A Guide to Transitional Care Management Written by Jeff Tormey on April 8, 2021. Posted in Manage, Other. Chronic medical conditions such as heart disease, diabetes, dementia, COPD, and others require a transition period between the in-patient phase and the patient settling into care at home. The same is true for major surgical procedures. Transitional care management provides consistent after-discharge care to both groups of patients to avoid a relapse or readmission. What Is Transitional Care Management? Transitional Care Management (TCM) services facilitate the hand-off of patients from an inpatient facility to their community or family setting. Designed to last for 30 days, TCM allows the healthcare provider to guide the patient and family on the road to recovery while minimizing the chances of relapses occurring. TCM usually falls into 3 broad categories: Interactive communications Non-face-to-face service delivery Face-to-face visits Interactive communications are made within the first two days of discharge to ascertain the status and transitional needs of the patient. Healthcare call centers are key solutions in carrying out this stage of TCM. The results of the call can then be, face-to-face visits are carried out seven to 14 days after discharge. Non-face-to-face service delivery fills in the intervals between in-person visits. They can be carried out via phone call or medical patient portals. What Is the Purpose of TCM? The purpose of TCM is to aid the at-home caregiver and the patient in the following areas: Reviewing discharge information Management of medicines and assistance with prescriptions Education and support regarding the treatment regimen and recommended daily activities Assistance in scheduling appointments for follow-up checks or tests Assessment of the need for additional tests or treatments Liaising between patient and the relevant health care professionals Who Qualifies For Transitional Care? Qualifying for TCM is dependant on the facility that discharges you and the recommendations of the attending doctors. Examples of qualifying service facilities are: Skilled nursing facility Inpatient acute care hospital Hospital outpatient observation Partial hospitalization Inpatient psychiatric hospital The patient’s medical record must also state that the patient will need aftercare from a physician, clinical staff, or other healthcare providers. The extent of care providers’ involvement in a patient’s transitional care management is contingent on The risk of serious complications The complexity of medical records and diagnoses made The number of diagnoses Recovery management options Billing Requirements for Transitional Care Management Since transitional care management is temporary, the billing is usually submitted by the healthcare provider at the end of the 30 days. To bill for TCM, a care provider must check off the following criteria: Direct patient contact within two business days of discharge A face-to-face visit within seven or 14 days after discharge Moderate to highly complex medical decision making As regards insurance, the specifics of TCM coverage vary. The patient needs to find out beforehand monthly premiums, deductibles, and copay amounts related specifically to TCM. What Is a Transitional Care Hospital? Patients with complex conditions or who need either an extended recovery period or inpatient rehabilitation are often discharged into a transitional care hospital. They will typically stay in such a facility for upwards of 25 days. These long-term care hospitals offer more specialized care than what a patient can get in skilled nursing facilities or home care. Transitional care management is crucial for the seamless recovery of chronic conditions. It improves the quality of life for the patient and prevents costly readmissions. Invest in TCM solutions to help your chronic care management run efficiently.
Instagram Marketing for Doctors – A Guide to Patient Outreach Written by Jeff Tormey on March 30, 2021. Posted in Other. Instagram Marketing for Doctors – A Guide to Patient Engagement Instagram has put video content on the front burner. Whether it is IGTV, Reels, or Instastories, video is easy to consume and share. This is ideal for healthcare businesses looking to diversify their content and grow patient engagement. Healthcare advertising companies use video marketing to boost leads by 66% per year. Internet users spend, on average, 7 hours a week watching videos. With 1 Billion users worldwide, Instagram claims a significant chunk of this watch time that you can tap into to grow your business. Read on to learn how you can use Instagram to build brand awareness and patient engagement. Create a Business Account Your first and most crucial step is to create an Instagram business account. This is different from a personal account for the following reasons: You can add a phone number and email contact button At the 100 follower mark, you can get detailed analytics on who is engaging with your content 10,000 followers and above allows an Instagram business account to add direct swipe-up links Business accounts have these specific tools and more to help with engagement. Follow HIPAA Regulations Some of the most popular medical content online such as patient transformation posts (before & after) can present ethical issues. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) has clear directives on protecting the privacy and security of patients. Always request explicit permission to share patient experiences Blurr out our hide personal identifiers such as patient name, location, age, etc. Hashtag Strategy Hashtags are basically a searchable directory on Instagram that will enable your patients to find you. Healthcare hashtags on Instagram will grow your account since posts with hashtags receive 12.6% more engagement than those that don’t. Additionally, hashtags can also improve your brand’s medical SEO since they are indexed by search engines. Here’s what you should know about hashtags. You can use up to 30 hashtags in a feed post and up to 10 in your Instastories No special characters or spaces are allowed in your hashtag but numbers can be used You should use a variety of hashtags whether they fall under community, branded, or campaign categories If you want to know how to grow a medical practice on Instagram, create a flexible and relevant hashtag strategy. Here are some ideas. Identify the best medicine Instagram accounts or those in your specialty and note their hashtags Create several groups of hashtags that can be rotated post by post Engage in the comment section of other related posts that rank in the hashtags you choose for your business Consistency vs Frequency These two words are often used interchangeably in the content marketing world. They are different and consistency is superior. The frequency of posts does not positively or negatively affect your engagement. Clearly, the more sustainable option is to create a content plan and schedule and stick to it. Consistency builds trust and reliance on the part of your audience. Automation with tools like Later and Buffer can also help you nail the consistency problem Create a Style Guide “Don’t forget that you are using your Instagram account to promote and attract customers to your healthcare business. “Having a cohesive content style, tone, font, and aesthetic makes your posts highly recognizable and shareable. “Use branded images tastefully to get more eyeballs on your brand. A style guide also means you can easily outsource the social media part of your digital marketing strategy Get Help From Healthcare Advertising Companies Speaking of outsourcing, consistent posting on your business Instagram account can be a full-time job. That’s why healthcare advertising companies have honed these digital and social media marketing skills so you don’t have to. Contact Sequence Health today for a free evaluation and a digital marketing program that will elevate your patient engagement.
Healthcare Marketing Predictions: A Guide to Crushing 2021 Written by Jeff Tormey on March 29, 2021. Posted in Other. Healthcare Marketing Predictions: A Guide to Crushing 2021 2021 will be a rebound year for many businesses. Healthcare advertising is a key area that will help businesses crush their objectives. Whether it is more informative video content, innovative communication strategies, or better native advertising, marketing must prioritize the customer. Let’s take a look at some of the healthcare digital marketing trends that will dominate 2021. The Resurgence of Telehealth The global shift that came with the pandemic in 2020 has forced businesses to change how they work. None more so than healthcare providers. The telehealth trend will continue into 2021 with physicians carrying out telephone consultations for cases that do not require face-to-face meetings. For marketers, this trend means creating dedicated landing pages to funnel old and new patients to this new service delivery method. Most importantly get the word out! Email campaigns, text broadcasts, targeted ads, and content marketing will have to be geared towards letting patients know they can still safely get healthcare. Reputation Management Will Be Key Studies predict that 7 out of 10 people will lose trust in brands if they are perceived to be putting profit above people. Token gestures and poor customer service will be highly scrutinized in 2021. This is especially true for service-oriented businesses such as healthcare providers. There is a silver lining to this though. The same study reports that 78% of people still believe in the credibility of doctors to communicate about the current pandemic. Healthcare digital marketing strategies will need to focus on PR that highlights the brand’s support for community-based initiatives and causes. There will also be a huge emphasis on transparency and authority in all content. Your patients need you to hold the line as a credible and transparent source of information. Marketers should not neglect to review programs and community engagement on the various platforms since reputations are strengthened or broken online. Healthcare Marketing Will Rely on Innovative Services 2021 will continue the novel marketing experience of unchartered territories. Most healthcare businesses are discovering new ways to deliver essential services to their patients. They are all trying to Make patient’s experiences better Disseminate information in a clear, concise, and quick manner Keep the community as safe as possible New medical care apps, chat integrations, live broadcasts, and AR simulations are some of the tools being adopted by healthcare providers. To boost the uptake of technological innovations, healthcare marketing will have to focus on creating awareness amongst patients about the how and why of the innovations. Healthcare Advertising Will Evolve Many cities have experienced lockdowns and service disruption. All the same, the demand for high-value content and the need for organic search volume and advertising have not disappeared. They have simply changed. Digital marketing in the healthcare industry will need to shift the marketing spend into content that best supports patients now and builds a brand reputation for the future. Some of the implications of this trend will be a greater focus on local SEO since more people are using “Near Me” searches. After all, movement is limited and the need for nearby urgent care has increased. Instead of self-touting ads, patients want rich content that offers guidance, solutions, and alternatives for example back-to-school safety guides or at-home physiotherapy exercises. Before collecting those emails, consider the value-add of your marketing campaign. As you evaluate your business’s current marketing strategy, don’t forget to be bold and patient-focused. For comprehensive healthcare marketing solutions, don’t hesitate to call us.
Healthcare Content Marketing Strategy: Getting Started & Tips Written by Jeff Tormey on March 26, 2021. Posted in Other. Healthcare Content Marketing Strategy: Getting Started & Tips Viral videos of physicians dancing while giving health tips are a dime a dozen. However, healthcare content marketing is much more nuanced than that. From online review forums and social media to healthcare advertising companies, patients and healthcare providers now have a slew of tools to help them find each other. What’s the first thing you do when you’re unwell and don’t know the cause? You Google it! You and 77% of Americans use online reviews to find medical information and new physicians. Patients want more detailed information about who they entrust their lives to. They want to make a connection. This is where medical content marketing comes in. 4 Tips for Successful Healthcare Content Marketing Only if you do healthcare content marketing right. Here is a quick cheat sheet on getting started and best practices for healthcare content marketing. Who Is Your Target Audience? Only Your audience is your first stop. It’s important to understand what makes them tick. What questions can help you create your target audience persona? What demographics do they fall under? What are their passions, fears, or anxieties? What problem do they need to be solved? What hot topics are they interested in? Do they want technical or simplified content? Zero In on Quality and Expertise Healthcare content falls under the YMYL (Your Money or Your Life) category according to Google. The stakes are high for this type of content which can adversely impact your reader if poorly researched or communicated. These sites need to contain the highest levels of Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness E-A-T to be ranked well by search engines. Stick to what you know. If your medical practice specializes in dental health, you shouldn’t have content about kidney stones. Focusing on your expertise will cement you as an authority to both Google and your audience. They will keep coming back. Make Your Content Interactive and Highly Shareable The average person online has an attention span of 8 seconds. Unless they are looking for in-depth information on a topic, they will be in and out of your website by the time you’re settling into your introduction. The solution? Make your content easy to skim with images, infographics, lists, and tables Interact with your audience through polls and quizzes Diversify into shorter, highly shareable content such as pins, infographics, quotes Make it fun and easy to consume with podcasts and video Get Digital Marketing Help We get it. You’re good at delivering quality healthcare but digital marketing feels like an alien planet. PPC, SEO, and inbound funnels might as well be foreign languages. So why slog through it alone? As digital marketing experts, Sequence Health has perfected online healthcare marketing techniques. We boost your web presence, rank your practice competitively and handle reputation management. We ensure new patients can find you and that their feedback opens more doors for you. Contact us today for a free evaluation of your healthcare organization and find out how our solutions can take you to the next level.
Guide to Improve SEO & PPC For Doctors in 2021 Written by Jeff Tormey on March 19, 2021. Posted in Other. Guide to Improve SEO & PPC For Doctors in 2021 The first page of search engine result pages (SERPs) receives the lion’s share of clicks and conversions. To improve healthcare SEO and PPC for your practice you need to implement organic content marketing as well as paid digital marketing. Organic search results rely on a well-optimized site. However, Google also ranks your site according to user experience and how long patients stay on the site. To improve user experience consider adding supportive off-site tools such as medical call centers and patient engagement solutions. That said, let’s look at the best practices for improving your medical SEO and PPC in 2021. Best Practices For Medical SEO in 2021 Evaluate Your Current Medical SEO You can’t fix what you don’t know. Some of the areas to evaluate for your medical search engine optimization are: Website loading speed on mobile and desktop determines whether patients prematurely click away Google Analytics regarding the traffic to your site Missing content or metadata Inadequate or poor internal and external links Optimize Existing Content Improving the content already on your site can increase traffic to your site by over 100%. You can optimize old content in these straightforward ways: Refresh blog posts with new research and better writing Add better quality images and graphics Make the content relevant to your practice Fix 404 errors Change your hosting service to increase website loading speed Update local SEO with accurate business information (Name, address, telephone number) Develop a Healthcare Content Marketing Strategy Content is king is an overworked cliche but it consistently proves true. Patients are not looking for a digital salesperson on your website. Your site content and social media pages need to add value to their lives and create a trustworthy connection with their healthcare provider. Improving your medical SEO ranking requires you to consistently add new expert, authoritative, trustworthy content with well-researched keywords. You can outsource the content creation if you cannot keep up the consistency in-house. A great tip is to integrate your website and social media pages so that the content is syndicated across platforms saving you time and resources. Best Practices For Medical PPC in 2021 Pay-per-click (PPC) is one of the best ways for a website to rank on the first page of search results. PPC and SEO work together to increase the relevance, authority, and presence of your site in the search engine results pages (SERPs). Google collects site interaction and traffic data collected from your PPC ads to helps its algorithm with organic ranking on SERP. What can you do to improve the performance of your PPC ad campaign? A Foundation Of Great Content Just as in SEO, PPC for doctors requires you to have an engaging and cohesive story across your ad copy and landing pages. The ad should have a clear and captivating value proposition. Your potential patient should see the ad and immediately understand the benefit of choosing your practice. Lastly, great content should build trust. Think patient testimonials and peer endorsements on the landing pages. Concise but informative doctors’ biographies and credentials add to your practice’s trustworthiness Well Targeted Ads PPC works by bidding on the keywords of your choice. When patients search the keywords you bid on, your ad appears in the search results. Consequently, thorough keyword research and search query mining will form the basis of a successful medical PPC campaign. Long-tail keywords and specific search queries comprising four to six words are cheaper and perform better than broad, short keywords. Reduce wasted marketing spend by also compiling a list of negative keywords. These will prevent your ad from appearing to fine-tuning people outside your target group. Evaluate and Tweak Daily Successful ads are more art than size. There is no one-size-fits-all. You need to evaluate the analytics of your ads daily and adjust where needed. This fine tuning of your bidding strategy is done to achieve any or a combination of the following aspects. Lowest possible cost per click (CPC) for maximum clicks Enhanced CPC to enable Google to automatically increase or decrease your keyword bid Automatically adjust the cost per acquisition (CPA) for maximum conversion on landing pages Boosting SEO and PPC performance can be a complex undertaking especially for the technical aspects of website backend and keyword bidding. Schedule a consultation today to take your pick of the medical marketing services we offer.
Bariatric Digital Marketing Services: To Help You Compete and Grow Written by Jeff Tormey on March 14, 2021. Posted in Other. Bariatric Digital Marketing Services: To Help You Compete and Grow Bariatric marketing is the competitive edge you need to put your practice in front of an online audience of 1.3 million searching the web annually about bariatric procedures. The bariatric surgery industry in North America is expected to hit $1.84 billion in value by the year 2024. To get a piece of that pie for your practice, traditional referrals methods and the overworked before and after testimonials are insufficient. To get new patients and retain old ones, you need a balance of passive and active marketing strategies for bariatric surgery practice. Why should your practice hire a bariatric Digital Marketing agency? Balance Your Caseload With Elective Cases Elective, cash-paying bariatric surgery cases yield more revenue than their HMO and Medicaid counterparts. Achieving the balance of more high-revenue patients is the sweet spot for bariatric surgeons. To this end, bariatric marketing experts can help to vet and onboard insurance verification services companies. The purpose of these companies is to eliminate the headache of figuring out which patient’s insurance will fully reimburse and which one will not. You will be able to say goodbye to reduced reimbursements and welcome higher revenue. Reputation Management Bariatric surgery has been repeatedly flogged over the years by the press as an unnecessary or dangerous procedure. Bariatric marketing strategies must factor in for re-educating patients and referring physicians as well as debunking misguided information about bariatrics. Reputation management refers to building a high volume of patient reviews online that are positive. This healthcare marketing strategy also addresses any negative reviews and turns them around to grow the online ranking of the practice. Search Engine Optimization and Paid Search SEO and paid search and two sides of the same coin. Search engines crawl your website and rank its content and user experience. Search engines also monitor the response of your audience to paid ads. Metrics such as click-through rate, bounce rate, and conversions all supplied by paid ads help your site to rank favorably. Google makes thousands of changes to its search algorithm every year. This makes successful SEO and paid marketing a specialized field. It is a game-changer to partner with digital bariatrics marketing experts who have already built tried and tested strategies for medical online marketing. Social Media Marketing 43% of adults in the US find it appropriate to follow and contact their doctor on social media. Even more surprising is that 80% of social media users use these platforms to search for health information. Social media is a powerful tool for brand awareness and creating direct engagement with potential patients. A robust and precise social media campaign is much more effective than Google ads because it allows you to specifically target prospects by interest, location, and past behavior. Medical online marketing is what word-of-mouth referrals have morphed into. While you focus on your core business, hire bariatric marketing experts to build an effective marketing strategy for you.
15 Best Chiropractor SEO Steps To Find Your Patients Written by Jeff Tormey on March 12, 2021. Posted in Other. You’re the best chiropractor and you know it? But are your potential patients aware of it? Chiropractor seo ranking success relies on a combination of tools such as healthcare call centers, patient portals, and Google My Business among others. All these tools and tips aim to improve your patients’ experience. Let’s break down 15 steps you can take to improve your SEO and get more chiropractic patients 1. Have Accurate and Consistent Business Information The most important information for SEO ranking is: Business name Address Phone number Local search engines will use these three as a yardstick to ensure all your data aligns and that your chiropractic practice exists. Search engines will look at the Relevance of your details to the patient’s search query Distance from the location term used in the search The prominence of your practice Ensure your website’s information is identical to all other listings such as Bing Places For Business and Google My Business. Inaccuracies will result in a negative ranking 2. Improve Local SEO There are further steps you can take to improve local SEO. Add a Google Map to your contact page Use local images and optimize with location metadata Create a separate page on your site for each service If you have multiple locations, list them on separate pages 3. Encourage Online Reviews From Patients Manage your reviews. Responding to both positive and negative reviews demonstrates your care for your patients. It also improves your SEO rankings. Encourage new patients to review your chiropractor services on Yelp and Google. You can also use new customer surveys and discount incentives. Reviews are regulated and impart social proof to your business. Dedicate a page on your website to reviews. 4. Upgrade Your Website A clunky static website is as bad as no website at all. You have 2-8 seconds to make a good impression on a potential new patient. Ensure your website is well designed and your WebHost offers you excellent speed and bandwidth. Your website shouldn’t hang mid-query. Once you’re done with the basics of location, contact, and service information, you can add some upgrades. Chatboxes that can be linked to your Facebook Messenger gives the patient a one-on-one experience. Include social media widgets 5. Optimize for Mobile Devices As you revamp your website don’t forget the visitors on mobile devices. There is nothing as jarring as clicking onto a website not optimized for mobile. Having to zoom in and out or scroll left and right is takes away from the website experience. Considering 88% of consumers who will search your chiropractor practice will do so on a mobile device, you must prioritize them. 6. Do Your Keyword Research A huge part of chiropractor SEO is keywords. Which terms are your patients searching for? Research the terms applicable to chiropractic services specific to your locale. I hope by now you know to not stuff your blog posts with keywords. Keyword usage must always be organic. 7. Show Your Appreciation For Your Patients The personal touch is a great differentiator for businesses in almost any niche. Here’s how you can make your patients feel catered to. Personalize your emails by patient name Offer discounts, coupons, giveaways to show appreciation Birthday messages also make the patient feel seen 8. Focus On Expert Authoritative Trustworthy Content Colin Powell said, “Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument, debate, and doubt, to offer a solution everybody can understand.” Cut to the heart of your patients’ problems and give them solutions or direct them to your practice for relief. They will be thankful and Google will reward you with positive rankings. 9. Get Peer Reviews and Referrals A great way to do this is to collaborate with local businesses that offer complementary services. Think hospitals and rehabilitation centers. Strong community involvement and sponsoring causes in cash or kind will make you a household name in your area. Your practice will be the first name that comes to mind. 10. Capture With Social Media With nearly 4 billion people using social media platforms globally, your chiropractor practice can only benefit from engagement on social media. More than 80% of patients trust and rely on online reviews to find medical services. Take advantage of social media to engage with your patients and understand their interests. Read more: 5 Benefits of Social Media in Healthcare 11. Video Is the Future According to 74% of marketers, videos have a better return on investment than static images. For chiropractic services, video can be a great way to get the necessary information to your patients about procedures and aftercare. Videos are also highly shareable which is a great benefit for your business. 12. Maximize Pay-per-Click Ads SEO is a long game. Its short-term counterpart is pay-per-click ads. As you dedicate a chunk of your marketing budget towards content marketing and building your SEO ranking don’t forget your immediate goals. Google and social media ads can be customized according to your budget, target audience, location, and customer behavior. 13. Cohesive Digital Marketing Strategy Marketing strategies for chiropractors should be interconnected across all online platforms. The PPC ads, social media content, email marketing, and Google Business listing should all work together to funnel curious potential clients to patronize your services. 14. Analytics Are Your Friend All the above steps would be ineffective if you failed to check the numbers. Analytics tell you what is working and what is not. Google Analytics tells you where your website visitors are coming from, how many they are, and how long they are staying. By tweaking you can improve your ranking and customer satisfaction. 15. Embrace Healthcare Call Centers and Patient Portals The world is moving towards remote delivery of services. For your return patients or those too far, this is a great option. Give clear instructions on how they can use telehealth on your site and the eligible services. Outsourcing the design and management of your patient portals and telehealth will free up your staff to focus on customer service and your core offerings.
12 Tips To Master Facebook For Medical Practices Written by Jeff Tormey on March 7, 2021. Posted in Other. 12 Tips To Master Facebook For Medical Practices Patient engagement statistics reveal how much healthcare delivery has evolved to rely on technology and specifically social media. Recent surveys have shown that 72% of patients are extremely satisfied when they know what to expect from a medical procedure and post-discharge follow-up calls reduce readmission by 50%. Medical staff members spend up to 2 hours a day calling patients and automating the process could yield better productivity. Enter social media, specifically Facebook. Facebook has 2.7 billion users globally as well as strategic integrations with other platforms such as Whatsapp, Facebook Messenger, and Instagram. These rank as the third, fourth, and fifth most popular social media platforms respectively. What is social media’s impact on the healthcare business and how can your practice capitalize on Facebook’s best marketing practices? 1. Share Video Content Video is the most consumed content format online and generates 35% more organic impressions than static images. Video is a great way to educate patients about what to expect when they come in and the various protocols in place. It can also create more engagement by showing the human element of your practice. Optimize for Facebook by using square videos Showing not telling to maximize on autoplay Add captions 2. When Is Your Audience Online? Facebook has developed a variety of analytics for businesses on its platform. These analytics tell you when is the best time to post on Facebook for maximum exposure. You can monitor when your audience is most active on Facebook and post at those times. In this way, Facebook can be a key component of your patient engagement solutions. 3. Tell Stories and Provoke Conversations Posting advert after advert will quickly put off your audience. If you want your patients to respond to and share your content, engaging posts for Facebook are the way to go. Images are more eye-catching and shareable than plain text posts. Facebook recommends having an accompanying image for all posts. All images should be crisp, not blurry. They should be copyright-free or credited correctly. Pay close attention to the resolution requirements for Facebook. 4. Make Your Posts Actionable Article links, newsletter signup forms, polls, and other call-to-action posts would feature regularly on your feed. They have higher engagement and can give extra value to your business by providing insights into your patients. Though not all posts need to be actionable, a good amount should be. 5. Automate Posts and Responses They also have scheduling and automation tools that can help your take advantage of these timelines even when you’re not awake. You can set up automated responses on Facebook Messenger and Whatsapp for business to assist your patients on routine queries. 6. Consistency Is Key Create a consistent posting schedule that will underscore your trustworthiness and authority. As said, Facebook has scheduling tools to help with consistency. Alternatively, you can use third-party apps such as Buffer. 7. Partner With Related Businesses on Facebook Other healthcare providers or professionals in the wellness space are great collaborators. Do live discussions or Q&As on each others’ pages. You’ll be able to piggyback on each other’s following and grow your reach organically. 8. Take Part in Community Development Building a loyal online following has a crucial real-life component. People love to see their physicians be a part of and give back to the community. If your practice can sponsor initiatives within the community, this is great. However, it can also be as simple as mentoring young people, food drives for the less fortunate, or sanitary packages for the homeless. 9. Periodic Targeted Ads and Offers The beauty of Facebook ads is that you can target them so specifically, right down to the shows they like to watch and their hobbies. These targeted groups can be differentiated using more than 30 characteristics and behaviors. You can save each ad group and use it repeatedly. It will work in your favor when offering specialized procedures such as facelifts or bariatric surgery which apply to very specific demographics 10. Simple and Cohesive Look and Tone Don’t forget that your Facebook page is representing your brand. Stick to your brand colors and tone of voice throughout your posts Much as people enjoy seeing behind-the-scenes, keep it professional. It should not feel like a personal page. Facebook advises simple, clean creatives as the most attractive to users. Use minimal but impactful text. 11. Quick Responses and Reputation Management The Facebook algorithm checks how quickly messages and queries are responded to. This period gets automatically added to your page. A healthcare page that typically responds in 48 hours is not a good look. For queries not covered under the automated responses, have a schedule detailing the staff in charge of replying at various times. Assign each a signature or initials. Negative reviews will occur from time to time especially if medical insurance verification was not done properly or there is a payment issue. Responding to reviews helps boost your ranking and shows your patients that you care. You might need to take it to private direct messages for sensitive cases or request an offline conversation. 12. Take Advantage of Facebook Analytics To round off these Facebook tips, remember to consistently evaluate the performance of your posts and ads. Insights on the Facebook admin page will let you know: Which content had the most engagement Who is visiting your page How they are interacting with your posts This crucial information will enable you to tweak your content marketing strategy to its most optimal. Facebook can be a key part of your patient engagement and after-care. If done well it will expand your reach to new patients and create a solid online following.
10 Reasons to Hire a Doctor Marketing Agency Written by Jeff Tormey on March 2, 2021. Posted in Other. 10 Reasons to Hire a Doctor Marketing Agency Are you vacillating between hiring a healthcare marketing agency and a regular marketing firm? Medical marketing strategies are very specialized due to the sensitive and essential nature of medical services. Your medical practice needs a marketing partner specific to healthcare rather than a jack-of-all-trades agency. Here’s why. 1. Targeted Expertise in the Healthcare Market Would you trust a doctor who claims to treat cancer, infant conditions, and horses? It would be absurd. Specialized fields such as medicine require marketing professionals who understand market insights and strategies that are targeted. High-level knowledge of the current healthcare ecosystem, the patient journey, and physician competition are necessary for successful medical marketing strategies. This expertise will enable the medical marketing agency to provide competitor analyses, effective marketing plans and to help navigate marketing efforts moving forward. Read more : What Is a Healthcare Marketing Plan? Expert Tips and Strategies 3. Understanding Of Stark and HIPAA Laws Medicine is a highly regulated field. This is to protect the privacy and safety of the patient and to protect physicians from exposing themselves to liability. Medical marketing consultants are conversant with the stipulations of these two laws. This means that any marketing plans they create and implement will not expose your practice to malpractice suits or legal violations. 3. Ease Of Communication With Physicians The medical industry can get pretty technical in terms of language, operations, and protocols. Marketing agencies for doctors understand these technicalities and jargon. They can sufficiently represent and cater to your practice without inadvertently injuring your reputation. There is also the consideration that medical practitioners work outside the 9-5 framework. Any consulting agency needs to understand this and accommodate emergencies and unpredictable hours with ease. 4. Access to Medical Marketing Channels Medical online marketing requires a unique approach. Not all marketing channels are appropriate or effective to medical practices. Video Marketing Digital advertising for medical practices Engaging social media and referral marketing Targeted email campaigns Mobile marketing Listings Management for Doctors Physician Reputation Management Medical SEO Physician liaison marketing Analytics and reporting 5. Budget-Conscious Marketing Strategy Medicine is not like consumer goods or luxury industries that have huge marketing budgets. Revenue is tied up in expensive procedures, equipment, and reduced reimbursements. A medical marketing agency understands that they cannot afford to go over budget with their strategy. They need to make the allocated budgets work. 6. Reputation Recovery Doctor marketing agencies understand that reputation management is key in a medical practice’s marketing strategy. Many bad reviews online result from dissatisfaction with treatment costs and the patient’s lack of understanding about their insurance coverage. Less favorable reviews online can wreak havoc on your business listing. An experienced marketing agency will know how to rescue these reviews and tip the balance to positive. 7. Prioritize Patient Referral Volume Referrals of patients from other physician is a tried and tested way for a healthcare business to get new patients. A specialized marketing agency understands the importance of a physician liaison. This is the salesperson responsible for your system for doctor referral appointments. They make sure you’re getting referrals and that they are converting into appointments. 8. Building Patient Engagement Long gone are the days of blindly firing off articles into the ether and hoping an interested customer bites the bait. Medical advertising agencies focus their digital marketing strategy on gaining the most patient engagement. Patients prefer direct engagement from their healthcare provider. They want dependable content that adds value. This, in turn, increases the reach of your brand and brings in new patients Read more : Important Tools That Can Help You Improve Patient Engagement 9. Understand Patient Intake and Flow Different elements play into the intake of patients and how they move from interest to appointment. A healthcare marketing firm needs to understand the ins and outs of all these elements to streamline and improve the experience for all. Experienced firms understand how crucial patient engagement solutions are to the patient journey. The solutions they implement will lead to a better experience, good reviews, and of course, new patients. These elements include: Accurate business information online Reviews and ratings Effective scheduling and cancellation of appointments New vs returning patient needs Recurring visits vs one-off High revenue procedures 10. Design and Patient Experience of Your Medical Website 83 percent of internet users are looking for medical information related to symptoms, treatment, and facilities. What this means for healthcare marketing is that a physician’s or healthcare business’s website is like their digital front office. A dedicated marketing agency understands this and the importance of UI (User interface) and UX (User experience). They will focus on giving your business a website that Boosts engagement, Increases traffic Grows patient conversions
Why Hospitals & Practices Should Use Video: Reasons To Use Medical Video Production Written by Jeff Tormey on February 27, 2021. Posted in Manage. Video-Enhanced Medical Interactions: A New Era of Expertise and Patient Engagement Video, particularly online video, is one of the most popular ways that people consume content. YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook, Instagram, and now TikTok have hit it big with video and people from all walks of life are producing video for their viewers. Doctors have been using video to market their practices for years and the opportunity seems to keep growing. Video has several advantages that make it a no-brainer for both marketing and patient education. So what is the importance of video production for healthcare practices and hospitals? Reasons Why Hospitals Use Medical Video Production Improve telehealth offerings. Telehealth has been part of medicine for decades. However, it’s only recently that hospitals have been using video messaging and video content to improve their telehealth services. This article will be primarily focusing on the benefits of using video as an aid to telehealth. Telehealth services can be limited because they require a doctor’s time. Having a patient watch informational videos before or after providing telehealth services can improve a patient’s level of engagement and better equip them to follow through with the prescribed treatment. Provide patients with access to education. Many doctor’s offices rely on pamphlets that a patient may or may not read. This form of education has largely been replaced with digital media formats such as PDFs and now, video. Your patient portal can be used to host videos on various health topics that patients can use to take a more active role in their own healthcare. This can improve patient engagement, which in turn improves patient outcomes. Video marketing can help grow a practice’s brand. Because video is one of the most common ways people consume media, it goes without saying that using it for marketing represents a big opportunity. A hospital or practice that puts out quality video content can show the world that they are trustworthy, knowledgeable, and put the patient’s needs first. Not only that, but having quality content out there on the Internet can improve your hospital or practice’s overall reach. People who would have otherwise never known about your brand are now exposed to it, and if the content helps them, their exposure to your brand will be a positive one. Video is a core part of medical marketing strategies that aim to reach people on multiple channels, from traditional to digital. Sequence Health is a provider of patient engagement solutions and also offers medical online marketing services to practices and hospitals.