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Customer Service for Medical Offices

Customer Service for Medical Offices

As a baseline, we all need to remember that generally no one wants our services, so customer service is vital.  No one wants to be sick, have to take off work to go to the doctor, or be in a situation where they must figure out what an insurance policy covers and...

Acronyms are Bad for Marketing

Acronyms are Bad for Marketing

Please don’t use acronyms when talking about your practice. It’s bad for brand recognition. Does AFP mean anything to you? Me either. So, why would Austin Family Practice use it? How about EPD? Eye Physicians of Dallas. FMSD? Functional Medicine of San...

Five Key Components to Improve Physician Websites

Five Key Components to Improve Physician Websites

Keep it simple and classy.  We’re not selling t-shirts or candy bars.  We’re selling a professional service.  Limit the number of call-outs and don’t put “Call Now” or overuse the 800 number.  In fact, we prefer a local phone number.  Particularly for specialists,...

Marketing to Patients of a Retiring Physician

Marketing to Patients of a Retiring Physician

You’ve learned that a competitor is retiring? How do you position your practice so that you are an attractive option for those patients that are now looking for a physician? Get your practice in front of the patients in the spirt of “What can our practice...

You’ve Added an Infusion Center, Now What?

You’ve Added an Infusion Center, Now What?

You have decided to add an infusion center to your practice and have the clinical parts worked out. Now what? It’s time to market it to potential referring physicians and patients. Brand First, you have to figure out who you are so that you can tell your story....

Infusion Center Marketing

Infusion Center Marketing

If you want to market your infusion center, online marketing and physician outreach will likely give you the best return on investment. Before marketing, we encourage you to really look over your online identity to be sure it’s fantastic and assess your patient...

How to Grow Volume in a New Urgent Care Center

How to Grow Volume in a New Urgent Care Center

Our ultimate goal for growing volume in an urgent care center is positioning the center as a trusted resource in the community. If people come to the center and have a positive experience, they will tell people and the center volume will grow. Be sure that your team...

Grow Your Infusion Center

Grow Your Infusion Center

Online Identity Patients and referring physicians need to be able to find you quickly and easily. How is your website? Be sure to include lots of content on the ailments you treat, infusions offered, and easy information on how to refer to the center. Update your...

Does Your Practice Have a Brand?

Does Your Practice Have a Brand?

Every practice needs a brand that aligns with the look and feel of the office and the patient experience.  The brand should be professional, warm, and friendly.  Your practice isn’t just an office, it is an experience.  And, hopefully, it’s better than the...

Social Media Tips for Healthcare

Social Media Tips for Healthcare

Social media is a must for healthcare organizations that want to have a robust brand that is interactive with the community.  Social media should be fun and educational.  We offer a few tips to ensure both. Post regularly, but don’t post just to post.  No one...

Patient Experience & Informed Consent

Patient Experience & Informed Consent

Let’s talk about consent. Yes, informed consents are in place to cover healthcare providers’ tails. Period. Theoretically, consent should involve an extensive conversation between a provider and a patient. That’s good consent. That’s real consent. Not just legal...

Physician Visits: What Should I Take With Me?

Physician Visits: What Should I Take With Me?

Our world is so digital, so online, so virtual these days. Thinking about what you should physically take to a physician visit might be a little perplexing. In our experience, we have found that no matter the situation, having something to leave behind with the...

Ideas to Grow Your Dental Practice

Ideas to Grow Your Dental Practice

2021 is going to be a year of atypical marketing for dental practices that want to grow. It will be about reaching consumers through virtual means like your social, website, and online groups. Be a content expert in your community so people look to your practice for all things dental health.

Selecting a Practice Name

Selecting a Practice Name

What kind of name does your practice need? Select a name that clearly indicates what the practice does.  It should sound positive, healing, and maybe even offer hope.  Simple and short is better for branding, people remembering your name, and overall ease of...

Ideas for Announcing an Additional Office

Ideas for Announcing an Additional Office

Referring Docs & Prospective Referring Docs Update letterhead 1 month prior.  If possible, add coming soon address 6 months prior.Fax announcement to all potential referring offices in a 5-mile radius of the officeLetter announcement to all potential referring...

Growing Bariatric Volume Virtually

Growing Bariatric Volume Virtually

When you can’t do the tried and true provider visits, utilize virtual methods to reach potential referral sources and patients for a bariatric practice. Reaching potential referral sources Emails, phone calls, letters, or virtual visits to Internists, Family...

Successful Performance Improvement Plans

Successful Performance Improvement Plans

There are two kinds of Performance Improvement Plans or PIPs as they are commonly called. The first is one that is going through the motions to document performance and the need for improvement. This is for the employee that probably needs to go, but this is the last...

More Effective Physician Office Outreach

More Effective Physician Office Outreach

Do you find your sales reps buying a lot of lunches, but not getting quality time with the providers? Here are a few tips to make physician office outreach more effective: • Make it clear (in a friendly way) that you are happy to provide lunch, but that this is a...

Build Organic Relationships with Prospects

Build Organic Relationships with Prospects

Build your business through a long-term strategy of organic relationship building. Who are your prospects and what professional organizations do they participate in? That’s where you need to be volunteering, networking, and giving back to your professional...

Checklist for New Practices

Checklist for New Practices

We get questions about setting up a new practice fairly regularly. There are people that offer turnkey services for this, but we don’t. We can help with several aspects of the operations, strategy, and marketing areas. But, we suggest hiring a consultant that...

Grow Physician Referrals to Your Infusion Center

Grow Physician Referrals to Your Infusion Center

The Pitch Figure out what they need from you. Convenience, competitive pricing, ease for patients, closer oversight of the process, better quality, less risk? Then, tailor your pitch to meeting those needs. You’ll need to be able to tell the story of your center...

Social Media for Physicians

Social Media for Physicians

Physicians can use social media to promote the practice and help patients get to know them.  We want to communicate that the physicians are smart, but approachable.  And, we want to share how friendly and helpful the staff is to patients.  Social media...

Team Building Ideas

Team Building Ideas

Anyone else feel like we need ways to keep our workforce connected? Below are ideas for both remote teams and in-person activities (when feasible). Team Building Remotely Virtual Karaoke or Guitar Hero competitionVirtual Scavenger HuntTwo truths, one lie or similar...

Marketing to Sustain Your Practice

Marketing to Sustain Your Practice

Keep your practice moving forward despite the challenges that sheltering-in-place presents. Here are 7 marketing strategies to sustain your practice. It’s a great time to be pushing out education on social.  People are spending a ton of time online. ...

Growing an Ophthalmology Practice

Growing an Ophthalmology Practice

Growing a practice takes time, money, or both. For the purposes of this post, we’ll assume that we want to spend time and save money. Ideally, the Ophthalmologist personally carries out all strategies. But, depending on time constraints and personalities...

Successful Physician Outreach Lunches

Successful Physician Outreach Lunches

Lunch or breakfast can be a good way to reach physicians and other healthcare providers – both potential and existing referral sources. It can also be a great way to waste money feeding a ton of people, take time out of clinic, and have little to no meaningful...

Improving Outbound Office Communications with Patients

Improving Outbound Office Communications with Patients

Don’t call a patient when the phones are turned to the answering service.
Don’t text a patient from a number that doesn’t allow responses.
Don’t email a patient from an address that doesn’t allow replies.
Outbound communications should be sent with the intention of connecting and making it easy for the patient to respond.

Reaching Primary Care Physicians

Reaching Primary Care Physicians

Primary care docs are inundated daily with drug and equipment reps. So, if you are trying to sell something to them, get creative! If you are selling a service/product that is connected to a physician, use quick physician to physician introduction angle.  We’ve been...

Best of Lists for Healthcare

Best of Lists for Healthcare

We love them. We hate them. We want our clients on them. There isn’t a perfect source for finding a quality doctor. In fact, there isn’t a single source we know of that takes everything into consideration (clinical quality, bedside manner, front office,...

Health Fair How-To

Health Fair How-To

Health Fairs are a great way to attract new potential patients to your practice. Finding events Check local Chambers of Commerce Check with cities Check with schools Check with large employers Google city + health fair, city + expo Before the event Promote on social...

4 Customer Service Tips for Doctors

4 Customer Service Tips for Doctors

1. Show Patients That You Actually Care Of course, you care. You wouldn’t be a doctor if you didn’t care, right? It’s not always clear to patients that doctors actually care. Remember that most patients don’t want to be in your office. They are...

Staff Bios Made Easy

Staff Bios Made Easy

Staff bios should be fun and easy!  Don’t let them get you down. We typically aim for competent and friendly…so explain why your team is both!  Include skills, training, education, certifications, work experience, languages, and something that makes them...

Engaging Participants at Health Fairs

Engaging Participants at Health Fairs

Health fairs, community fairs, and expos can be a great way for a medical practice to engage with the local employers and the community.  This can build your brand and potentially be a source for finding new patients.  Having a booth isn’t good enough.  In fact,...

Physician Bios Made Easy

Physician Bios Made Easy

Is writing physician bios making you crazy?  Let us help with these tips. First, decide what you are going for.  We are usually shooting for smart, academic, accomplished….all while being approachable.  We use training, accolades, skills to convey the first part...

Tips for Physicians When Speaking to the Public

Tips for Physicians When Speaking to the Public

Speaking at non-academic events should be a fun and easy way for you to interact with the local community, employers, and potential patients.  If you hate public speaking, consider more one-on-one interactions like an Ask the Doc table at a health fair.  If you are...

Leaders: Learn When to be Still

Leaders: Learn When to be Still

As a type A action-oriented person, I get stuff done.  I’m decisive.  It’s business, not personal.  And, I usually make good decisions… even when made rapidly.  This has been a large part of my success as a leader and an owner of a company.  When I...

4 Steps to Finding the Right Surgeon for You

4 Steps to Finding the Right Surgeon for You

Courtesy Surgical Group of North Texas Printed in Living Well Magazine 1.  Find the Right Specialty General surgeons have extensive training in a wide variety of surgical areas and can choose to specialize in different areas, such as surgical oncology and bariatric...

Media and Healthcare

Media and Healthcare

We attended an informative educational event coordinated by ACHE of North Texas, August 25, 2016 held at Maggiano’s in North Park Mall in Dallas.  The topic was, The Role of Media in Shaping the Public’s Perception of Healthcare. The panelists, Janet St. James,...

Walk into Spring

 Spring is here! Get outside and enjoy the beautiful weather while achieving your health goals. Walking does not require you to sign up for a gym membership you may never use.  Its is free, modifiable, and can be done anywhere!  It allows you to spend...

Doctors and Nurses Need Sleep, too!

Healthcare Executive published a recent article in their Sept/Oct 2015 edition bringing attention to an issue that is often overlooked.  A report conducted by HealthLeaders Media in 2013 brought to light the fact that over 25% of nurses surveyed make errors during...

Fingerprints: A solution to protect your PHI

By David S. Robinson, RMA, MGMA member Published in MGMA Connection Plus, July 2015 Issue When upgrading and implementing new workstations at Northwest Neurospecialists, Tucson, Ariz. (which has 14 exam rooms, one patient education room and 14 office staff...

Nathan Emerson, MD, FACS Joins Surgical Group of North Texas

Dr. Emerson has a special interest in endoscopic reflux surgery; he is specially trained to perform transoral incisionless fundoplication (TIF), an innovative procedure that restores the body’s natural protection against esophageal reflux. Many patients suffer from heartburn and regurgitation despite adequate medical therapies. The TIF operation is an effective and safe procedure with minimal complication rates for those patients with difficulty controlling the symptoms of reflux.

Back Pain: When to See the Doctor

Sometimes it starts with a twinge. Or maybe a pull. Often, it’s just the wrong turn of the hip that causes debilitating back pain. In most cases, back pain is not caused by serious conditions, but by common, day-to-day actions, yet it’s one of the most common medical...

Women: Be Sweet to Your Heart

by Dr. J. Douglas Overbeck There is only a 1 out of 30 risk of dying of breast cancer, yet it’s well-known that women over the age of 40 need an annual mammogram.  A less-known fact is that 1 out of 3 women will die from some form of cardiovascular disease.  Getting...

Streamline Those Forms

Streamline Those Forms

How many dozens of forms does your practice have?  Were they developed over the years by different people?  Are they photocopied?  Do they have the practice logo on them?  Do patients have to write their name, DOB, or the date more than once? Prescription pads, fax...

How Does Your Staff Answer the Phone?

How Does Your Staff Answer the Phone?

Have you ever called the main line at your office to see how it is answered? Are you placed on hold? Is your staff friendly? Can you understand what they say? The voice on the other end of the phone is often a patient’s first interaction with your office. They...

What is Healthcare Public Policy??

What is Healthcare Public Policy??

Public Policy.Healthcare Public Policy.Sounds important and official.Sounds like something we should care about.We hear about it a lot in healthcare, but what does it really mean? I’ve asked Bryant Morado of Molina Healthcare to give us the Reader’s Digest version of...

Do Physicians Need Websites?

As usual, there are no easy answers here.  In a perfect world, yes, all physicians would have a website. In today’s web-saavy society, consumers are going to the internet to find information about their physician.  And what easier way to manage the...

Dr. John Doe, M.D. vs. John Doe, MD

Dr. John Doe, M.D. vs. John Doe, MD

Is it necessary to include both Dr. as a prefix and credentials (M.D., D.O.) as a suffix?  In my opinion, no.  It’s repetitive.  It should be listed as Dr. John Doe or John Doe, M.D, and I prefer the later. Specifically, on a CV, the later looks...

Advertising Tips for Physician Practices

Advertising Tips for Physician Practices

Let’s face it – advertising is expensive.  If you’re going to spend the money to do ads, take that extra step and make sure you’ll get a return on that investment.  What are you doing to make people notice your ads?  Are people reading them or...

Tips for Improving Readability of a CV

Tips for Improving Readability of a CV

Recruiters, hospitals, and medical groups receive tons of CVs for every position. When faced with a huge stack of CVs, most will skim and only look at the ones that stand out. What sets yours apart? For the purposes of seeking employment in non-academic settings, a CV...