Running a physical therapy clinic is no simple feat. Beyond the physical therapy knowledge and experience you provide, it's essential to make sure that you consider every experience your patient has with your clinic, including the encounters leading up to and following their appointment. Building trust through patient experience is a continuous learning process that requires you to be considerate and intentional with how you run your business.
Finding new customers can cost you five times more than retaining existing ones. While it’s essential to focus on generating new business, offering your existing patients a great experience may be even more important for your clinic. Word of mouth is the most effective form of marketing so creating a positive clinic experience should be your top priority to help drive referral business.
Here are a few things that you should take into consideration to provide your patients with the best overall experience and turn them into your best referral source:
Every physical therapy clinic should have a digital marketing strategy. Start by creating a website that allows your patients to book their appointments and access important information. Your practice website can serve as a hub for existing patients to get the information they need while acting as a lead generation tool for new business. For example, you may want to consider adding several clear, well-lit pictures of your clinic to your website. This way, prospective patients know what to expect—seeing that your parking lot has lots of parking spaces near your door could be the difference between a patient booking with you – or another PT who does showcase their clinic's accessibility.
A well-designed website can boost your Google ranking and make you more visible to your local audience.
When a patient shows up to your clinic, what sort of impression will they have? Is your location easy to find and access? Was parking simple? Are you on the first floor? Is your waiting room warm and inviting? It’s important to consider every experience and interaction your patient will have with your clinic. Any added stress or discomfort created could mean losing that patient for good or even worse, they could take that information online and discourage new patients from going in the first place.
Ensure the environment you control is clean, inviting, and easy to navigate.
People rely on customer feedback and reviews when evaluating new providers. Make sure to add it to your process to be proactive and ask for those reviews when you provide a positive experience to your patients.
While we hope never to receive negative reviews from our patients, it can happen. It's also essential to respond to those negative reviews professionally, and as an aside – be sure to remain HIPPAA compliant in your response! When you respond to both positive and negative reviews, it shows prospective patients that you care and could sway their opinions based on how you respond.
Creating and sharing content on your blog and social media profiles is an excellent way to provide helpful healthcare information while increasing patient satisfaction. Even at your clinic, it can be beneficial to provide helpful information to patients while they are waiting or even information they can take away with them.
Consider what your patients want to know about certain things like insurance acceptance, treatments, and services you provide. Think about what questions you get asked most frequently and create educational content that addresses those questions.
Be intentional and transparent about your company culture and build that into your hiring and onboarding processes. Excellent company culture creates happy employees that will be excited to work at your practice and provide the best service possible to your patients.
Patients can see and feel the negative energy in a work environment. That experience can turn patients away from wanting to come back or promote your clinic to friends and family.
Use strategic touchpoints to contact patients after the appointment to demonstrate that you care about them and their ongoing treatment. Soon after a visit, sending a survey is an incredible way to obtain patient feedback. Even negative comments can help you enhance the quality of your services, leading to happy patients (and better ratings) in the long run. Consider sending a check-in email at the 3, 6, and 12-month mark after treatment is complete. Offer an incentive to come back to the clinic for another service – like laser or massage or a follow-up evaluation to ensure they are healthy, healed, and doing well.
Showing your patients that you care about their experience helps build trust and increases the likelihood of them promoting your clinic to others and returning when they need additional help.
At FYZICAL, we work with physical therapy practice owners to improve their practice operations and combat industry challenges, like declining reimbursements. We encourage our clinic operators to use the relationships they develop with their patients as a strategy to foster their loyalty. Patients will want to continue working with you if you deliver the services they need at the level of customer service they deserve.
Contact us today to get more information about transitioning your practice to a FYZICAL location.
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