May 7th, 2012
Should you include a link to doctor’s rating sites on your web page? Not if you want to control and shape your patients’ digital experience. Postings on sites are unpredictable and it just takes one poster to create a sour impression for current or future patients.
This does not mean that you should ignore doctor rating sates. Definitely not. You should proactively encourage patients to post positive comments about your practice, especially on those sites that come up on the top ten Google Searches when your name or your practice name is entered.
Physician setting a dislocated arm
Posted in Practice blog, Practice management, Practice marketing, Practice web site | Comments Off
April 25th, 2012
The buzz about how breakthroughs in genomics will drive personalized medicine got us thinking about how personalized is your practice’s digital presence. If we expect – at some point – that personalized medicine will drive improved clinical outcomes, shouldn’t we expect that personalizing your digital presence to individual patient needs will drive better business performance for your practice?
When you visit the web site for Amazon or get email from an on-line merchant, the content that you see is personalized based on what the vendor knows about you and about your needs. When a patient gets an email from you, shouldn’t that content be personalized based on what the patient has expressed interested in (e.g., cosmetic procedures or nutritional counseling or…)? We think so. Go for it!
Posted in Dental office web site, Dental practice, Medical office web site, Medical practice, Practice management, Practice marketing, Practice web site | Comments Off
March 13th, 2012
Physicians will need to communicate with patients online to satisfy new and tougher federal rules for “meaningful use” of electronic health records (EHRs), earn 5-figure bonuses, and avoid a penalty down the line.
Under proposed regulations released today by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), physicians must receive “secure messages,” an encrypted form of email, from more than 10% of patients seen. In addition, they must give patients timely electronic access to their healthcare information.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) proposed regulations for “meaningful use” of electronic health records (EHRs) on February 23rd. According to the proposed regulations, physicians will need to communicate with patients online to earn payments (up to $66,000 per doctor!) and avoid penalties down the line.
Under the proposed regulations, physicians must receive “secure messages,” an encrypted form of email, from more than 10% of patients seen. Have you considered how your web presence supports secure messaging with patients?
Messaging with patients (either through secure email, or through a secure web site) is a great opportunity to interface with your patients digitally. If your patients had not been insisting on getting information from your web site until now, the nature of your electronic relationship will change after you start communicating electronically.
Posted in Practice blog, Practice management, Practice marketing, Practice web site | Comments Off
February 28th, 2012
In prior posts we discussed the likely unintended consquences of responding to derogatory comments with legal action. But, if you don’t firing back with lawyers, what should you do?
- Consider “do nothing”. Ignore the derogatory comments and focus on practicing good medicine.
- Place as many positive statements as possible on any Website containing negative comments. (For sites that have comment or talkback, this is very straightforward. In other cases, you may need to stimulate new reviews, positive reviews, of your practice).
- Get other sites — such as your own — in the top ten search results for Google and Bing. When a prospective patient searches for your name, you can crowd out negative results from the top ten, effectively consigning them to oblivion.
Our preferred suggestion: crowd out negative reviews by pushing them below the top 10 results patients search for you on Google and Bing.
Posted in Practice blog, Practice management, Practice marketing, Practice web site, Reputation | Comments Off
February 23rd, 2012
Here is another example of how legal action can actually multiply your negative publicity.
Georgette Gilbert wasn’t pleased, to say the least, with the results of procedures she had done with Dr. Jonathan Sykes, a plastic and reconstructive surgeon at the University of California, Davis, Medical Center. So, in the best tradition of “get even not mad”, she posted a web site describing her experience and mentioning Dr. Sykes by name. A lot of work was put into the site (even featuring before-and-after photos). Dr. Sykes filed a lawsuit.
Result 1: the suit was dismissed because, according to the judge, his prominence conferred on Dr. Sykes the status of a “limited-purpose public figure.”
Result 2: Dr. Sykes paid his own legal fees and Gilbert’s legal fees.
Result 3: The website stayed up and Dr. Sykes got more negative publicity. A lot more negative publicity. (The first 10 Google search results on Feb 1, 2012 returned 9 out of 10 pages related to Gilbert.)
Lesson learned: responding to derogatory comments with legal action can have the unintended consequence of multiplying your digital reputation problem.
Posted in Practice management, Practice marketing, Reputation | Comments Off
February 1st, 2012
Say a patient posts unflattering comments about his or her doctor on the Internet. You can file a lawsuit claiming defamation or interference with a business contract. Your lawyer can get creative. But the tactic is likely to backfire. Not just will the legal fees be costly, but you are likely to wind up with still more negative publicity.
Anthony Francis, MD, JD, writing in Medscape, describes the case of Dr. David McKee, a neurologist in Minnesota who sued the son of an 85-year old patient for defamation in response to online postings by a disgruntled patient.
Result 1: The judge dismissed the lawsuit, ruling that the comments posted online were not defamatory.
Result 2: Dr. McKee’s lawsuit triggered over 60 negative posts on medical rating web sites, apparently mostly from strangers angered by the lawsuit.
Lesson Learned: Responding to negative postings with legal action will cost you money and is likely to have the unintended consequence of amplifying the damage to your reputation.
So how can you protect your good name? Stay tuned for the next posts on this issue.
P.S. How do you think that this post effect the experience of potential patients who Google “Dr. McKee neurologist”
Posted in Practice management, Practice marketing, Reputation | Comments Off
October 29th, 2011
Rotary clubs, Kiwanis, schools, community centers in your area are hungry for informative programming. Who better than to provide this program than you!
Community programming is a great way for you to get your message out about your practice – and to focus your outreach on the patient demographic that you need. Remember, repeat exposure is key to brining in new patients, and when a patient mentions your name to a friend or neighbor, if they have heard your name or met you in the community, the chance that they will contact you for an appointment just went up dramatically.
Doing well by doing good really works!
Posted in Dental practice, Medical practice, Practice blog, Practice management, Practice marketing, Uncategorized | No Comments »
August 16th, 2011
A study from the Journal of Hypertension showed patients quickly forget about 40 percent of what physicians tell them.* To overcome this problem, use your web site to provide patients with written explanations, images and video describing their conditions and treatments.
* Ley P. Doctor-patient communication: Some quantitative estimates of the role of cognitive factors in non-compliance. J of Hypertension. 1985;3:51-5.
Posted in Case acceptance, Practice management, Practice web site | No Comments »
July 1st, 2011
There are simple and effective ways to drive your patients and potential patients to your web site.
1. Printing your web site address on your business cards, patient appointment cards, on all of your stationary, even on the window shades of your clinic!
2. When setting up your emails, have your web address added automatically as part of your signature line.
3. Mentioning your web site address on your voice mail, i.e. “if you are calling to find directions to our office, you can get this information from our web site www.gomdweb.com”.
Check out these newly published sites:
Dr. Zelig Solomon
Dr. Keith Schulhof
Dr. David Genet
Dr. Alan Lubarr
Tags: dental web site, SEO, web site promotion
Posted in Case acceptance, Dental office web site, Dental practice, Medical office web site, Medical practice, Practice management, Practice marketing, Practice web site | No Comments »
March 24th, 2011
For patients it’s sometimes difficult to judge the doctor’s skills and expertise. What patients can easily perceive, however, is leadership: how much does the doctor care about me? Are appointments on time? Is the office neat and clean? And, in a way much easier to handle, is a professional web site for your practice with professional content.
Sharp, crisp, clear presentation to your patients contributes to their perception of your skills — and their willingness to accept a course of treatment that you might propose.
There are a few nice sites which try and educate patients about health issues, such as renal failure, kidney stones, and other health issues: http://www.njnephrology.com.
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »