Foundations of private practice reach out
There are 3 important areas that I consider the foundation of any private practice marketing strategy (TABLE). First is an updated website that is search engine optimized (SEO). You can’t just set it and forget it, it needs to be an updated website. The algorithms for search engines are changing constantly to try to make it as fair and relevant as possible for patients or consumers to find the businesses they are searching for online.
The second area is review management, and for a physician, or even a care center, to do this on your own is a daunting task. It is a critical component, however, to making sure that your reputation out there, that online word of mouth, is as high a star rating as possible.
The third component is local search, which is basically a form of SEO that helps businesses show up in relevant local searches. We are all familiar with the search, “find a restaurant near me,” anything that pushes those search engines to find something local.
Those are what I call the effective triad: that updated website, the review management, and the local search, and all of these are tied together. I think Dr. Lotze and his practice did these effectively well, and I believe that he achieved his goals for the longer term.
Review/reputation management
Dr. Culligan: Brad, is there something that doctors may not know about Healthgrades, and are there opportunities to take full advantage of this physician-rating site?
Brad Bowman, MD: I agree with everything that Dr. Lotze and Heather have said. Start with yourself—what is it that you want to be, the one thing you want to stand for? Get your own marketing, your website right, then, the point is, once you do all that and you are number 1 in SEO, you are still only going to get about 25% of the people looking for you by name to come to your website. The other 75% are going to look at all the other different sites that are out there to provide information to consumers. So the question becomes what do you do with all these other third-party sites? Healthgrades is the most comprehensive and has the highest traffic of the third-party “find a doctor” sites. In 2020, half of all Americans who go to a doctor will use Healthgrades at some point to help select and connect with that doctor.
Physicians have their focus on the quality of the care they provide. Patients, however, focus on the quality of the entire health care experience. Did I get better? How long did I have to wait? Was the office staff helpful? Scarily enough, we still spend more time shopping for a refrigerator or mattress than we do shopping for a doctor. We still tend to think that all doctors are the same. It is the reality of how we have been trained by our insurance companies and by the health care system. That is why getting your marketing right and getting what is it that you want to be known for out there is important, so that you can get the types of patients you want.
Listings management is very important. Make sure that you are findable everywhere. There are services that will do this: Doctor.com, Reputation.com, and many others. They can help you make sure you get all your basic materials right: addresses, phone numbers, your picture. Because 75% of people are going to end up on third-party websites, if your phone number is wrong there, you could lose that patient.
Then the second piece of working with third-party sites is reputation management. Physician reviews are not a bad thing, they are the new word of mouth, as Heather pointed out. Most (80%) of the reviews are going to be positive. The others will be negative, and that is okay. It is important that you get at least 1 or 2 reviews on all the different sites. We know from Healthgrades.com that going from zero reviews to 1 review will increase your call volume by 60%. If you have the choice between 2 physicians and one practice looks like people have been there before, you will go to that one.
You can learn from reviews as well, consumers provide valid feedback. Best practice is to respond to every positive and negative review. Thank them, indicate that you have listened to them, and address any concerns as necessary.
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