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…

This Friday our marketing team will spend the day together hammering out our 2014 Marketing Plan. We will review our numbers from the past year, set goals for the next year, and figure out what strategies to repeat and what new strategies to incorporate to continue to grow our presence in the different markets where we have clinics. Part of that process has already started. For the past few weeks the marketing team has been compiling a list of events and strategies they want to use in their individual markets for 2014. They will bring that list with them to our planning session, and we will…

With Thanksgiving just two days away, I thought it would be neat to look at some of the ways Medical Practices across the nation have used this opportunity to give back or to market their Medical Practices in their communities. Their ideas may help you come up with ideas to incorporate into your marketing plan for next year. HealthCARE Express (Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana) Each year for Thanksgiving, HealthCARE Express celebrates "Pilgrims & Indians Day" on the Tuesday before the holiday. In their decked out gear, staff from the different clinics create a "Thank You" video to send as an…

In my final prep for the Medical Practice Success Summit this week, I have been reviewing marketing materials and websites for Medical Practice clinics from across the country who will be joining us in Las Vegas. In doing so I have continually asked myself the question, “How does this marketing piece distinguish the Medical Practice from its competitors?” The easiest way to answer this question is by answering another question. “If I were to take someone else’s logo and replace it with the logo on this current piece of marketing collateral, would it make a…

Christmas is one of my very favorite times of year - not just on a personal level, but on a professional level as an Medical Practice marketer. There are so many fun and creative ways you can incorporate the holiday season into your marketing plans. 1. Deliver a Hot Cocoa Bar One of the members of my marketing team came up with a really creative idea this year. She delivered "Hot Cocoa Bars" to area businesses to promote our Medical Practice. The investment was minimal, but the smiles it brought made it much easier for her to be able to share information about our Medical Practice facilities…

Have you ever had a really good marketing idea, implemented it, and it went off super successfully? Then you tried to emulate it the following year – or perhaps in another market – and you didn’t have the same results? Congratulations! You haven’t failed at marketing, you’ve learned one of the cardinal sins of marketing. Strategies and tactics vary by market, time of year, and the audience you are talking to. The number one question I get whenever I speak at a conference on marketing is, “What is the one thing I should be doing right now to market my…

When done successfully, working a booth at a local event, health fair, business expo, or other type of trade show can be a great way to grow awareness of the services your Medical Practice provides to your community. But many Medical Practice marketers flop when it comes to successfully working their booth and maximizing the number of touch points available to reach potential patients both during and after the show. Unlike doing cold calls to try and drum up new business, where often times you’re met with resistance from the person you’ve just interrupted, people who attend local…

The first day of each month is one of my favorite days. I typically spend the first few hours of the first day of the month compiling monthly marketing reports to see how our marketing efforts fared for the prior month. The great thing about these metrics is they help me make educated decisions on where to shift my marketing efforts for the coming month(s). I relay on six marketing reports to track our monthly marketing efforts, but today I’m going to focus on the top three. Report One: How Patients Found Us Before we had an EMR with a good reporting element, we tracked how patients…

I am a firm believer that you can be taught a lesson multiple times, and each time it is taught to you, you take something different away from it. Why? Because the lesson you’re going to learn depends on the situations you’re facing at the time. This past week at the UCAOA Conference in Glendale, AZ, I was listening to Dr. Tim Reynolds give a talk on leadership. I have heard the talk before at the Medical Practice Success Summit. I have heard it before at our executive leadership trainings at HealthCARE Express. But on this particular day, I had a particular issue with one of my…