Successful practices are constantly seeking new and innovative ways to get patients through their doors, often pursuing marketing strategies aimed at new customers. While attracting new patients should always have a place in a practice’s marketing plan, efforts to reactivate former patients are just as important—if not more so.  And yet, patient reactivation remains a weak spot for most of the healthcare industry with about 30 percent of practices using these strategies {{https://www.practicebuilders.com/blog/patient-reactivation-strategies-tips-and-best-practices/}} Below are five reasons why you should focus on patient reactivation: Reactivating former patients is more cost-effective than marketing to new ones. Patients who have previously been treated at your office are more likely to return, especially if they had a positive experience; therefore, they do not require an extensive marketing plan to get them back through your door. This means your practice does not have to waste valuable time prospecting for all new patients and building relationships with them when your inactive patients already know and trust you. According to Harvard [...]

Integrating or migrating practice management systems is one of the most painful undertakings when merging an acquired practice or starting a new practice management system. Most practice management systems offer migration tools, but they generally merge only patient demographic information while disregarding visit, diagnosis, treatment, and other histories that are important to understand but expensive to migrate. Groups who go through this process soon find out that this partial migration elevates their risk of losing patients. How? This historical data is needed to correctly identify patients who require care based on their disease profile and last date of treatment. Brevium Has a Data-Mining Advantage Brevium is uniquely positioned to provide this data. The data scientists at Brevium know how to search, deduplicate, and link the old and new databases and produce one seamless piece of patient history, which can then be used to reactivate lost patients.   Brevium Stitches the Old System to the New Brevium can thus “stitch” the old database to the new [...]

Your practice likely has 1,000 to 2,000 patients per provider who have become inactive patients; they have stopped responding to your recalls and reminders, and your office has given up on them. Their reasons for dropping off your current-patient list range from their moving away to simple neglect on their part. You can reactivate many of these patients, about 25 percent on average, using data science and smart communication strategies at a much lower expense than trying to replace them with new patients. Not only does your practice need these patients, but many of them are out of compliance and need your care to maintain their health.  Brevium has been researching and developing tools and strategies around patient reactivation for more than eight years, and we have developed a two-prong approach that has worked for many practices and will work for you.  Brevium Analyzes the Data Already in Your Practice Management Software Your practice management software captures and stores a rich amount of data [...]

Brevium recently worked with the leaders of a large ophthalmology practice that had just opened, and they were investigating tactics for filling their patient schedules as quickly as possible. The first avenue they pursued was contacting overdue patients. Contacting overdue patients can seem like a huge chore, but the group simplified the process. They just sent a short message that was easy to respond to. Their message was simple: “Hello Jennifer, according to our records, you are due for your next eye appointment. Scheduling is simple: You can call our office at 770-555-8000, or click this link online Schedule Now. Ask to see one of our new glaucoma specialists: Dr. James Q. Hart, M.D., or Dr. Anthony Z. McMillan, O.D. The practice generated 96 appointments for the M.D. in the first four months and 254 appointments for the O.D. using this method.  Contacting lost and overdue patients to schedule them with new providers is amazingly effective. Doing this in a way that is easier [...]

By Joe Casper, MBA COE   I consider myself a relatively intelligent, savvy professional without bragging or boasting. I've parlayed college and MBA degrees into a successful business career. Despite these credentials and experience, I know how it feels to suffer sunk-cost bias. With sunk-cost bias, you invest in a decision monetarily and emotionally that paralyzes you from making informed course corrections. Sunk-Stock Bias At a previous company, I purchased many company shares that proven experts ultimately envisioned going from around $225 (at the time) to over $300 and beyond. I bought them in the mid-$100s. The company was fundamentally sound, had good management, and its product/R&D portfolio appeared robust. I was excited (and anxious) to ride the stock to riches. Unfortunately, several regulatory and compliance issues popped up, and the stock began losing value. I, however, refused to believe what I was hearing and seeing. I had a blind spot for this stock. I just "knew" setbacks were temporary, and the stock would [...]

Relying completely on your current patient communication system could leave you missing a large population of patients whom you should be engaging. You have likely committed to a reliable patient recall system and have sunk a lot of money into implementing it. Like most administrators and other practice and business leaders, you turned this system on and, after evaluating results, trust that it is doing its job. However, this might trap you in a sunk-cost bias. Forbes defines this as “It’s our tendency to continue investing in a losing proposition because of what it’s already cost us.” After investing time, money and reputation in a system, decision makers tend to stick with that system even when conditions change or new situations arise.  You Might Be Missing a Significant Patient Population When you implemented and tested your recall and practice management systems, you were probably looking primarily at how effective they were at recalling patients and reminding them of their appointments. However, recapturing patients who [...]

You are missing a large number of patients if you rely on texting as your sole means of communication. Active patients will tell you they prefer texts for patient recalls and appointment reminders; that’s why successful practices have adopted this technology. But what about the large number of patients who have stopped responding altogether? You likely have as many as 1,000 to 2,000 of these out-of-compliance patients per provider. They need your practice’s care, but for any number of reasons, they no longer answer your texts.  A study done in March of 2015 tried to figure out why patients avoid medical care, and their conclusion was widely varied results. However, they did say “Understanding why people do not make it through the clinic door is critical to extending the reach and effectiveness of patient care, and these data point to new directions for research and strategies to reduce avoidance.” The good news is that you can reach and reactivate many of these patients, and [...]

Building patient relationships through texts and emails sounds like an oxymoron if you’re a baby boomer, but to a Millennial or Gen Zer communicating using these technologies is a no-brainer. They grew up with technology, and they have discovered its advantages.  Consider that texts are convenient and phone calls are disruptive. When the phone rings, the caller expects you to answer immediately, and you are suddenly on the spot. If the caller is a salesperson, you have to decide whether to listen to the pitch and then decide to if you will take the next step. If a friend calls, you have to interrupt your shopping or TV show to engage in a conversation. With texts, you enjoy the immediacy of the message, but you don’t have to respond immediately. You can think about your response and wait for a convenient time to text back.  Thanks to the conveniences of texting and emails, most baby boomers have also bought into these technological means of [...]

It can be hard to know! Your practice has likely automated its patient communications, taking advantage of texting and emails. These methods are usually effective and are much cheaper in staff time and postage than mailing postcards and making phone calls. Texting and emailing are popular methods, especially with Millennials and Generation Zers, 75 percent of whom prefer texting almost exclusively. In fact, Linkedin did a blog about meeting vs. texting preferences for Millennials and Generation Zers. They talked about how they communicate differently than past generations. Linkedin said, “Recognizing these differences and adapting your company’s communication style accordingly is essential. With the right strategies, businesses can embrace the new communication preferences of Millennials and Gen Z.” While this might be true for some generations of patients, have you considered whether all your patients prefer these methods of communication, and, more importantly, are they the most effective? Others such as Baby Boomers, who might not be as comfortable with newer technologies, might have different [...]

The most important relationship in your practice is between the doctor and the patient. And the foundation of that patient relationship is trust. The patient must trust their doctor to diagnose their conditions and provide the best possible care. The doctor must trust that the patient provides honest and complete explanations and is open to the doctor’s recommendations. Without trust, patients will change doctors.  Interpersonal trust is a belief that both people in the relationship will act in both party’s common interests. Trust is an emotion, where patients are comforted by their doctor’s caring attitude and thus willingly depend on the care giver’s intentions. ((https://www.researchgate.net/publication/311259557_The_Role_of_Trust_in_Doctor-Patient_Relationship_Qualitative_Evaluation_of_Online_Feedback_from_Polish_Patients)) Patients’ trust in doctors is confidence that the doctor will act in their best interest. Trust includes communication, compassion, privacy and confidentiality, reliability, and competence. ((https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1495476/)) According to research from George Washington University, patients say they trust doctors who listen to them, are compassionate, and who patiently explain everything the patient wants to know. ((https://www.dignityhealth.org/articles/how-to-build-patient-trust-to-improve-the-doctor-patient-relationship)) Another study listed in [...]