(after reading, PLEASE DO SHARE YOUR Views / Experience / Ideas /Opinion / Techniques / Queries with regards to this topic in the comments below)
Most doctors rely on the patient fee as the ONLY source of their revenue. Let us broadly classify the patients as Old patients & New patients based on whether they are visiting our clinic for the first time or not. Inorder to have a consistent revenue growth, we have to ATTRACT new patients and RETAIN our old patients.
I. NEW PATENTS:
In olden times patients used to run behind / CHASE doctors for availing their services. But it is sad to note that, in today’s world, doctors are Chasing patients. Instead of chasing, let us start to ATTRACT patients.
What are the things that we can do inorder to ATTRACT patients? Being visible in the online space is the first and the foremost strategy to attract patients. If you are invisible ‘virtually’ you are considered to be non-existent.
1. Building up your community using social media platforms
2. sharing healthcare / awareness tips
3. conducting free webinars
4. sharing your success cases / testimonials
5. writing blogs / publishing a book on the topic of your expertise etc
II. OLD PATIENTS:
We all know that it is more difficult to RETAIN old patients than bring in new cases. Retaining the old patients is a far more significant task which we should be focusing on. The two major reasons, why a patient leaves a doctor is, our bad attitude and lack of care. Do we care for our old patients enough…. ? Most often, we either take them for granted or think it’s their necessity to consult a doctor. This is a grave mistake many of us do when it comes to taking care of old patients.
1. Offer them a patient listening, an elaborate physical examination, necessary investigations, conclusive diagnosis, and best of Similimum (or effective protocol-based therapy)
2. Respond to the calls / messages within No time. Be prompt with your appointments (if you are a busy practitioner, and has no time to respond to all the calls, please make alternative arrangements)
3. Give the best of care, service and support, even if you are not getting paid during each call or visit.
4. Find out what are their NDP (Needs, desires, Problems)
5. Always cater to them with a smile on your (masked) face.
III. UP-SELLING:
Upselling is the strategy which involves encouraging the patients to buy a service of a higher value from you. In simple terms, we can ethically encourage the chronic case patients to buy medicines for a month instead of 1 week each. Some examples of upselling are given below for your reference. No form of upselling is unethical if it provides more value to our patients. It is always advised not to PUSH
1. Suggesting to take medicines for longer time period – so that they save much on travel expenses
2. When a patient is travelling abroad, asking him to carry meds for atleast 3-4 months, and thereby helping him to avoid unnecessary courier charges
3. Suggesting a bigger size bottle of tonic/ cough syrup / medicine kit
IV. CROSS SELLING:
This is the practice of persuading / selling an additional service/ product along with the main product which the patient asks for. In simpler terms, its how we get/eat ‘vada’ along with each Masala Dosa in our country (also French fries with burger / pizza)
1. Persuading a patient to buy immune booster medicines along with his regular medications
2. Suggesting about the other services in our own clinic (like counseling/ Dietician/ weight loss therapy/ yoga etc)
3. When a patient is carrying his regular medications abroad, you can even ask him to buy a Family Medicine Kit
Following these four important pointers (taking proper care of your old patient, performing activities to attract new patients, upeseeling & Cross selling) we will be able to generate 3X revenue in our clinic.
PLEASE DO SHARE YOUR Views / Experience/ Ideas / Opinion / Techniques / Queries with regards to this topic in the comments below
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