A self-pay boom
The continued growth of the self-pay market has been widely reported. How do you ensure your practice gets its fair share of these additional private patients?
Dawn Cremin sets out the tactics you should consider when planning to increase the number of patients choosing to pay for their own treatment.
Doctors are very familiar with the private medical insurance route: put very simply, you sign up to a fee structure, provide your profile and wait for patients to arrive.
An insured patient is still likely to go online to research their chosen consultant, check out reviews and where you practise. However, their choices will ultimately be governed by their medical insurer.
For self-pay patients, no such constraints apply. They have carte blanche on whom to see and where, so you need to apply yourself to building up your own reputation both on and offline. This is, first, so patients find you and, second, that everything they read or hear about you points to you being their preferred specialist.
