How to Keep Patients Coming Back to Your Medical Practice
From a business perspective, the healthcare industry is more competitive than many professionals realize until they’re leading a practice of their own. Yes, you are providing a service that everyone needs or should utilize for their own best interests. But the fact is that there are plenty of other providers offering the same services. While your ultimate goal is to help people better their health, you need them to become patients before that can happen.
How do you keep your patients coming back so you can keep guiding them in their health journey? Try these tips from our healthcare marketing specialists at McCauley Marketing Services.
Emphasize Prevention in Your Messaging
It’s a basic principle in medicine: preventing illness is better than treating it after it occurs. But emphasizing prevention is also a wonderful way to protect your practice’s revenue and keep your patients coming back for the long term.
In both marketing your practice and educating your patients, be sure to emphasize the benefits of preventative care and consistent exams. This keeps patients coming back in the door while also doing what is best for their health, and in most cases, it builds trust between you and your patients as well because they see that you have the same goal they do: keeping them healthy.
Keep Your Practice in Patients’ Minds
You’ve heard the saying: “out of sight, out of mind.” It holds true for patients and their healthcare practices. Your patients lead busy lives so it’s easy for them to forget to schedule an appointment or forget to call you to consult about a concern they have. This is why keeping your practice’s name in front of patients regularly is so important. Encourage patients to sign up for your email list, for instance, and be consistent in sending emails on a regular basis, even if it’s just a newsletter once per month.
Consider Launching Proactive Wellness Programs
Revisiting the importance of preventative medicine, remember that as a healthcare provider, you aren’t limited to the traditional format of medical care: annual check-ups with sick visits or treatment visits as needed. Try adding preventative wellness programs as well and encouraging patients to sign up.
For example, you may offer a weight loss program so patients who want to lose weight can get the guidance and supervision of a medical expert. You could also offer meditation or stress reduction classes. These types of programs improve your patients’ health while also expanding their visits with you beyond basic check-ups.
Deliver an Exceptional Experience
All of the tips above can help, but at the end of the day, your patients’ experiences in your office will make or break your patient retention. There’s no substitute for excellent service and patient care.
This generally comes down to the basics. Are you running on time for your appointments? Is your practice neat, organized, and comfortable? Is your staff polite, kind, and attentive? How do you know whether every patient’s experience is a good one? Do you know how to “find the holes” in your process and determine what needs refining? This is the most important part of patient retention. If patients have negative or inconvenient experiences with your office, even good results for their health and expanded programs and services may not be able to keep them coming back.
As a marketing firm that specializes in healthcare marketing, McCauley Marketing Services is proud to help medical practices in many specialties to earn the revenue they need to continue caring for their patients and improving their service to the community. The tips above can help your practice do the same, but if you’d like more hands-on help, call McCauley Marketing Services today to schedule a meeting. Remember to follow us on Facebook and Instagram for more healthcare marketing tips.