The days when orthopedic practices could thrive off referrals alone are long gone. Patient and physician referrals are still essential for any orthopedic practice to grow.
But providers of orthopedic care need to manage their digital presence to ensure that patients find them and establish trust while they seek care. Patients now look to sources like Google and rating/reviews sites to complement referrals from people they know personally. In fact, nearly eight out of 10 patients search online for healthcare, according to Google, and those searches include research into symptoms, wellness care, and provider alternatives. And patients continue to use digital devices to find care in increasingly sophisticated ways, such as voice queries and mobile searches. To create patient access and engagement in the era of omnichannel discovery, orthopedic providers need to master five digital imperatives:
1. Make Yourself Findable
Patient access begins with being found online. Being found means optimizing your content for search and treating data as a competitive asset.
Accurate location and physician data -- such as your name, address, phone number, business category, hours of operation, and insurance accepted -- creates the foundation for being found. For orthopedic practices, managing accurate location data presents special challenges. Your physicians may keep different hours and operate out of multiple locations depending on the day of the week. And of course the insurance you accept changes, too. Keeping location data accurate requires a dedicated effort. And it's not enough to keep data accurate and up to date -- you also need to share data with the publishers such as Google and data aggregators such as Neustar that share your information wherever people look for care. Make sure you check your data at least once a month to ensure that accurate listings are showing up wherever searches are done.
Going hand in hand with accurate data is content optimized for search, which means, for instance, ensuring your website prominently features the keywords that people use to look for care. When a patient seeks treatment for back pain, they're most likely doing a non-branded search (e.g., "back pain specialist"). I suggest putting yourselves in the shoes of your patients and conduct a search for symptoms that you specialize in. Is your practice showing up for those searches? If not, it's time to take a look at your keyword strategy.
2. Master Social Media
Managing your social media presence makes your brand more human, up to date, and present. Progressive orthopedic practices have already been using platforms such as Facebook to share industry news, their own blog posts, announcements about their practices (such as the addition of new physicians), and visual content such as physician videos. I counsel my clients to make sure they have a presence on the big four social media platforms as follows:
● Facebook: to achieve reach and visibility, given its size and flexibility for sharing multiple forms of content. Caveat: you'll need to consider advertising on Facebook to really gain traction.
● Instagram: consider Instagram as a source for giving an inside look at your practice via visual content, such as providing a tour of a new facility or sharing a photo of a new physician. We live in a visual age, and orthopedic patients respond to visual content, too.
● LinkedIn: your foundation for business referrals. Hint: make sure all your physicians maintain accurate and up-to-date personal profiles. Referrals start with physicians.
● Twitter: your go-to source for keeping your brand up to date by sharing news updates, blog content, and other timely content.
Also, remember that in an omnichannel world, patients are looking for providers on social -- according to Demi & Cooper Advertising and DC Interactive Group, 41 percent of people surveyed said that social media would affect their choice of a specific doctor or facility. So make sure your data and content are optimized for search on social platforms.
3. Think Visually
Images speak the language of the digital age. Providing rich visual content on your site makes your brand:
● More human when you post images and video content that shares the personality and knowledge of your physicians.
● More authoritative when you use video and imagery to provide useful information, an example being the way Resurgens uses video and striking images to educate patients on symptom-related topics and wellness care.
● More findable because Google looks for images as well as written content and data to deliver search results for patients seeking care. The more content you share, both visually and written, the more findable your practice is.
Sharing powerful images comes down to relevancy. The more visual you are, the more relevant you are go the way people search and interact with each other and healthcare providers.
4. Create Patient Access
It's not enough to be found online. You have to make patient access easy once patients find you. Creating patient access means encouraging that "next moment," or the action that patients take once they visit your site, physician pages, or anywhere else your brand exists, such as on social spaces. Examples of creating patient access include:
● Creating scheduling tools that make it easy for patients to book an appointment.
● Including chat functionality to address questions patients may have before they book an appointment.
● Providing patient portals to encourage current patients to come back for care when they need it. Effective portals make it easy for patients to ask questions, book appointments, and essentially manage the relationship online with you.
In 2016, my own company, SIM Partners, even made it possible for healthcare providers to add "Ride There with Uber" buttons on their sites in order to make it easy for patients to book rides to facilities should they need them. But even publishing driving directions to your practice can make a huge difference in providing patient access.
One of the keys to creating next moments is to make sure that patient access functionality is easy to use on mobile devices. Increasingly, patients are turning to mobile to manage their searches and to manage appointments.
5. Capitalize on Referrals
As I noted, referrals alone are not sufficient to create patient access -- but they are still important.
The key to capitalizing on referrals is to make it easy for physicians to find you online. Physicians tend to perform branded searches -- in other words, searches for specific names of practices, physician certifications, their specialties, and other information about providers. So it's essential that your physician pages be as accurate and complete as possible with essential content such as:
● As noted earlier, accurate essential data such as insurance covered.
● Deep content that provides more context about your physicians, such as mission statements and educational background, as the Lakeshore Bone & Joint Institute does by using video to introduce its providers.
Larger orthopedic practices should also maintain comprehensive, user-friendly find-a-doctor directories on their websites. Many healthcare systems think of find-a-doctor directories as essential tools for patients, as well they should. But directories are also essential to other providers for referrals. The easier you make the physician discovery process, the more likely it is that you will gain a referral.
An Ongoing Commitment
Managing your digital presence requires an ongoing commitment -- a commitment to continue learning about the patient journey and a commitment to keeping your brand compelling and up to date. Not long ago, a column such as this one would have had little to say about social media or visual content. And I've barely touched upon some trends that are shaping the future of patient discovery and care, such as the rise of voice search. Your world is ever changing. Are you?
Brian Westrick is SIM Partners' Director of Enterprise Sales. In 2016, Brian Westrick joined SIM Partners bringing 14 years of experience navigating the healthcare solutions and technology space. During that time, Brian has worked with health systems and medical groups to improve healthcare through technology including health information management, supply chain, clinician recruitment and healthcare marketing. Recently Brian's focus has been on patient access and engagement; how providers can improve patient engagement in those micro-moments of search and discovery.
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