Market Your Practice - Practice Tips 5

You probably already have maxed out the cost saving measures in your practice. The better way to more income is to increase the number of patients that you see and to get more of the patients that you LIKE, and do more of the procedures that you like and that pay well.
For that, you should market yourself. It would be by far too much to go into details, but I would like to point you in the right direction for good information that is worth reading and does not waste your time.


You must buy and or read this book:

Marketing Your Clinical Practice: Ethically, Effectively, Economically (Hardcover) by Neil Baum, Gretchen Henkel

Neil Baum's book contains the sum of all other advice that I had ever heard before I bought it and I was surprised how much more it contains. No wonder nobody recommended it to me. Every resident should receive it as a graduation gift from her or his program director. It is an absolute must for planning a private practice or if you already are in private practice. Consultants are not going to tell you more than what you will read in this book. Read this book for $89 instead of attending $ 2000 weekend courses - where you mostly will be solicited for more consulting services. This is hands down the single most valuable book for marketing your own practice.


"Guerrilla Marketing" by Jay Conrad Levinson. A classic on marketing creatively. The title suggests that it is possible for the little guy to succeed against the competing big guys. Interesting and stimulating to read, you get a lot of ideas and inspiration while reading it. Take notes! It is paperback, cheap, about $15. Levinson he has written numerous books on the subject in all its facts: guerrilla marketing handbook, marketing for free, marketing on the Internet etc etc. All book stores have his books. You can browse through his titles and look inot some of his books on Amazon and you will find an idea which of his books are appropriate for you.


The Book "Marketing to Women, How to Understand, Reach, and Increase Your Share of the Largest Market Segment" written by Marti Barletta, a female marketer. This was especially enlightening for me as a male ObGyn. It lays out in great detail what makes women tick, what motivates women, what gets their attention. Essential for an ObGyn.


"Healthcare Success Strategies" is a marketing company that specializes on marketing private physician practices. Lonnie Hirsch and Stewart Gandolf, the two founding partners, left "Practice Builders", the biggest national company for practice management and marketing and started their own company. They seem to have a lot of experience and success.
I recommend buying their 8 CD set on "Marketing your practice" from Advanstar, the publisher of Medical Economics. It gives you numerous insights, more if you listen to it more often. It also serves to subtly convince you that "marketing is more than a list of ideas" and that you should have "professionals handle it for you" - you know where this is going. They offer a reasonably priced (about $1000) two day seminar (with preparation and follow up home work) to come up with a comprehensive marketing plan tailored to your practice. I do not recommend it if you have the CD set, since it repeats verbatim what you heard on the CDs. Go to the seminar only if you think of actually hiring them to market your practice.
Take a look at their website, if you like it, buy their CD set for $200 and then decide if you want to go further. I think they are good and worth the money. They will soon publish the material of the CDs and their seminar in a book for about $100. It will come out the end of 2007 or early in 2008.

Otherwise follow the old rules:
The best marketing is word of mouth. Take good care of your patients and ask them to send their friends. Tell them that you are accepting new patients. Send them a nice thank you card when they refer someone. Inform your patients about what you do, they often do not know and will be surprised to find out.
Get to know the referring physicians. Fax them a short letter every time you see one of their patients. Ask them what you can best help them. Say good things about them to their patients - it will get back to the referring doctor.
Call patients that need more attention, call patients that you have operated, show that you care.