Our conversation about direct access flowed into marketing, and about how our limited marketing strategies were once to make office calls and drop off prescription pads in the doctors’ offices.  Recognizing how things have changed, we both noted that we have learned to embrace technology as an integral part of our practices and our current marketing strategies.  We both agreed that technology will only continue to influence the expansion of clinical practice and that growing with technology is essential to thrive.

With technological advances on warp speed, community marketing of our practices must keep pace.  Patients themselves are now among our greatest referral sources as direct access has empowered patients to be more involved in choosing their providers.  Helping them easily find us is our best new strategy.

An overwhelming majority of people search the internet for information about businesses, including health care practices.  They look for local websites and read reviews. While seeking up-to-date information, they are curious to know and understand the experiences of others like them.  Reading positive experiences helps reassure potential patients that they will likely have a positive experience themselves.

A digital marketing platform can turn one positive experience into more positive experiences in a few ways.  One, a patient who is a promoter of the practice can have a broad scope of influence – more than just the people they know personally – by taking a few minutes to write a review or testimonial to the practice.   Two, the process can be streamlined as part of a workflow that we in the clinic are already doing.  Three, we as therapists can spend time focused on what we love – treating patients – and allow the patient reviews to support us in providing high quality care, impacting our communities and assisting more of our neighbors and friends to return to the function and lifestyle they love.

For more info on FOTO’s Marketing Suite Platinum, featuring DMS, check out this on-demand demo.

The post Why Your Patients are Your Greatest Referral Source appeared first on FOTO Patient Outcomes.

Let me share with you a few examples of what may happen if a disgruntled patient discontinues the episode of care.

Do You Consistently Give Your Patients a Way to Share Their Experience?

The findings in a 2009 study by Convergys Corp. found that it only takes ONE negative online review to lose 30 customers. Could there be a better way for your patients to communicate dissatisfaction with you? Can you minimize negative experiences before the “ranting online” tipping point is reached? 

The FOTO Team has figured out a way to help reduce the chances of your organization experiencing early self-discharge and low online reviews. You are possibly thinking that you don’t ask for online reviews, so this may not be relevant. What if a disgruntled patient decided to share the experience in social media with all their family, friends and neighbors? 83% of people say they generally trust recommendations from family, colleagues, and friends about products and services – making these recommendations the most trustworthy. [Nielsen] Do you track whether your patients would recommend you to their family and friends? On the opposite end of the spectrum, if your patients would not recommend your organization to those they know, do you know why?

The FOTO Team created a Marketing Suite that includes the Net Promoter Score (NPS) Dashboard. The Net Promoter Score has been available since August 2018. The dashboard provides 2 opportunities: 1) to market comments from your patients and 2) to immediately address issues when NPS is at or below a defined threshold that indicates risk for self-discharge, poor online reviews and/or spread of negative word of mouth.

The ability to receive real-time email alerts for cut-off NPS scores allows you to set up processes to help alleviate patient concerns. If your organization sets up Outcomes Management to automatically email patients to complete functional assessments (and the NPS with the combined optional comments), you will be acquiring both clinical and patient experience information in a very timely manner. You will need processes in place to address concerns with NPS scores and comments.

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You can easily use patient comments as testimonials. You can monitor the NPS score by clinician, clinic and organization. One of the best features of the NPS Dashboard is the real-time email alerts. You can be proactive when a patient is feeling disloyal to your organization. You have the opportunity to learn what your patient perceives about the whole package experience. If you take time to reach out to the patient and genuinely care, you may receive pearls of insight that will help you improve processes within your organization. It is probably far less stressful to reach out, adjust and change versus learning about the poor experience online. Once the patient shares a negative experience online, you have a difficult problem to overcome. 

Until next time,

~Selena

The post Don’t Lose 30 Potential Patients appeared first on FOTO Patient Outcomes.

Years ago when the rules of engagement were different, physicians were spoiled with all sorts of goodies. Food, golf, tickets to events, and medication samples were all fair game. Although times have changed, physicians continue to have appointments with individuals representing businesses that have something or another that the physician should be interested in having, using, or prescribing.

In order to “flip it,” so that physicians are reaching out to you, you need something that speaks to them. You also need to reach them within their own time and space that doesn’t feel intrusive or interruptive. Do you think physicians wonder about what happens after a patient is sent for rehabilitative services? Do patients respond to treatment? Are patients satisfied with the referral?

Physicians may wonder: “Do my patients improve with rehabilitative services?“

If physicians typically wonder about this question, you have a perfect way to answer that question by easily sending information to their inbox. The information is specific for each top referrer about their patients referred to your organization. All of us appreciate knowing that we made a good choice. A good referral is a positive reflection upon the referrer. Seeing the results of care solidifies the decision-making process for top referrers to 1) continue to suggest patients receive services at your facility and 2) share information about your organization among their colleagues and peers.

When you “flip it,” your top referring physicians now have the opportunity to reach out to you to learn more. You snagged their attention. They have an interest in learning more. The first time you send a Referral Report to a physician, there is a high likelihood that someone in the office will reach out to you to learn more. Of course, the best thing you can do is set up a time to meet face-to-face with your top referrer. You now have a wonderful opportunity to really have time with the physician to begin building an even stronger relationship.

What can you do during this meeting to continue an engaging discussion? You can take advantage of Outcomes2Go. Outcomes2Go is an application-like tool that will allow you to showcase your bright spots while on the fly. With this marketing tool, you pre-load your device with all the areas that you shine. You can then broaden your discussion from the top referral’s patients to all patients referred to your facility. Because physicians are well-aware of value based health care, you can delve into effectiveness, efficiency and utilization.

The ability to send Referral Reports is something new for 2019. The new Marketing Suite has expanded to include more ways to engage and delight both your referrers and your patients.

Until next time,

~Selena

The post How Do You Interact with Your Top Referrals? appeared first on FOTO Patient Outcomes.

The FOTO Team recently released the availability of a Net Promoter Score (NPS) Dashboard.  The NPS consists of one simple question, “How likely are you to recommend us to a friend or colleague?” The FOTO Team included the NPS Dashboard as a bonus twist turning it into a management tool. Your patients will be able to add comments after responding to the question and receive real-time alerts of detractors. 

There are quite a few articles online focused on scoring and the interpretation of scores. If a patient indicates 0-6, then that patient is considered a detractor. If a patient responds 7-8, then that patient is considered a passive. Finally if a patient responds 9-10, then that patient is considered a promoter. The score is actually calculated by the percent of promoters minus the percent of detractors multiplied by 100.  I’m choosing not to spend a lot of time on the scoring because most of what you find online goes into substantial detail. What I’d like to do is instead take time to provide you with hurdles and strategies that you will need to think about so you may be effective if you choose to use NPS.

The biggest hurdle for your organization is to determine what to do with NPS scores. Should the scores be something you track? Should the scores be something  you share with everyone in your organization? Should the scores have an action plan? Do the scores really matter?

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Is my Net Promoter Score acceptable?

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Will your organization have a targeted goal for your NPS results? I’ve been researching NPS and what you may find helpful is benchmark data from CustomerGauge. Their 2018 benchmark report may provide you insight as to what would be considered a reasonable result when capturing NPS. Within the benchmarked data, the industry actually matters with regard to Net Promoter Scores. As you can see, healthcare and professional services tend to have higher scores. If you decide to implement NPS into your business model, you might want to set a score goal. The score represents the accumulation of touch points within your organization for every person who interacts with patients. This score is not specific to clinicians; this score captures the patient’s perception of the whole experience from the first contact with your organization (either website, email, phone or walking in) to that last day of graduation.

Your next hurdle has to do with an action plan for detractors. If you choose to have the NPS within each patient functional status report, anyone within your organization will be able to easily identify if the patient is a detractor. Then what? What action plan will your organization implement? Should a detractor be addressed? Who should address detractors? As you think about this, keep in mind that organizations that have an action plan in place reaching out to detractors seem to demonstrate improved revenue. Revenue may improve because the detractor might flip to a promoter: choosing services in the future and referring others. I’m assuming this happens if the customer truly believed the organization cared and really worked toward addressing the detractor’s needs.

Should a promoter be seen as a hurdle in your organization’s strategy? Okay, a promoter probably isn’t a hurdle, yet you do need to think about promoters. Can you harness your promoter’s exuberance toward your organization and help make it easy for increased referrals? To me, referral marketing feels like it cheapens the kindness extended by the promoter. Although there may be some in this world who expect something for doing something, there are many others who truly appreciate helping others just because. I tend to send a quick thank you note to previous patients who refer others. To me, that just seems special – to receive something handwritten in the mail with a heartfelt thank you.

Speaking of which… do you track how your patients choose your organization? To me, the NPS is just one piece of the equation. The other piece of the equation are behaviors. What I mean is that anyone can say that they would refer… but who actually takes action and does refer? If you add that bit of information into your organization, you have both the NPS and behavioral information. If you believe that it costs less to retain your patients and make them lifelong customers, then it would probably be wise to know if you really are retaining them. It’s important to know when scheduling an initial evaluation if the patient is a previous patient, referred by a previous patient, specifically referred by another healthcare professional or choosing based on location or marketing efforts. 

One last thought about what the FOTO Team has rolled out that is different. The FOTO Team has provided an option for patients to comment after responding to NPS. By providing the opportunity for a patient to comment allows for two things. If the patient is a detractor, the patient may actually share what is bothersome. Your organization will have concrete information from that patient and a more efficient process to address the negative comment. For the promoters who share a comment, you now have an opportunity to use the comment as a testimonial. Depending on the comment, you may even have a way to reach out to that patient expressing gratitude.

The NPS is just a score. The score should drive action to help you improve the interactions your organization has with patients. Although NPS seems to be a loyalty gauge, the real power, growth and advantage is truly based on what your organization does with the score. FOTO now provides an NPS dashboard as a customer experience management tool. 

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Until next time,

~Selena

The post Net Promoter Score and Loyalty appeared first on FOTO Patient Outcomes.