Direct Access Marketing for Rural Practices

As more and more states pass legislation allowing direct access to PT services, practices should start planning and incorporating strategies to market direct access to their patients. Our last blog post on direct access talked through how to market this opportunity in a way that is favorable for both patient and doctor relationships. This post is tailored for rural practices, which are ideal candidates to benefit from direct access marketing.

Rural PT practices can either be located in communities with low populations or those with wide spread residents, common in farming and ranching regions. These communities tend to have high rates of self-employment, such as family farmers or ranchers, or other residents with varying degrees of health care and insurance. For these populations, direct access can mean the difference between seeking physical therapy services or trying to managing pain with OTC treatments. Especially for persons with jobs that are physically intensive, proper physical therapy treatments are essential to mediating and recovering from pain or injury.

Your practice’s direct access marketing should be informative and transparent to be effective for both your business goals and patients’ needs. Direct access can be a confusing concept for patients to grasp and may involve careful coordination of insurance and billing to avoid unexpected charges. When planning your campaign’s messaging and content, incorporate these key features:

• Define direct access. The APTA provides, “Direct access means the removal of the physician referral mandated by state law to access physical therapists’ services for evaluation and treatment.” But most patients will benefit from a contextual definition. Try saying, “Direct access laws allow patients to seek physical therapy services without requiring a physician’s referral.”
• Explain the benefits. Most patients will not understand the advantages of direct access from the definition alone. Use a list of bullets to help illustrate why direct access matters, such as “Direct access benefits include:”
  • Eliminate the need for an extra appointment with a physician.
  • No referral required.
  • Save money by avoiding physician co-pays and fees.
  • Save time and get treatment sooner by coming directly to the physical therapist.
• Describe the PT process and results. Some patients may not be fully aware of what PT is and how it achieves results. Your direct access marketing should include a short paragraph about physical therapy, how it works, and what benefits it can provide.
• Be transparent. While many states allow direct access, not all insurance plans are as accepting. Make sure to reference that your practice will verify that the patient’s plan allows or reimburses PT without a physician referral. And that you can answer any questions about payment and financing options. This shows the patient that you really care about them both physically and financially. And avoids confusion and upset from unexpected bills or expenses.
• Use positive, inspiring imagery. Physical therapy marketing often uses from a mix of pain and success images. Direct access marketing needs to be benefit or achievement focused. Add pictures of people being active, smiling, returning to work etc.

Direct access marketing is more than just getting new patients—it is about expanding your service network to populations that may have not be able to receive care before now. These individuals will be more likely to take advantage of direct access if they understand physical therapy and its outcomes. This is also a great opportunity to build loyalty as direct access allows patients to really see anyone for PT with being influenced by their physician and referral. By providing an easy, pleasant experience and high-quality care, you can turn these new populations into repeat patients who see you for all their physical therapy needs.

The post Direct Access Marketing for Rural Practices appeared first on Practice Promotions.

from Practice Promotions http://ift.tt/1QuKmJh
via IFTTT

Patient Engagement Strategies for Practice Newsletters

Is your practice creating and sending monthly newsletters or e-newsletters to patients? You and your team might spend several hours preparing the articles and content, but is that what patients want to read and does it encourage them to see you for PT. Your direct marketing, especially practice newsletters, needs effective patient engagement strategies to be truly viable and drive business for your clinic.

Patient engagement strategies can include newsletter content, e-newsletters, email marketing, social media marketing, incentive programs etc. These strategies should have different tactical approaches and might be segmented to best fit the target audience. However, all patient engagement strategies should share a common goal—to get patients to make appointments for physical therapy.

For your practice newsletter (and e-newsletters), this goal can be achieved by providing relevant content that patients want to read, can interact with, and that demonstrates the benefits of PT. Most practice newsletters follow a similar format or template each month, which creates economies in terms of marketing planning and content creation. This also sets the reader (aka patient) up to know what to expect from your newsletter. For example, the New York Times runs the same sections every day. Subscribers know that they can find headlines on the front page, business, sports, fashion, and lifestyle news inside. There are also operational sections for real estate, classifieds and advertisements. For special events, such as a presidential election, there might be a special section to provide additional coverage of key topics.

For your practice’s newsletter, establishing these sections is the first step in your patient engagement strategy. Every newsletter should have at least one article that dives into a medical condition or physical therapy treatment, such as back pain or shoulder pain. But what else should you be sharing with readers? Take a look at some ideas:

• Exercises are a great tool and educational asset to share with patients. You can either match the exercise series to the newsletter topic or provide total body exercises. Try to have these fit on a single page of the newsletter so that patients can tear off and save for future use.
• Patient testimonials share your patients’ results and add credibility to your care. Try to find testimonials that are descriptive and meaningful, avoiding those generic one liners. Also, consider having a featured patient of the month—someone who is being discharged and has really seen great results in PT. Take that patient’s photo with their therapist and add that to your newsletter. You can also have a Patient of the Month wall in the office with framed photos of the winners.
• Upcoming events can engage patients who might not be ready to come back to PT, but who want to stay involved with your practice. Add a list of the next month’s events to your newsletter and include icons or images to break up the text. If you have more than 5 events, prioritize only the top ones to include in the newsletter. It can become information overload to see 10 events listed.
• Staff spotlights help introduce new and current staff to your patients. Be sure to include office and administrative staff as well. Often they are the voice on the other end of the phone and being able to put a face to the name helps patients feel connected with your practice.
• Healthy tips can be truly helpful if they are meaningful and new. Try to tie in seasonal tips or ones that are specific to your patient population. Have snowy winters? Do a tip list for shoveling snow and include both PT related and general advice, such as how to shovel and how long to stay outside in the cold. If you have a lot of senior patients, consider a list of rainy day ideas for playing with grandchildren or recommendations for kid’s movies to watch with grandma and grandpa.

Your practice marketing and patient engagement strategies need to be tailored to your clinic and its patients. Successful campaigns are those that are relevant, fun, and informative. Focus on local events or activities, seasonal content, and demographic specific information to really see results from your monthly newsletter. Want a content and patient engagement strategies assessment from our expert team? Give us a call today!

The post Patient Engagement Strategies for Practice Newsletters appeared first on Practice Promotions.

from Practice Promotions http://ift.tt/1M7Cgyn
via IFTTT

Recruiting and Growing Your PT Practice

Managing your PT practice goes beyond marketing and converting new patients into loyal, lifelong customers. Your practice is, at its core, a business and needs to recruit and maintain the best possible employees. From front office staff to physical therapists, your team significantly contributes to the effectiveness and success of your practice.

The key to sustaining a fantastic team is continuously recruiting via direct mail and online marketing.

Now, that might sound strange—you already have a great team, why keep recruiting? Because you need to keep marketing your practice’s name and expertise to stay current and present in the PT practice landscape. Think about this—a new clinic opens up in town and sends out recruitment mailers. Your staff receives the mailers and starts to take note of the new clinic. Even if none of them are interested in the positions available, they still took notice of the new clinic and might mention the opening to their friends and family. Thus, this recruiting mailer may not have attracted new staff members, but it did generate PR and interest about the clinic.

Let’s look at some strategies to both recruit talented staff and market your practice to the larger community:

• Continue advertising for professional and key positions such as front desk, even if not currently needed.
• Have a contact mailing list of professional staff (PT, PTA, OT, etc.) from a large enough area surrounding your practice.
• Direct mail every 1-2 months to the list, ideally promotions on hiring, or PR actions such as your practice newsletters. Increase the frequency when a position is needed.
• Have a dedicated career page on your website that is promoted in direct mail. Make it interesting, exciting and showcasing the personality of your staff. Have pictures of staff interacting with one another and patients.
• Leverage contracts with universities and colleges, setting up internship programs to discover talented new graduates.

These recruiting strategies can do more than market your practice—they can also help moderate swings in patient volumes and improve overall business planning.

For example, every practice has a busy season whether it’s a surge of patients in September and October or maybe you sponsor a softball team and have spikes during spring training. These seasons can make or break your clinic—more patients mean more appointments booked which can increase your waitlist for new patients. By proactively maintaining recruiting campaigns throughout the year, you can attract additional staff resources such as an extra receptionist for extended evening hours or more PTAs who can work weekend sports clinics. This slight increase in staffing can support your practice’s growth for both the short and long terms.

Visit our product page for more ideas on recruiting and marketing your practice to PT professionals or give us a call! We have years of experience helping practice owners grow their business.

The post Recruiting and Growing Your PT Practice appeared first on Practice Promotions.

from Practice Promotions http://ift.tt/1NdWuIh
via IFTTT

The PT Patient Funnel from Commitment to Referral

Our last blog post described the PT patient funnel from Introduction to Investigation to Decision. Introduction is the phase when a prospect first hears about your practice either from a friend, family member, physician, or even online. This is also when the prospect identifies that they have a need or want for PT services. Next, the prospect begins researching (the Investigation stage) physical therapy as one of several treatment options and also looks into your competitors to determine which PT clinic is the best fit. Lastly, the prospect has all the information and context needed to make their Decision—to make an appointment for PT. This decision phase is critical to the success of your practice. Once the decision to make an appointment is made, now the PT patient funnel is solely controlled by you, your practice, and the new patient.

Now that a new patient appointment is booked, you and the patient transition into the Commitment stage of the funnel. The time between booking and the actual appointment is your practice’s opportunity to really “wow” the patient with both your customer service and marketing. Use your website to streamline the new patient process from having FAQs or frequently asked questions available to help new patients know what to expect to having forms available to download and complete prior to the visit.

On the day of the first appointment, the patient needs to have a truly easy and comfortable experience. The front desk and PT staff can provide welcomed support to the patient as they start their initial evaluation. Everything from an informative new patient packet to a clean and attractive facility add value to a patient. Now, you still have to sell them on your full treatment plan—remember, the last two phases of the PT patient funnel are largely owned and directed by the clinic experience.

Once the patient leaves your office, they have to convince a spouse or family member that spending the money for deductibles or copays at your practice is a wise investment for them. They also will revisit your website and social media to verify they are making the right decision. This is where online reviews can really matter. Often past patients will leave a review about how they feel after therapy. You want to make sure that these online reviews are accurate (even if they aren’t positive). Even a negative review can be a public relations win if you respond to it appropriately and demonstrate how much you care about your patients, present and past. After discussing with family, confirming their online research, and verifying with insurance, the patient is now ready to commit to physical therapy treatments at your clinic.

The last stage of the PT patient funnel is Referral—the essential component of any successful business. You want patients, past and present, to continue to rave about their successes with your PT and to send their friends and family to you for care. Additionally, if the patient was referred to you by a physician, you want them to report back about their improvement health and mobility. This will encourage the physician to send future patients needing PT to your clinic.

To support the referral stage of the funnel, there needs to be an emphasis in the clinic on asking for referrals and giving print materials that make it easy for current patients to refer. Furthermore, promotions and engagement on Facebook and Twitter can make it easy for patients to share your information with friends and family, driving those potential referrals back to your website.

The PT patient funnel is ultimately circular from Referral to Introduction—the feedback and recommendations of current patients supports the sharing of your.  clinic’s information with friends, family, and doctors. To learn more about the patient funnel and how to best market your physical therapy practice, sign up for a free download of our 7 Secrets to Attracting New Patients through Online and Social Media.

The post The PT Patient Funnel from Commitment to Referral appeared first on Practice Promotions.

from Practice Promotions http://ift.tt/1MWrdvL
via IFTTT

Practice Marketing Plan and Checklist

Every physical therapy practice needs a marketing plan. Your practice marketing plan should include branding, public relations, patient reactivation and referrals, physician networking, patient communications, and staff recruiting.

The below infographic gives you a checklist to developing your own practice marketing plan and assets. For more information and to get started marketing your PT practice- call us today!

The post Practice Marketing Plan and Checklist appeared first on Practice Promotions.

from Practice Promotions http://ift.tt/1Lr7n7H
via IFTTT

Inside the Patient Funnel for Physical Therapy

Every consumer focused industry has a funnel or a process that maps consumer interactions and decisions prior to conversion. That might sound complicated, but at its core—the funnel can be your guide to analyzing and conquering that ever present goal of getting more new patients. We will be diving deeper into the patient funnel below and to learn more, sign up for a free download of our 7 Secrets to Attracting New Patients through Online and Social Media.

Think about a typical retail sales funnel: the customer first hears about your brand, company, or product via marketing, referrals, or organic searching. The customer might visit your website to see product details or learn more about your company’s mission and policies. They also often visit third-party websites or information sources to solicit reviews and make comparisons. Commonly, the opinions and experiences of friends and family can heavily influence customer decisions. Now the customer can make a choice whether to buy your product—if they do, you have continued opportunities to build brand loyalty; if they don’t, they might knowingly (or unknowingly) re-enter your funnel in a different way at a later date.

For physical therapy practices, the patient funnel has five key stages: Introduction, Investigation, Decision, Commitment, and Referral. Let’s explore each to see how your marketing can optimize that stage of the funnel.

Introduction: prospects (aka potential patients) find you via a friend, family member, doctor referral, social media share or online search engine. This introduction can be driven by a need “my back hurts and I need PT” or by a want “my back hurts and I want a way to feel better”. At this stage of the funnel, your practice’s marketing should be able to speak to both the need and the want.

Investigation: this is the researching phase of the funnel. The prospect will probably conduct auxiliary research. They have to think about whether or not physical therapy and your clinic are the right choice over medicine, physicians, tests, or surgeries. Once the prospect has decided that PT is the right treatment for them, then they will most likely check out a number of local clinics—both yours and your competitors.

One of the key elements in the investigation stage is visiting your website. We stress that website pages should explain the condition first; then demonstrate how PT can help the patient feel better. This strategy works! Those with a need can verify that PT is the right step for them, and those with a want can learn how PT can help them achieve their goal. Additionally, your brand has to speak to them and their emotions, getting them to decide that you and your clinic are the right choice. Patient testimonials, social media marketing, and online reviews can be very persuasive in this softer, more emotional research. Being able to relate to other patients, who have succeeded in their PT, helps drive the prospect into making a decision.

Decision: the decision making process flows from the investigation outputs. Both the informative and educational research about what is physical therapy and how it can help the prospect and the empathy research stemming from personal connections and emotions determine the next step. Once a prospect decides to make an appointment with your clinic for PT, your website can help affirm that decision. A Make Appointment form is critical to executing that decision—you need convert the prospect into a patient at the exact time that they make their own decision to come to your clinic. Converted prospects also want to be able to verify that their insurance is accepted and many prefer to complete referral and new patient forms in advance to save time at the clinic.

The patient funnel does not stop at the decision stage. Now, you need the patient to commit to your treatment plan and refer their friends and family to your clinic. These last two phases will be covered in depth in our next blog post!

To learn more about the patient funnel and how to best market your physical therapy practice, sign up for a free download of our 7 Secrets to Attracting New Patients through Online and Social Media.

The post Inside the Patient Funnel for Physical Therapy appeared first on Practice Promotions.

from Practice Promotions http://ift.tt/1MGHKF5
via IFTTT

Best Practices for Direct Mail Marketing to Physicians

As the healthcare and insurance landscapes continue to change, physical therapy practices can struggle to secure and maintain referral relationships with physicians. We all know the story—your marketing manager calls the office to set up a visit and the receptionist says “I’m sorry we are no longer seeing medical or pharmaceutical representatives for office visits”. Now what? How can you keep the referrals flowing in when the front door has been shut?

If a physician’s office is no longer seeing reps, then you need to find another way to get your clinic’s marketing in front of the doctor. And guess who your new messenger can be—the good ole United States Postal Service! Come healthcare changes and insurance woes, the USPS continues to go…and delivers mail to the doctor offices. So why not ramp up your direct mail marketing campaigns?

Physician mailers can take a variety of forms from postcards to tri-folds brochures to mini-newsletters. The key objective is to mail a piece of practice marketing that has content and calls to action specifically tailored to a doctor audience.

Tips for Direct Mail Marketing to Physicians

Don’t send letters. Doctors’ office receive dozens of letters a week, usually from insurance companies, hospital groups etc. Adding one more letter from your practice to the stack does not guarantee that the doctor will even see it (or open it). Think beyond the white envelope and into a mailed piece that stands out.

Use a different paper size and weight. If there are 10 letters in the stack and one postcard, printed on a thicker material and in a different size and shape, the postcard will get noticed first. Practice Promotions uses this strategy with all our mailed marketing. From glossy, heavy weight postcards in non-traditional sizes to full-color, sturdy trifold physician mailers to silky, magazine-like newsletters, we know that our colorful, textural marketing pieces stand out.

Use targeted medical messaging and imagery. This might seem like a no-brainer, but using generic stock photos of doctors is only halfway there. Think about your physician mailer list—who will be receiving your mailer and what are their demographics. For example, if you are sending a mailer about post-surgical rehabilitation- consider using a mix of imagery that includes surgeons and physicians. Or if you are in a rural community that has mostly nurse practitioners, consider using more nurses than doctors in your images. People are more likely to open a mailer that they can relate and respond to. So by providing a visual image that is similar to the recipient, you increase the open rate for your campaign.

Be genuine and specific. Physicians are one of the more heavily marketed groups so your mailer needs to be unique to your PT practice. Consider adding real statistics to your content and finding testimonials that show how well you can make patients feel. Say you treat a lot of worker’s compensation cases—you know how many of your patients were able to return to work after leaving your care. Start marketing your practice as a “Worker’s Compensation Specialist” with a verifiable claim like “over 85% of our patients are able to return to work”. This gives real context and value to what doctors can achieve by sending their patients to you!

Physician mailers should take a variety of shapes and sizes, use appropriate content, and are effective at getting more referrals for PT. Call us today to see how our marketing experts can help you choose a mailer that meets your practice needs!

The post Best Practices for Direct Mail Marketing to Physicians appeared first on Practice Promotions.

from Practice Promotions http://ift.tt/1NZnCNA
via IFTTT