How to Get Patients for Your Medical Practice – The Complete Guide
If you’re scratching your head and wondering how you can get more patients into your practice, then we’ve got some practical tips and tricks.
Every medical practice has faced the challenge of finding ways to attract new patients at one point or another. With the exception of some very rural practices, you're competing with other businesses for patients' attention.
Many practices are also leveraging virtual meetings and telehealth approaches to expand their reach, making your job as the person responsible for onboarding new patients even more competitive.
There's no big secret to onboarding new patients, but there is a general framework to follow. We're going to outline the main ingredients in this article.
Understanding Your Target Audience
Identify your ideal patient profile, including demographics, needs, and online habits
It sounds like an obvious place to start, but if you’re going to attract the right patients to your clinic, you need to know who they are. This means taking some time to identify your ideal patient profile.
Your ideal patient profile is a detailed description of someone who is "perfect" to work with. It will include:
- Demographics
- Needs
- Online habits
- Anything else you know about the patient
This information can help you target the right people online and get them to book an appointment with you. The most important part of building a patient profile is that you record information you actually know rather than guess work.
The more defined you can be, the better your chances are of delivering the right message to the right person at the right time.
Knowing that most of your patients are men between 40 and 50 is great but not particularly useful. However, knowing that most of them play rugby, watch the footy at the pub on a Saturday afternoon, and then go on Facebook to complain about their injuries later in the evening is very useful.
Understand the problems your target audience faces before seeking your medical services
Once you know who your perfect patient is, what their habbits look like, and where they like to discuss their thoughts, you're ready to build a list of the problems they have that you can help with.
This might be as easy as reading through some social media forums, but more likely, it will mean spending some time talking to them and finding out what is bothering them.
The goal of this step is to understand the problems your potential patients are having and position your business as the solution.
For example, if you are a chiropractor, you might find that most people in your area are struggling with back pain. You can position your business as the go-to place for back pain relief.
This example oversimplifies the issue a bit, and you may be thinking, "I already know their problems". This might be true, but patients typically describe their issues in a very different way than you, the practitioner will.
Capturing the way patients describe their issues will be super valuable later in the process, so don't skip this step!
Building a Strong Online Presence
Create a modern and user-friendly website that showcases your medical services and expertise
You want your website to be a true reflection of your business. At the time of writing this article, we have recently revamped our website. If you're looking for a good example of a friendly website, take a browse around!
If it’s old and dated, people will think your business is the same. You need to invest in building a modern and user-friendly website that showcases your medical services and expertise.
Your website should make it easy for people to book an appointment, get in touch with you, and find the information they need. It should also give people a reason to book an appointment with you. For example, you might have a blog full of helpful tips and tricks for managing common ailments.
Get listed on online directories and review sites, such as Healthgrades, RateMDs, and Vitals
There are many different online directories and review sites where you can list your clinic, for example:
Listing your clinic on these websites is a quick and easy way to increase your chances of getting noticed without having to build your own robust online presence. Yes, you're competing against other clinics, but you're accessing a much larger volume of potential patients who wouldn't have known about you otherwise.
Getting listed on these websites can also help you build your brand recognition and reputation. The more times the name of your practice comes up while a patient is searching, the more likely they are to book an appointment.
Update your Google business profile and online listings to improve local SEO and attract more patients
If you want to attract new patients to your clinic, you need to make sure people can find you online. One of the best ways to do this is to update your Google business profile and maintain accurate online listings.
This is a process known as local SEO, and it’s a great way to improve your online visibility. Google makes the process pretty straightforward. Once you've entered your business details and confirmed your address, the only "magic" to this technique is having patients add positive reviews to your profile. Reviews offer a signal to Google to send more web traffic to your profile, ultimately leading to more patients booking appointments.
Give helpful advice on social media and engage with potential patients
You can tactically use social media to attract new patients to your clinic.
Organic visibility on social media is really low these days. Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, and even Linkedin are largely "pay to play" platforms.
The exception to this rule is private groups with moderators where members need to be invited. These groups are the best place to start providing useful advice in order to attract new patients.
If you're unable to find a local group where your advice is going to be well received, you can also consider running paid ads to attract new patients. Take care when running paid ads on social media. It's an easy way to blow a bunch of money with very little return.
Retaining Existing Patients
Retaining an existing patient is significantly easier than attracting new patients. They already know your services, so there are fewer barriers to break through.
While these tips aren't specifically related to getting new patients, they serve the same purpose - keeping your practice busy and profitable.
Keep existing patients happy and engaged through excellent customer service and patient care
Investing in customer service training for your staff is arguably the first step to keeping patients happy. The investment, in this case, might be the time required to build solid practices and guidelines for managing patients and teaching your team to do things your way.
When your patients see that you care about them (and their health), they are more likely to keep coming back to you.
It's also worthwhile keeping your patients engaged, even if it's not super regular. The easiest way to do this is through an automated email system that sends one of these things:
- Happy birthday messages
- Regular checkup reminders
- Monthly newsletter with updates
The idea here is to stay in touch with your patients simply so you're top of mind the next time they need help.
Attracting New Patients
Implement a patient referral program to get more patients and increase word-of-mouth referrals
The best way to get new patients is through word of mouth. The good news is if you do a great job, this will happen organically. The process works even more effectively if you ask patients to refer their friends and family to your clinic.
If it makes sense for your clinic or practice, you can also implement a rewards-based referral system where the new patient and the person who referred them receive a small discount or reward for the referral. This approach makes more sense for professionals like chiropractors, physios and dentists than it does for general practitioners.
Use Google Ads and Facebook Ads
Google and Facebook are two of the biggest digital marketing platforms in the world and, realistically, the only ad platforms worth using for attracting new patients.
Since these platforms allow you to target people based on their interests, demographics, and online habits, you can get your clinic's name in front of them at the right time.
Facebook is arguably better for this if your perfect patient has a lingering issue that they know about but don't necessarily understand well. For example, if someone has lower back pain that bothers them while they're at work, Facebook would be the perfect platform since you could pitch your massage therapy treatment as a solution.
Google, on the other hand, is the best for cases when patients are searching for specific words that align with your services. i.e. "cosmetic surgery near me". If these words have a high number of monthly searches, you could get your website in front of potential clients looking for what you offer.
As I mentioned earlier in the article, paid ads can be a money sink, and they need to be treated carefully. As a rule of thumb, start small and slow, let your campaign run for a week or two, then iterate and optimise.
Set up reciprocal referral programs with other specialists
Building a network of other practitioners who work in related specialities can be a super effective way to bring in more patients. A good example of this is dentists and orthodontists. These two specialities both look after teeth but in very different ways, and there are times when a patient will need both treatments.
There's no shortcut to building these relationships except getting out and meeting other specialists.
Offer online booking and scheduling options to attract new patients and improve patient flow
Once potential patients come to your website through paid ads, a social media presence, or organic SEO content, you'll need to offer a simple method of booking them in.
There are two approaches to offer here:
- Online booking
- Calling and booking manually
As a very broad generalisation, the younger generation tends to prefer option #1. Automated booking systems that connect with your clinic scheduling remove a lot of the friction for a patient.
Offering a manual way to book appointments is also necessary. There are times when the automated systems just don't cut it, like when urgent emergency dental appointments are required.
Expanding Your Reach
Participate in public speaking and community events to educate and engage with potential patients
Speaking at local health and wellness events and sharing helpful information about your services is a great way to position yourself as an expert in your field.
When people see you know your stuff and put a face to the name, they're much more likely to book an appointment with you. This is why door-to-door salespeople exist because it's much easier to get a "yes" from someone in person.
The biggest challenge with this approach is finding relevant events to speak at and then being invited. It's a huge investment in your time but can yield compounding results.
Offer telehealth and virtual checkup options (if possible)
If you're looking for creative ways to expand your reach, you can consider setting up a telehealth system that allows your patients to have a consultation with you from the comfort of their own homes.
Telehealth and virtual checkup options remove the "travel" barrier to entry, which is a huge deal for a lot of people (especially in the age of COVID-19).
Obviously, this suggestion doesn't work for the physios and chiropractors of the world, but even those specialists have times when appointments revolve around simple checkups.
Measuring and Improving Performance
Monitor your online presence and reputation to ensure a strong online presence and attract more patients
It's worth keeping an eye on your Google and social media profiles to see what patients are saying about your clinic. Positive reviews are great, and you can often add fuel to the fire by suggesting those happy patients refer their friends and family.
On the other hand, if your practice is receiving negative feedback, then there's problems for you to solve.
Analyze and adapt your marketing strategy to improve performance and attract new patients
Marketing tactics are only as good as your ability to measure them.
Assuming you're serious about bringing in new patients then you'll probably try one of the things suggested in this article.
In each case, you'll need a way to track the effectiveness of your efforts. This is easier to do when the referrals happen through the web because you can share a version of your website that includes a tracking link to identify where the clicks came from.
To make this work, you'll need a Google Analytics account and a basic understanding of universal tracking module (UTM) parameters.
Seek expert help and guidance when needed to improve your marketing strategy and attract more patients
If all else fails, you can engage a consultant to help you improve your marketing strategy.
There are plenty of folks out there who have experience building clinics and have already overcome the challenges you're facing.
It pays to be careful when hiring a consultant. The good ones aren't cheap, and there are plenty of self-proclaimed experts out there.
Conclusion
We've suggested a number of ways to find new patients, including:
- Paid ads
- Referral programs
- Building a nice website
- Writing blog content
- Local SEO through Google reviews
- Contributing to social media groups
If you're serious about solving your patient flow problems, you'll have to try a few of these techniques to see which one works the best in your case.
