4 ways to increase your base of patients

Question: I joined an ob-gyn practice a year ago and assumed patients from another physician who had moved out of town. I have been able to hold onto most of those patients, as well as bring in new ones. However, I am concerned because my patient base is not growing as quickly as I would have thought. What can I do to increase my numbers?

Answer: Building and maintaining a healthy practice is a full-time job in and of itself. So you ask, how can I have two full-time jobs, treating patients and building a practice? It's not easy. But developing and committing to the implementation of a focused marketing program 365 days a year will yield the desired results.

When developing your marketing program, it is important to identify four groups of customers: current patients, new patients, other physicians and your staff. Each group is critical to the growth of your practice. It is important to gather data about them and act on your findings to ensure that you are addressing their needs and are building the foundation for your practice.

Current patients. Often, a patient might think that you're the best doctor around. But the condition of your office, the availability and timeliness of appointments and the way in which your staff treats your patients can be the reason a patient chooses to stay or to leave, or to refer a friend to your practice.

When was the last time you looked at your office from your patients' perspective? Walk in through the front door like they would and take a look around. How does the reception area look? If it's anything but clean and neat (no stained furniture or carpet), then consider making some changes. This is the first impression your patients get when they come to see you. Are the magazines current and in good condition? These little (and not so little) things let patients know that you care about them.

Look at how far out your first available appointment is. How quickly can you see a patient in acute distress, or a newly pregnant patient? Your accessibility is important to your patient population, and if they can't see you in a timely manner, then they might decide to go elsewhere.

Next, observe a patient being checked in. Watch for an efficient and friendly process. Stand in the back office and watch how and when the patient is escorted to and from the exam room. How was the patient's demeanor when you entered the exam room? All of these observations are important in understanding how your patients perceive your practice.

Make a habit of making phone contact with new patients after their first visit or with patients after a hospitalization or office procedure. If you don't have time, then your nurse should take on this responsibility. This is a small touch that makes a patient feel like you and your staff care about her.

You also should distribute patient satisfaction surveys on a regular basis to confirm your own observations and to gain an understanding of how your patients perceive your practice. It is important to remember that perception equals reality when it comes to your customers.

New patients. Attracting new patients requires different tactics. First, you need to decide what kind of patients you want. In your situation, are you interested in building a general ob-gyn practice, or are you interested in primarily gynecological conditions, perimenopausal patients, or infertility or another aspect or subspecialty? Once you make this decision, you can determine the most effective way to market to new patients.

Some outreach and marketing ideas include speaking engagements at organizations that attract the type of patients you are looking for, guest appearances on local radio and television shows and the writing of guest columns for a local newspaper.

Having your own Web site is another important outreach tool. There are several services available to physicians (including Medem, whose owners include the AMA) that make it easy to have a nice-looking site that displays data about your practice, staff, locations and other information. Many practices are moving toward having patient forms accessible online, along with other interactive functions to make connecting to their practice as easy as possible for current and prospective patients.

Other physicians. As a specialist, you more often rely on referrals from primary care physicians and other specialists. Do you know who they are? The rule of thumb is that 15% to 20% of your referring physicians provide 80% of your referrals. You should make a point of knowing who they are, how many patients they have referred during the past six to 12 months and the date of the last referral. It is important to maintain contact with those referring physicians on a regular basis.

When a patient is referred to you, be sure to send the consultation note to the referring physician before the patient sees him or her again. Incorporating this common courtesy into your routine will help generate additional referrals.

Also, don't underestimate the influence of the referring physician's staff. More often than not, a patient will either ask her primary care physician's staff for names, or she will ask them to suggest a name from a list that the physician has given her. You may assign responsibility for maintaining contact with referring physicians' staffs to your office manager and/or clinical supervisor.

Your staff. This group of customers is often the one that is overlooked. This is a mistake that you don't want to make.

Often a patient's reason for leaving the practice has nothing to do with the physician. Rather, it was how the staff made her feel about her office experience (directly or indirectly).

Employees who feel valued and empowered to make decisions will help make your practice soar. Those who don't feel that way cast a negative outlook on everything and everyone around them, even if they don't mean to do so.

The marketing tactics to get your staff onboard with your program is to treat them with respect; maintain open, effective communication; and show them that you care. These goals might be accomplished through formal programs such as annual performance evaluations that are administered in a fair and constructive manner, through merit-based bonuses and rewards, and through regular office meetings.

But as important, if not more, are the daily informal ways in which you recognize and respect your staff by "catching them doing the right thing," asking for their input on a decision that may impact their job, bringing in lunch or special treats, or just greeting staff members every day in a personal way.

Many of the tasks that are associated with building and maintaining a solid patient base can be integrated into your daily routine. There are ways to streamline some of them that will give you great exposure with little effort on your behalf. Some marketing tactics require your time and energy.

The key is to build time for these into your day and make sure that you don't put them off until later. This strategy will have a positive impact on your patient base and associated revenue now and well into the future.