Attracting and Retaining the Right Patients for Your Practice

Background

Over a 24-month period, more than 250 owners and managers of specialty healthcare practices took the time to explain the business challenges they faced and how they believed PracticeLight could help.  “Attracting and Retaining the Right Patients for Your Practice” emerged as a central theme during our team’s discussions with them.  We’ve summarized some of the lessons we learned below.

How Are Your Patients Shaping Your Practice’s Business Potential?

While much has been written about patient-focused healthcare from a clinical point-of-view, the concept hasn’t been very effectively translated into a business strategy or best-practice playbook for specialty healthcare practices.  In too many cases, being “patient-focused” has been interpreted to mean trying to be “everything to everyone”—a recipe for clinic under-performance.  But even when owners and managers do choose a specific market focus, it can be very difficult to maintain this discipline.  Evidence suggests that few clinics really consider issues of “fit” when marketing to new patients.  And that even fewer understand how to collect or use feedback information about priorities, expectations and satisfaction to manage their patient relationships.  For reasons like these, owners and managers we consulted recommended that we report on standard patient metrics but also incorporate patient “fit and feedback” into our performance management and benchmarking services.

Understanding the Challenges

As a starting point for understanding the health of a clinic’s patient base, owners and managers suggested that PracticeLight first focus on patient volume and flow.  They also proposed that we develop simple acquisition, activation and retention benchmarks based on specific clinic “types” defined on the basis of market positioning as well as service and payer mix.  From there, they suggested that we introduce supplemental benchmarking programs focused on patient fit and feedback.  In general they wanted metrics and benchmarks that would help unlock the value of the broader analysis tools they already had (Patient Visit Average, Patient Lifetime Value, etc.).

	“There’s really no such thing as an average patient in our practice—there’s just too much variability for that idea to mean much.  Instead I’d like to have tools that tell me how well we’re growing and managing specific pools within our broader patient base.”
	“I really wish I understood how to balance our marketing efforts across acquiring, activating and retaining patients.  What’s normal for a practice like ours?  Could we be doing better?”
	“We used to manage the clinic as though all patients were created equal.  From a clinical perspective, we still want to do that.  From a business point of view, though, we need to invest in building patient relationships that will generate profitable growth.  But which relationships, and how?”

Owner and Manager Priorities

Owners and managers clearly recognized that there was a relationship between the types of patients they served and their clinics’ ultimate business potential.  But they also recognized that choosing a local market position was just the starting point.  Once that strategic decision is made, someone has to follow through.  That means planning and managing day-to-day activities designed to produce the desired patient mix.  And it means measuring and evaluating the results regularly so that the clinic can stay on track.  Our initial service design balances Members’ requests for frequent updates on patient acquisition, activation and retention with strategic feedback about patient mix performance.

“Help us set new patient and reactivation goals that make sense for our practice.”

“Incorporate patient-related metrics into daily reporting.”

“Provide metrics other than PVA and LPV that can add to our scorecard.”

“Give us new ways to understand and really manage our patient mix.”

“Show us how other clinics’ patient profiles compare in terms of growth and profitability.”

How PracticeLight Can Help

PracticeLight was designed from the ground up to help you see practice performance the way you want to see it.  From the data collection process to the metrics we report and the way we display data, our approach helps Members attract and retain the right patients by showing them what’s really happening inside their clinics and giving them the tools to understand it better.  And while we’re doing that, PracticeLight also helps Members develop important internal management disciplines that serve them well as their businesses grow and evolve.

Attracting and Retaining the Right Patients for Your Practice.
	Powerful Business Insights. Performance metrics, benchmarks, and analysis tools help you see your practice in a new light.
	Flexible Services. Solutions that can be tailored to your own information requirements help you get what you need the way you need it.
	Simple, Secure Process. Common sense approaches to collecting data, managing access and providing support help make it easier to do the right thing for your business.
	Affordable Pricing. Low-cost memberships with just-in-time access to expanded services help you invest in your practice’s future without affecting your cash flow.
	Easy to Get Started. Web-based services that don’t require any new technology and let you use your existing systems help you start by building on what you already have.

Check out our complete Overview and Highlights for more detailed information about PracticeLight’s performance management and benchmarking services.

Join PracticeLight Become a Member today.

Read About More Reasons Members Use PracticeLight

Achieving and Managing Growth
Attracting and Retaining the Right Patients for Your Practice
Improving Profitability
Making Fact-Based Management Decisions
Setting Goals and Focusing Your Team on Performance
Taking Better Control of Your Practice
Working Smarter Instead of Harder