Thanks to the digital revolution, word-of-mouth referrals and directory listings are no longer enough to bring in new patients. More and more, consumers are doing it all online, and this trend shows no sign of stopping – as COVID-19 accelerated the drive to digital.

The modern consumer expects to do everything online, and there is heavy competition for their attention. For this reason, the modern medical practice must be proactive in meeting people where they are: online. Strategic digital marketing increases the chances of introducing your practice to prospective patients while they are looking for answers and to book services.

Medical Advantage and iHealthSpot recently joined forces to provide a powerful digital marketing package with everything the modern practice needs to remain competitive and bring in new patients. In this article, we’ll introduce five essential components of an effective digital marketing strategy.

Be Found When People Search Through SEO Implementation

When considering medical care, over 70% of consumers use a search engine. Consider that when someone is searching for solutions to a problem, it is highly likely that they are ready to do something about it. When people are searching, SEO tactics help your practice be presented as a solution.

When anyone conducts a search on Google, they are presented with a results page. This page displays various sections of media including links to the most relevant content. When a website earns placement on the first page of Google results rather than pays for it (PPC) this is called organic search.

Google rewards websites with quality content and high relevance with high rankings – the pursuit of this merit is known as search engine optimization (SEO). The goal of SEO is to make your page show up toward the top of an organic google search – where your competitors are. SEO is essential but also complex, so it’s best to partner with experts who understand how to best position your web properties for the greatest chance of success in organic search.

Increase Search Visibility with PPC Campaigns

PPC (or Pay Per Click) is the Google Ads bidding space and is yet another opportunity to be found in search. Advertisers earn preference from Google based on the quality of their ads (relevance to user search) and what maximum spend is set (CPC).

Just be aware that ad campaigns for medical entities must be carefully communicated, lest they violate any healthcare regulations. With that said, some practices cannot afford to not have PPC in their budget because the competition lures away too many leads through PPC campaigns. PPC is a full-time effort, so when you recruit help to manage your campaigns, you need experts who are skilled at getting the most for your ad spend.

Take Control of the Conversation with Reputation Management

Around 70% of prospective patients read patient reviews as a first step in finding a new provider. When it comes to your online reputation, it pays to be proactive and pursue any recourse for remediation.

No establishment can control what is said about it online, but this doesn’t mean practice managers should be passive about what is being said. By moderating what is said about your practice online, you mitigate the influential power of negative reviews. Your practice should be represented fairly, with only legitimate reviews displayed and an overwhelming number of positive reviews.

When you’re running a medical practice, you don’t have time to be reading every review posted and responding to every patient complaint. A team of review platform moderators dedicated to managing your reputation takes proactive measures while you give full attention to your operations and to encourage satisfied patients to leave positive reviews.

Leverage Social Media Tools for Brand Building and Laser-Focused Target Marketing

We think of social media as being all about entertainment, but these platforms are built for business advertising. According to Statista, Facebook generated close to 84.2 billion U.S. dollars in ad revenues in 2020. But a medical practice is not a typical business, so why bother with social media?

Why a medical practice should have active social media campaigns:

• PR value – With your social media presence, you have control over how your brand is presented to the public. Business page visitors will become acquainted with who you are, learn more about what you do, discover what differentiates your practice, and see the quality of your public outreach.
• Social media platforms are search engines – Like Google, Facebook provides a search bar for users to enter what they are looking for and specify a location when they seek goods and services.
• Patient engagement opportunity – Patients can post a check-in on Facebook or tag your practice in a praise post which is effectively influencer marketing. We recommend encouraging your patients to connect with your practice’s social media channels by posting promotional signage in the waiting areas, exam rooms, restrooms, etc.
• Sophisticated ad targeting – Facebook has comprehensive knowledge of each user including their demographics, specific interests, search history, website visits, and more. This means you can be extremely specific in who you market to. For example, run a sports physical campaign targeted only to parents of middle school students who are in groups or like pages about competitive sports in your local community.

With the assistance of healthcare social media marketing experts, a team dedicated to crafting social media marketing copy and assisting with laser-focused campaigns can help your practice reach its revenue goals.

Get the Most of Online Medical Marketing by Tracking ROI

The big question is – are you gaining enough leads and conversions to make the marketing spend worth it?  No one should continue pouring money into marketing activities that are not attracting and converting qualified leads. With any marketing budget, you should know exactly what you are gaining from your investment. Ideally, marketing should pay for itself.

If one or more aspects of your marketing plan are not generating leads, something needs to change. A marketing plan must be organized. Every digital marketing service used and campaign executed must be accounted for, so you don’t lose track of expenditures and end up wasting resources.

Better yet, partner with an all-in-one medical marketing service. Our clients are given full transparency and input into marketing activities for their practice.

Get the All-In-One Online Medical Marketing Package

Every facet of online marketing strategy is best handled by a professional who gives their full attention and expertise to a specialty. It would take months to recruit all the talent needed to run comprehensive digital marketing operations – but the good news is you don’t have to.

With our monthly marketing services — including search engine optimization, digital advertising, online reputation management, social media marketing and more — our clients have seen tangible results that boost online presence, increase patient and visit volume, and improve ROI for their medical practice marketing. Our clients have reported:

• 47% boost in website visits.
• 58% increase in appointment requests.
• 160% gain in online reviews.
• 2,645% growth in Facebook followers.

To find out how well your digital presence is performing, fill out our FREE Website Analysis. Those who submit an analysis will hear from a Medical Advantage Practice Marketing consultant to discuss the results and how Medical Advantage Practice Marketing can help you expand your patient population!

Plus as an MSV member you can take advantage of NO UPFRONT FEES and YOUR FIRST MONTH FREE on any of Medical Advantage’s Practice Marketing Packages!

Patient engagement strategies are proactive measures taken to enhance what is known as patient activation levels. These strategies include patient education, shared decision-making, encouraging patients to take initiative to learn, patients taking ownership in their care, and monitoring patient activation levels.

Patient activation measurement (also referred to as PAM) is an assessment of a patient’s knowledge, skill, and the level of confidence they have in managing their own healthcare. Through this measurement, providers better understand the patient behaviors, motivators, and attitudes at play in their care in addition to the related outcomes.

The primary benefits of patient engagement and patient activation are:

1. Gain payment adjustments through Value-Based Care/MIPS – Interventions that come about from better patient engagement have a positive impact on your bottom line.
2. Nurture patient lifetime value and loyalty – Investment in patient retention secures solid and reliable revenue from customer lifetime value (CLV).
3. Optimize staff workflow – When more patients are engaged, this frees up time for the staff. Patient portal self-service reduces telephone communication demand on PSRs, nurses, etc.
4. Improve provider reputation – When patient engagement leads to patient satisfaction, patients are more likely to recommend a care provider. Also, pursuing patient feedback is an instrumental part of a patient engagement playbook.
5. Increase quality of care – Engaged patients fare better than those who are not involved in their care. Patients who do not participate in their own health management incur up to 21% higher healthcare costs than those who are more engaged. More success stories to refer to is a meaningful key performance indicator.

As we emerge from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, patients are looking to resume care after an extended period of disruption. This presents the perfect opportunity to revisit your patient engagement blueprint while encouraging patients to get back on track with routine care. Our expert consultants have gathered strategies you can implement today to improve patient engagement.

7 Patient Engagement Strategies You Can Implement Now

Promote the Patient Portal at Every Opportunity

While it has been estimated that 90% of providers are equipped with a patient portal, the ONC reported that only 26% of patients were actively using their portal. So, it’s likely that most practices have room for improvement in this area. With portal-using patients being 2.6 times more likely to remain patients, promoting portal engagement is one way to nurture patient retention.

According to an Accenture survey, 68% of patients say they are more likely to choose medical providers who extend the ability to book, change, or cancel appointments online. To bridge the gap between low participation and the willingness indicated in this survey, a practice should consider more aggressive efforts.

The ONC also found that 63% of patients accessed their medical record online when encouraged to do so versus only 38% who did so without being prompted. This indicates that a mere suggestion to use the patient portal has an impact on participation.

To get more patients to use the portal, be persistent, consistent, and repetitive with mentions of the portal. Have all staff use the portal so they understand it from a user perspective and will better assist patients in learning how to use it. Remind patients of how convenient the portal is by mentioning all they can do online: schedule appointments, get lab results, request prescription refills, review visit notes, etc.

Utilize Emails and Text Messages to Encourage Use of the Patient Portal

Per the Accenture survey mentioned earlier, 70% of patients said they are inclined to choose a provider who will send emails or text messages when they are due for a return visit. It has also been reported in survey results that over half of the respondents expect text messages, voice mails, or email reminders from a medical practice reminding them to schedule an appointment or take medications.

If your practice already has text messaging and email capability for patient communication, encourage more patients to opt-in to this service and consider communicating with them through their preferred channel. Find ways to expand this service so that your patients hear from you more often. Email and text messages are a way to request feedback from patients via surveys and online reviews.

Email lists are perfect for sending out newsletters, invitations to upcoming educational events, seasonal reminders (back-to-school physicals, flu shots, etc.), and to encourage patient portal use.

Make Patient Engagement a Team Effort

All interactions between a medical practice and patients have an impact. For example, ONC reports that patients were many times more likely to sign up for the patient portal when presented with the opportunity to do so in person. The more guidance and encouragement patients receive from the practice team, the more empowered they are to get involved in their own care.

Medical practices should consider holding weekly team meetings and staff training for ongoing collaboration and coaching for patient engagement objectives. Foster a patient engagement mission by exploring ways to make it fun for staff, competitive gamification, employee performance review inclusion, and rewarding your team when goals are reached.

Medical Advantage Managing Consultant and patient engagement expert Sarah Saj shares that better patient engagement begins with educating your team, “making sure that the staff understands why they are doing this outreach to the patients.” With all hands on deck for patient engagement strategy implementation, it won’t be long before all patients are well aware of their opportunities to be more active in their healthcare.

Capitalize on Telehealth to Improve Patient Engagement

After seeing a surge of popularity in 2020, the momentum for telehealth shows no signs of slowing. 83% of patients surveyed said they would continue with telemedicine after COVID-19 and 48% of physicians report that they currently utilize telemedicine to treat patients.

As more providers and patients turned to telehealth during the height of the pandemic, our healthcare system embraced the alternative to in-person visits – the convenience of the remote telehealth appointment. What’s more, some behavioral health patients have too much anxiety when going to a mental health maintenance appointment and fare better when they can do this remotely instead.

Telehealth is an opportunity to better serve patients, so consider offering this solution whenever feasible as it helps high-risk patients or those with transportation issues to better engage.

Provide Guidance Through Education Resources

It has been reported that 73% of consumers use the internet to search for healthcare information, and Google reports that 1 in 20 queries are health related. There lies an opportunity to support and encourage knowledge-hungry patients by providing them with credible and readily accessible resources via articles, webinars, newsletters, workshops, and more.

Medical Advantage recently joined forces with iHealthSpot to create a Practice Marketing solution that further promotes patient engagement through patient education libraries available to our clients on their medical websites.

83% of seekers are skeptical of medical information they read on social media. By leveraging social media channels, you can be the voice of reason and establish authority by dispelling myths and misinformation surrounding trending health topics.

Encourage Patient Engagement Through Personal Goal Inclusion

Becker’s Hospital Review reports that patients are more likely to stick to a care or treatment plan if they are working toward a personal goal. During encounters with patients, ask open-ended questions to encourage a dialog about their struggles and desires.

Whenever possible, frame a treatment plan around their individual goals. Motivation rooted in the aspirations and emotions of the patient both nurtures and incentivizes patient engagement.

Refine Communication Methods for Better Patient Experience

Becker’s Hospital Review also reported that bedside manner matters greatly to patients. The better a clinician is at communicating with patients, the more trust they establish so patients feel better supported in their healthcare goals. Make a point to recruit team members who are committed to compassionate communication.

Two ways to achieve a better patient experience are the inclusion of scribes and a continuous refinement of communication tactics. Augmedix is a virtual scribe service that frees clinicians to be more present with patients as a remote scribe takes all the notes for them. On the other hand, consider communication improvements such as behavioral interviewing or other healthcare communication strategies that reinforce a patient’s care matters greatly.

Recap: 7 Simple Patient Engagement Strategies

1. Consistently promote the portal: The patient portal is your best tool in getting patients to take ownership of their healthcare. Promote it as much as possible.
2. Expand usage of electronic communication channels: Leverage text messaging and email to keep the lines of communication active with your patients.
3. All hands on deck: The drive for patient engagement begins with better staff training – make everyone a stakeholder in this effort.
4. Embrace telehealth: Telemedicine is here to stay, so use it whenever it keeps patients engaged.
5. Be the go-to for information: Your patients will encounter dubious claims on the internet, so arm them with credible information.
6. Consider the patient’s personal goals: Set your patients up for success by aligning their treatment plan with their own personal goals.
7. Continuous communication improvement: Commit to a patient engagement plan that includes ongoing adoption of communication improvements.

Medical Advantage Can Help Keep Your Patients Engaged

It’s no secret that patient engagement is a pathway to healthcare success and helps encourage patient retention and loyalty. Because Medical Advantage is committed to helping practice managers and clinicians deliver efficient high-quality healthcare, we offer several areas of support for your patient engagement efforts:

• Healthcare Consulting: We optimize your Value-Based Care operations.
• Telehealth Consulting: We enable you to keep pace with the telemedicine revolution.
• Care Management and RPM: We improve engagement and outcomes for high-risk patient populations.
• Practice Marketing: We create engaging medical websites that make the portal easy to access, helps you attract new patients, and help you to retain and educate patients through a patient education library and regular social media posts.

Set up a consultation today with MSV’s partner, Medical Advantage, to explore all your patient engagement opportunities!

 

For anyone who earns an income and desires financial wellness, disability insurance is vital. For physicians, disability insurance is also a must-have. As a physician, it can be time-consuming, overwhelming, and confusing to find the right disability insurance policy for your situation.

In this post, you will learn the basics of disability insurance, why it’s so important for physicians, what to look for, and how to get your own physician disability insurance policy. This post will help guide you towards getting the right disability insurance policy with confidence.

But before we go deeper, let’s quickly run through the meaning of disability insurance and how it applies to physicians to bring newer doctors up to speed.

Sounds good, right?

Let’s get started.

Why Do Physicians Need Disability Insurance?

Disability insurance is an insurance policy that pays you an income when you are not able to perform your occupational duties in the event of an injury or illness.

The Social Security Administration has asserted that more than 25% of today’s American 20-year old’s will become disabled before age 67, and accidents and illnesses can happen to anybody. As a physician, ask yourself the following questions:

• What happens if you are unable to perform your medical duties?
• What does your income pay for and who relies on it?
• How would the loss of your income affect your lifestyle?

Dentists, surgeons, and other doctors aren’t immune to illness or injury, and disability insurance protects your ability to earn an income. Many disabling situations are not covered by worker’s compensation and Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) benefits are substantially less than an individual policy. These types of benefits would not cater to a physician’s income needs and lifestyle.

Many physicians are offered a group disability insurance policy through their employer. Group policies are a great start, but benefits are often limited, usually taxed, and don’t cover enough income to cover your monthly expenses. Group policies often aren’t transferable, so you lose your benefits if you change employers. An individual policy provides higher benefit amounts that stay with you through job changes, and additional riders that protect more of your hard-earned income.

An illness or bad accident could result in significant financial hardship. If your ability to work is taken away, the right disability insurance policy can replace some of your lost income.

What Does It Cover?

Disability insurance can pay for things like your mortgage, rent, car payment, groceries, student loans, or anything else while you’re out of work. It helps you maintain your lifestyle when you are not getting a paycheck.

According to the Council for Disability Awareness, the most common long-term disability insurance claims are for:

1. Musculoskeletal disorders affecting the back and spine, knees, hips, shoulders, and other parts of the body (29%)
2. Cancer (15%)
3. Pregnancy (9.4%)
4. Mental health issues including depression and anxiety (9.1%)
5. Injuries such as fractures, sprains, and strains of muscles and ligaments (9%)

As you can see, oftentimes it isn’t a tragic accident that stops someone from working. Even the most careful doctors could lose their ability to earn an income due to an underlying condition.

So, what does a disability insurance policy for doctors look like? Generally, a physician’s disability insurance policies should feature:

• A true own-occupation definition, you get your money even if working in another specialty
• High monthly benefits, up to 60-70% of your income so you don’t have to change your lifestyle if you can’t work
• Portable benefits, coverage that goes with you if you change employers

Other common features can include options for partial or total disability, flexible waiting periods, coverage up to age 70, and lump sum benefits.

How Much Does Physician Disability Insurance Cost?

Physicians should expect to pay between 1% and 5% of their gross income on an individual disability insurance policy. Policy premiums increase as you age, so getting a policy when you are young or in residency is good practice to lock in those lower premiums.

Some other items that affect disability insurance cost are:

• Riders: Additional benefits can be added to an insurance policy, like a Future Increase Option, Cost of Living Adjustment, or Student Loan Rider.
• Gender: Women generally pay slightly more than men, due to the higher chance of going on claim and longer life expectancy.
• Specialty: Every medical specialty is coded into an “occupation class” that has its own premium rate based on risk level.

How To Get A Disability Insurance Policy

Step 1: Find an agent

The first step to finding the right physician disability insurance policy is finding a licensed insurance agent. Working with a licensed agent helps the underwriting process move along more quickly, as they can act as a liaison between you and the company and answer any important questions. They will communicate with the insurance company to make sure you’re getting the correct rates and be able to negotiate around any potential exclusions to your policy.

There are two types of disability insurance agents to choose from – independent and captive agents. While independent agents are usually contracted with several insurers, captive agents work with one insurance company. Working with an independent agent gives you the ability to compare policy rates across multiple companies to ensure you’re getting the best offer.

Before enlisting the services of an independent agent, do some research to avoid wasting your time and money. Seek referrals from people you trust, your medical association, and set up an initial conversation with the agent to talk about your needs.

Step 2: The application

After comparing quotes with your agent, the next thing to do is to kick-start the application process. Most applications can be completed online, but paper options are also available for those who prefer. The application form gathers your contact, demographic, and employment information. After completing the form, your agent will review it with you, then submit it to the insurance company.

You will attach some supporting documents like your proof of income or employment. Some insurance companies request driving records and medical records. You may have to fill out a record release form, but the insurance company will cover all and any costs associated with requesting those records.

Step 3: The interview and exam

Most insurance companies require an interview to go over your medical history. This interview generally takes place over the phone, but some carriers have started doing an online questionnaire.

Depending on your age and benefits applied for, the insurance company can request a mini-medical exam to assess your health. During the exam, a nurse will check your height, weight, vitals, and take a blood and urine sample. This exam is also paid for by the insurance company, and can be completed at your home or place of work. The process should not take more than 45 minutes.

Step 4: The underwriting

The insurance company will review your application, records, interview and exam results, and financial information to underwrite your case. The underwriter’s goal is to assess your risk of filing a claim, so they will be the ones deciding if your application is approved or if any exclusions apply. Your insurance agent will keep you updated about any questions the underwriters may have or any outstanding requirements.

Step 5: The offer

After determining your risk, you’ll receive your disability insurance policy offer. You and your agent should review the offer together to go over your proposed benefits and any changes from your quoted offer.

Once you accept the offer, the company will issue your policy, you’ll sign the delivery receipts and pay your first premium, then your policy is active! The timing of the process varies, but averages around 4 – 6 weeks.

From here, you’ll continue paying your insurance premiums on the agreed upon schedule with peace of mind that you and your family are protected in the event of an illness or injury.

Disability Insurance Awareness Month

Each May is designated as Disability Insurance Awareness Month (DIAM). DIAM is championed to raise awareness about the benefits of income protection. Like we earlier mentioned, without disability insurance, an illness, injury, or a chronic condition could result in financial hardship. Even a temporary illness can push you towards debt or harm the nest-egg you’ve built for yourself, so protecting your income is important.

If you are ready to talk about disability insurance with a reputable agent, we’ve got you covered. As Disability Insurance Awareness Month wraps up, learn more about the policies that are available to you. We offer own-occupation policies with discounts up to 20%, exclusive to physicians. Get your quote today, or reach out for questions or a no-cost review of your current policy.

The COVID-19 pandemic has taught the world a lot, one of the biggest things being how much work healthcare providers put into their day to day. Although it seems this is something new to the general public, the healthcare world knows that this has always been the case. And what better time to reflect on it than National Doctors’ Day? After all, the pandemic added an entirely new level of stress and burnout, but physicians, PAs, and other healthcare workers have been putting their patients above everything else for their entire careers.  According to the AMA, “Most physicians work between 40 and 60 hours per week, but nearly one-quarter of physicians work between 61 and 80 hours per week.¹” We know that this has been even higher for physicians and the entire healthcare team during the pandemic.

What You Don’t See: Patient Care Behind the Scenes

All of this just reminds us that physicians and PAs are key to helping keep our communities safe. And I have personally recognized in my 9 years at MSV how key you all are to the health and safety of your patients and how much you do that goes unseen.  I cannot count the number of times a physician or PA has responded to a message from a patient or reached out to a referring physician to check on the status of a case during their “off” hours.  While at MSV and AMA meetings, physicians will wake up several hours before the first 7am meeting to review charts while they are away to make sure patient care continues.

I have also seen the joy a physician experiences when they find out their patient has gone into remission or a follow up scan showed surgery was successful.  On the flip side, I have seen the heartbreaking grief when a physician uncovers a life shortening diagnosis that they must deliver to a patient and their family.  Physicians and PAs not only provide wisdom to patient care, they also provide the soul and support, whether it be from their shoulder or their heart.

These are just some of the many examples I have that shows how important you all are to powering the House of Medicine to provide quality, thoughtful care to your patients. Many people do not realize how much physicians and PAs really do behind the scenes. It’s not just about providing medical care, you advocate regularly for necessary healthcare change, you keep up to date with the business of medicine, and you participate in organizations and on taskforces in order to ensure your voice and your patients’ voices are heard.

The work you do truly makes a difference each and every day and we hope that you know the MSV is here to support you in all that you do. We work to understand what physicians and PAs need and what we can offer them to ensure they have the support they need. But we also work to make sure the public knows how truly valuable each of you are to ensuring patient health and safety, and how much time you dedicate not just to their care but to the overall healthcare system.

Celebrating National Doctors’ Day

One way we share your stories, and your impact is through celebrating National Doctors’ Day. What makes this extremely unique is that colleagues nominate one another to be recognized. So, if you can think of a doctor who goes above and beyond the call and does a lot behind the scenes, nominate them to be recognized by MSV for Doctors’ Day. This is your chance to honor someone who inspires you and is making an impact – and to let them know their value in powering the House of Medicine.

The public needs to know that you are key to ensuring safety and health. Help us share that message and tell us who you have seen make a true impact in the practice of medicine.

[1] Writer, Staff News. “How Many Hours Are in the Average Physician Workweek?” American Medical Association, 6 Jan. 2015, www.ama-assn.org/practice-management/physician-health/how-many-hours-are-average-physician-workweek#:~:text=Most%20physicians%20work%20between%2040,than%2040%20hours%20per%20week.

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Written by:

Jenny Young
Director of Membership
The Medical Society of Virginia