Looking to grow your healthcare practice? Many healthcare professionals are finding the opportunity to grow a medical practice in today’s fast-paced landscape.
In the survey conducted by AMA Policy Research Perspective series, around 45.9% of US physicians owned their healthcare practices in 2018. This indicates considerable interest in productivity and growth in this sector.
However, privately owned practices need to cover new patients daily, to support the lifespan and growth of their medical training. But the question is how can these practices be expanded to attract and retain patients.
We’ve answered this question in detail in our article below:
Healthcare Practice Trends
Standards of quality care and patient expectations are changing with the increasing use of trends. For instance, Telehealth, Artificial Intelligence in healthcare, wearable medical devices, personalized medicine, etc.
Additionally, with more than 100 million Americans without a primary care physician, community health centers are something that can fill the gap. As new trends continue to evolve, the necessity of technologies like telehealth and virtual care in the healthcare sector is poised to expand even further.
How to Grow Your Medical Practice?
If you’re thinking of growing your healthcare practice, then just providing exceptional medical care to patients is not enough. The main thing is that it all starts with your patient and ends with them.
Below we’ve compiled the key points to grow your healthcare practice:
1. Connect with the Community
Yes, you have seen it right. Connect with the community in events such as educational seminars, screening immunization clinics, and other events to educate local groups. Becoming an active member of your local community can help your patients, medical practitioners, and media to become familiar with your name in the area.
Furthermore, joining your community will provide you with an opportunity to give awareness to the people. Hence this way you can also expand the list of potential patients.
2. Gather Patient Feedback
The best method to know how to enhance customer service in healthcare practice is by communicating with patients for their honest views. However, patient reviews are a reflection of your healthcare practice. In a study conducted by Software Advice, around 94% of patients read online published reviews.
3. Improve Patient Experience
A big portion of your quality patient care comes from creating a delightful patient experience for your current and potential clients. Healthcare practices are persistently seeking new approaches to enhance patient experience.
Another best way to improve the internal process of your healthcare clinic is to utilize patient journey maps (PJM).
4. Improve Patient Scheduling
It all begins with streamlining your appointment scheduling. This process can improve patient satisfaction and increase efficiency in your healthcare practice. In addition to this, it can also contribute to the medical practice‘s growth and development.
However, good scheduling can increase patient flow by two or more patients per day. But this also implicates the net income of the practice.
5. Hiring Staff
Hiring a good person in your organization is crucial for better workflow management. If possible, hiring should take place before you begin to grow so that your existing staff can manage their workload without putting treatment quality at risk.
Just like other organizations, if you want to achieve quality in your healthcare practice, then you need a talented and dedicated staff. But keep in mind that the right team is step one. You will need to engage them. Just like you keep patients happy, keeping employees happy is just as crucial.
6. Retain Existing Patients
Follow up with existing patients. Follow-up is the process of connecting with a patient or caregiver at a later, predetermined date to inquire about the patient’s health condition. But nowadays patients use digital channels to proactively check their conditions and choose the physicians accordingly.
7. Expand Your Services
Look at your competitors! What type of services are they offering? Determine if there are any new approaches you can introduce. To do this, you must be aware of any changing demographics in your community and make adjustments to meet needs.
How to Grow Your Healthcare Practice Digitally?
Integrating digital marketing practices, like (SMM), (SEO), websites, and online local listings can optimize their reputation, attract patients and grow their practice eventually. Following are the strategies to grow your healthcare practice in the digital era.
1. Get on Social Media
Do you have a social media account for your healthcare practice? If not, then make one on platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin today! Harness the marketing potential of social media platforms to reach more patients in your community.
Although, social media is one of the outstanding ways to promote your medical practice to a large audience. By data analysis and campaigns, you can rapidly grow your patients and advertise to the kind of people looking for your services.
2. Activate Your Brand
Whether you are a seasoned practitioner or you are starting it from scratch, your brand is more than a name, mission statement, and logo on your website. Every patient who comes to your practice should understand and identify your brand.
However, brand image is something your patients perceive about your practice. It’s what makes you unique and memorable in the minds of your patients. It’s what sets you apart from your competitors.
3. Build an Online Presence
As the technological advances, we are bound to go alongside with it. Thus having a website for your healthcare practice is extremely important. This is because when potential patients are searching for physicians and healthcare services online, you want your practice to rank in the first few top results.
4. Invest in SEO
Search engine optimization is improving your website’s visibility on search engine result pages (SERP). Nowadays things are progressing digitally so why not you? Make sure you add local SEO strategies to your marketing mix so that your healthcare practice shows up in local search results.
5. Use Google My Business map
Despite using other ways for promotion, creating and claiming your Google My Business will simplify the prospects of finding you. Especially when patients are searching for key terms related to your healthcare practice.
Besides this, Google My Business Listings are important ways practices can quickly generate more patient leads. However, in a previous Semo survey, around 39% of doctors accepted the fact that Google greatly impacts the online visibility of their practice.
6. Use Email Marketing
Email marketing allows you to send custom and personalized messages that connect with people efficiently and cost-effectively. This strategy aims to use email automation to send pre-made sequences of emails to your potential subscribers.
However, these emails are packed with health-related content that helps your subscriber overcome certain medical issues. Thus email marketing is a reliable way of marketing your healthcare practice and acquiring new leads because:
- It’s easy to personalize
- It has low costs
- It is easy to implement
How to Start a Medical Practice Successfully?
Starting your medical practice might seem to be a daunting experience. From planning to making decisions, you’re solely accountable for every decision along the practice. But these 7 steps will give you a clear roadmap for starting your healthcare practice:
1. Start with a Plan
A strategic plan will consist of a 3-to-5-year projection of your revenues, expenses, and debt. Make sure to cover every single detail when creating your plan. For example, your business plan must include:
- Executive Summary
- Main Goals
- Budgetary Concerns
- Financial Projections and Funding Requirements
- SWOT Analysis
2. Manage and Secure Financing
After developing a plan, now it’s time to submit it. Select the financing option that offers the best terms, whether it be the lowest rate or the duration of the loan.
3. Organize Paperwork and Credentials
You will have to pass through a variety of paperwork and have to secure credentials in order to start your healthcare practice. In licensing you will be required to:
- Incorporate as a legal body
- Receive a tax ID
- Liability and medical malpractice insurance
- State Licensing and Registration
- DEA registration number
- Other forms of documentation
4. Choose a Site
The next step is to find the best location for your healthcare practice. So there are a variety of factors to consider like, local competition, parking facility etc. But alongside this, there are some steps needed for setting up your physical practice:
- Select a site
- Negotiate lease terms and agreements
- Complete the lease signing process
- Fulfill certificate of occupancy requirements
- Choose signage and furnishings
5. Utilize Practice Management Software
You will be required to purchase absolution-oriented practice management software to help with potential administrative needs. For example, scheduling, record maintenance, and reporting.
6. Build a Website to Begin Marketing
Once your technology is put into healthcare practice, it’s time to concentrate on marketing. You will be required to let your targeted patients know that your services are open and ready for business.
7. Make Better Administrative Decisions
The final step in this process is to answer the questions about your daily operations. For example,
- How will you price your services?
- What are the five types of medical practice
- What will be the policies that you need to have in writing?
- How are you going to manage employee contracts?
Final Word
Effective growth of a healthcare practice includes linking with the community, gathering patient feedback, and improving patient scheduling and overall experience. But have you noticed why we are focusing on all these steps to grow medical practice? The answer is quality and patient satisfaction. These 2 things are the cornerstone of every medical practice.
If you want to integrate these 2 things into your healthcare practice, then invest in a Health Diary today. Track and manage groups of patients across different clinical measures.
Check out how practice management software powered by Integrated IT Solutions makes it easier to deliver quality care at an unbeatable price.
