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Top Story: 4 Steps to Increase Patient Acquisition and Retention
Patient acquisition is the initial step that marks the patient journey, followed by connecting with patients, converting them, and retaining them. Patient acquisition directly impacts a provider’s bottom line and overall financial success.
Patient retention helps keep revenue in your practice and create a steady income stream. Existing patients are more loyal, boosting your practice’s bottom line.
While patient acquisition and retention seem like separate tasks, they are two sides of the same coin and are both essential components of practice growth. Without retention, your patient acquisition efforts will be fruitless.
In today’s highly competitive industry, having a solid plan to attract new patients and expand your practice is more important than ever. A well-defined patient acquisition strategy is vital to ensure that a healthcare practice operates at its peak capacity and sustains responsible growth.
Curious to learn more? Let’s dive deeper into five vital steps to increase patient acquisition and retention at your health system.
1.) SEO & digital marketing
Technology has recently become all the rage. With iPhones and tablets, Americans will go to lengths to find the right physician- scrutinizing negative patient websites, reviews, and testimonials.
SEO is in perfect alignment with how many patients find their doctors or look up health information online these days. Without it, you miss opportunities to acquire patients actively searching for care. Today, patients use online resources twice as much as they do referrals.
In addition, top rankings are necessary because most search engine users only pay attention to the first few organic results on Google. Notably, and the first five organic listings get about 68% of all clicks.
For this reason, one of the primary challenges for hospitals without a solid digital presence is limited outreach and patient acquisition. These hospitals struggle to connect with a broader audience beyond their existing community.
Medical practices must invest in healthcare SEO and digital marketing to boost patient acquisition. As patients increasingly turn to the internet to research healthcare options and make informed decisions, digital marketing serves as a powerful tool for healthcare providers to connect with their target audience, build trust, and ultimately drive patient acquisition.
Online health system presence should provide the essential information a patient may need in a clear, user-friendly format. Details, including services offered, doctor profiles, FAQs, and other patient resources are vital to establish loyalty, trust, and confidence between patient and provider.
In addition, you should use desired keywords and phrases to create siloing of related content. This SEO technique helps to target patients searching for specific services. Once you fully understand the words and phrases your audience uses, you can create an effective marketing strategy.
2.) Offer online booking
An online presence doesn’t just stop at SEO – it goes even deeper. Today’s healthcare consumers demand greater convenience in every aspect of their lives. Three-quarters of patients in an October 2023 Experian survey said that the most important digital service their provider can offer is the ability to book appointments online or using a mobile device.
In fact, 64% of Gen Xers and 58% of millennials prefer online bookings so much that they would switch their healthcare provider for one that offers an online booking option.
Therefore, offering an online booking service is a great way to attract and retain patients. It’s quicker, easier, and more convenient than having to make a phone call.
But, patients aren’t the only ones who prefer online booking. Medical practices can get rid of the need to perform tedious, time-consuming tasks like typing form data into your EMR manually for each patient. Other benefits include:
- A decrease in incoming calls
- More time for staff to allocate to other valuable areas
- Helping fill a schedule from last-minute cancellations
- Boosting appointment volume while cutting costs through technology consolidation
Online scheduling is a life-saver when your office is closed and when phone lines are tied up, but it also delivers convenience to patients who prefer the flexibility and ease of online scheduling, regardless of the time of day.
3.) Automate follow-up care
Communication is the strongest factor in driving patient satisfaction not just during in-person care visits, but post-visit as well. Poor communication at any point of a patient’s care journey can negatively impact how they perceive their overall care experience.
During care visits, patients are often overwhelmed with information. Therefore, automated follow-up care makes it easy for them to clarify misunderstandings, receive medication reminders, and book follow-up appointments if needed.
In addition, if patients have to travel great distances to reach your office, automated follow-up care allows you to check a patient’s progress or symptoms while they receive care from the comfort of their own home.
Providers can telehealth and remote patient monitoring (RPM) to provide healthcare services remotely, including tracking conditions like hypertension, heart failure, and diabetes.
All patients, whether or not they require ongoing treatment, prefer a healthcare provider who follows up with them post-appointment. According to a recent survey, 70% of patients say they’d choose providers based on whether they send email or text message reminders for follow-up care.
Regularly checking up on patients’ progress and feedback also builds patient loyalty and a solid patient-provider relationship.
4.) Check online reviews/ patient feedback
Most people read reviews before deciding on a physician, clinic, or healthcare provider. About 94% of patients today use online reviews to evaluate providers, suggesting the massive role reviews play in shaping the reputation — and continued success — of any healthcare organization.
Online reputation can make or break patient acquisition. Clinic or provider reviews help prospective patients understand the level of care offered and determine which doctors they should select for their needs.
To stay informed, your health system should know what people have to say and respond to online reviews as often as possible. Responding to reviews also provides a valuable opportunity to engage with your patients.
However, negative reviews and ratings can be a valuable source of patient feedback, as they allow you to spot any problem areas and improve your medical practice to increase patient satisfaction.
Professional, ethical, and HIPAA-compliant review responses can help you manage your online reputation and lead patients to form a better opinion about your medical practice.
You can send out a patient survey, a feedback form, or simply ask them to review you on Google or Facebook. For example, practices can ask about any quality issues, access issues, or interpersonal issues, or simply ask how satisfied the patient is with their physician.
Not only will this feedback add to your engagement efforts, but it will also improve your online reputation.
A well-optimized strategy for SEO, digital marketing, follow-up care, and checking patient reviews are top priorities for your healthcare organization. These steps are industry must-haves as more competitors fill the space.
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At Steer Health, we help your organization drive unparalleled growth at every step of the healthcare journey with our platform and multiple solutions.
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