Doctors Going Broke?
Here’s an intriguing article that I shared last week via Twitter. This is a reality that maybe marketing can help. If there are some CPT’s that make money, maybe driving more focused business will save the rest of the practice that loses money?
This trend is relative to healthcare marketers, but more specifically, to marketers working in practices (which according to the article, “Half of all doctors in the nation operate a private practice.”)
Read the article and let me know your thoughts on how marketing can help offset this crisis doctors face.
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3 Comments
Catherine Martin
January 24, 2012The link is broken
TurnUpYourVolume
January 24, 2012Link is fixed – thanks!
Stacey Ordner
February 7, 2012This article is spot on…many doctors ARE going broke! As a medical sales rep, I discovered that many of my physician referrals were down because of decreased patient volume. Because my compensation was primarily commission-based, this affected my livelihood as well. One particular situation comes to mind: I was working as a consultant with a home health agency that had recently acquired a durable medical equipment company. My role was to work with the existing sales force on integrating this new equipment into their regular sales calls. We visited a sleep physician regularly, but after several weeks had not received any new patient referrals. I scheduled a meeting with the doctor and boldly asked why we weren’t getting the business. Her answer was simple: she wasn’t seeing enough patients. Since I knew the market, and knew PCPs in the area that needed a local sleep physician (patients typically had to wait 4-6 weeks for a sleep study), I was able to take her marketing materials and business card around to local family doctors. The result: Patients were scheduled within one week/ the PCPs were happy/ the sleep Dr’s business was booming/ we got all the home health and equipment business. I was able to create a win-win-win. Add another “win” because I was able to make a business out of connecting doctors to other doctors! (Doc to Doc: http://www.mydoctodoc.com)