How To Increase Patients In A Medical Practice

Direct-pay manager or owner of medical practice, you will know the difficulties you face in marketing your practice. We get many questions about how to increase patient numbers in medical practice.

When you are trying to increase your patient flow, there are many things to keep in mind. The majority of Doctors are interested in how to improve patient flow. They need to know the path to increasing patient numbers in their practice.

Step 1: Be ruthlessly honest about your situation

Your practice is like a patient. You recommend a specific medical treatment if a patient comes into your office complaining of pains, chills, or intestinal problems. You would send me down a more severe treatment path if a patient comes in with chest pains, breathing difficulties, and shortness of breath.

Your medical practice (or business) is the same. You want to know what the vitals are when a patient arrives at your practice or emergency room. You need to see the patient’s vitals, including blood pressure, heart rate, and body temperature. Next, you can develop a plan to keep the patient healthy.

Before you can make changes to your business marketing, you must know what the patient’s vitals are. These vitals include:

Cost to acquire a patient

The patient’s lifetime value

Which advertising media generates more calls, appointments, face-to-face consults, and procedures? (Hint, there are a lot of differences between these numbers in many practices.

The average revenue per appointment

Only then can you understand how to increase patient numbers in medical practice.

Step 2: Who is The Who?

It is essential to be clear about who your best prospect is and who your best patient is. There is a big difference between them.

Many practices live in an echo chamber with their patients. They are biased towards their patients. Let me explain.

One of our clients sells a stem-cell procedure that is nationally trending at 65% for men. His practice has performed over 80% of these procedures on women. We saw an opportunity and changed our marketing strategy to reach more men. This resulted in a rise in phone calls, appointments, and conversions to procedures. The results wouldn’t have been as impressive if we had targeted women in our marketing.

Step 3: Use the media to increase patients in a medical practice

Our firm has been stunned at the inability to plan and execute clear marketing strategies for medical practices, consultation after consultation. It’s not your fault. You have been trained to be a doctor. You are likely to be a manager of a practice. Your focus is on scheduling, compliance, staffing, and protocols. Marketing is an afterthought.

We see the most significant error in marketing your practice through a random assortment of independent contractors. One person is responsible for Facebook ads, but only if they are working in medical. Another does SEO. A third person handles front-desk tasks. And finally, there’s a bunch of people pushing radio, television, and newspaper advertising. This is the Frankenstein marketing monster.

A comprehensive marketing plan should be developed that tracks the overall marketing results. Many people want to discuss what works. Some people say that Facebook, Twitter, Social Media, Radio, Lunch n Learns, and TV are good options.

Tracking is the most important thing when you are trying to increase patient numbers in your medical practice. If they convert to appointments, you must track how many phone calls they make and what they spend. This list could go on.

Step 4: Hire a professional to help you create a plan

Many firms that claim they can bring you more patients are just one-trick ponies. They won’t help you build a strategy and brand for your practice. They think of ways to bring in patients.

Based on our experience in running three clinics over four years and working with today’s medical practices, we will create a customized plan for you. We are happy to discuss your ideas with you. It is also great if you can find someone else. You should have a plan and execute it. Then, you can track the results with metrics.

In the coming months and years, there will be more competition for direct-pay and medical practices. It is essential to be prepared.