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laptop on calendar page with scheduled doctor appointment

Doctor’s offices don’t always recognize when their routines and procedures work against their efforts to win new patients or retain current patients. The patient experience begins with an instant demerit. People who need an appointment are already dealing with a measure of stress. And medical providers should not make it difficult for patients to access the […]

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stethoscope

Healthcare marketing professionals know what the retail-world textbook says about customers. Substitute “patient” for “customer” or “consumer” to realize how healthcare’s new swing from provider-centric to patient-centric is much more significant than a smile and warm welcome. Your relationship with healthcare’s new empowered consumer is vital element in revenue and profitability. Acquiring a new customer […]

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Nordstrom store

For the sake of a convenient label, let’s call it the Nordstrom Syndrome. Doctors of various professional disciplines come to me, with some regularity, exhibiting symptoms of this (marketing) condition, and they want my business advice. It’s the first of two valuable marketing lessons that doctors can learn from retail stalwart Nordstrom. Lesson One… Physicians […]

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3 doctors in the "Hear nothing, say nothing, see nothing" pose

Maybe it was just a coincidence, but two insightful marketing object lessons popped up this week. The subject matter in common was customer service via social media, but in these two stories the outcomes were different. Both illustrations—one good and one not—are pages from big business, and they hold excellent take-away lessons for hospital and […]

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Customer questionnaire with "excellent" ticked

For hospitals, health systems and practitioners, “patient experience” has gone from trendy buzzwords to strategic imperative. In fact, the totality of patient experience and satisfaction is a top-tier issue for individual providers, hospitals, group medical practices and executive decision-makers. With these folks in mind--just about everyone--the following are 10 Top Patient Experience articles, including best […]

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colorful figures standing on red target

Not long ago the folks at Krames StayWell checked-in with us about how healthcare Customer Relationship Management—hospital CRM in particular—is recalibrating its mission for greater engagement and improved outcomes in an Accountable Care Organization (ACO) world. Many of the “old rules” are changing. They’re out now with an insightful report about CRM in an ACO […]

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JD Power logo

Some important national surveys about patient satisfaction have been in the news lately. The company credentials are highly respectable, and the healthcare marketing implications are significant. First on the street was the PricewaterhouseCoopers Health Research Institute (PwC, HRI) data that concluded, for healthcare consumers, personal experience is the number one reason for choosing a doctor […]

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We do it all the time…often without thinking much about it. To convince, collaborate, entice or persuade, everyone is “selling” something. It can be as casual as nominating a place for lunch, or presenting an idea. And doctors, dentists and virtually all healthcare providers regularly seek agreement and compliance from patients about a course of […]

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Number-crunching executives, administrators and business-minded IT folks will love the remarkable detail in Hospitals & Health Networks magazine’s 2012 Most Wired survey of the nation’s hospitals and health systems. The social media and hospital marketing slice of data is important and informative. But this is a big report, so let me guide you a little.

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Who says marketing can’t be fun. Here’s a brief post about two lighter-side ideas from dental marketing that you can steal. Look at these little case studies as idea starters for many other healthcare marketing situations. In each, take your inspiration mainly from the exceptional execution. Dr. Rich’s Patient Picnic: Western Pennsylvania orthodontist Richard Ribarevski […]

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Viral Video - square image

As we write this, several million people (and counting) have already seen the compelling and compassionate video on YouTube. The larger story here is that this is also a case example and healthcare marketing and public relations lesson for a range of healthcare providers. Watch the video and let us know what you think.

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As the semi-fabled story goes, Toby Cosgrove, MD—CEO and President of the Cleveland Clinic—experienced a significant moment of awareness a few years ago. At a speaking engagement at Harvard’s business school, someone in the audience described a candid and personal experience about “empathy” over “outcomes.” The person in the audience told Dr. Cosgrove (a cardiac […]

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Massachusetts primary care physician groups—some 500 of them—are the focus of a first-in-the-nation comparison from Consumer Reports. As we see it, medical providers, practices, and healthcare and medical practice marketing professionals in the other 49 states will want to take note for several key reasons: 1. Ratings primarily reflect the “patient experience”—and are marketing significant. […]

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Our recent post titled, Meet Two Virtual Nurses Now Working in Medical Marketing, attracted a lot of reader interest and feedback. These two examples of technology interacting with patients for patient discharge and infection control are also marketing opportunities on at least two fronts.They do an important job at a cost-saving rate, and they spotlight a […]

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Right up front we want to say that we’re more than understanding about the financial struggle that goes with operating a medical practice. The nation’s economy remains soft, reimbursements are down, overhead costs are up; private practice is a tough business. (Most businesses—large or small, product or service, retail or otherwise—feel a financial pinch, including […]

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Lately we’ve been thinking about the increasingly evident gap between patient expectations and provider expectations in healthcare today. As the nation’s health delivery system continues to redefine itself, there’s a shift from a provider-focused culture to a patient-centered culture. Past, present and future, healthcare is a caring and progressive profession. No one deliberately offends patients […]

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"share" button

As recently as a year or so ago we probably couldn’t offer a post about the many and various ways that doctors were using social media tools in their medical practice marketing. Outside of the Innovators and Early Adopters, not much could be reported. At best it would have been a short article. But the […]

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Is there a future for “virtual nurses” in healthcare? How about your medical practice or hospital? Here are two intriguing examples of emerging technology—both labeled “virtual nurse”—that are being tested in the real world of marketing and healthcare delivery. Both interact with the public, although each virtual nurse has a different assignment. Can you see […]

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If you live and work with the hints and helps in short maxims, there are dozens of “five-minute rules” to guide you in everything from computer science to digital discourse. Some of these “rules” are informal at best. In computer science, the five-minute random rule says to cache randomly accessed disk pages that are re-used […]

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 Do you need to apologize for marketing your healthcare services? We’d like to hear from you about the controversial questions raised in last week’s USA Today article about some of the marketing methods used in healthcare. (The primary focus of this piece is hospital marketing, but the implications extend to private practices, health systems and providers […]

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Do you have an idea for a successful open house? Please tell us about it. All too often we bump into a medical practice or hospital doing an “open house” or something similar. So far, so good…a community and patient involvement special event can be a useful doctor marketing tool. The problem is that simply […]

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doctor speaking to a senior patient

In this guest post, Dr. Janice Frates offers ways for healthcare providers to use caring, concern and affordability as medical practice marketing tools. Here are her suggestions to build rapport and inspire patient satisfaction because tough times are here to stay. Gradually, it’s dawning on all of us that the current recession is now the […]

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stethoscope and pen

A package arrived in the mail recently containing an inexpensive computer case that had been ordered online. We were expecting the product, but the enclosed letter from the business owners was a surprise. It was a good one. Their letter is an example of how a small effort—at virtually no cost—can win friends and cement […]

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people at truck stop

The truth is we rarely have much time to watch television, and if we do have a spare moment, most reality shows would not make the line-up. But there’s at least one exception. The promotional announcements for Truck Stop Missouri on the Travel Channel caught our attention recently. The intriguing concept behind the show—and the […]

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doctor speaking to a senior patient

A few years ago, my dentist retired and I scheduled my first visit with a dentist who had become a client. After my first appointment, he personally made a follow-up phone call to see if everything met my expectations in the first visit. (It was a step in his new medical practice marketing plan.) Though […]

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Patients don't complain, they just quietly fade away. In more ways than one, this is a sad tale...and a lesson learned much too late. In fact, 20 years too late, Following is a true story...

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It's a tragic and extremely costly story - and unfortunately one that we see all the time. Perhaps it has even happened to you. Every day, hospitals and healthcare organizations across the USA invest hard-earned money into marketing, yet see zero new patients from their efforts.

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black and white image of detective man

If you’re a little behind in reading your Federal Register subscription, we see that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is proposing to use “secret shoppers,” perhaps in your office. The HHS wants to sample Primary Care Physicians’ (PCPs) wait times, accessibility and availability. In government talk, the Proposed Project is titled Assessing […]

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3D Text reading "brand" with arrows

What’s your hospital marketing, advertising and public relations strategy going to be with Goliath in your back yard? Here’s the picture… St. John Medical Center in Westlake, Ohio, is less than eight miles (and under 15 minutes) from Fairview Hospital, a Cleveland Clinic facility. If Cleveland Clinic isn’t a Goliath in the hospital world, it’s […]

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doctor and patient in conversation

Starting a conversation is about as easy and automatic as breathing, right? Doctors talk with patients. Administrators talk with staff. Staff members interact with patients. Public Relations people talk with reporters. Physicians meet members of the community. Effortless? Routine? The answer is no, it’s not always easy. A meaningful conversation, a purposeful conversation, an engaging […]

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Figure carrying Suitcase

by Steve Smith, Healthcare Success Senior Consultant A recent consultation with a client in the Midwest revealed that the physician partners only gave lip service to customer service. Oh, they want each patient to have a good experience, of course, but that's as far as their involvement goes. Unfortunately, that put my office manager contact, […]

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FLAT TIRE

by Steve Smith, Healthcare Success Senior Consultant Recently, I told you about the negative impact of five cents worth of coffee. That story was really about how a missed opportunity can be costly. Today, I am pleased to tell you about the opposite, about how a few cents worth of product and labor can make […]

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stopwatch reading "wait times"

Prompt service is the essence of urgent care, and “faster is better” has become a marketing linchpin. In fact, some providers are willing to guarantee it. It’s practically old-school these days as many hospitals, urgent care centers and other healthcare providers have been racing to post their Emergency Room waiting times on their website, digital […]

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  by Steve Smith, Healthcare Success Senior Consultant Scholarly articles about retail customer service tell you that continuing success in business is not about making an individual sale, it’s about creating a relationship that wins a customer. It’s a principle that applies in healthcare delivery, and with every patient (the customer) interaction. And these winning […]

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stack of pipelines

  by Steve Smith, Healthcare Success Senior Consultant Those of us in healthcare often suffer from diminished peripheral vision. We tend to believe that we work in a vacuum, and that despite whatever else is happening in other professions or businesses, healthcare is governed by a separate, special set of rules. In many ways, of […]

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stopwatch

What does a typical visit to your medical practice have to say about your practice reputation? Here are five ways to exceed expectations and create a memorable service experience - a cornerstone of superior healthcare branding.

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For your internal marketing audience, it's all about caring. The established patient base for any healthcare organization, practice or group is never permanent...and may not be as firmly established as you might think. The process of improving retention is grounded in the internal communications skills of doctor, staff and everyone who works there. Surprisingly, the […]

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