Tips to Grow Your Small Medical Clinic
Since the start of the Affordable Care Act, over 20 million uninsured Americans have acquired insurance coverage. This has given medical practice owners a huge opportunity to grow their patient base. After all, all these people who did not seek preventative care in the past now can do so, thanks to the financial constraints being alleviated.
However, if your clinic or practice has not seen an influx of new patients, it may be time to make some changes. From seeking small business loans for increasing marketing efforts to offering more patient perks, keep reading for some tips to grow your clinic and gain more patients.
Learn About Your Target Audience
Before reaching out to new potential patients, it’s important to understand the ones you already have. Look at office records and consider things like your existing patients’ location, profession, gender, and age. This information can help you figure out what type of marketing techniques you should use to attract new people to the office.
Increase Positive Reviews
Today, people use the internet more than ever before to find out about anything, including choosing a new doctor. Offer avenues for patients to post reviews about their experience with you and the clinic. Modern, tech-savvy consumers are going to look at these reviews before they consider scheduling an appointment.
It is important for you to monitor your online presence, too. For example, if your clinic has received a lot of negative reviews, see if there are any trends in the complaints. If several patients mention a similar issue, it is time to accept the complaint and see what you can do to fix the problem. Also, respond to any complaints to show current and new patients you care about their experience and how they feel.
Have the Right Team in Place
Even if you are a great doctor, your practice will never be successful if your team is rude or incompetent. In fact, the team you have behind you is one of the most important assets you have. Along with knowing to run your office, your team also needs to have good people skills. When you hire people, be sure to find out how they interact with others.
Follow Up with Your Patients
Most practices will spend approximately 90% of their resources to find and attract new patients. However, you should also focus on retaining your current patients. In fact, this is considered one of the most cost-effective and easiest ways to grow your clinic. Also, when you nurture relationships with your current patients, it will increase the referrals they provide.
Create or Improve Your Social Media Presence
Some doctors are still hesitant about using tools such as Instagram or Facebook for their practice. Communicating any type of sensitive or health-protected data through social media is not allowed. However, there are several safe and useful ways to use social media for doctors and clinics.
When current patents take time to “like” your business on social media, their entire social following will see this. You may get more traffic to your page, and eventually, to your practice. Try to create an engaging design on your page to encourage people to “Like” or follow. Update your content often, too.
Provide Your Patients with Information
When you give your patients information and resources, both on and offline, you can acquire a reputation for being a quality healthcare service provider. Along with having health pamphlets in your waiting room, build an informative website that provides you with online videos related to health issues that people face today. A high-quality and professional blog will also allow you to share information and remain in touch with people online.
There are ways for you to grow your small practice, but you have to put time and effort into doing this. Use the tips here to get started, which will help ensure you achieve the growth that you want and need to ensure success.
