There are a number of ways to increase the number of patients you see in your clinic. You could do paid activities such as advertisements in social media, radio, or online news media. Or you could try your hand at organic, free ways to increase your clinics revenue. In this article, we’ll cover how to increase your caseload via direct referrals:
⦁ Provide amazing services!
I know, this is an obvious one but having meaningful communications and therapy services are one of the best ways to impress our patients. When they see how hard you or your staff work, and more importantly, how much you care about their success – then they’ll recognize you for it.
⦁ Provide patients a way to review you
Often times patients are willing to take a few minutes to share their thoughts, but either they don’t know how or you haven’t made it easy enough for them to perform their review.
The easiest and most professional way to gather a review is to use Google My Business. This is a free service in which you can make a profile and get a review link that you could email to your patients when they end their plan of care with you. With this review link, they can input a star rating and a written response if they desire.
This method is not only a free and easy way to gather reviews, but it’s also easy to show case reviews, plus increasing reviews on Google My Business should your online traffic as a result.
⦁ Create email follow ups:
Patients may need to have several reminders to perform a review and so having an email automation that is triggered when patients complete their therapy program would help in making sure they have a positive experience after therapy. In addition to asking for their review, your emails could include asking how are they are doing, and making them feel as though they are still cared for even after their therapy concludes.
⦁ Be a leader on social media:
It can be hard to juggle running a therapy practice, caring for patients, PLUS running social media marketing. But, social media has become the way for people to communicate with each other.
So many times, referrals happen via comments on YouTube videos or within Facebook groups. Just think, have you ever asked a question about best baby stroller, or best life insurance to get? You are looking for trusted and personal referrals.
Consider having a Facebook group for past patients that way you can stay in touch or a Facebook group that’s for a certain diagnoses you specialize in, or maybe a local Facebook group. And perhaps your audience is a younger generation, Instagram or TikTok may be a better social media outlet in that case.
⦁ Have quarterly or holiday events:
My dad is an orthopedic mess! He has gone through plenty of physical therapy when he was younger. And remember that ever baskeball season, the PT clinic would put on little competition to see who could pick the college basketball winner. You paid $10 and you not only potentially won some money but you also received a cool t-shirt with, of course, the PT clinics logo plastered all over it. They also held a nice holiday party each year.
Thinking of ways to appreciate your patients and keep engaged in the community, as well as maybe some promotional sway, are great additional ways to add a little extra personal feel to your clinic and help your therapy practice standout as a referral when the time comes.