Expand Primary Care Reach With Wellness Marketing
Demonstrate a commitment to the community with patient education
7. Community events: It’s important to reach outside the office and the internet for face time with potential patients. Offer screenings, clinics, immunizations, and wellness education at community events, pharmacies and school events to demonstrate a commitment to the community. Remember that people are creatures of habit, so sometimes the best way to remind them to take charge of their health is to interrupt their daily routines.
8. Partner with local media: Don’t let all of that great content just sit on your website. Partner with local media to see if you can establish a community wellness column or a series of videos on patient education. Pushing content out to local news outlets will help to get more eyeballs on it and direct more people to your website.
9. Utilize owned media: Owned media includes any in-office marketing, such as waiting room brochures, exam room posters, flyers that physicians can use as support materials while speaking with patients, and wall graphics or environmental design. Offices can also use owned media as a way to boost patient experience, such as appointment reminder cards or a detailed write-up of medication, treatment and instructions prescribed by physicians. It’s hard for patients to remember everything their doctor tells them, so this write-up helps patients to correctly treat themselves in between appointments and prevent their conditions from worsening. It’s also helpful for caregivers.
10. Patient experience: With so many options for primary care, patients won’t think twice about switching to a different physician or care provider if they have a negative experience. If marketing materials promise a short wait time for an appointment, helpful, friendly staff members and in-office services, it’s imperative that the office and staff members deliver on that promise with an excellent, consistent patient experience.
11. Reputation management: Not only do patients search for physicians and practices online, but they check up on them via review sites such as Vitals, HealthGrades, and RateMDs. Encourage and incentivize patients to write honest reviews on their experiences with the practice. Inevitably, there will be negative reviews, but what matters is how you deal with them. Respond to the negative comments publicly and offer to right the wrong to turn that negative voice into an advocate. Having a steady flow of content and video marketing can also help to drown out some of the negative comments. Patients are searching for health information online, so the more content about your physicians and practices that flood the search results, the better.
The future of primary care
Primary care physicians have a new role in the healthcare system, and also in the lives of patients. They will now be charged with empowering patients to take their health into their own hands, and also to manage the health of those with chronic illnesses to prevent them from getting worse. They may soon be seen as the gatekeepers of specialists and inpatient procedures, but until then, hospitals and private practices can get ahead of the curve by driving patient volume to primary care offices and physicians within their network to increase marketshare and outpatient revenue before it becomes a necessity.
Learn more in our white paper, 11 Steps to Effectively Market Primary Care Services.