Running a private healthcare-related business today is not easy. The competition is high and it is hard to differentiate yourself. I live in a town of 30,000 people and I quickly found 8 different resources that offer physical therapy services. I can drive in a radius of just 10 miles and find a dozen more. So, how can you compete with this type of situation?
If you’re not getting referals from a doctor, then there is a specific reason for that
Most doctors, such as primary care physicians, need to refer their patients to specialist. This is very common and if you are practicing in a highly competitive arena, such as physical therapy, then you’ll have your work cut out for you. To potential clients, you may initially be just another private practice – one of many – within a certain geographical location. One way to separate yourself from the “pack” is to build personal relationships with doctors and physicians. This is necessary from both a marketing and clinical standpoint. If you are having trouble getting referrals, make sure you have reached out to doctors in your area to find out why.
Spend more time on marketing yourself
Owners of most small businesses are not marketers by trade. It is something they know they need to do for their business, but it often times gets done poorly or not at all. Private practitioners tend to fall in this same boat. One of the best things the owner of a private practice can do is to spend more time visit and reaching out to doctors and physicians. And, don’t simply go through the motions and just “hit up” the same few doctors every month. This type of marketing effort will not yield long term results.
If you want to truly succeed and find growth in your business, you need to dedicate a good amount of time and resources to market your business to the life blood of your business – those who refer. Doctors have the patients already and they need to be able to trust their patients to outside therapists and other healthcare practitioners. It is still important to seek out doctors and forge relationships with as many as you possibly can.
Also, doctors, just like patients, use the Internet for research. If you don’t have a website yet, then you will absolutely need to create one. A website is a great way to promote yourself, share past client results, inform people about who you are and what type of practice you run. Doctors and patients alike will use your website to vet you, which can be a good or bad thing depending on the quality of your website.
Building a strong presence online is almost necessary these days and you need to begin this process by having a strong website that reinforces who you are, what you do and how you have helped people in the past. One company that has a stellar reputation for helping private practice market themselves is Measurable Solutions. The founders are former practitioners themselves and have created highly custom marketing solutions for business across the country. They may be worth looking into.