Webinar Transcript
Starting Up Your Own Medical or Dental Practice

good afternoon and welcome to our webinar
setting up a new medical practice during covid 19.
my name is kate and i will be moderating
our session today
we will wait a few minutes before we
start the actual presentation to give
others time to join
meanwhile i’ll go over the house rules
you can download the presentation for
this webinar from the right side of your screen
we will also be sharing a recording of
the session with you within the next 48 hours
we will have a q & a session at the end so
please send in all your questions
00:42
by using the comment section below in
00:45
case
00:45
we are unable to take all your questions
00:47
today we will make sure that the email
00:49
replies to you
00:50
as soon as possible
00:54
our panelists today are marianne lambert
00:56
from software finder
00:58
and mr crawford ifland founder and ceo
01:02
of messenger healthcare marketing a
01:05
leading healthcare practice marketing
01:07
company
01:07
in the us marianne has
01:11
over 10 plus years of health i.t
01:13
consulting
01:14
and vendor assessment experience under
01:16
her belt
01:18
she is your go-to person for
01:19
understanding health care reform
01:22
and technology pitfalls while mr ifland
01:25
has over 12 years experience
01:27
creating marketing strategies for
01:30
healthcare providers and
01:31
organizations clients range from single
01:34
physician offices
01:36
to multi-physician practices and
01:38
hospitals
01:40
thank you crawford and marion for
01:42
joining us today
01:45
i am now going to forward the controls
01:46
over to the speaker
01:48
it’s all your marianne
01:52
thank you so much kate for the brief
01:54
introduction
01:55
and thank you ladies and gentlemen for
01:57
taking our time on your busy tuesday
01:59
afternoon to be a part of this
02:00
presentation
02:02
um i’m going to try my best in order to
02:04
make it worthwhile
02:06
in the limited time that i’ve been given
02:09
in case you guys have detailed questions
02:12
about the subject matter that we’ll be
02:14
engaging with
02:14
today you guys will receive
02:18
certain recommended resources by the end
02:21
of this presentation
02:22
that you can use in order to explore the
02:24
subject matter further
02:26
you can also send us queries in the con
02:28
through the contact information that
02:29
we’ll be sharing by the end of the
02:31
presentation
02:33
before i start i’m just putting a
02:35
disclaimer out there
02:36
that the information that we’re going to
02:38
be sharing with you today is just a
02:40
guideline
02:40
and should not be used as a substitute
02:43
for legal or financial advice
02:46
uh moving on uh we have divided today’s
02:49
presentation
02:50
into three particular sections whereby
02:53
in the first two sections i will be
02:55
talking about the basic business
02:57
components and strategies for success
02:59
for
02:59
any organization we will also be sharing
03:03
a checklist with timelines rough
03:05
timelines that you require
03:07
for opening up a new practice we will
03:10
primarily be giving you
03:11
things that you need to do prior to six
03:14
months of opening up your practice
03:16
you can then go ahead and choose what
03:18
works for you depending on your current
03:20
situation
03:21
we will then be joined by mr crawford
03:24
inland
03:24
um to explain to you some of the key
03:27
marketing concepts and how to implement
03:29
them in order to start getting more
03:31
patients in your practice
03:33
finally we will have a brief q a session
03:35
where we will try to answer as many
03:37
questions as possible
03:39
so let’s start um the first and foremost
03:43
thing to understand
03:44
is when you’re thinking of opening up a
03:46
medical practice
03:47
you have to think of you know a life
03:50
which is much beyond
03:52
being a medical provider only you have
03:54
to think like an entrepreneur
03:56
a lot of times at first glance opening
03:58
up a practice might seem pretty
04:00
straightforward
04:01
you need to get the money you have to
04:03
find a location
04:04
register your business inform insurances
04:08
hire staff open house wait for the
04:10
referrals to roll in see patients and
04:12
get paid
04:14
however um if there’s anything that
04:16
we’ve learned
04:17
in um you know in 2020 and this pandemic
04:20
is that things hardly go our way so
04:23
in real life this is what you know
04:25
opening up a new
04:26
medical practice might look like there
04:28
might be a lot of confusion
04:30
everything and anything that can go
04:32
wrong may go wrong
04:34
so the important thing that we need to
04:35
do is that we need to
04:38
consider the fact that life can happen
04:41
and we need to plan for it and be
04:43
prepared for side steps and setbacks
04:46
so how do you prepare for it the first
04:48
and foremost thing that any business
04:50
whether it’s a medical practice or a
04:52
garments factory
04:54
need to consider is to set up a business
04:56
plan for starting up your business
04:59
now a business plan is important however
05:02
the surprising thing is that most of the
05:05
businesses
05:06
including medical practices when they’re
05:07
thinking of opening up
05:09
they hardly take out the time to plan a
05:12
cohesive
05:13
business arrangement or a business plan
05:16
that’s going to guide them
05:17
that is one of the reasons why 80 of
05:20
medical practices new medical practices
05:23
and these are real statistics
05:24
tend to fail in the first one to two
05:26
years of opening
05:28
up while 100 of them thought that
05:30
they’re going to be successful
05:32
so even though it’s good to be confident
05:35
it’s always better to do your homework
05:37
and to be prepared for everything that
05:39
can happen
05:40
now a business plan is important
05:42
primarily for three reasons
05:44
the first and foremost reason is that it
05:46
indicates your seriousness to yourself
05:48
to your shareholders to the funding
05:51
agencies as well as investors
05:53
that you’re serious about doing your
05:55
business two
05:57
you will require a business plan in
05:59
order to create a performer
06:01
that the banks will require
06:04
uh when you basically submit an
06:06
application in order to get funding
06:08
in order to get a line of credit so you
06:11
require a business plan from the let go
06:13
and the third reason is that it’s going
06:15
to outline all the strategic goals and
06:17
finances
06:18
that you will require in order to build
06:20
a successful business
06:22
so moving on a business plan does not
06:25
have to be
06:26
you know one shoe fits all you can find
06:28
numerous templates online that you can
06:30
go ahead and utilize
06:32
and the most important thing that you
06:33
need to remember is that it needs to
06:35
reflect that you have done your
06:37
digital diligence in researching and
06:39
planning your business
06:40
so what i’m going to share with you
06:42
today are some of the key components
06:44
that should be a part of your business
06:45
plan
06:46
we will then go over some of the things
06:48
that you need to include this business
06:49
plan in order to make it a successful
06:51
one
06:52
and to ensure that your investors even
06:55
your human resource
06:56
understand that you’re serious about
06:57
your business and the chances of
06:59
succeeding in this business are going to
07:00
be higher the first and foremost thing
07:03
is the executive summary
07:05
now like the first paragraph of a good
07:07
novel it needs to
07:08
catch the eye of the reader so you don’t
07:11
want it to be long
07:12
you don’t want it to be boring you want
07:14
to keep it short you need to keep it
07:16
memorable
07:16
but most importantly you need to share
07:19
all the important details
07:20
such as what is the location going to be
07:23
like what are the number of providers
07:25
that are going to be there
07:26
what are the specialties that you guys
07:27
are going to cover and first and
07:29
foremost what
07:30
is the competitive advantage that you’re
07:31
going to have in comparison to all the
07:33
other practices
07:34
that might exist in your area the second
07:37
thing
07:38
that you need to add in your business
07:39
plan is a company overview
07:42
now for existing practices that are
07:44
looking to open a new
07:46
location or for somebody who’s already
07:48
done this before
07:49
it can be a brief history of your
07:51
company of your practice
07:53
it can be about what are some of the
07:54
things that you’ve done the legal entity
07:56
that you are
07:58
but for a person who’s opening a
07:59
practice for the first time
08:01
or for a new doctor this will have to
08:04
focus on what your qualifications are
08:06
and what are some of the accomplishments
08:08
that you have had the idea
08:10
is that you want to increase the
08:11
confidence that an investor or a sponsor
08:15
is going to have as far as your company
08:17
is concerned because they’re going to
08:18
put their money in this particular
08:19
organization
08:20
and they need to know that their money
08:22
is going to be safe so keep that in mind
08:24
when you’re building a competitor a
08:26
company analysis
08:27
the third portion of a business plan is
08:30
an industry analysis
08:31
in your scenario it basically talks
08:33
about how many doctors and medical
08:35
providers are in the region
08:37
and how many of them are in the
08:39
specialty that you practice
08:41
a second thing that you can talk about
08:43
is for example what is the market like
08:46
for solo practices or smaller practices
08:48
are they shrinking are there more are
08:50
there other opportunities available for
08:52
them
08:53
you might also want to engage with where
08:55
the environment is going for example
08:57
nowadays it’s covet 19
08:59
which means that it definitely is going
09:01
to have an impact as far as how you plan
09:03
your business
09:04
uh what are some of the funding things
09:06
that you keep in mind uh whether it is a
09:08
good idea at the end of the day to open
09:10
a solo practice or whether it would be
09:12
you know better to go for a hospital
09:15
owned practice
09:16
considering the environment that we
09:17
exist in today similarly
09:19
you might want to talk about the tele
09:21
medicine aspect of
09:22
you know servicing your patients so all
09:25
of these things
09:26
all of these trends that you see in your
09:28
particular sector
09:29
are things that you need to cover in
09:31
your industry analysis
09:33
the next thing is a customer analysis
09:36
now this is something
09:37
that um most people don’t do uh it is
09:40
important because at the end of the day
09:42
um your patient uh volume and your
09:45
patient satisfaction will depend on how
09:47
much you understand them
09:48
so you need to put in the demographics
09:50
of your target population
09:52
um are you going to be dealing with
09:54
young people are you going to be there
09:56
dealing with old people
09:57
would tell you medicine would at the end
09:59
of the day be a good fit for you if most
10:01
of the patients that you’re dealing with
10:02
are going to be 65 and above
10:04
so those are some of the things that you
10:06
need to cover in your customer analysis
10:08
and you need to clearly outline
10:12
what is it that you’re going to do which
10:14
is going to appeal to this particular
10:16
demographic
10:17
just saying that you’re a good medical
10:19
provider or you’re good at your job
10:21
is not going to cut it especially if
10:23
you’re trying to get investors on board
10:25
so be very clear on what you have to
10:27
offer as a new practice
10:28
that maybe your competitors don’t which
10:32
brings us to another important part of
10:34
your business plan
10:35
which is the competitive analysis now
10:37
you need to talk about the direct
10:38
competitors
10:39
which could be other doctors in your
10:42
area that do the same thing
10:43
or other practices in your area that do
10:46
the same thing
10:47
you need to consider the indirect
10:49
competitors these are
10:51
organizations that provide care for
10:53
example
10:54
if somebody comes to you with back pain
10:56
they might be going to a spa or they
10:58
might be going to an acupuncturist’s
11:00
office before coming to you
11:02
so those are all direct competitors in
11:04
your competitive analysis
11:06
you need to cover what is it that makes
11:09
them special
11:10
do they have a first movers advantage
11:12
that you don’t
11:13
and then you need to outline what is it
11:15
that you’re going to do
11:16
in order to combat the competitive
11:18
advantage that these people are going to
11:20
have
11:21
think about it and it’s also important
11:24
for you
11:24
uh when it comes to credentialing for
11:28
example so um one of the things that we
11:31
always recommend when somebody is
11:32
thinking about
11:33
credentialing their practice is to have
11:35
a better understanding of the plans
11:38
that surgical centers hospitals other
11:40
practices
11:41
near you for example are using and you
11:44
should put that in your competitor
11:45
analysis
11:46
because at the end of the day if you’re
11:48
the only provider who’s not
11:50
in network uh with these particular
11:53
plans
11:53
then there’s a high probability that the
11:55
patients in that area would rather
11:57
prefer to go to those practices than
11:59
yours because you’re going to be
12:00
relatively expensive
12:01
so that is some of the key details that
12:04
you should be thinking about when you’re
12:05
doing your competitor analysis
12:08
the next thing is to look at the
12:09
marketing plan um this is something that
12:12
crawford will be talking to you in
12:14
detail
12:14
so i’m not really going to go into much
12:16
detail here but the simple thing is
12:18
you need to under understand what the
12:20
product is uh what are some of the
12:22
services that you’re offering
12:24
are you selling something to the
12:26
audience for example if you’re in
12:27
optometry practice
12:28
you might have glasses um you know lens
12:31
etc that you’re selling so all of those
12:33
things need to be pointed out here
12:35
what is the pricing going to be like
12:37
what are the average pricing
12:39
in the area that you guys have had what
12:41
are the insurances plan
12:42
offering you so all of that information
12:44
needs to be a part of your marketing
12:46
plan
12:47
um moving forward um
12:51
the operations plan is equally important
12:54
now the key operational process is
12:57
basically
12:58
the day-to-day account of how you would
13:00
run your office
13:02
uh what staff you’re going to hire what
13:04
is a day
13:05
in your office going to look like how
13:07
are the patients going to be come in how
13:10
are they going to be treated
13:11
is there going to be a sort of
13:14
assessment before you hire you get new
13:16
patients
13:17
all of those things need to be outlined
13:18
in the operational plan
13:21
as part of the operational plan the
13:23
number second thing that you need to do
13:25
is also have mitigating circumstances so
13:28
what are some of the risks etc that your
13:30
practice is going to face
13:32
what are some of the things that you’re
13:33
going to do about it
13:35
moving forward um
13:38
the most important thing and the final
13:41
thing that you’re going to have
13:42
is the financial plan what is your
13:45
revenue model
13:46
for most practices this is going to be
13:48
fee for service
13:50
are you going to think about opening up
13:52
a concierge practice
13:54
so you need to highlight where the
13:56
revenue for your practice is going to
13:57
come from
13:58
the financial highlights what are the
14:01
expenses going to be like
14:03
what is the debt situation as far as
14:04
you’re concerned and also what is the
14:07
expected revenue
14:08
at least for the first one to three
14:10
years before your revenue kicks in
14:12
all of this information needs to be a
14:14
part of the financial plan
14:16
the most important thing is again the
14:18
funding requirements
14:20
what is the money that you require in
14:22
order to open the practice
14:24
even though this may vary between one
14:26
practice to the other
14:28
a lot of consultants believe that a
14:30
rough estimate would be
14:32
you might require a hundred thousand
14:33
dollars um for buying equipment and
14:36
basic startup cost
14:38
apart from that you might also require a
14:40
hundred thousand dollars as line of
14:41
credit
14:42
for payroll processing and basic working
14:44
capital that you’re going to require
14:46
now if you have the money um with you
14:50
uh that’s that’s that’s great but if you
14:53
don’t then you will need to find
14:55
um some sort of loans or financial
14:59
backing as far as this is concerned now
15:01
we’re going to be doing
15:02
uh webinars in the future that’s going
15:04
to cover this particular
15:06
topic but i’m just going to share a few
15:08
tips here as far as funding is concerned
15:11
um so to get the funding you need to
15:14
create a proforma
15:16
either yourself or by getting an
15:18
accountant on board
15:19
a performer is really a synthesized
15:22
version of your business plan
15:24
and when you’re creating it some of the
15:26
tips that you should remember
15:28
is a do not submit the performer only to
15:31
one bank
15:32
so find at least five to ten different
15:34
banks that you want to submit it to
15:36
which will increase your chances of
15:38
getting better terms from these bank
15:40
as compared to just submitting it to one
15:42
or two
15:43
the second thing is whether you’ll be
15:45
able to get funding really depends on
15:47
your credit worthiness
15:49
and if you’re a new provider you might
15:52
have a lot of
15:53
you know medical school loans which is
15:55
going to have a negative impact on that
15:58
but there’s certain banks such as the
16:00
bank of america and well fargo
16:02
that have specific medical practice
16:05
loans so i would really advise you to
16:08
reach out to them
16:09
and to ask them what are those medical
16:11
practice loans because they have been
16:13
devised for your particular
16:15
scenario only and they’re better terms
16:17
as compared to a normal small business
16:19
loan
16:20
so reach out to them and try to see if
16:23
that is something that you can secure
16:24
for yourself
16:25
um another thing to remember is while
16:28
you’re building your proforma or your
16:29
financials
16:31
be conservative now bankers have an eye
16:35
for your bs they understand if the
16:38
numbers that you’re providing them are
16:39
inflated
16:40
so when you’re talking about your
16:42
expenses your
16:44
revenue projections for the next three
16:46
years as well as the debt scenario for
16:48
your practice
16:49
make sure that you are giving
16:51
conservative figures and then try to
16:53
stick to those conservative figures
16:55
so if you need to buy furniture it
16:57
doesn’t have to be plush leather
16:58
furniture for your first practice
17:00
so keep all of those things mind because
17:02
they will increase your chances
17:04
in order to get uh you know better
17:06
turnaround from the organizations
17:08
and plan that this might this process of
17:11
securing funding
17:13
might take some time so it can take
17:14
between one to three months
17:16
depending on how quickly you’re able to
17:19
reach energy arrangement for the bank
17:20
so make sure that you give yourself
17:22
enough time before opening your practice
17:25
so that you are able to secure good
17:27
funding
17:28
the final part of your business plan is
17:30
the supporting documentation
17:32
um i’ve discussed a lot of things that
17:34
you need to do and once we go over the
17:36
checklist of the things that you need to
17:38
do you will have a better understanding
17:39
of what supporting documentations you
17:41
need to have
17:43
now when it comes to the checklist um
17:46
what we’ve done
17:47
is that we have um included all the 59
17:51
steps that you need to do
17:53
six months prior to opening up your
17:55
practice um
17:56
i’m not going to go into a lot of
17:58
details about everything
18:00
we are going to share resources about
18:01
some of these things that you can engage
18:03
with
18:04
and remember that these might the time
18:06
phrase might change depending on your
18:08
current circumstances
18:10
but when it comes to six months before
18:12
opening your practice
18:13
the first thing you need to do is get
18:15
all your paperwork in order
18:17
you need to obtain the state medical
18:19
license if you’re going to do
18:20
telemedicine as well
18:22
make sure that you’re licensed in all
18:24
states where you intend to see your
18:25
patients
18:26
you have to select an attorney an
18:28
accountant
18:29
you need to determine your practice
18:32
entity
18:32
you need to choose an appropriate
18:34
practice name develop a logo
18:36
determine your financial resources
18:38
available what are the resources you
18:40
have
18:41
what is the funding that you require how
18:43
do you intend to it
18:44
require it you might want to develop a
18:46
budget um
18:48
and come up with the cash flow
18:49
projections if you have an accountant on
18:52
board
18:52
that would really really help you to get
18:54
this sorted and the last thing you need
18:56
to do six months before is to determine
18:58
an appropriate physician compensation
19:03
the next thing that you need to
19:05
accomplish five months before opening up
19:07
your practice
19:08
is to apply for federal employer id
19:14
apply for state unemployment and income
19:16
tax numbers
19:17
determine what your practice location is
19:19
going to be now these things are
19:21
important because you really cannot
19:23
start the credentialing process before
19:25
all of this information is in place
19:27
uh you need to come up with a loan
19:29
proposal which is the performer that
19:31
we’re talking about
19:32
open up a bank account um decide on lab
19:35
complexity finalize and layout of your
19:38
practice determine site or office
19:39
improvements that you need
19:41
is that going to be a new office that
19:42
you’re building are you going to improve
19:44
on an existing building
19:45
all of those things need to be sorted
19:47
out at least five months prior to
19:48
opening up
19:51
some of the other things that you need
19:52
to do ideally negotiate the
19:55
leasehold agreement reserve office phone
19:57
and fax numbers
19:58
obtain your mpi numbers and then start
20:01
the
20:02
enrollment and commercial with
20:03
government payers now credentialing
20:06
and contracting with insurances is one
20:08
of the most important things that you
20:10
will be required to do
20:11
and even though we’re not going to go in
20:13
a lot of details here
20:15
some of the things that you need to
20:16
remember it takes around about
20:18
three to six months in order to get all
20:21
your
20:22
you know in order to get all this work
20:24
sorted uh some pairs
20:26
allow you to do this online while with
20:28
others you need to engage on paper
20:30
so make sure that you have enough time
20:33
in order to get this sorted
20:35
one thing to remember here is have your
20:38
paperwork in order you will require
20:40
maybe your cv
20:41
you will require you know your bank
20:43
account details your licenses
20:45
all of this information should be in
20:47
place before you start the credentialing
20:48
process
20:49
another thing to remember as far as
20:51
credentialing is concerned
20:57
yes another thing to remember why this
20:59
is concerned
21:00
is that you might want to outsource it
21:04
to a third entity
21:06
the problem with that is that it might
21:08
be expensive um
21:09
there are a lot of people who will help
21:11
you do this and it generally costs
21:12
around three thousand dollars
21:14
so doing it on your own or hiring a
21:17
biller
21:18
early on that has an understanding of
21:20
these particular plans
21:21
would be a good thing for you uh the
21:24
next thing
21:25
get proper insurance coverage you
21:26
require business liability malpractice
21:29
workers compensation disability and life
21:31
insurance is in place
21:33
you will also need to compile a list of
21:34
in-house laptops what are the ones that
21:36
you’re going to be doing in-house what
21:38
are the ones that you need to register
21:39
with
21:40
as far as your other labs are concerned
21:42
then acquire a telephone system
21:46
some other things that you need to think
21:47
about within the four-month plan
21:50
i’m not going to go into a lot of
21:51
details as we’re running out of time
21:53
is to think about the technology as well
21:55
as the supplies that you require
21:56
what is the equipment that you need to
21:58
purchase do you need lab coats
22:00
or do you require an emr system do you
22:03
require a medical billing software what
22:05
are the communication tools that you’re
22:06
going to be using
22:08
all of these things need to you need to
22:09
start thinking about them four months in
22:11
advance
22:12
because it might take one or two months
22:13
to secure a
22:15
you know a system that you really like
22:17
uh three months before opening your
22:18
practice
22:19
you need to start thinking about uh
22:21
hiring new resources
22:22
and whether marketing your practice so
22:25
it looks like putting ads out there
22:27
conducting
22:27
interviews determining the fee schedule
22:30
ordering stationaries
22:31
ordering your cpt and icd-10 coding
22:34
books
22:35
coming up with a patient intake form
22:38
patient education material all of those
22:40
things should be developed start
22:42
developed in on the third month in the
22:44
second month you might want to meet up
22:46
with potential referral sources
22:48
develop employee job descriptions
22:50
develop patient information
22:52
make sure that you are in compliance
22:54
with all bodies such as
22:56
hipaa osha clia so make sure you have
23:00
compliance plans in place
23:02
and one month before that make sure that
23:05
you
23:05
hired your front end staff your back
23:07
office staff
23:08
you have assembled patient registration
23:10
packets you have a collection agency in
23:12
place a medical billing service in place
23:14
a janitorial and laundry and security
23:16
service in place
23:17
and finally two weeks before you open
23:21
up you should start accepting
23:22
appointments and you start should start
23:24
training your staff now i haven’t been
23:27
able to
23:28
go into a lot of details but we’re going
23:29
to be doing uh future webinars on
23:31
credentialing as well as
23:33
funding for your practice so you guys
23:35
can get more information there
23:37
finally uh we the sponsor that we have
23:40
today
23:41
is of also offering a three percent um
23:46
the three percent charge for people who
23:48
want to outsource their rcm services as
23:50
well as if they want to do their
23:51
credentialing
23:52
to this billing docs which is our
23:54
sponsor today
23:55
you guys may want to reach out to them
23:58
and see if this is something that you
23:59
want to do
24:01
now without any further delay i’m going
24:03
to hand over the controls to crawford to
24:05
really talk about how to get the
24:07
patients rolling in
24:08
over to your crawford
24:11
all right well thank you marian and kate
24:14
and the
24:15
entire software finder team for having
24:18
me be a part of this today
24:20
let me just pull up my screen here and
24:23
we can get going
24:26
so marketing your practice um as
24:29
marianne mentioned
24:30
i am crawford ifland and i am the ceo
24:33
and founder of messenger healthcare
24:36
marketing
24:37
um and a little bit about us so
24:40
we were founded in 2012 and we focus
24:43
exclusively on digital strategies for
24:46
healthcare providers so we really aim to
24:49
be
24:50
a one-stop shop for private practices
24:53
to acquire more patients so the way we
24:56
operate
24:56
we have a distributive team of experts
25:00
in their respective fields
25:01
so from seo to paid advertising
25:04
campaigns
25:05
brand identity design and much much more
25:08
we have people who can help in pretty
25:09
much every arena
25:11
of marketing your practice and if a
25:14
practice is looking for something that
25:15
we might not
25:16
do we do have a vast network of
25:19
contractors and freelancers
25:21
so we can definitely connect you with
25:23
somebody who does
25:25
our agency is a certified google partner
25:27
so
25:28
all of our experts have passed google
25:30
product certification exams
25:32
and are up to date on the latest
25:34
knowledge and healthcare marketing
25:36
is all we do and all we focus on
25:40
so you want to set up a new practice
25:42
where do you begin
25:44
well as marianne mentioned there are
25:46
many considerations to take into account
25:48
as you get started on this journey
25:51
things like developing a business plan
25:53
negotiating
25:54
leases for office space staffing your
25:57
practice
25:58
who do you need and how much you gonna
26:00
pay them you also have to think through
26:02
things like funding and credit
26:04
considerations
26:05
partnerships with banks getting the
26:07
right financing
26:08
for your new practice and of course
26:10
that’s not to mention the pandemic that
26:13
we all
26:13
find ourselves in right now but unless
26:16
patients actually
26:17
show up it’s all for naught patients are
26:21
the lifeblood of your practice
26:23
because without a steady flow of
26:25
patients coming
26:26
through the door each and every month
26:28
you’re not going to be in business for
26:30
long
26:31
and because of that getting patients is
26:33
the biggest challenge
26:34
facing every new practice and with that
26:38
goes some good news and some bad news
26:41
the bad news is that
26:42
that challenge never really goes away if
26:44
you want your practice to grow
26:46
you need that consistent pipeline of
26:48
patient leads coming in the door every
26:50
month
26:51
but the good news is that there are high
26:54
roi strategies out there
26:56
that can deliver new patients to your
26:58
practice
26:59
and the challenge is finding the right
27:01
mix for your practice
27:03
and getting your marketing channels on
27:05
autopilot and that’s what we’re going to
27:06
look at a little bit today
27:08
but first let’s start off by looking at
27:11
where we are
27:12
and some of the challenges that covid19
27:15
has presented to the healthcare
27:17
community
27:18
now there are many challenges facing
27:21
both new
27:22
and established practices alike this
27:25
spring we saw
27:26
lots of mandatory government shutdowns
27:28
and pauses in
27:29
elective surgeries in particular and
27:32
some states are shutting down
27:33
again as we see numbers rise there have
27:36
been ebbs and flows of case numbers and
27:38
it’s
27:39
very dependent on where you live and
27:41
where your practice is located
27:43
if you’re in new york right now you’ve
27:45
probably fingers crossed already seen
27:47
the worst
27:48
of it but if you’re in another place
27:50
like florida or
27:51
texas it’s a very different story
27:54
and that’s not to mention business
27:55
challenges we’ve seen lots of practices
27:58
furlough or lay off their staff entirely
28:01
lots of tightening of credit and
28:03
contraction of revenue
28:05
as practices have had to pause their
28:07
operations
28:09
and when you do open there are new
28:11
operating procedures
28:12
all around things like mandatory face
28:15
masks
28:16
social distancing within the practice a
28:18
lot of practices are shifting to
28:20
telemedicine
28:20
for screenings before a patient ever
28:23
comes in
28:24
and it’s because of this that there’s
28:26
really never been a more challenging
28:28
time
28:29
to be in medicine i mean i’ve talked to
28:31
many doctors who have been in business
28:33
for over 30 years
28:34
and they’ve said this pandemic is the
28:37
hardest thing that they’ve ever
28:38
experienced
28:40
but as a new practice there’s never been
28:42
a better opportunity to set your brand
28:44
apart
28:45
kovid in many ways is leveling the
28:48
playing field for new practices
28:50
some legacy practices have taken kovid
28:53
as an implement
28:55
excuse me as an impetus to wind down
28:58
their operations entirely
29:00
and others are exiting the advertising
29:02
market for the time
29:03
being to kind of save their revenue now
29:06
i don’t want to come off as if i’m
29:08
celebrating any of these things
29:10
obviously it’s a very hard situation for
29:13
many people
29:14
around the country and around the world
29:17
but
29:17
those factors are an opportunity for new
29:20
practices like yours
29:22
to establish your brand and set yourself
29:24
apart
29:26
so let’s talk about branding for a
29:27
minute and first we’ll start off
29:29
with the question what is a brand now
29:33
when you try to answer this question
29:34
there are lots of misconceptions out
29:36
there
29:37
probably the one we hear most often is
29:39
oh your brand is just your logo
29:41
well that’s not true your logo is part
29:44
of your brand
29:45
but it’s just one of many parts
29:48
in reality your brand is what your
29:51
patients
29:51
say it is amazon’s ceo jeff
29:55
bezos has been quoted as saying your
29:57
brand is what other people say about you
29:59
when you’re not in the room and at
30:02
messenger
30:03
we like to define a brand as the sum of
30:06
all touch points that patients have with
30:09
your organization
30:11
so this could include pretty obvious
30:13
things like
30:14
your website things like your search
30:17
presence on google
30:18
are you showing up on page one or are
30:20
you on page 10
30:22
this includes your advertising campaigns
30:25
social media and other marketing
30:27
channels as well as
30:29
some intangible things that you might
30:30
not have thought about before
30:32
things like what your office space and
30:34
your waiting room look
30:36
like how does your staff answer the
30:38
phone when a patient calls
30:40
does a patient have to go through a
30:41
phone tree of you know press nine for
30:43
this and press two for this
30:45
or does a real human being pick up on
30:47
the first
30:48
ring as an aside we actually have one of
30:51
our clients
30:52
who moved all of their phones and office
30:55
operations
30:56
to the physical rear of their practice
30:59
so if you were in their waiting room
31:01
you’ll never hear a phone ring it was
31:03
super important to them
31:04
to think through all of the different
31:06
ways that patients
31:07
can interact with their practice take a
31:10
really holistic
31:11
view there and if you want to elevate
31:13
your brand
31:14
and attract new patients it’s all about
31:16
presenting a coherent story
31:19
across all of those touch points even
31:21
the ones that you might not be thinking
31:23
about
31:24
now today we’ll be looking at primarily
31:27
the digital touch points
31:28
and it all starts with your website
31:32
as a physician your website is the
31:34
foundation
31:35
of all of your digital marketing efforts
31:38
nearly
31:38
every patient that you interact with in
31:41
person or
31:41
maybe via telehealth these days they’re
31:44
going to interact with your
31:46
website at some point and if you fail to
31:49
deliver
31:49
an exceptional experience online that
31:52
translates into poor patient perceptions
31:55
of value
31:56
so if you want to attract new patients
31:58
to your brand new practice
32:00
you really need to wow them with your
32:02
website
32:04
now there’s been a big focus on patient
32:06
experience in recent years and
32:08
rightly so and a core belief that we
32:11
hold at messenger
32:13
is that patient experience doesn’t start
32:15
at the door of your office
32:17
oftentimes it starts online well before
32:20
patients
32:20
ever meet you face to face so you need
32:23
to do all of that work to get off on the
32:26
right foot and make a great first
32:28
impression so to do that you need to
32:30
focus on the fundamentals
32:32
and keep patient experience at the heart
32:34
of everything you do
32:36
your website doesn’t have to be terribly
32:38
flashy but it does need to provide a
32:40
good
32:41
experience so how can you make your
32:44
practice website the best it can be
32:47
well first of all your website has to be
32:49
responsive
32:51
and a responsive website is one whose
32:54
content
32:55
rearranges itself to show well on
32:57
devices with
32:58
smaller screen sizes on a desktop a
33:02
block of text
33:03
and a photo might appear side by side
33:05
but if you take that website and look at
33:07
it on a mobile device like an iphone
33:09
that photo will move
33:11
beneath the block of text because that
33:13
screen is so
33:14
narrow so if you’re looking at a
33:16
responsive website
33:17
there’s no small text you don’t need to
33:19
pinch to zoom just to read the things
33:22
you’re usually not going to see a full
33:24
navigation menu
33:25
instead you’ll see an icon to open up a
33:28
menu and conserve
33:29
that real estate on your screen and it’s
33:32
important to note that
33:33
this is just one website it’s not a
33:35
separate mobile website
33:37
so everything operates under one roof
33:41
now responsive design is important
33:43
because of
33:44
patient expectations and mobile internet
33:47
use
33:48
in 2017 mobile traffic was 52
33:51
of all traffic on the internet and that
33:54
number is only
33:55
rising as the years go on now they say
33:58
you never get a second chance to make in
34:00
first
34:00
impression and that’s really true online
34:03
because it only takes
34:04
five one hundredths of a second for our
34:07
brains to process information
34:09
and form an opinion about what we’re
34:11
seeing
34:13
and if that opinion is negative you’re
34:15
really not doing yourself
34:16
any favors just take a look at these
34:18
stats nearly
34:20
three out of five patients won’t
34:22
recommend a business with a poorly
34:24
designed mobile site
34:26
eighty-five percent of patients think
34:28
that a company’s website
34:29
when viewed on a mobile device should be
34:31
as good as
34:32
if not better than its desktop website
34:35
and almost 9 out of 10 patients are less
34:38
likely to return to a site after they’ve
34:40
had a bad experience
34:42
so you need to make sure that it works
34:44
well on all devices
34:47
your website also has to be fast half of
34:50
patients expect a maximum of
34:52
two seconds of loading time for an
34:54
average website
34:56
and four out of five patients eighty
34:58
percent expect the entire website to
35:00
load in
35:01
under four seconds now it’s difficult to
35:05
balance website functionality
35:07
with speed the temptation especially for
35:10
doctors
35:11
is always to add more but it’s important
35:13
to remain
35:14
fast as you do so and that’s especially
35:17
important
35:18
again for mobile devices if you’re at
35:21
home
35:21
on your wi-fi chances are you have a
35:23
fast connection
35:24
but what if you’re out on your phone and
35:27
you’re connected to a cell tower and you
35:28
don’t have that great service
35:30
the website isn’t going to load as
35:32
quickly but the patient expectations
35:34
remain the same so you really need to
35:37
deliver
35:38
and speed is crucial for google too
35:40
which we’ll get into in a little bit
35:43
and the final thing i want to mention or
35:44
the question i want to ask with a
35:46
website
35:47
is should you blog as a doctor
35:50
now our default answer at messenger is a
35:53
resounding
35:54
yes you should blog and have a content
35:56
marketing strategy in
35:58
place and the reason is for seo
36:01
and that brings us to our next strategy
36:03
for patient growth
36:06
now there are a lot of myths and
36:07
misconceptions about
36:09
what seo is but put simply
36:12
it’s just the process of optimizing your
36:14
website
36:15
to appear higher in search engine
36:17
results
36:18
you want to put your best foot forward
36:21
to google and other search engines
36:23
so that they can discover your content
36:25
interact with your website
36:27
and then when a patient is doing a
36:28
search rank you hire
36:31
why does seo matter well the following
36:34
two statistics are really important
36:37
in 2020 eight out of ten patients turn
36:40
to google as their very first step
36:42
in researching health care whether it’s
36:44
a health condition
36:45
a procedure or choosing a new doctor
36:48
and fewer than 1 in 100 patients ever
36:52
clicks through
36:52
to page two of google or beyond
36:56
so if you’re not on page one that means
36:58
missed opportunities
37:00
and missed revenue and as a practice
37:03
that’s
37:03
new to the market you can’t afford any
37:06
unforced errors so seo
37:08
is incredibly important but then the
37:11
question becomes
37:12
how can you deliver a good experience so
37:15
let’s take a look at what google really
37:17
wants
37:18
and there are three things that google
37:20
is looking for on your website
37:22
the first thing is really good on page
37:25
experience
37:26
google and other search engines want to
37:28
see efficient code with no errors they
37:31
want to see a website that looks great
37:32
on mobile devices
37:34
is easy to navigate and one that loads
37:37
quickly we’ve kind of gone over all of
37:38
those patient experience factors
37:40
but they also want to see great content
37:43
in general your content
37:45
through blogging and other content
37:47
marketing needs to be informative for
37:49
the patient
37:50
you have to answer patient questions and
37:52
really fit the search intent of their
37:55
query in order to rank highly
37:58
it also has to be in-depth and
37:59
educational
38:01
google doesn’t rank thin content anymore
38:04
so if you think you’re going to
38:05
get by by just churning out a bunch of
38:07
blog posts that are 150 words and just
38:10
spamming the internet with those
38:11
that doesn’t work anymore your content
38:13
needs to answer the patient’s
38:15
questions adequately and it also has to
38:18
be easy for google to
38:19
index and that plays into the good
38:21
on-page experience
38:23
we just talked about the third thing
38:26
google’s really looking for
38:27
is your good reputation around the web
38:30
so do an audit of what people are saying
38:33
about you
38:33
what are patients saying about you in
38:35
your reviews
38:36
what do third party sites say what kind
38:39
of mentions are you getting around the
38:41
internet and can google and other search
38:43
engines really trust you and this plays
38:46
into two factors
38:48
eat and ymyl
38:51
eat is a major factor in google’s
38:53
algorithm
38:54
these days and it stands for expertise
38:57
authoritativeness and trust if you want
39:00
to rank highly
39:02
google actually has to know that you’re
39:04
an expert that you’re
39:05
authoritative on the topic you’re
39:07
writing about and that what you say
39:10
is trustworthy and that’s because of
39:13
this second
39:14
acronym ymyl healthcare is solidly
39:17
in the ymyl space and it stands for your
39:21
money
39:21
or your life so ymyl
39:24
topics are those that if the information
39:27
is presented
39:28
incorrectly or inadequately it could
39:31
have an
39:32
outsized negative impact on a person’s
39:34
health
39:35
well-being or financial stability
39:38
so because healthcare is in this
39:41
sensitive space
39:42
google is going to hold you to a higher
39:44
standard
39:45
because of the importance of the topic
39:48
they want to know that you’re actually
39:49
an
39:49
expert in your field and that the advice
39:52
that you’re giving
39:53
and the content that you’re creating is
39:56
not only answering
39:57
patients questions but is doing so in a
40:00
way that’s helpful and it’s not going to
40:02
harm anyone
40:03
down the road so let’s take a look at
40:06
how
40:06
seo works so as a doctor you create
40:10
content
40:11
and put it on your website this could be
40:13
information about the services you offer
40:16
blog posts maybe podcast episodes or
40:19
frequently asked questions and then
40:22
google comes in
40:23
and crawls your website finds that new
40:25
content that you’ve written
40:27
and indexes it away for future use
40:30
then someday a patient comes along and
40:33
does a search
40:34
and hopefully google surfaces your
40:37
website as the
40:38
most relevant result for that patient’s
40:40
query
40:42
seo is all about giving patients and
40:45
google
40:45
what they want to see and doing that
40:48
legwork to get rewarded for those high
40:51
rankings
40:52
now those three elements of seo a little
40:55
bit of what we just talked about
40:57
there are the on-page factors like your
40:59
website’s design
41:00
code loading time mobile friendliness
41:02
things like that
41:04
there are also your off page factors
41:06
which include
41:07
back links back to your website and
41:09
mentions of your brand around the
41:11
internet
41:12
and then those other factors eit the
41:14
reputation of your brand etc
41:18
google analyzes all of these elements
41:20
and its algorithms find the right place
41:22
for your content to
41:24
rank based on those factors so
41:28
seo sounds pretty wonderful there are
41:30
definitely pros but there are some cons
41:32
too so we’ll get into those here pros
41:36
seo is by far the best way to build
41:38
authority
41:39
in your space and in your market and
41:42
once you’ve earned rankings
41:43
it’s really hard for competitors to
41:45
knock you off that number one spot
41:48
it’s not very likely that competition
41:50
can open up shop down the street
41:52
and instantly be on page one they’ve got
41:54
a long road ahead of them
41:56
and because of that seo really gives a
41:59
long-term
42:00
strategic advantage so it’s very
42:02
beneficial to practices who engage in
42:05
seo campaigns
42:07
but there are some cons too seo
42:10
is definitely a long term strategy there
42:13
are no silver bullets to overnight
42:15
rankings
42:16
and seo requires investments as well
42:20
there’s no four easy payments of 19.99
42:23
to be found here
42:25
most fully managed seo campaigns are
42:27
going to run
42:28
at least a thousand dollars a month if
42:31
not
42:31
more depending on the size of your
42:34
website
42:35
the content that you’re writing how
42:37
competitive your market
42:38
is and a number of other factors and
42:41
it’s really hard to do seo in-house
42:44
so google makes 3 000 algorithm changes
42:47
per
42:48
year and it takes a few hundred hours
42:51
just to get certified
42:52
and learn the tools to actually analyze
42:54
the results that you’re seeing
42:57
so if you don’t live eat and breathe seo
43:00
you’re not very likely to get a payoff
43:03
and when you look at seo it’s really
43:05
important to take the long road
43:07
because it does take time but it can
43:10
deliver really fantastic results
43:13
so let’s take a look at a case study
43:15
this is a client of ours who’s a plastic
43:17
surgeon in a market of about seven and a
43:19
half million people
43:21
their previous seo provider wasn’t
43:24
implementing changes
43:25
in a timely manner their website
43:27
actually got hacked
43:28
during the process and they had lots of
43:30
on-page
43:31
red flags their reputation was just a
43:34
mess
43:35
they weren’t seeing results in their seo
43:38
even though their surgeon had been in
43:39
business for over 25 years
43:41
their rankings were dropping each and
43:43
every month
43:45
so we performed an audit of their
43:47
website and their reputation
43:48
around the internet addressed on-page
43:51
issues to improve
43:52
online patient experience and in the
43:55
process we actually ended up redesigning
43:57
their website to fix some of the issues
43:59
and we began building links to help
44:02
google recognize
44:03
the authority that they brought to the
44:05
table
44:06
and as a result we saw 12
44:09
keywords come on to page one when they
44:12
didn’t have
44:13
any previously before we started working
44:16
in just nine months we saw 127 percent
44:19
improvement in rankings and overall that
44:22
has translated into a 32
44:25
increase in monthly leads so seo has
44:29
been a really great strategy for
44:31
them but it’s just one strategy that you
44:34
can use to
44:35
actually get more patients to your
44:36
practice so next
44:38
we’ll turn our attention to another
44:40
which is pay-per-click
44:42
advertising campaigns now the problem
44:45
for many new practices in particular
44:48
is that you need leads right away but
44:51
seo as we mentioned takes a long time
44:54
and that’s where ppc comes in because it
44:57
can offer
44:58
immediate leads so we’ll take a look at
45:02
how ppc
45:03
works and just as a side note i’ll use
45:06
google as an example when i’m talking
45:08
about ppc
45:09
because google is by far the largest
45:11
advertising platform
45:13
out there but pretty much all of the
45:15
major ad platforms
45:16
work the same way so if you hear me say
45:19
google the same
45:20
applies to go and bing and other search
45:24
engines
45:24
ad platforms so a patient performs a
45:28
search on google
45:29
they type in maybe something like lasik
45:31
surgeon near me
45:33
google looks through its index of
45:35
advertisers who have bid
45:37
on that keyword and said hey when
45:39
somebody types this in i want to appear
45:42
they run an auction to determine whose
45:44
ad shows up first
45:46
above those organic results that come as
45:48
a result of seo
45:50
and then a patient clicks on an ad so
45:53
they click on an ad
45:54
and visit that website now paid ads
45:58
receive 41 of clicks on
46:01
google and the majority of patients
46:03
click on the very first thing that they
46:05
see that
46:06
answers their question or matches that
46:08
search intent
46:09
regardless of whether it’s an ad or not
46:12
and it’s at this point that the
46:14
advertiser is actually charged that’s
46:16
why it’s called
46:17
pay per click so on the website let’s
46:20
assume that a patient
46:21
fills out a form or submits some kind of
46:24
offer to become a lead this is called a
46:28
conversion
46:29
and over time that advertiser will
46:32
receive
46:33
aggregate data on how much it costs to
46:36
acquire
46:36
a new lead from their advertising
46:38
efforts
46:40
over time they can reinvest profits back
46:42
into ppc
46:44
in the form of higher bids and higher
46:46
budgets
46:47
that leads to more leads and you can get
46:50
that practice
46:51
flywheel spinning so to speak
46:54
the great thing about ppc is that once
46:56
you’ve found a profitable formula
46:59
with your campaigns and your ads and
47:01
your keywords
47:03
it’s practically infinitely scalable so
47:06
we’ve worked with some practices who got
47:08
that flywheel spinning
47:10
and have been spending upwards of 500 a
47:13
day
47:13
on ads because they’re attracting leads
47:16
on a massive
47:17
scale so ppc is a really great place to
47:21
start
47:21
but again there are pros and cons the
47:24
pros
47:26
it’s data driven it’s super easy to
47:28
demonstrate roi
47:30
and with google in particular there are
47:32
lots of opportunities to leverage
47:34
big data artificial intelligence and
47:37
machine learning
47:38
to enhance those opportunities to get
47:41
new
47:41
leads that data driven approach
47:44
lets you have smarter marketing
47:47
decisions
47:48
in the old days it used to be hey we’re
47:51
going to spend a few
47:52
thousand dollars on a campaign and we
47:54
won’t have any results
47:55
for 30 or 60 days and even when the
47:58
results do come back
47:59
we don’t really know how it worked these
48:02
days thanks to
48:03
a b testing of different ads and
48:06
different campaigns
48:07
you can run tests to see which ones
48:10
perform best and make
48:11
changes on the fly so you won’t
48:14
waste as much marketing spent there
48:18
but there are cons of pay-per-click
48:20
campaigns
48:21
you do have to fill that pipeline with
48:23
money every single month
48:25
or else your results are going to dry up
48:27
because as soon as you stop paying
48:29
those leads aren’t coming through the
48:31
door now budgets depend on various
48:34
different factors but for most new
48:37
practices to really see
48:38
results it takes about fifteen hundred
48:41
dollars a month
48:42
at least in ad spend to really move the
48:45
needle
48:46
personally i’m not gonna recommend to
48:48
any client spending
48:49
less than a thousand dollars because at
48:52
that point on a monthly basis
48:54
the insights you’re getting aren’t
48:56
really statistically significant
48:58
and once you’ve spent it you’ve spent it
49:01
if your campaigns aren’t structured
49:03
properly you could be throwing money
49:05
down the drain
49:06
and that’s why it’s really important to
49:08
have clear goals
49:10
and good management in place to get the
49:12
most from your ad spend
49:15
but despite these cons ppc remains the
49:18
number one
49:19
best place for new practices in
49:21
particular to start
49:23
because the roi can be very positive and
49:26
it can happen
49:27
right away so as we wrap up here
49:30
i’ll show just a brief ppc case study
49:34
and this is of a lasik surgeon in a
49:35
market of around a half a million people
49:38
so their previous ppc manager
49:42
was kind of light on implementation and
49:44
it took forever for them to actually get
49:47
changes made to their campaigns it
49:50
wasn’t moving the needle
49:51
and the practice really wasn’t happy
49:52
with their pricing structure either
49:55
this particular ppc manager charged a
49:58
percentage of ad spend
50:00
which a lot of managers in the industry
50:03
do
50:04
so this had the effect of the practice
50:06
being penalized
50:07
in essence for spending more money on
50:10
ads the more they spent
50:12
the more that they were charged as a
50:13
management fee as well
50:16
so we took over management of their ppc
50:18
campaigns
50:19
and thanks to our efforts they’ve seen a
50:21
49 increase in website traffic
50:24
and 154 increase in new
50:27
monthly patient leads and to take
50:31
just a recent three week period as an
50:33
example
50:34
they had one campaign that they spent
50:36
sixteen hundred dollars on
50:38
in the course of three weeks that
50:41
yielded 25 leads
50:43
and with their conversion numbers they
50:45
turned that 1600
50:47
into a 58 000 profit
50:50
which was an roi of nearly 3 500
50:54
actually more than that so ppc can be
50:58
incredibly beneficial to your practice
51:00
and getting new patient leads
51:02
as long as it’s done right
51:05
so to recap what we’ve talked about
51:08
today
51:09
your brand is the sum of all touch
51:12
points that patients have with your
51:14
organization
51:15
and when you’re thinking about your
51:16
brand leave no stone
51:18
unturned consider every single aspect of
51:21
your brand
51:22
and of the experience that patients
51:24
could have
51:26
your website is the starting point for
51:28
all patient interactions
51:30
so you need to focus on the fundamentals
51:33
and providing the best online experience
51:35
possible seo represents the best
51:39
long-term competitive strategy to build
51:42
an enduring healthcare brand
51:44
it takes time but it’s well worth the
51:46
investment in the long run
51:49
ppc on the other hand is the best
51:51
opportunity for immediate patient
51:53
leads and yes it does require continual
51:56
ad spend
51:57
but it can be instantly roi positive and
52:00
it’s very
52:01
data driven if you want to grow your
52:04
practice you need to strike the right
52:05
balance
52:06
between all of these different channels
52:09
take an
52:09
excellent website and back it up with
52:12
the right strategic
52:13
investments in seo for that long term
52:15
competitive advantage
52:17
paired with ppc campaigns for immediate
52:20
patient
52:20
leads over time you can reinvest those
52:23
profits into advertising
52:25
and patient acquisition efforts to get
52:28
that practice flywheel
52:29
spinning faster and faster and if you
52:32
need some help
52:33
we’re more than happy to discuss any of
52:35
our offerings with you
52:37
we specialize in these three things for
52:39
healthcare organizations
52:41
so whether you might want to switch from
52:43
your current marketing provider
52:45
or if you’re just starting a campaign
52:46
for scratch we want to help you
52:48
see see you grow and we do have flexible
52:51
work
52:52
structures as well so we work with
52:54
existing practices
52:56
brand new practices and also alongside
52:58
other marketing consultants
53:01
so for smaller practices oftentimes we
53:04
function as a fully outsourced marketing
53:06
team
53:07
for practices with in-house marketing
53:10
teams
53:10
we partner with them to outsource
53:12
certain channels while
53:14
their in-house team focuses on others
53:17
and if you have a larger marketing team
53:19
that might need guidance or insights
53:21
we also provide marketing consulting to
53:24
help those teams get a
53:25
fresh perspective on how their campaigns
53:28
are going
53:30
i also want to highlight a few offers
53:32
for attendees of this webinar today
53:35
if you have a website but you’re not
53:37
sure how you rank
53:39
we offer a free seo audit of your
53:41
existing website
53:43
to give you a road map on where to go
53:45
next to achieve those higher rankings
53:48
and if you happen to be running any ppc
53:50
campaigns
53:51
already we have a free google ads audit
53:54
that can help you identify room for
53:56
improvement
53:57
and give you again a road map to boost
53:59
that roi
54:01
regardless of where you find yourself
54:04
i’d love to connect with you
54:05
and see how our team can help you grow
54:07
your practice
54:08
so you can contact me via email or on
54:11
twitter
54:12
you can check out our website at
54:14
messenger.md we’ve got tons of practice
54:16
marketing resources on the site
54:19
and if you enjoyed the webinar today you
54:21
can also search for the medical
54:23
marketing podcast
54:24
on spotify apple podcast or wherever you
54:27
like to listen
54:29
we try to put out a new episode every
54:31
week that helps practices
54:33
improve their marketing grow revenue and
54:36
take that patient experience
54:38
to the next level so with that i will
54:41
hand it back over to marianne for some q
54:44
a time
54:48
thank you crawford for the comprehensive
54:50
presentation
54:52
we are now going to answer a few
54:53
questions that have been sent
54:55
by our audience all right so the very
54:58
first question is
55:00
what budget should we put away for
55:02
marketing at the start
55:04
crawford would you like to take this
55:06
question please yeah that’s a really
55:08
good question
55:09
um it’s hard to answer that one off the
55:12
top of my head because every practice is
55:15
so
55:15
unique um different specialties have
55:18
different
55:19
revenue that they make on procedures or
55:22
patient visits or whatnot and it does
55:25
depend on
55:26
what type of marketing mix you want to
55:29
have
55:30
so if you’re going to invest in
55:32
something like ppc campaigns
55:34
i would recommend a minimum of a
55:36
thousand dollars a month
55:37
again depending on your market and the
55:40
size and the competition
55:42
um seo again as i said often
55:45
ends up being at least a thousand
55:47
dollars a month
55:48
to optimize your website and help you
55:51
climb up higher in those rankings
55:53
we see many of practices that we work
55:56
with their overall marketing budget
55:58
is anywhere from three thousand dollars
56:02
at the low end
56:03
um some are spending upwards of ten
56:06
fifteen twenty thousand dollars at the
56:08
high end
56:08
if they have a larger practice or maybe
56:10
a multi-location
56:12
practice in more competitive markets so
56:15
it really does depend um but if you
56:18
start off small
56:19
with a new practice and make those
56:22
investments strategically
56:24
and then really focus on reinvesting
56:27
revenue
56:27
back into marketing as i said in my
56:30
presentation
56:31
that gets the flywheel spinning and it
56:33
just makes those results a lot
56:35
easier to achieve over time
56:40
all right thank you for answering that
56:41
question um
56:43
so the next question we have is from dr
56:45
white he says
56:47
what impact will cover 19 have on
56:50
opening up a practice
56:52
marianne would you like to answer this
56:54
question please um
56:55
yes that’s a good question dr white um
56:58
a few things that we are sure of at this
57:01
point in time
57:02
um definitely nothing is set in gold
57:05
considering the circumstances
57:07
uh the first and foremost thing that you
57:09
need to think about
57:10
is you need to think about uh redefining
57:13
the treatment options that you’re going
57:14
to
57:15
provide to your patients um a lot of
57:17
patients
57:18
are not going to come to your practices
57:20
so having a telemedicine
57:23
option available for them is going to be
57:24
extremely important
57:26
um we need to understand that a lot of
57:28
pairs including
57:30
medicare and medicaid are supporting uh
57:32
providing telehealth
57:33
so if you’re opening up a practice um do
57:36
think about
57:37
deploying telemedicine technology from
57:38
the get go and developing patient
57:40
material
57:41
that will educate them on how to use it
57:44
to their best advantage
57:45
the second thing that you should be
57:47
prepared for is um
57:49
a lot of people have lost their jobs
57:51
which means that um
57:53
a lot of people are going to be losing
57:55
their insurance coverage
57:56
so you need to be prepared to handle um
57:59
a situation where there will be delayed
58:02
patient delayed payments
58:04
um patients uh self-responsibility um
58:08
in your self-payments are going going to
58:11
rise
58:11
in comparison to what you get from
58:13
insurances so you need to make sure
58:15
that your billing department is ready to
58:18
deal with uh
58:19
you know these kind of inflows um apart
58:22
from that
58:22
um if you are in circumstances that you
58:26
uh think that going at it alone is not
58:29
the best thing for you
58:31
um you might want to look at some
58:33
employment and merger opportunities that
58:35
are out there with hospitals or other
58:37
practices
58:38
there are a lot of investment
58:42
equity firms that are also looking to
58:44
buy medical practices
58:45
the issue with that will be that the
58:47
valuation post pandemic is not going to
58:50
be as high as it was before
58:52
so that is one thing that you might want
58:53
to consider um
58:55
you might want to also consider staffing
58:57
models um
58:58
the different things that your staff
59:00
usually does when they’re coming um
59:02
to the office and then they’re
59:04
performing um
59:06
you know at their best the problem is
59:08
that a lot of your staff might not be
59:10
able to come
59:11
a lot of your stuff may have to be
59:12
furloughed so uh
59:14
thinking of how technology can help you
59:16
in those circumstances
59:17
would be something you know would be a
59:20
good consideration to make
59:22
for example if you’re thinking about
59:24
setting up a billing department hiring a
59:25
full-time biller or getting a team to
59:27
come in and then training them
59:29
um it might be worth your while to find
59:31
out find a billing company who can deal
59:33
with it in the beginning rather than
59:34
hiring staff to do it for you
59:36
we’ve already shared you know one of the
59:39
companies that is providing it at three
59:41
percent so you might want to get in
59:42
touch with them
59:43
or if there’s an emr technology company
59:45
that you’re dealing with you might want
59:47
to enter into a medical billing contract
59:48
with them
59:49
where you can get the emr and the
59:50
practice management for free
59:52
um i think that’s about it
59:55
um over to you kate all right thank you
59:58
so much marianne
60:00
so we only have time to take one more
60:02
question and this is from richard
60:04
he says if i did not have a lot of money
60:07
to dedicate to the marketing
60:09
of the practice what are the essential
60:11
steps that i should still invest in
60:14
crawford this one is for you yeah well
60:17
that’s a great question
60:19
um aside from the you know must-have
60:23
of having a website to which to
60:26
send your patients if you have a limited
60:29
budget
60:29
and you need patients quickly especially
60:32
if you’re a new practice
60:34
i would recommend investing in
60:36
pay-per-click advertising campaigns
60:38
first primarily because they are so data
60:42
driven you can run
60:44
quick experiments and reach a lot of
60:46
people fairly
60:47
cheaply um it does depend again
60:50
on your market and your particular
60:53
specialty
60:55
those factors will influence how many
60:58
patient leads you could get from that
61:00
but
61:00
if you have a limited budget and you
61:02
need patients quickly i would recommend
61:05
engaging in ppc campaigns because
61:09
you match that search intent for
61:11
instance you know somebody is looking
61:13
for
61:14
a lasik surgeon or a plastic surgeon
61:17
near them
61:18
you match that search intent with an ad
61:21
that meets that patient exactly where
61:23
they are
61:24
and they say whoa that’s perfect that’s
61:26
exactly what i’m looking for
61:28
they land on your website and they take
61:30
that next step so
61:31
for immediate leads with a limited
61:34
budget i would definitely recommend
61:36
pay-per-click campaigns as a first
61:38
starting place
61:43
all right thank you so much crawford uh
61:45
i think this is about the time we have
61:47
for today
61:48
uh we have received a lot of questions
61:50
that we will try to answer over the next
61:52
few days or perhaps in a follow-up
61:54
webinar
61:55
um now these details that you see on
61:57
your screen
61:58
if you would like to get in touch with
62:00
our emr consultant
62:01
you can either give them a call or you
62:04
could book a book an appointment online
62:06
it’s a free consultation
62:08
and uh thank you so much to our speakers
62:12
as
62:13
as well as the audience for taking out
62:14
the time i hope you found the webinar
62:16
helpful
62:18
have a good week ahead stay safe thank
62:20
you so much