Replace scattered tactics with one connected path that carries joint patients from search to surgery
Orthopedic patients search online for hospitals and surgeons, but scattered marketing tactics rarely produce a steady flow of new patients. Learn the components of an integrated orthopedic patient acquisition strategy that guides prospects through the funnel. Understand why the right tools matter for tracking and engaging leads. Each component moves a prospect toward a scheduled, completed surgery.
There is no shortage of statistics that explain the indisputable fact that CJR and orthopedic surgery patients are increasingly turning to online resources to find the best orthopedic hospitals and doctors. However, although there is no single online strategy that best addresses how to get more orthopedic patients. For that matter, that includes “traditional” marketing strategies—printed advertisements and collateral, for example—when seeking answers about how to get new orthopedic surgery patients.
One of the best pieces of advice for how to get more orthopedic surgery patients was mentioned in Becker’s Healthcare article, “8 Tips to Develop Orthopedic & Spine ASC Marketing Strategies With High ROI.” We couldn’t agree more with this sentiment:
John Richmond is Guideway Care CEO. Guideway Care is a cloud-based technology and services company that improves profitability and patient outcomes for hospitals and practices through end-to-end patient engagement solutions backed by clinical and non-clinical teams. Its HIPAA-compliant, SaaS platform improves care team workflows, automates patient communication and tracks patient progress to optimize the patient journey. Since 2004, leading healthcare providers have trusted Guideway Care to help acquire, manage and engage patients through complex episodes of care.
“Use several different marketing tactics to reach your target audience.”Yes, that may seem to oversimplify the solution for improving orthopedic patient acquisition rates. However, with the countless ways available to promote your orthopedic surgery center and engage with new patients, it is often too easy to arbitrarily choose a set without actually developing an honest to goodness strategy that is both effective and efficient. Rather than treating them as autonomous activities in hopes of just finding new orthopedic patient leads, it is better to corral them into an integrated system explicitly designed to guide them through the so-called “sales funnel.” So, in that context, which is the best way to do this?
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Components of an Integrated Orthopedic Surgery Patient Acquisition Strategy
One of the easiest and free ways to begin the process of developing an integrated orthopedic surgery patient acquisition strategy is to look at Websites for patient management companies like Guideway Care that specialize in orthopedic surgery patient management platforms. For instance, on our Website, our patient management platform is divided into three core categories:• Patient Acquisition
• Patient Management
• Patient Retention
Our Patient Acquisition section is essentially a checklist of tactics your online orthopedic marketing strategy should be using:• Website Design & Development
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• Pay Per Click (PPC) and Paid Search
• Video Production
• Online Education
• Electronic Forms
• Re-Engagement Campaigns
Of course, there are many others not in that list. For example, we recently wrote about a new breed of medical SEO for virtual personal assistants, and of course, constantly evolving trends in social media healthcare marketing are important too. However, there is good reason that the outlined tactics are the perennial featured components of our premium patient management platform, and why it’s valid to suggest they are essential components of any orthopedic patient acquisition strategy.The Importance of Having the Right Tools for Getting More Orthopedic Patients
Another point the aforementioned Becker’s article makes is one for which we also completely agree:“Executing a true marketing strategy means building a marketing team and using several different tactics to reach patients.”The emphasis is on “building a marketing team,” which doesn’t need to only use people from your marketing department. Similar to the notion that finding out how to get more orthopedic surgery patients involves exploring multiple tactics, it should also involve multiple resources for building and executing your strategy. Who else in your orthopedic surgery center has a unique or different perspective about what differentiates you from other centers? Who else disseminates (or can disseminate) your messages—perhaps on the phone or with handing out printed materials or on social media? For that matter, this introduces the value of third-party resources, which includes anything from our Sequence patient management platform to outbound healthcare call centers to contract content creators. But the bottom line is there are an abundance of new orthopedic surgery patients that are looking for the best solutions…and there are ways for them to find you and vice versa. The challenge is to do it in a way to optimizes your resources and maximizes your ROI.
John Richmond is Guideway Care CEO. Guideway Care is a cloud-based technology and services company that improves profitability and patient outcomes for hospitals and practices through end-to-end patient engagement solutions backed by clinical and non-clinical teams. Its HIPAA-compliant, SaaS platform improves care team workflows, automates patient communication and tracks patient progress to optimize the patient journey. Since 2004, leading healthcare providers have trusted Guideway Care to help acquire, manage and engage patients through complex episodes of care.
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