Three Ways to Communicate to Your Current Patients

Staying in contact with your current patients has gotten harder over the last few years. Patients are expecting more personal interaction while your time is shrinking. They want to manage their health when it is convenient for them, not you. Luckily, there are a few ways where you can communicate with your patients that do not take a lot of time but have major impact.

1. Create a social media presence for your practice. Use your website, Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube, and Twitter as communication tools for your practice. Tell patients about the diseases you treat, the lifestyle that you want them to lead, the community events that you participate in, etc. Humanize your practice. People want to be treated by people who care about them. Social Media allows you to achieve this. Don't worry. With programs like Hootsuite, you can create a month's worth of posts in as little as thirty minutes.

2. Create a newsletter with dynamic content. Most newsletters follow a basic formula: thank your patients for being patients, introduce new staff, highlight a disease state or two, add a recipe and call it a day. These vanilla newsletters keep you top of mind, but they are not bringing you closer to your patients. Instead, give your patients a resource guide that they can't wait to read. Focus on how you help them. Target a disease state for instance and give an entire lifestyle breakdown from diet, nutrition, exercise to medication management, preferred equipment, and ancillary provider suggestions. Cover that topic from A-Z, you will become their go-to expert.

3. Turn your waiting and exam rooms into resource centers. Part of the lack of dialog between a doctor and their patients is simply a lack of what to talk about. Add patient education at every stop inside of your practice- kiosks in the waiting room, digital systems in the exam and waiting rooms, literature that is practice focused. The goal of the educational material is to spur conversation. Telling patients how to live better, what questions to ask you for better health, and the like will greatly enhance your standing among your patients. This will generate more referrals and revenue.

Halo Health can help you implement a strategy that will engage your patients in better communication with your practice to ultimately increase revenue and reduce costs of care. Contact Jim Cucinotta at jim@haloheals.com or at 856-520-8655 to learn more.