Patient Acquisition Vs Patient Retention

Patient acquisition and patient retention are both very important for any kind of medical practice.

After all, you need to both acquire a good patient base and keep them as well in order to be successful and maximize health outcomes over the long run. That being said, let’s talk about the difference between patient acquisition and retention:

What Is Patient Acquisition

Patient acquisition refers to the methods that you use to bring new patients into your practice.

Why Is Patient Acquisition So Important?

Patient acquisition is incredibly important. Without patient acquisition, your medical practice wouldn’t exist in its current form.

Acquisition is the way that you stay in business and can pay all of your medical staff and providers, leveraging patient centered care. So for those reasons it’s very crucial to incorporate methods to improve patient acquisition.

Methods Of Patient Acquisition

There are several ways to increase your patient acquisition, such as marketing. Healthcare marketing is a very important part of any practice. This involves bringing in new business from a variety of channels such as online, print, digital media, and more.

For instance, a social media post can often have just as much reach as a billboard. It depends on your local market and the factors involved. However, failing to properly market your healthcare practice can result in a lack of patient acquisition.

Other elements of patient acquisition that are really important are your call center and onboarding methods.

Patients today expect quick answers to their questions and professional customer service agents to help them schedule appointments and navigate their healthcare journey.

What is Patient Retention?

Patient retention, as opposed to patient acquisition, is the art of keeping patients once they come into your practice.

Why Is Patient Retention So Important?

Using multifaceted approaches, you can keep patients coming back for follow-up appointments, treatments, diagnoses, and more to your medical practice. After all, if you don’t implement ways to improve patient retention, then your competitors will.

Methods Of Patient Retention

There are various methods of patient retention. This can include patient loyalty programs and providing better in-house experiences, to start. Ultimately, the better patient health outcomes that you provide, the higher likelihood that they will return to your practice.

Additionally, the better customer service that you provide with your medical staff — whether on the phone or in person — is very important.

Your online social media branding can also have an effect on this. The importance of patient retention It goes without saying that when you lose patients, you lose revenue and reputation.

That’s one of the first and most important aspects of patient retention. Beyond that, it’s actually more expensive to acquire new patients than it is to retain the one you currently have. Therefore, you should put your efforts in making sure you have the best care models possible in practice at your health care facility.

Get Assistance With Acquisition & Retention Today

Reach out for help on patient care and patient acquisition. At Guideway Care, we specialize in helping you enhance your approach to health care.

Contact us today, and let’s make sure that you are acquiring and retaining the right patients for your services.