Doctors Not Confident in Their Healthcare Service?

There’s an increasing number of health care providers who are essentially giving no option for their patients but to keep silent and not post any negative remarks on the Internet pertaining to the doctor.

If you offer a quality service, regardless of the industry, you can be confident that the experience you offer is a positive one. If a health care provider is concerned about patients posting negative remarks online, then simply provide a service with excellence.

If a doctor is forcing their patients to sign a silence order, I would question the quality of the doctor. Typically, one is concerned about negative feedback when the services offered are not at their best.

Secondly, this is an issue of freedom-of-speech. If my experience at a health care facility was a negative, my family and friends would appreciate to know prior to getting care.

This is basic Word of Mouth Marketing. Word of Mouth is the most effective way, and trusted way to build business. Those doctors that are silencing their patients are only hurting their business… unless they are offering horrible services.

For further reading:

Doctors Demanding Online Silence by Jane Akre
Online ratings are actually good for hospitals and doctors by Christopher Boyer
Docs Seek Gag Orders to Stop Patients’ Reviews by ABC, Lindsey Tanner

Know Who’s Talking About You – The Basics

It’s important to know what is being said about you or your health care facility – good or bad. This will give you the opportunity to monitor conversations that are happening online about the quality services your offer, the facility that you manage, and the experiences your patients have. Once you’re able to manage this component of your marketing, you can begin to build upon the strengthens, improve on the weaknesses, and explore the different possibilities available to grow your practice.

Using Google Alerts, you can set up alerts to be send directly to your inbox when your name (or the terms you choose) are mentioned online. This is an easy and effective way to begin to gauge the quality and quantity of dialogues that are centered around your practice and your name.

A good name will precede your actions.

If you need further direction and conculting in the areas of marketing and social media, feel free to give us a call at 315.657.5691 or send an email to info@newlinecreativegroup.com

Pfizer And The “T” Word

We want to bring greater transparency to the way we partner with leading medical, scientific and patient organizations,” said Jeffrey B. Kindler, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Pfizer.

Jeff continues by stating that this move will break down a major barrier, and increase trust healthcare providers must have when prescribing to medicines. Without a doubt Pfizer will gain more trust from their participants by positioning themselves as an open and transparent organization.

When walls come down, you as a business gain trust by those that keep you in business because they see that you are not hiding or withholding anything.

Patients & Consumers with Ultimate Power

There has never been a time in history when the consumer, and in this case the patient, have had so much purchasing power. Prior to facing the physician, the patient enters the exam room equipped with information, symptoms, possible causes, new medicine, recent treatment practices, etc. The physician is put in an awkward position to have to answer to what the patient brings to the table.

The lines of the communication and acquiring information are not longer the same. It is time for health care providers to embrace the new methods of communication to better provide for their patients.