Are you wondering how to grow your private practice and attract more patients? The following 6 changes are an easy way to start:
- Focus on what you are good at…..and that is being a clinician if you are in doubt! Do not think you are saving money by running all aspects of your practice yourself, it is false economy. You didn’t train for umpteen years to be typing your letters or chasing insurance companies for payment.
- Ensure you have outstanding secretarial and typing support. Your secretarial support is the window to your private practice and will attract (or deter if you get it wrong) potential patients. A recent survey undertaken for private consultants, showed that only 66% of patient telephone calls were answered. For every call not answered you’ve potentially lost a new patient. Are your clinics letters typed and sent to GPs and colleagues in a timely fashion? It’s very frustrating for GPs not to know what is going on with their patients if they don’t receive your correspondence for weeks upon end.
- Make sure your invoices are sent out on time and you have a process in place for chasing insurance companies for unpaid invoices…… what is the point in building your practice in the first place if you’re not going to be paid?
- Don’t try to be a “jack of all trades and master of none”. Be crystal clear to your referrers and patients what your area of expertise is. For example, you may be an orthopaedic surgeon who specialises in knees – so focus on this area, talk to your referrers and write patient friendly blogs about knees. Do not pretend to be an expert on all orthopaedic conditions as that is not attractive to referrers.
- Treat your patients like royalty every time you see and communicate with them. Patients talk to their friends and your referrers and they feed back their experience with you. Ensure your give your patients your full attention for their full appointment time. Even if you can get through the appointment quicker as it’s a straight forward patient, try not to herd the patient out the door too early – the patient will feel short changed and won’t leave with a good warm feeling about you. As the well-known phrase goes – people won’t remember what you say, but they will remember how you made them feel. Happy patients = more referrals.
- And finally, there is no point in being good at what you do, if no one knows about you. You need to market yourself and your practice and there are many ways in which you can do this. A great way to start is by asking patients for reviews and adding these to your website. Don’t have a website? This is then the first thing you should do.
There are many more ways in which you can develop your private practice but starting with these 6 simple changes is a good start.
If you need help with your practice, contact us now to see how we can help you.
Sally Barr
Trust Health Ltd
01403 241484
www.trusthealth.co.uk
