"There will be follow-up… increased follow-up… and
excessive degrees of follow-up of all medical practice
current medical patients in all private medical
practice business management"
One of the greatest mistakes being made today in all businesses, especially in medical practice businesses, is the failure to follow-up on every opportunity to capitalize on each and every contact with your medical office.
The fact that almost every time a new or old patient shows up at your office they have to fill out an information form again. So you can't say that you aren't collecting an abundance of data to use to follow up on patients and contact them. Keep that pile of them at the front desk and not in the back storage room.
Misguided by lack of business education, most physicians find it difficult to believe that close follow-up on potential new patients is a waste of time… even worse, not profitable. It's your money slipping away. It's for a lot more reasons that you have never been told.
Literally, hundreds of studies have documented the profitability of a regimented follow-up program for leads for recruiting clients, patients, and customers. For any physician to accept and implement such a program in their practice business management requires the use of another principle that all physicians know quite well…the practice of evidence-based medicine practice superiority.
If it’s evidence-based, then it must be something worth strong consideration, not a casual glance and ignored. Logically, for any physician that accepts evidence-based medicine as the highest standard of medical care, then it should not be difficult for them to accept other evidence-based business facts and studies amassed under the same rigid compliance.
The source of evidence-based medicine is nothing more than the result of follow up on thousands on thousands of patient outcomes from treatments.
Physicians that use the results of evidence-based medicine don’t go back and read the full medical literature on a topic before applying it to their medical practice. Neither do smart businesspersons have to confirm for themselves that business-marketing studies are legitimate before accepting and applying them. They are compiled for you to follow, trust, and apply. If 10 experts agree on a result, the tendency is to trust what they say.
Business owners need to plug the holes in their financial buckets...
The biggest hole in the financial bucket found most often in private medical practice businesses is the nearly universal finding that follow-up is a forgotten tradition. Patients see your website, your office signs, visit your place of business, ask your receptionist or staff questions, and that’s it--no
appointment made.
There’s no capture of the prospects name, physical address, email address, cell phone number, unless they complete that on a form. Do you have a form to use for "visitors" to fill out at your office? Is there any effort to have them provide even more of their personal information, at least enough to contact them later on.
Do you provide a free report or handout, a discount coupon for something, or some other way you can use to maintain some interaction with the new patient prospect? The purpose is to follow up on people with a reminder or piece of special interest to them--to entice them back again for an appointment with the doctor.
This is an opportunity to recruit a new patient. Are you going to try to get them back to the office some how? If not, you have wasted a great opportunity for potential income. Do you permit such waste to happen in your medical practice business management?
Patients are always eager to pick up handouts on medical problems, primarily because the doctor doesn't have the time to tell the patient all the information about their medical problem they should know. Handouts concerning medical problems given to a potential patient is often an enticement for the patient to recognize that you do what rare doctors do for their patients, and they will make an appointment as a result.
Naturally the handouts get carried home, family reads them, neighbors read them, and magically, your contact data is right at the top of the page just in case the neighbor needs a doctor or refers another person to your office. This form of marketing is almost free.
You don’t just pay for the patients you obtain through your advertising and marketing. You pay a price for every call, every walk-in and other patient contacts. Doing nothing with a potential patient contact is like flushing money down the toilet.
Say you invest $1,000 in an ad campaign in the local newspaper and you get 50 phone calls. You could send a very friendly email to the new potential patient a day or two after they came to your office and didn't make an appointment. Such a move will incite an appointment about 20% of the time. When a new patient makes and appointment, and they like and stay with you---they will add about $500 to your income annually.
If you ignore one call completely you have intentionally thrown away $20. That may not impress you but those who were from poor families know what it would feel like to stand over a paper basket and slowly tear a $20 bill into tiny pieces.
The medical practice business lesson here is clear. When you fail to thoroughly follow up on a lead or customer or patient, you are intentionally sabotaging the financial security of your medical practice business. You know what a smart business person needs to do and you don’t do it.
Could you use an extra million bucks?
If in doubt, ask your wife and kids about it. The extra million is hidden inside your medical practice business. It’s in the follow-up that isn’t happening.
Very often slothful business owners look at only the small profitability of their marketing activities…spend $1,000 to get 50 calls, convert only 5 to appointments, and acquire only 2 as loyal customers, but are worth $1,000 each in income for your practice in the long run. Small thinkers are
happy with that.
The other side of the situation shows 45 that didn’t turn into appointments. The total reality is far worse than that. If, with aggressive and diligent follow-up of the 45, another 5 appointments and 2 customers could be had with some effort being made to get them instead of leaking out the hole in your money bucket. What those hold-out patients need to know are two things.
1. Whether they can trust you. (Explain it to them--your version)
2. How they are going to be treated in your office and by you.
(What makes your office better than all the others in town?)
Even better, if each new patient referred one new patient, an endless chain of new patient referrals could be had. And, the potential waste to your practice income is increased to $10,900 that you could have had. Let that happen once a month and $109,000.00 slips out the hole in the bucket
onto the floor.
In the experience of most business and marketing consultants, over a ten year period of any small business there is at least one million dollars in lost money to be had. It’s not hidden money, just money that is never recognized as being available… call it the value of every physician having some business and marketing knowledge to begin with.
Where are some of the holes in your financial bucket through which
your money leaks...
- The person who calls you and asks questions, is unknown, and gets no follow-up… a widespread recruiting infection found throughout medical practices today.
- No significant follow-up on leads obtained at conventions, trade shows, or consumer shows…vendors are still ignorant about the financial advantages of good follow-up--because they
refer patients. - Patient referrals with no follow-up… the forgotten value of saying “thank you for referring ______” to me.
- Lack of instant follow-up to new patients… lack of making any new patient feel welcome, important, thanked, brought back by return appointment.
- No prevention of, or rescue attempts made to regain lost patients… interestingly, 30 years of surveys have consistently revealed “indifference by provider” as, by far, the #1 reason patients leave a medical practice… not because of doctor incompetence, negligence, insult, too high fees, etc.
What are good follow-up processes for private medical practice physicians to use?
There are hundreds of templates and variations of the follow-up processes used in small businesses. For medical practices the usual commercial business methods for follow-up have to be modified to avoid liability, misinterpretations, revealing private medical information, while maintaining rapport and relationships with your patients.
The best way to filter in or out new medical patients is by offering them a 15 minute free visit with the doctor to get to know the doctor first outside the exam room. And the physician gets to know the patient, their demands, their ideas about the care they want. This process eliminates patients that could be a setup for malpractice claims or other personality issues you don't tolerate well.
My most frustrating event with a patient was a new patient. I met her in the exam room for the first time. She was about age 25. I shook her hand and introduced myself. Her first words were, "My husband is in the military and he told me that I can't trust outside doctors." Very carefully I tried to discuss with her how I practiced medicine and a bit about my years in medical practice--all in a friendly and gentle way.
She kept interrupting me while doing that and said she didn't need to hear all that stuff. So I then told her that I had been a medical doctor in the military for 5 years before I started private practice and understood why she might feel that way.
She immediately became angry and said, "I'm leaving." I turned away and left the room without words. Whatever her issue was belonged in some other doctor's office. I likely would have picked up this attitude with a free patient interview, and sent her elsewhere, saving me time
and frustration.
The follow-up procedures we are discussing today are those related to your efforts to increase your patient flow, recruit new patients, and increase your medical practice income. In most cases your intention is to magnify the results and efficiency of your efforts.
The problem is that physicians are not familiar with many of the commonly used methods that commercial businesses use to increase profits which are the same ones, done for the same reasons, and create the same results every physician in private medical practice seeks.
Physicians and other professionals tend to either be ignorant of or never recognize the exceptional profit-potential of marketing to their practices, even though they experience every day of their lives examples of the marketing process directly influencing the decisions of patients in
remarkable ways.
Proven advantages that good follow-up offers for maintenance of your
medical practice…
- Securing the contact information of every individual that calls your office provides the opportunity and permission for you to directly interact with that person in the future.
The real value stems from the fact that the person that called your office felt that your responses to their needs would help them. You already had credibility in the eyes of the potential patient.
Secondly, the fact that the person took action and called your office to begin with tells you that they have a need and are ready to make a decision about who they want to fill that need.
Every personal phone call from a new potential patient is often disguised by asking for information, while the real reason for the call is to get a sense about whether to go ahead and make an appointment with you.
That decision is made only after seeing the way your office responds to their inquiry. Were they put on hold for 15 minutes? Was the staffer helpful, courteous, friendly and not in a hurry? Was there a sense that the staffer cared about helping the potential patient with
their problem?
If the office person took the time to get the caller’s contact information, then it implies that the caller is important to them right from the start. Teach your office staff to answer the phone with the attitude that every call is a new potential patient needing an appointment. The mental “positioning” allows for a much more friendly response by the staffer than it might
otherwise be. - The patient has opened the door for you to communicate with them in unlimited ways. The amount of contact information you require is critical to avoid offending a new patient.
Most new patients are used to providing their full name, home address, and phone number. When you ask for more information at the time of the first contact it can offend the person for privacy reasons. “Why do you need all that info?”
Studies have shown that the best response on the first contact is to get the "minimum" contact information… full name and physical address. Other more extensive information can be easily obtained with much less resistance on the next office visit because there has already been a bit of trust established on the first contact.
Today the cell phone number and email address are usual correspondence methods. After obtaining the initial contact information and more information is needed, there’s a pleasant means to obtain additional information without offending the new patient.
Psychological research by Dr. Cialdini has demonstrated that a person is much more likely to respond positively when asked for a favor or to do something for someone if they are given a reason for doing it by the person asking for the favor. The reason “content” seems irrelevant to the person’s willingness to comply.
All a staff member needs to do is give the person a reason why they are asking for additional data. “We find that most of our patients use email. If you have an email address and would like to provide it, we can get your test results to you faster than by phone.”
Follow-up is an open door. One fact about relationships you want to build requires that there be frequent communication or interaction. Like everyone, over time we forget things. Patients forget appointments, annual check-ups, and the last time they were seen.
This is the perfect time to contact your patient and remind them that their annual checkup is due again--rarely do patients remember when their last visit was and appreciate the contact.
Maintenance of your presence in the minds of your patients over time increases loyalty, trust, referrals, and retention of patients. You do that by sending holiday greetings, birthday cards, reminders of appointments, and even celebrations you have planned for patients.
My OBG friend has a large all-day party for all his IVF patients once a year…for the celebration of successful outcomes and for the promotion of his practice. Anytime you thank a patient, your PR level goes up 400%.
Another follow-up variation is to announce what you are doing in your medical practice. Patients want to know that you are keeping up with your specialty and skills, even
expanding those.
Send your patients a note telling them about the big meetings you attend, about the new training you have done in learning a new skill, and what it now offers to your patients. Tell them about any recognition you have received during the year…like sponsoring a kids baseball team.
Hell, if your wife has a baby, tell them who the father is!!
Advantages of follow-up activities to build and expand your medical practice…
There are two critical circumstances when most private practice physicians benefit tremendously by knowing the value and importance of follow-up tactics.
- When a physician is starting a new medical practice or starting a medical practice
over again at a new location - When a physician’s medical practice is failing to show increased income
over 4 to 6 months, whenever that is recognized, and failing to maintain
the usual flow of medical patients (the number of new patients coming
in are far less than the numbers leaving your practice).
These are the most unrecognized and practice-threatening problems that we see today. Issues such as these account for about 85% of medical practice failures. Several factors come into play that reflect on why this is happening much
more often today.
- Physicians don’t really know how to measure how their practice is doing. Most consider it a waste of time to try to keep track of their flow of patients. When they don’t use a routine set of measurements, they have no way of knowing when their practice is going downhill early enough to do anything about it.
- Physicians never learn that there’s a lot more to detecting problems with their practice business than relying on their monthly CPA statements. Since physicians never receive any business education, they don’t know what to look for nor how to prevent common business and financial problems if they happen to find one.
- Medical educators harm physicians in two ways. They never tell medical students about what an academic business education can do for their careers in medicine. So students believe that business knowledge is useless.
They refuse to provide a business education for all medical students which means they prefer to produce physicians that will fail in medical practice, for financial reasons, than educate physicians in business while in medical school and who will not fail in medical practice because they know how to manage a successful medical practice business.
The evidence and facts available today clearly show that such a business education can be implemented into the normal medical curriculum with all the advantages associated
with doing it. - Medical doctors with a business education have the tools to use to prevent medical practice business failure.
Now, about the value of follow-up in any business, why the process is used in every successful business entity, and why physicians prefer to remain ignorant about it while the rest of the world knows the truth...
The purpose of follow-up in any medical business is an efficient means of establishing a connection with the medical patients who for some reason or other fall through the cracks using ordinary marketing techniques. You know how that works. You send out a thousand postcards that you buy from a list broker, a list of new arrivals in town. Everybody needs a doctor, right?
The card is a “welcome to town” greeting and contains your desire to take care of their family, your office contact data, and maybe a small map on the backside showing how to locate your office. Most will throw the card away.
A few will file the card away for later reference. If you’re the first doctor to send them your gentle invitation for care and they happen to need a doctor right then, some will call your office for information, and often become a new patient.
Out of the 1,000 postcards, you may get 5 or 10 responses and two new patients. That’s about average numbers. If you sent 10,000 postcards out to the category (ex. like in OBG--female
ages 18 to 45) of potential patients you like to treat, then the new patient figures
increase proportionally.
If you did that same thing for each of the three months before you opened your new medical office, you’d have a head start on recruiting new patients.
What happened to the 9,800 potential patients that never responded? It’s not uncommon for most sloppy businesses to forget the non-responders.
Marketing research has confirmed that there are a significant number of those 9,800 non-responders will respond at the right time and for the right reasons if contacts with them are repeated a number of times. You know examples of how well it works.
Why else would a company pay for TV time over and over again showing the same ad or commercial? Why would some company pay to place the same magazine ad in a magazine every month sometimes for several years? They must work, otherwise they’d be losing money.
Potential patients are out there, forgot what doctor sent them a greeting, which they threw away, and are waiting for your next postcard to remind them. The next time you send the postcard the potential patient may have just dumped his previous doctor and happens to be looking for a new doctor--you.
After seeing your name and office greeting repeatedly over time, it becomes familiar to the person. They might not need a doctor right then themselves but may refer their friend of neighbor
to that doctor.
By maintaining repeated contacts with that huge pool of potential patients, you have a goldmine setup for new patients. Someone in your office can do this for you. The fact that it takes about 7 mailings to a person to get them to respond is well known in marketing.
My advice has always been to start your medical practice marketing programs when you start practice and continue them until you quit practice. In private medical practice you are always having patients come and go in and out of your practice. You build your practice by having more patients coming in than going out.
Keep tabs on those statistics for a year and you will have a reasonably good idea whether your practice is growing or not.
Lesson: Your medical practice should always be growing... never level... never declining.
----Professional Probe----
"Both the slippery truth and a false perception of words
must be avoided by all physicians"
Good marketing can be persuasive in many ways. You can see the same thing visually and in writing, but the purpose is to move your original perception as a buyer from an expectation (boneless chicken) to an investigation into what are the different kinds of boneless chicken.
An exorbitant amount of money is lost in medical practice businesses as a result of the erroneous perception that marketing is a one-shot deal. If you don't get everything you are after on the first try, you move on to the next marketing effort believing that there is no value left in the residual.
When something seems so obvious, why would anyone take the time to investigate further? That's where physicians go wrong. Hidden behind all medical practice marketing efforts is a world of things that produce profits that doctors are not aware of. That's why there is such a huge benefit income-wise for physicians who are knowledgeable enough about business to use follow-up procedures extensively to find the hidden gold.
Articles © 2013-2022/CGG INVESTMENTS LLC. All rights reserved. #65, 3-16-22
