Is Your Practice Manager Qualified to Handle Medical Marketing?

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Chances are you depend on your practice manager to handle a variety of tasks; HR, IT, Risk Management and Accounting. Their expert ability to deal with the day-to-day tasks allows you to concentrate on your patients and the treatment they require. You need your practice manager, because you can't do it all. And as much as it may seem like it, neither can they.

Your practice manager may have the full compliment of capabilities discussed on this medical office management hub page, which includes knowledge of traditional marketing. But, given that online marketing strategies grow in scope and diversity on a near daily basis it is unlikely they have the capability to deliver the highest level ROI and business growth. Imitation does not work in online marketing. You need a plan targeted to the needs of your practice. By outsourcing to an online marketing firm with the skill, resources and experience required to meet your growing online medical marketing needs you can gain the growth you seek without risking the happiness and sanity of your practice manager; a team member you couldn't imagine being without!

Medical Social Media: Your Patients are Waiting

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Time is precious when you have a medical practice to run. The lack of extra minutes in the day, let alone hours leads many physicians to wonder whether the commitment to medical social media is really worth it.

According to Mary Pat Whaley the founder of Manage My Practice it absolutely is. In her blog post "9 Ways to Change Healthcare" she talks about the ways in which patient expectations have evolved to include web presence from their physician.

"Patients want to register, make appointments, pay their bill, get their test results, chat online with a staff member, access their personal health record (PHR), watch videos and listen to podcasts you make or recomment."

Informational videos and podcasts are highly valuable channels in medical social media. Not only will patients watch/listen, they'll retweet, bookmark and share. They'll "like" on Facebook adding to your measurable stats. We have said it before, content is king. If you provide quality output your patients will pull the bulk of the marketing load.

It isn't easy to find the time, but it is worth it. Get social, your patients are waiting!

Say What!? Doctor Blog Shenanigans

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Doctor blogs are serious business, right? Practitioners don't air their dirty laundry, do they?

You would be surprised. Just ask Dr. Grumpy.

Some of the most widely read doctor blogs are full of sarcasm and irreverent humor. They mock drug reps, patients and coworkers. They mock the system. And they are hysterical.

But, the doctors behind these blogs aren't standing on a soapbox.They're hiding behind a pseudonym. Aware that they are occasionally crossing the line they take careful steps to cover their tracks.

If you want to write your blog with humor and rants we suggest that you do the same. It is important to protect your standing in the medical community and the sense of professionalism you have with your patients.

A friendly warning: remember that the internet is full of wannabe Sherlocks. Even with a pseudonym there is a risk that a snooping site user could uncover and reveal your name and the name of your practice.

What are your favorite humorous healthcare blogs?

What is the most shocking thing you've seen posted about the medical field?

Let us know. We are always up for a gasp or a laugh!

SEO for Doctors More Trends for 2013

SEO is a practice that is constantly changing and strategies are being constantly adjusted to deal with those changes. More and more information that SEO firms used to use to make decisions about keyword targeting is now being hidden by Google. Encrypted search results seem to be the culprit. Hupsort.com has detailed descriptions about how HTTPS works and what impact it has on keywords.

Google has made it harder for markets to have access to data about organic search traffic, that even includes terms being used to find their own site! Hartley Brody, author of the HubSpot articles, believes this is not intentional. He believes that it is security and privacy that are the big issues. It isn’t difficult to deduce that a reduction in the functionality of free services like google analytics may lead to a higher percentage of firms that will pay google money for their Adwords program.

This doesn’t mean the end for web content:

According to Brody, “Optimizing your website will be less about tracking keywords and rankings, and more about capturing visitors once they’ve landed on your website.” This means, above all, focusing on creating high quality and compelling content. This is something that is good for you, your patients, and your practice.

 http://digitalmediafordoctors.com

SEO Tips for Doctors: Part One

SEO for doctors is a unique science that is constantly changing. In this blog post series we'll highlight the evolving world of Search Engine Optimization best practices.

Part One

If you are in the dark about SEO best practices you are not alone. Most doctors employing a contractor to write web content felt the same going in. Search Engine Optimization is a rapidly developing field. Keeping up with all of the intricacies is best left to the specialists. However, learning the basics is easy and it can have a huge impact on your web traffic and patient interaction. For starters here is a quick SEO guide for beginners.

How to Choose Keywords for Doctors:

While you would be happy to get site traffic from just about anywhere, it is regional traffic that will have the most impact on your practice. Your web content needs to help potential patients in the surrounding area find you (click here for a list of typical geographic modifiers used in search engine optimization). Working the name of a city or region into the text of a post can seem like baiting if the writing isn't clever. Let's face it, there aren't a lot of synonyms for 'Long Beach blepharoplasty.' That said it is important to have a working knowledge of the search terms you are targeting so you don't inadvertently delete keywords when you review ghostwritten content.

Additional Key Phrases to Use:

• Plastic surgeons can find great fodder for posts in the the media. A post about calf implants might be a strong traffic driver. You can use hot topics effectively even you don't offer those particular procedures by commissioning an "Alternatives to..." article.
• Patients can be cost obsessed. And much to their annoyance most practices prefer not to list their prices online. If your patients pay for out of pocket procedures consider posting average price ranges online (with notice that costs may vary).
• What are the FAQs you get from patients? Have your SEO consultant analyse the most highly searched version of those questions. Address those questions in posts to drive traffic.

Enhance Your Doctor Profile with Online Reviews

Word of mouth marketing is imperative to the success of any private practice. Getting positive reviews without damaging your doctor patient relationship can be delicate business. You don't want your patients to feel like they are being pushed for sound bites and quote board material. It is important to carefully choose which patients to target and when to target them. Dr. C. Noel Henley at Physician's Practice provides insight about how to generate online ratings and reviews from your patients.

Here are a few suggestions for optimizing your doctor profile online via review requests:

• Include a review card with documents you send home to selected patients. Your review card should include information about your practice and the web addresses of the sites you prefer to be rated on. Either pre-select or come up with a subtle way to alert the front desk when a patient should receive a card.
• Follow up within 3-4 days, preferably via email so that you can include clickable links to review sites. It should be noted that patients who are active on email are the most likely to leave online ratings.
• Keep careful records of the patients you have solicited and those who have posted reviews. Not many patients will mind a single request, but none of them will want to be pestered.
• When patients do post a review be sure to thank them during their next visit!

Time-Management Tips for Healthcare Bloggers

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You are not playing at being a doctor on the internet, you are a doctor. You have patients to see, a practice to manage, research to catch up on and then of course there is a personal life and family to make room for. It can be difficult to squeeze in blog time, but it is important. An idle blog is a useless blog. Here are a few tips to help with your blog time-management and posting frequency.

• Keep it brief. A blog is not a thesis. The medium was designed for quick easily digestible information. If you are posting 2-3 times per week your posts do not need to exceed 150-300 words. If you have a long topic break it up into sections. Leave them with a cliffhanger!
• Writing a healthcare blog is rarely the hard part. Thinking about what to write is. Take notes. Keep a pen and paper by your side and anytime you are reading journals or doing online research jot down bullet point ideas. You can always flesh them out later.
• Take advantage of outsourcing. There is an army of tech-writers out there. Get a qualified scribe to handle the heavy lifting so that all you have to do is approve and post.