Give patients all the info they need
Self-pay special.
Medical marketing expert Catherine Harriss outlined ways to attract self-payers for Independent Practitioner Today back in August 2014. Eight years on and a global pandemic has impacted us all. Here she revisits the topic to see how private practitioners can improve their self-pay income now.
In July 2022, there were a recorded 6.84m people waiting for treatment. 2.67m patients were waiting longer than 18 weeks for treatment, with a staggering 377,689 patients waiting over one year; that’s 356 times more patients than in July 2019.
However, many people now find themselves in a very different financial situation to when I last wrote on the self-pay subject.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has had profound impacts all around the world, culminating in higher costs for all.
This, combined with long NHS waiting times, can only mean that affordability for private practice is declining. Or does it?
According to the Private Healthcare Information Network (PHIN) – the independent, Government-mandated source of information on private healthcare in the UK – there has been a 30% increase in people self-funding now compared to 2019, with the 60- to 79-year-old age group being the highest.1
Indeed, there is positive encouragement that people want to self-pay. And there’s more. A recent YouGov poll found that 22% of people said that due to the Covid pandemic, they were more likely to use private healthcare than before.
83% felt that, by having private care, they would be seen more quickly and 62% indicated that the pandemic had made no difference to whether they would consider going private.
Many Independent Practitioner Today readers have started private practice for the first time since 2014. Having run successful private practices simultaneously for over 16 years, my experience in marketing and managing them is considerable.
A typical self-pay patient
Today’s self-pay patient will have researched you online, thoroughly. It all depends upon what they find as to whether they decide to contact you.
Having spent years speaking to patients daily, I know that they will travel to see you, that they have been watching you, often for ages, by following you on social media and reading your content.
It is a fallacy that your colleagues’ private practice dictates what is available to you: your actions are entirely responsible for the size of your private practice.
Competition remains high and so it should, as this ensures higher standards. But wins are always found for those who provide greater transparency.
Remember these ten tips:
1 Understand the needs of your new patient
Dr Google is an increasingly frequent companion with new patients and will remain so as long as there is anxiety with whatever issue the patient has, which is bound to be the case.
The first impressions are vital both online and in the clinic. Information should be easily accessible so that you can become the beginning of the answer to their problem.
If your information contradicts Dr Google, then you need to have accessible information on your website that backs up everything you say.
2Know what you can provide for your patient
Is there a new procedure that will benefit your patients? Is this procedure something that your private hospital could assist with advertising or are they keen to invest to help bring in more patients?
Is it possible for you to start offering this new procedure? Is there training that you need to complete?
Substantial experience with niche procedures over 16 years has identified growing local and national markets when potential customers are presented with information that can be easily understood.
Private patients are willing to travel for the right reasons.2
3Web presence
With the rise of technology in our lives and the increasing use of smartphones, our attention is waning. In 2000, our attention span lasted 12 seconds. This has now declined to eight seconds; less than a goldfish that has nine!
Perhaps while reading this, even, you have looked at your phone or thought about something else. So this lack of attention is translated to a hastiness that we are all party to.
Research indicates that we make our minds up within 0.05 seconds as to whether we stay on a web-site. Anyone reading this who has young children will notice the speed at which they seem to move around the web: they scan rather than read everything on the page.
The main reason I explain this is because how you portray yourself online is increasingly important. Your web presence needs to speak to your potential patients, not other doctors.
Visitors will read, at the most, around 28% of the page, so what is it about your website and all of its pages that make your ideal patients linger a little longer and want to read more?
Social media is where people browse. Websites are still where people buy and book. Your website should be for your potential patients, not your colleagues. It should be a good reflection of how you are in practice. You should be easily accessible and procedures need to be simply explained.
4 Add value
In marketing terms, value is perceived by what is on offer. What is the ‘deal’ that the patient is likely to get and experience? Money is changing hands, so the value is never more important.
So is this about ‘how’ you explain the initial consultation, the time to wait, the cost and availability for that all-important first meeting? Is there room for value in caring for the relatives, too, especially if they are coming a long distance?
What information is given out to potential patients and their families – if relevant – so that they have time to read and digest all the implications of the surgery they want or need?
Because of all the patient contact I have had before booking, I know that value is the main consideration and value can be constructed as this: cost plus availability plus outcome potential including post-op care = booking.
5Make your benefits transparent
Unsolicited testimonials are the most powerful measure of your authenticity and credibility. Testimonials sought in the clinic can be identified as being not as genuine and do not have the same currency as those voluntarily given.
This is another reason why you do need to have a central website. I have witnessed on too many oc-casions, people depending upon large portal websites for their own business. Overnight, an algorithm change by Google or a business failure and many people’s businesses are affected detrimentally.
If all your information and feedback is on a central website that you own and control, then the chances of this happening are minimised.
For every testimonial, it should be printed in full, warts and all, typos included along with the date of receipt.
As long as identifiable information is redacted, these messages from past patients are worth their weight in gold. I have lost count of the number of times that testimonials, in conversations with poten-tial patients, have been quoted back to me.
6Good first impressions
Family doctors’ receptionists generally get bad press for a very difficult and stressful job. But your private practice is something different and your secretary is possibly your patients’ first contact.
Are they kind? Helpful? Convey the information correctly? Portray you positively? Do their job? Respond to emails quickly? Some harsh questions, but all very important. This is a business and your secretary is the ‘face’ of your business being the first point of contact.
The surgeons I have worked for have easily gained patients that had planned treatment with others and then gave up, as they did not get answers to their questions, a date for surgery or even a call-back.
I heard this so many times. An easy win for my clients, but only because the others were missing a vital part of their business.
7Simplify the process
One of my clients was a very early adopter of a booking system for their surgery lists. I developed and tested this after definite theatre slots were agreed upon. It was a game changer.
If you think about your purchasing process for a high-value item, you need to know the cost, how long it will take, when it will happen and how to book. Providing all this information up front helps people make up their minds.
Having all this information available means that the process of the secretary having to contact the surgeon to find a slot was reduced to the secretary booking patients in – and then reduced further to receiving the bookings from the booking system enabling the secretary to do other tasks.
Letting the patient choose when suits them by using an online booking system saves so much time, simplifying it for them.
8Make pricing clear
Many times, too many times over the past years, I have been contacted by someone who rang one of my surgeons out of frustration, as they had been asking someone else – often very local – for a price for their surgery.
The secretary’s response of ‘I’ll get back to you’ has been too long to wait for them. Why doesn’t your secretary know all the prices?
I then took the opportunity to explain my surgeon’s skill and results and while it is not possible to be found by all potential patients all the time, they frequently then booked with my surgeon after deciding that the information available to them was everything they needed to make a decision.
I like to think this was a positive outcome for both patient and the surgeon.
Do you offer package prices for surgery and care? These should be routine now and except for indi-viduals who need extra care – CPAP postoperatively, for example – these prices should be readily available and preferably on your website.
9Audit
Being held accountable for your actions is commonplace in the NHS and should be so in private surgery too. Patients need to understand your competency, but also they need the transparency of the number of procedures you have undertaken and what the outcomes were along with unexpected events, if any.
Success breeds success and so the more information you can provide, the better informed your patients and you will be about your care. Success percentages matter.
10Guarantee their aftercare
Many private hospitals have a package of care whereby any unforeseen re-admissions are covered within 30 days of surgery. This is so important and reassuring for any potential patient.
What is your follow-up?
Is this clear on your website?
Is it included in the price?
If not, why not?
Is there anything that can be done if your type of surgery is still causing issues?
Patients naturally will be seeking reassurance that they can trust you to do what you say you can. This element combines value, outcome and success.
Do you know what others are doing in your field? How do they portray their aftercare? Ultimately, you should aim to provide a high-quality service that people will want to talk to others about and, in turn, will seek you out. I said this in 2014 and it remains the same today.
Self-payers today are more discerning than ever before, wanting to have all the information that they need available 24/7. Your website is the place where this should be.
Make it easy for your patients to book in with you, over-deliver on information to assist them and your practice will continue to grow as a consequence.
Catherine Harriss (right) is the founder of MultiWorks Marketing, but has a new website: https://attractdreamcustomers.com
- See ‘How to get paid by self-pay patients’
- See ‘Social change’