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hello,
How effective is online advertising for medical practices?
I would be interested in what other users think about using face book or websites for advertising their practices and what their experiences have been and what is the most effective way to use them.
thanks
Bala

i use facebook to get patients all the time...i have over 950 'friends"...basically i add anyone who wants tobe added...when someone posts an issue with a doc or a sickness that i take care of i will message them and ask if they need help...i have posted info on the stuff i take care of..it keeps my name in people's mind when they have stuff i treat...i have seen a bunch of people from my HS and their kids and such...it is great!

I have a Facebook page for my practice separate from my personal FB page. There are over 200 people who like and follow. I post updates about the practice and new services offered, etc, on there. I think it increases your marketing. In the past I paid to promote the site with FB, and I don't think it did much. I have spent thousands on the newspaper, and I think it did nothing! I have continued a yellow pages ad that gets just a few people per year. I think the website is important, as young people google for doctors. Word of mouth remains the most important marketing.

It depends on what you are advertising.

If you are just advertising your basic primary care services, no. My experience is that it is not cost effective. I have actually done it.

If you are advertising a special service, it can be cost effective. Again, I've done it. An example of this would be if you are designated as a Civil Surgeon and perform "Immigration Physicals." A Google-ad with a proper landing page can be very effective to advertise this service.

An initial cost-effective way to begin with is to simply have a nice-looking and helpful website. You don't need to pay someone a ton of money for this. You can probably do it yourself with templates, or pay someone just a few hundred bucks for a basic website. High-school and college students can be a source of cheap labor for this, especially if they are relatives. We have gained quite a few patients over the years who literally told me they came to us because of the web site since still most doctors don't even have one, and many that do have a very poor one. Ours is not the best, it has many deficiencies, but it is OK. But I made it myself and I know little if any HTML.

Personally, I am terrified of trying to intentionally use "social media" for marketing primary care services. It's just the capricious nature of patients these days makes me want to stay away. The yelp and ratemd clowns are bad enough. I don't want to have that same person on my facebook page.

Hi everyone thanks for your input.
I tried to avoid doing online advertising so far , but lately my competitors have used the internet, TV and radio to advertise as well as FB. I was reluctant at first to jump on the bandwagon as I had heard horror stories about doctors not being able to remove posts from disgruntled patients ( which is apparently very difficult) but feel I will be forced to do this to stay competitive. So far I was depending on word of mouth but with all the changes in the health care law dont know how much longer this will work due to the 'gate keeper ' concept
bala

For many years, I have held that the best "pre-medical" training for doctors is a stint at selling used cars on a lot -- you learn to size up people quickly, figure what they have, what they need and what they are willing to believe. Then, depending on your ethical position, you can either sell them what they need or more than they need, and when necessary, give them the bad news that they can't have what they want.

By the same token, the best training for a receptionist or MA is to learn to be a great bartender. Specialized knowledge of medicine can be acquired when the basic skills of people management have been mastered.

Facebook, Yelp and the rest take it to a new level -- I just can't get my mind around the "virtual" world where people don't even look at, let alone touch each other.

Tom, I just virtually diagnosed you with a mild case of heartburn and stress gastritis.

Actually Jon, it is "heartsickness" -- which is not your specialty, of course, but wouldn't prevent you from making a virtual diagnosis.
Problem is, there is no ICD-10 code for it.

Actually there are 15 codes ( in ICD10) depending on whether it is Right or L sided heartsicknesss, whether it is associated with relationship or other, and the cycle of the moon.

When I started practice, over twenty years ago, my mentor taught me the three A's about building a practice: Ability, Affability and Availability. The most important is Availability. Something else to think about-if you have to advertise to get patients, it may be a sign to move somewhere else where there is a shortage of physicians in your specialty. I can think of many places in the mid-West and Western US where they would welcome you with open arms.

I would diagnose "diastolic despondency" and code it [I51.8 Other ill-defined heart diseases]

In my case, it is grieving the loss of a former medical practice world of human contact that has been overtaken by a mindless digital world of interactions among virtual entities -- so far as I can tell, just for the purpose of facilitating transfer of virtual money from one virtual account (the insurance company) to another virtual account (the teensy, weensy magnetized areas on my bank's hard drive).

Fortunately, with AC, the electronics is an epiphenomenon, and can be largely ignored while I see a patient. With EPIC it becomes the entire substance of the encounter. With Facebook, all human traces are erased.

So, I rely on word of mouth advertising, and so far, so good.