Eye Care Marketing and Email: The Doctor Will Text You Now

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000…513900382.html
(You may need a subscription, but here’s the link)

The article in this morning’s journal, “The Doctor Will Text You Now: Patients Visit With Their Physicians Online as More Insurers Begin Paying for Digital Diagnoses” gets off on to an embarrassing start by using a ‘red eye’ example, which you have to let slide (for now) in order to get to what I think really can be helpful.

This is what motivated me to share it with you:

“This year, 39% of doctors said they’d communicated with patients online, up from just 16% five years earlier, according to health-information firm Manhattan Research, a unit of Decision Resources Inc. So far, the most common digital doctor services are the simplest ones, like paying bills, sending lab results and scheduling appointments. But patients like Ms. Rust are also using computers to deal with issues that usually require a trip to the doctor’s office.”

And this where they miss the point:

The article goes on to focus on reimbursement as they describe the demand for online care growing leading to “more health insurers begin paying doctors for treating patients virtually, albeit at a lower fee scale than for traditional in-office appointments.”
***

Perhaps the Internist, overwhelmed with 40 patients per day, cringes at the idea of answering a flurry of patient emails ‘on the house’. Maybe you can’t blame the insurance provider for looking for ways of keeping patients out of the office.

But what about doctors who simply want to provide a valuable service, build solid loyalty, and GIVE patients a compelling reason to refer family and friends?

Many of you already make this service available in your practices. Its even part of your marketing strategy. You have a website and email contact form (so you don’t get spam). Some of you collect emails and regularly broadcast to your patients.

A lot of patients will email you from vacation. Some will have questions best answered by your staff. Occasionally, you’ll get a note from a prospective patient- usually with a good question – who almost always becomes your new patient soon.

Many of us immediately see the downside. What ‘can of worms’ am I opening with this? Does my response need to be formal? I don’t have time for this. Is this patient going to abuse this/me? Patient loyalty is complex and not predictable, and therefore you cannot rely on this alone to build trust (perhaps true). Is this even HIPPA compliant?

Of course, in reality, patients are simply overwhelmed by your willingness to acknowledge them (in any format) and most-often they WILL follow your advise — whether you reassure them, answer a question, call in an RX, or send them to the nearest ER.

And more often than not, you’ll get a very well-articulated question from a patient pointing out a problem or concern that many other patients might be thinking about. If you can then capitalize on this by delivering your response to the greater patient base, you have just leveraged serious value.

Okay. Now worry with the tiny reimbursement from the insurance masters.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000…513900382.html

Read more about how optometry marketing and email can transform the way you practice!