Understanding the Importance of Quality Care
Maintaining patients can be difficult, but is paramount to the success of any medical practice. Many factors are involved when patients find a new medical provider, including scheduling convenience, wait times, doctor reviews, and insurance coverage. Finding and organizing specialized systems for all these factors can take time, but once established, it can improve patient retention.
Whether your practice is just getting off the ground or is experiencing difficulty with patient retention, this article is for you. We will be discussing the most important factors that patients are looking for in 2024 medical practices, as well as how you can achieve success in the current landscape.
NewGen Marketing is a premier marketing agency consisting of top healthcare industry professionals and strategists who predict, monitor, and specialize in modern marketing approaches. Together, we work with clients to understand their goals and utilize our diverse knowledge base to curate a specialized approach that is sure to help them maintain patients and become a notable brand within the industry.
Why Patient Retention is More Important than Patient Acquisition
To understand the importance of patient retention, it is essential to understand the financial discrepancy between maintaining and acquiring patients. Acquiring new patients can be a costly endeavor for healthcare providers, as it requires a combination of campaigns, advertising expenses, and other communication efforts. Although these systems are important for continuous growth, focusing efforts on patient retention is significantly more affordable, doable, and maintainable for a long period of time.
By optimizing internal systems such as prioritizing attentive, quality patient care and expanding communication efforts, healthcare brands can improve patient retention in a significant way. Additionally, honing in efforts on patient satisfaction can actually generate additional leads, due to more positive patient testimonials, and referrals to friends and family.
Finding a healthy balance between acquisition and retention is a difficult but necessary feat. With our extensive experience working with various healthcare brands, we know that patience, time, and dedication allow practices to find ways to maintain patients while also achieving affordable ways to acquire them as well.
Making Adjustments to Improve Patient Retention
Understanding that critique and change are necessary for growth is a necessary part of running any successful business, specifically within the healthcare industry. At any point in owning a healthcare brand, you will have unhappy patients who will leave negative reviews, and this is something to take into account.
Brutally honest comments allow your brand to understand your patients’ frustrations and expectations and can be a guiding light when it comes to making adjustments. Let’s be honest, there are always improvements that need to be made within any business. The key is to identify the changes that have the highest potential to improve the patient experience, which will ultimately improve your ROI and lead to an overall more stable practice.
Now that we have covered the significance of patient retention and its fiscal impact on your practice, we can get into the good stuff. Here are five ways to improve patient retention.
1. Expand Communication Touchpoints
Expanding communication touchpoints is one of the most important and effective ways to increase patient retention. Expanding patient coordination specialists to various platforms can help you reach patients from all over. Many healthcare practices focus their communication efforts in one or two places. By opening up communication and finding modern ways to reach patients, retention becomes much easier.
We recommend that practices find ways to have a platform on a diverse range of touchpoints. From traditional areas like call centers and email to more modern ones like social media and medical apps, occupying these channels can make all the difference.
2. Spend Time Ensuring Quality Patient Care
As healthcare professionals, it is crucial to prioritize patient care as it not only enhances the quality of life for our patients but also builds trust and support with them. By dedicating time to providing personalized and attentive care, we can better understand our patients’ needs, offer tailored treatment plans, and improve their overall satisfaction with the healthcare experience. Additionally, a more tailored patient experience can encourage patients to leave positive testimonials and reviews which can help during the patient acquisition process.
3. Minimize Wait Times
Identifying strategies to minimize wait times, both for scheduling and in the waiting room, is a huge factor in patient satisfaction. One effective approach is optimizing appointment scheduling by implementing advanced booking systems and allowing patients to schedule appointments online. Additionally, practices can utilize electronic medical records to streamline patient check-in processes and reduce paperwork delays. Another crucial factor in reducing wait times is improving staff communication and coordination to ensure that patients are seen promptly upon arrival.
4. Optimize Your Office Hours
Optimizing office hours is crucial for patient retention as it demonstrates a commitment to providing convenient and accessible healthcare services. By streamlining appointment scheduling, extending hours of operation, and offering flexible options such as telehealth visits, medical practices can better accommodate the busy schedules of their patients. This not only enhances patient satisfaction but also fosters loyalty by showing understanding and consideration for their time constraints.
5. Follow-Up with Patients
Creating a plan to call patients after appointments is an essential step in patient retention. This lets them know that you are thinking of them and helps to continue the conversation after the appointment. Whether you call to check in after treatment or a procedure, discuss test results, or schedule a follow-up appointment, this approach is sure to keep patients engaged.
Healthcare Marketing with NewGen Marketing
NewGen Marketing is a modern marketing agency with professionals from everywhere in the field. From a creative team of content writers to our experienced call center team, we have it all. Are you looking for ways to improve the function of your healthcare practice? Connect with NewGen today.