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Teal is the New Black

How PPE and Infection Control Policies Can Save Lives and Your Practice.

The coronavirus pandemic has completely upended marketing messages. Television commercials, social media posts, and marketing emails experienced a tectonic shift in messaging and images.

patient-safety-marketing

Instead of emphasizing cheese-stuffed crust or spicy sauce, pizza chains talk about contactless delivery. 

Instead of MPGs or radical styling, car dealers want you to know you can get your new car without any human interaction.

What’s going on?

Your medical practice, too, needs to think about “brand” messages. In many states, patients are hesitantly, slowly coming back for long-deferred treatment. But most practices still have not seen a return to pre-COVID patient volumes.

Instead of a “V-Shaped” recovery, we’re facing a “NIKE” recovery: dramatic downturn, followed by slow, hesitant recovery.

COVID with nike logo

What can you do to bend back your own curve?

One idea is to make safety and hygiene part of your marketing message. 

As a doctor, position your brand in a way that reaches patients’ minds, and right now. Brands with a consistent message of safety have stronger associations that tend to resonate with consumers as they evaluate alternatives.

In these first tentative days of recovery, safety is a crucial motivator when choosing a provider. It is not the primary motivator, but it is definitely a reason to give pause.

As a doctor, you are in a unique position as trustworthy sources of information, especially emerging from a pandemic. You are in the best position to educate and reassure your patients – and staff – about staying safe during a pandemic. 

PPE and social distancing are not as appetizing as say, stuffed-crust pizza, but it is an important consideration as patients tentatively return to your practice.

Marketing Safety

When your practice adopts and communicates well thought out safety protocols, patients start making inferences: 

  • You are a doctor that cares about safety. You care about your staff and me.
  • Your practice pays attention to detailYou have logical, detailed procedures. Safety is more than a passing thought.  

There are several ways of introducing safety into your overall practice marketing efforts:

  1. Make wellness calls to all patients, especially those truants who are overdue for a checkup. Use the call to check on the patient’s overall health and reiterate the office’s new safety policies. Offer to email a summary. This will allow you to confirm the patient’s current email address seamlessly.
  2. Update your website with a COVID-19 specific pop-up banner for first-time visitors, and a dedicated page listing pre-visit protocols.
  3. Update your Google My Business listing. Google has extensive resources to help you communicate with patients. Your Google My Business listing rivals your own website in terms of communications with your existing patients. Be sure you keep your policies up to date.
  4. Echo those policies on your business’ social media profile, most likely your Facebook business page. 

Consider, too, making a video demonstration of the safety procedures you have in place. Get creative: demonstrate the patient journey from the front door, waiting room, to the exam room or operatory. 

Take pride and demonstrate any safety equipment you’ve recently installed (HEPA air handlers/purifiers, UV air sanitizers). Show how to properly wash your hands.

Yes, COVID-19 is a serious disease. But using proper guidelines and controls, the risk of infection can be greatly minimized. Your patients look to you for information and to reduce fear. Be that leader.

Reopening? Get a white paper with 25 post-COVID recovery tips for your practice.


    Contactless: It’s Time

    COVID-19 is a wake-up call for practices that are wed to old business processes that involve paper. Patients used to consider paper forms an annoyance. After COVID, they find them downright hazardous.

    Another way to communicate your practice’s commitment to patient safety is to implement new online procedures that get rid of paper.

    • Online appointment scheduling
    • Online new patient registration forms (with new-patient onboarding registration to your EHR)
    • Online payments
    • Easily cleaned glass-surfaced tablets for in-office check-in
    • Contactless credit card readers for in-office payments
    • Online mass communications (email, SMS)
    • Telehealth to triage new patients and for follow-up visits to help prevent in-office visits.
    • Remote patient monitoring technology.

    Paper forms (and the attendant inefficiencies) should be eliminated. Now. As quickly as possible. 

    Suddenly you have a powerful new marketing message for your patients: safety, convenience, and efficiency. 

    A Time for Action

    There is no better time for medical professionals to market their safety measures as it’s on top of mind for everyone.

    If a patient compares two alternatives, and one promotes safe protocols while the other is not, it is a no brainer as to which one to choose. The way business operates today could very well be the new normal, and companies that are early adopters will have the upper hand over competitors.  

    Safety is a symbol that will help restore confidence in both patients and staff to feel comfortable returning to your practice.

    It’s important to let people know the specific options and protocols that will keep patients safe to ease their concerns about seeking care at your practice. 

    What’s your post-Covid reopening plan? Call (888) 874-2018 and one of our practice growth consultants will give you f you would like a free, no-obligation review of your online presence and reopening plans.

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