Several years ago I started recommending that Medical Practice businesses add an e-newsletter to their marketing arsenal. If you haven’t yet done this, I encourage you to re-read the article, “Patient Newsletters are Easy with These Free Tools”. If you did implement a patient newsletter and included a way for people to sign-up for the newsletter on your website, in addition to collecting emails at events and at patient registration, then you may be wondering how you can take your newsletter from a “top of mind awareness” tool and convert it into a tool that sells…

A few weeks ago an article ran in the sidebar of Medical Practice Success about tracking customer satisfaction using the Net Promoter Score (NPS) System. It is one of the systems we use at our Medical Practices to both monitor our customer satisfaction levels and to also respond to patient complaints. After learning about it, one of our readers wrote in and asked: “Seems if the real goal is to find problems (since 95% will be positive), I feel that the current system you use is unlikely to necessarily do the job well enough -- some patients will be too timid to say something and hand a…

Do you ever feel like you have multiple projects to handle, but for whatever reason, you just keep dropping balls? Project management is a learned skill set that takes time and tools to master successfully. Recently a friend of mine shared with me the system he uses to manage the multiple moving parts of his multimillion dollar business, and I found it so intriguing that I tweaked it and implemented it, too. I have been using it for the past two months, and I have found it very helpful. The first step is to utilize a calendar at the beginning of the month and write down one big action item or…

Last week I was frustrated by the lack of implementation that had happened on a new marketing financial policy we had put in place at our Medical Practices. A few months ago, our company’s chief financial officer and I co-hosted a 45 minute training session on the new policy with our marketing team. All of the marketers signed off on an agreement that clearly outlined what we had discussed. Yet here I was just a few months later wondering why so many of the things we had discussed were still not happening. As I pondered this, I began to also ponder other trainings I had put in place.

Recently I became a mom for the very first time. Welcoming our baby girl into our home has been without a doubt the greatest joy of my life. Her first doctor's visit was exciting. We asked all the questions a parent of a newborn child probably asks. By the time her two week checkup had arrived, we had begun to experience gastrointestinal issues. The pediatrician told us it was normal. When we contacted her again at four weeks, the pediatrician began to take us seriously. This time she ordered a plethora of lab work. If you've ever had to watch a four week old get blood drawn, you can…

Last Friday the top items on my task list were to design four new marketing pieces for our Medical Practice in the morning, and compile the February articles for MPS in the afternoon. In fact, those were my only goals for the day, but none of them happened. Instead, I allowed my day to be hijacked. My day started with an unexpected meeting at 7:30 a.m. By the time I walked into my office to begin my day, I was already 40 minutes “behind schedule”. Before I was even able to sit completely down in my chair, one of my colleagues came in and said, “I need your help.” The…

The limiting factor to growing your business really comes down your answer to one question: How well can you recruit new providers? If you find this process a little daunting and sometimes overly challenging, you're not alone. With the nationwide shortage in physicians predicted to continue growing, and an increase in the number of Medical Practice facilities popping up simultaneously, it is not always an easy feat to accomplish. So Where Do You Begin? Some Medical Practice owners prefer to use the physician recruiter method. They agree to pay a steep placement fee in exchange for the…

The world of online marketing can be complex and overwhelming to navigate. The cost of advertising online can be expensive – the cost of not advertising online even more expensive! So how do you know where to spend your marketing dollars online? Recently one of our subscribers wrote in and asked me, “I only have a limited marketing budget. Which would you recommend I spend my advertising dollars on, Google Ads or Facebook Ads?” It’s a great question with a fairly simple answer. Google Ads! Why? Because Google Ads are the new Yellow Pages. When people need a service…

I am on the Board of the North East Regional Medical Practice Association. We have been faced with fighting legislation to regulate UC Clinics eg: requiring CON /Accreditation / ER physicians/Mandating Medicaid acceptance/limiting repeat visits, etc... Received a call last week from a physician in NH and Vermont that received 48 hours notice re: the same. Just wondered are you experiencing and hearing of this in your area of the country as we feel it will work its way around. ~Marge Sim Leave your comments below for Marge.

When you opened your first medical practice, chances are you decided you wanted to accept credit or debit cards as one option of payment. There’s an even bigger chance you entered into a Merchant Service Agreement without really understanding what you were signing, and now you may be paying more than you need to in transaction and other fees. Tiered Pricing vs. Interchange Plus Do you know if your Merchant Service Agreement is set-up as Tiered Pricing or if it is setup using Interchange Plus pricing? The answer to this question could save your business hundreds of dollars a month in…