Maintaining and growing a medical practice has been the main challenge that many practice owners are facing.  In a recent panel webinar, DearDoc’s Marketing Director Cheyenne Kolosky interviewed Dr. Diana Canto-Sims, Dr. Andrew Wolin, and Dr. Roy Stoller to discuss how the pandemic has affected the healthcare landscape and their outlook on growing medical practices and acquiring patients digitally in 2022.

Click below to watch the full webinar replay:

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How has the pandemic affected the healthcare landscape?

When it comes to marketing and interacting with patients during the Covid-19 climate, Dr. Diana Canto of Buena Vista Optical feels that integrating telemedicine and other virtual technologies is an excellent asset for medical practices as the younger generation is highly responsive to this, stating that "the pandemic has encouraged more people to feel more comfortable with technology when it comes to their medical attention.

The pandemic has pushed patients to be more digitalized than before, making it difficult for practices to ignore their digital presence. That's why 2,500+ medical practices are trusting DearDoc to digitalize the way they acquire and interact with patients. Book a quick call to see how our cloud-based solution can help you grow:

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What marketing channels are working for patient acquisition?

With more medical visits resorting to online mediums, Dr. Diane Canto feels there are a few key marketing necessities that every practice should focus on. Finding new patients through word of mouth is still common, but with the minimal interaction that the pandemic has caused, other digital marketing methods cannot be ignored.

Website and SEO are crucial

Dr. Canto feels every medical practice should have a website that's inviting, easy to understand and navigate. Not only does it help new patients discover you, but you're also able to review the metrics and analytics associated with your website and how your website is performing in search engines such as Google. She goes on to mention that traffic to her website has "grown 300%, if not more," simply from managing and improving her website over time.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) undoubtedly plays a big part in how and where your medical practice is found online; how your practice ranks in search engines can make a massive difference in acquiring new patients. Dr. Canto has seen firsthand how SEO has improved visibility for her practice and mentioned that:

"If you don't have a website, you are at a disadvantage because having a website today is like having a digital business card."

Dr. Stoller gave an interesting perspective on optimizing your search ranking, as he's also seen the benefits it provides, referencing that you have to be adaptable and open to change for SEO to really help you practice rank in search engines. In the breakdown of his understanding of the topic, he went on to say, "you have to be willing to sacrifice the way the website looks for the SEO to work."

Patients want to interact online

Another feature that's helped Dr. Canto with patient acquisition is through DearDoc's AI Smartchat, which helps new patients get their immediate questions answered and directed toward the next step. Not only does it save her time throughout the day, but it helps patients get to the care they need much faster.

Each medical practice offers many different services, which can affect how they integrate telehealth visits and online marketing methods. Dr. Andrew Wolin found success through online marketing techniques and creating funnels that lead to conversions. To clarify further, he says that funnels are supposed to get people to "not only just look at your page, but click through and look at your site. Then they call you to make an appointment."

He clarifies that with the use of AI technology, you can find new patients searching for the exact services a medical practice offers. This helps patients get the direct care they need while increasing the efficiency of the medical practice itself.

What roles are online reviews playing in growing a practice?

Good or bad reviews can make or break a potential patient's decision to visit a new practice. Dr. Wolin has found a way for patients to leave reviews with minimal effort with the use of QR codes. This allows people to simply use their smartphone camera to pull up your review page rather than having to search it up themselves manually. That efficiency and ease of access will prompt more patients to leave a review.

On the other hand, there are also potential downsides to public reviews, as they can go one way or the other. Dr. Stoller mentions it's imperative to address each negative review as it gives others a look into how you deal with disgruntled patients. He states that "patients who come in and I ask them why they came in, and they say, I loved your response to a bad review." That level of professionalism and care goes a long way in convincing people to visit your practice and seek out your services.

How has DearDoc improved your practice growth and patient interactions?

DearDoc’s cloud-based solution is designed to help medical practices grow and deliver a better patient experience. Each panelist provided a fair amount of insight into how that's helped their patient growth. Dr. Canto is a loyal client of DearDoc, going on to say that she loves how many new online appointments have been generated from DearDoc’s solution. She says that before DearDoc:

"We used to get maybe one or two appointments a month, now we're getting about one to seven appointments every day."

For Dr. Wolin, he feels DearDoc has made its online marketing efforts more effective. It gives potential patients a more efficient path to scheduling appointments, leaving reviews, and getting all the information they need about a particular medical practice.

In Dr. Stoller's case, he's seen how DearDoc has made virtual communication more efficient through the AI chat system, which has allowed his team to organize and prioritize leads to their ideal patient base.

In Conclusion

DearDoc is a solution designed to help practices improve online presence and the processes used to interact with patients. With marketing features such as a custom website builder, AI Chat, and review generator,  we empower medical practices to get more patients and deliver a better patient experience. Schedule a free consultation now to see how DearDoc can transform your practice: