 100 million users in just 9 months!
Just a decade ago, the Mayo Clinic relied on standard marketing techniques using radio, TV, and print media to attract new patients. Today, the Mayo Clinic makes use of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, podcasts, and blogging. The Mayo Clinic even has developed a Center for Social Media to focus on the use of social media for its centers in Rochester, Minnesota; Jacksonville, Florida; and Phoenix, Arizona. If something is good for the Mayo Clinic, it has to be OK for the rest of us.
Social media also make it possible for smaller practices to compete with much larger practices that have huge marketing budgets. With very little expense, small practices—even solo practices—can develop a social media presence that can rival those of larger competitors.
HOW TO GET STARTED
There are four major social media programs to consider: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and blogging. We suggest that ObGyns who are ready to develop a social media presence begin with blogging, the focus of this article. We will cover Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube in Part 2 of this series.
Blogging is the easiest way to enter the world of social media. It’s free, can be accomplished reasonably quickly, and allows you to communicate with existing patients and attract new patients to your practice.
What is a blog? A blog is a Web site that is maintained with regular entries (posts) that invite comments from readers. Blogging allows feedback from people who visit your site and offers you the opportunity to respond to their comments. This creates a dialogue between you, your existing patients, and potential patients that is hard to achieve on an ordinary Web site.
The only expense for a blog is the cost of your time. There are several sites that will host your blog:
- WordPress.com offers free traffic stats, anti-spam features, search engine optimization, and more. Its platform is used by many popular blogs, including Forbes, Flickr, and CNN.
- Blogger.com (powered by Google) offers a user-friendly interface and smooth integration with the blogger’s Google account
- Blog.com provides the same basic features as other blog-hosting platforms, including free templates, but it charges a fee to keep ads off your site
- MovableType.com is a high-end hosting platform that charges a fee for its use
- LiveJournal.com provides its basic service at no charge but, like Blog.com, charges a fee to keep ads off your site.
We prefer WordPress.com because it was recommended in The Social Media Bible. WordPress.com offers tutorials that help you create a blog, enter content, and publish your material. You can access them at http://learn.wordpress.com.
We suggest that you develop your blog by incorporating a “hook” or other enticement to capture readers’ attention, keep your message relevant to their lives, and link the blog to your Web site so readers can find solutions to their medical problems.
Social media experts agree that regular posting is the key to success, particularly in regard to blogging. Commit to posting at least weekly. Visitors are more likely to return to your blog when they can count on regular updates.
Related Article: To blog or not to blog? What's the answer for you and your practice? Jennifer Gunter, MD (August 2011)
How to tell your story
One way to start your post is by offering a startling statistic or analogy. For example, if you are writing about breast cancer, you might begin by observing that more than 1,000 women under age 40 died of the disease in 2013—or that only lung cancer causes more cancer deaths in women.
Humor is another way to engage readers. We have found that people are attracted to funny anecdotes and stories. For example, when Dr. Baum is writing about erectile dysfunction, he might tell a story about arriving at a hotel and finding only 32 cents in his pocket to tip the bellman. When he offered the young bellman a copy of his new book, Impotence: It’s Reversible, the bellman replied, “Dr. Baum, if it’s all right with you, I’d just like to have the 32 cents.” In a blog post about this exchange, Dr. Baum might explain that the article is intended to give readers a little more than 32 cents’ worth of information about erectile dysfunction. The post would carry on from there.
Another option is to relate a compelling story about a recent patient (without using her name) that describes how you identified a problem, made a diagnosis, and resolved the patient’s complaint.
At the end of each blog post, we recommend that you invite readers to submit open-ended questions and comments. This motivates them to respond and starts a dialogue between your practice and potential new patients. Also include a call to action, preferably with a link from your blog to your Web site, inviting readers to visit your site or contact your practice to become a patient.
Most comments on your blog are likely to be positive, or to consist of requests for clarification or specific information. And most blog-hosting platforms allow you to review comments before they are published to your blog site. Any unnecessarily harsh or abusive comments can simply be rejected.
Once you have created a blog and begun to post regularly, we recommend that you check traffic to the site using the built-in analytics available through most hosting platforms. The traffic stats give you information on the number of visitors you have, how long they are spending at your blog, and how many are connecting to your main Web site. You can use this valuable information to identify what is working and tweak your blog posts accordingly.
Catchy titles make a difference
Strive to create titles that will capture the attention of your readers. People often decide whether or not to read a blog post on the basis of its title alone. Think of an effective title as a billboard. Drivers are speeding down the highway and have only 3 or 4 seconds to read the billboard and decide whether they will visit the restaurant, buy the product, or call for more information. The same holds true for titles on your blogs.
For example, Dr. Baum once titled a blog post “Urinary incontinence: Diagnosis and treatment.” It drew few readers. When he changed the title to “Urinary incontinence: You don’t have to depend on Depends,” nearly 1,000 readers commented on the post. Same article, different title.
Four pillars of a successful practice: 2. Attract new patients Neil H. Baum, MD (Four-part series, May 2013)
Pay attention to your practice Web site
We mentioned getting visitors from your blog site to your practice’s Web site. Once they arrive, two strategies are vital:
- visitor navigation
- patient-conversion systems.
Visitor navigation. The visitor comes to your Web site to get information that provides a solution to her problem. Once she lands on your site, you have less than 10 seconds to engage her; otherwise, she’ll leave instantly with the click of the mouse. Make it easy for her to find what she is looking for. For example, are the procedures and treatments you offer listed prominently so that the visitor can see them immediately and click on the link she wants? How about adding an icon, at the top right on every page, that says: “Schedule an appointment” or “Schedule a consultation.” The words you use (and their placement) are critically important if you want the visitor to become a patient!
Related Article: My #1 strategy for retaining patients Neil H. Baum, MD (Audiocast, March 2013)
Patient-conversion systems. Many Web sites are designed by people other than marketers. Even many Web-design companies focus on the look of the site rather than its main purpose: to convert visitors to patients.
If you want to get a Web-site visitor to schedule an appointment, your phone number should be clearly visible (along with the “Schedule an appointment” icon) on every page above the fold. “Above the fold” simply means that the visitor does not have to scroll down the page to see it. Believe it or not, many fancy Web sites fail to put these items in plain view!
And because you want to position yourself as a trusted authority in your field, patient testimonials are an important feature to include on your home page. And keep the information simple—stay away from technical jargon that the visitor will not understand.
Capture the visitor’s email address and use an auto-responder to follow up. You can get the visitor’s email address by offering something of value, such as a complimentary medical guide to a common condition. Once you have her email address, you have a way to stay in touch with the prospective patient and build a relationship of trust and confidence in your ability to solve her problem.
BOTTOM LINE: SOCIAL MEDIA ARE WORTH THE EFFORT
Social media marketing is a tool that most medical practices will be considering in the near future. A blog is a social media tool that can educate and inform existing patients and attract new ones to your practice. It is inexpensive, effective, and well worth the time and effort required to create a presence.
WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU!
Drop us a line and let us know what you think about current articles, which topics you'd like to see covered in future issues, and what challenges you face in daily practice. Tell us what you think by emailing us at: obg@frontlinemedcom.com
- Fox S, Duggan M. Health Online 2013: Summary of Findings. Pew Internet & American Life Project. http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2013/Health-online/Summary-of-Findings.aspx. Published January 15, 2013. Accessed January 9, 2014.
- Fox S. Health Topics: Health Information is a Popular Pursuit Online. Pew Internet & American Life Project. http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2011/HealthTopics/Part-1.aspx. Published February 1, 2011. Accessed January 9, 2014.
- Fox S. Health Topics: Eight in Ten Adult Internet Users Look for Information Online. Pew Internet & American Life Project. http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2011/Social-Life-of-Health-Info/Part-2/Section-1.aspx. Published May 12, 2011. Accessed January 9, 2014.
- Fox S, Duggan M. Health Online 2013: Summary of Findings. Pew Internet & American Life Project. http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2013/Health-online/Summary-of-Findings.aspx. Published January 15, 2013. Accessed January 9, 2014.
- Fox S. Health Topics: Health Information is a Popular Pursuit Online. Pew Internet & American Life Project. http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2011/HealthTopics/Part-1.aspx. Published February 1, 2011. Accessed January 9, 2014.
- Fox S. Health Topics: Eight in Ten Adult Internet Users Look for Information Online. Pew Internet & American Life Project. http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2011/Social-Life-of-Health-Info/Part-2/Section-1.aspx. Published May 12, 2011. Accessed January 9, 2014.
THE SERIES: USING THE INTERNET IN YOUR PRACTICE
Part 2: Generating new patients using social media (April 2014)
Part 3: Search engine optimization
Part 4: Online reputation management
(Look for Parts 2 through 4 in 2014)
