7 Proven Patient Retention Strategies

Recent research statistics portray a grim picture; about 81 percent of consumers are dissatisfied with their healthcare experience and are looking to take their business elsewhere. The primary reason behind this outflux is the failure of healthcare professionals to retain their customers effectively, and this writing focuses on how you can do so.

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Patient retention is not an arduous endeavor that can only be undertaken by a patient retention specialist: let us look at seven proven patient retention strategies that you can easily adopt!

Upgrade your internet presence

The United States of America houses about 312 million internet users, and a large majority of them use online searches to find a physician. This necessitates an up-to-date internet presence and a magnified online footprint because it is quite common for highly experienced medical professionals to get overshadowed because of their lack of visibility in the digital space. Therefore, adopting a specialized medical digitization strategy is crucial to retain existing customers and win over new ones.

Adopt the right marketing tactic and strategies

Healthcare marketing is one of the proven and most straightforward ways of retaining and attracting patients. Opting for the right marketing strategies allows a healthcare practice to exhibit a positive perception of its practice and patient care at the facility. This can be done by providing prospective patients with all the information about your healthcare facility, enhancing your availability, and promoting healthcare hospitality for your patients.

Related: How Facebook Ads Can Grow Your Practice

Contrary to popular belief, marketing techniques are not developed only to attract new clients. Focusing marketing efforts on search results and social platforms can help reach out to new customers and make sure your existing ones do not forget you either.

Opt for automated messages to develop constructive relationships

Personalized interaction with patients can do wonders in their retention, and you can do so via messages, emails, or phone calls to keep track of their health or how they are generally doing. Such personalized communication activities are a great booster for engagement and developing good patient-doctor relationships that are likely to stay strong for a long time. You can send customized messages to your patient on public holidays, their birthdays, or other special occasions as well.

Make your patient’s experience as customized as possible

Apart from personalized communication, providing your patients with a customized healthcare experience is crucial. This shows the patients that they are not just another medical file and highlights their importance in your practice. A medical practitioner can do so by delving into a number of care-based questions during examinations or developing a customized treatment or diagnostic plan.

Automate your processes

Patients in today’s digitized world prefer experiences that make their life easier, especially ailing patients. Digitization and automation of processes in your medical health facility are more likely to retain and attract customers, as they will be able to book appointments and get diagnoses and treatments online without any hassles. About 81% of patients prefer scheduling a doctor’s appointment online instead of on-call, as they do not have to worry about working hours.

Related: Starting your own private practice as a nurse practitioner

In addition, the use of telemedicine reduces several costs, including child care, time away from work, transportation, and parking expenses.

Capitalize on referrals and patient feedback

About 94% of healthcare patients rely on online reviews to evaluate and choose healthcare providers, and about 84% of these searchers actually trust these reviews and act upon them. Roughly speaking, a bare minimum of 1-6 reviews are enough for a prospect to develop an opinion about a healthcare practice, and this positive patient feedback and constructive referrals can act as major catalysts for a practice.
You can effectively augment your patient acquisition potential by capitalizing on positive reviews and even developing a referral program with the primary purpose of expanding your patient base. This can be done by hiring a professional to help build and manage sentiment-based referral marketing programs.

Related: How Can Digital Marketing Help Dermatologists?

Adopt current market trends

The healthcare industry is continually changing, and the most suitable method of patient retention is staying up to date with these changing dynamics, whether technology, medical billing, treatment, or advertising. Your patients are least likely to come back to your practice if they experience difficulties that renovation or up-gradation can quickly eliminate, such as no facilities for e-prescription, lack of diagnostic or other medical equipment, or a cash-only payment register.

Staying at par with changing world trends and providing your patients with a healthcare experience of a lifetime works wonders in patient retention. With a result-driven approach, SmartClinix aims at increasing your revenue generation several folds. May it be a single healthcare practitioner or a clinic/hospital, American board-certified experts at SmartClinix offer solutions for all facets of healthcare! Head over to SmartClinix right now to get to know more.