August 14, 2019

Effective Ways to Maximize Your Medical Office’s Reputation

Maintaining a medical office reputation can be challenging these days, especially when you try to keep up with your competition, deal with insurers, and find solutions for decreased reimbursements.

Marketing your office as a trustworthy one seems to be the best solution to attract clients and to keep it profitable.

Your medical office’s reputation is one of the most effective ways to attract clients and qualified employees.

Effective Ways to Maximise Your Medical Office’s Reputation: eAskme
Effective Ways to Maximize Your Medical Office’s Reputation: eAskme

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But some factors determine the impression your brand has on people. Warren Buffett, an American businessman stated that “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it”.

You won’t find a more true statement to define how hard is for your medical practice to gain their patients’ confidence.

So where do you start? What factors influence your image? And what can you do to overcome a bad reputation?

By answering these questions, you find the key to running a successful business.

Here are the most effective strategies you can adopt to maximize your brand’s reputation.

Your patients are your customers

The first step is to start seeing your patients as your clients because they determine your success.

When people are looking for a doctor to treat them, they always ask their friends and relatives where they can get the best treatment in the area.

Around 80% of people find the reputation of the office an important factor when choosing a doctor to treat them.

Patients do not look only for doctors with a well-established reputation, but also for experts who show respect and empathy to their patients.

In fact, people are looking for four things when they are choosing a professional to treat them, they want someone who is willing to listen to them, who cares for them and is compassionate about their state, and who explains to them what they are suffering from.

The waiting time and the overall experience they have at the office are other factors that influence their option. Attracting new patients requires more than being an expert in your field.

People make assumptions about medical offices

Quite often, people form preconceptions about a brand based on the business model it promotes.

For example, when a medical office is famous for struggling financially the patients think their services are also affected and they fear to choose it.

So the second step is to make sure that your business model doesn’t encourage your possible patients to make this type of preconceptions.

A well-equipped medical office would have no issues in building a strong reputation in the industry.

By controlling the business model your practice uses, you can decide the message you want to send to your patients and you can counteract preconceptions.

Skilled employees generate good reputation and vice-versa

All medical offices should hire experienced and skilled staff if they want to gain success.

You should attempt to score points for staff friendliness, accessibility, medical quality, cleanliness and other services, but having skilled employees is crucial for your practice.

You cannot ensure high-quality services if your employees are not properly trained.

The reputation of individual specialists has a decisive role in the overall reputation of the business.

The medical office’s reputation can easily suffer if one of your doctors is dealing with a medical negligence lawsuit.

Make sure you check their previous experience because associating your name with the one of a specialist who is known for mistreating their patients will do a lot of harm to your image.

Ask them to bring referrals and check if they have ever experienced a clinical negligence lawsuit.

If they did get in touch with the solicitor who dealt with the case and with the patient to find out more about it.

Respond immediately when an event can damage your reputation

Incidents can happen especially when you are working with people, but it’s important for you to have a fast response.

The best solution is to publicly acknowledge the problem and to show to your patients that you are taking things seriously.

Taking a rapid corrective measure will help you maintain your good reputation.

You already know that medical practices are some of the most vulnerable organizations when it comes to public relations crises.

You are running your office in a world where the bad news spread quickly because of social media and the internet in general.

This is why, when you are dealing with an incident to have a crisis communication plan prepared that includes public relations, legal help and other operations that can help you respond to the incident that can ruin your reputation.

Keep your competitors close

The healthcare industry is one of the most competitive ones, but if you want to stay successful you should keep your friends close and your enemies closer.

Times have changed and doctors no longer see each other as enemies, they consider their competitors their partners that can help them grow.

You have to be aware that your competition is more resourceful and smarter with each day they are practicing, so you have to maintain good relations with them if you want to gain more clients.

Competition can disrupt your reputation if they offer bad referrals to their clients.

So you should make sure that you establish a collaborative relationship with as many healthcare specialists as possible because they can keep you on your toes.

Competition is a great marketing tool when you use it effectively.

You should know who your competitors are, and how they are performing their operations, do not ever underestimate their strengths.

You should analyze the service their offer in comparison to yours and try to improve yours to attract more clients.

Focus on their charges, their insurance plans, and all the similar services they provide.

Alongside the above strategies, you should also establish a strong online presence.

Patients nowadays shop online, no matter if they need a new pair of shoes or a dentist.

They will search online for reviews, check social media profiles, and get in touch with former patients.

Find a voice on social media and use all the tools the internet is offering to grow your brand.

If you still have any question, do share via comments.

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