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If your practice isn’t full, you might think you need to get more new patients in the door.
But what about reactivating patients that have not visited your practice recently?
Your past patients can be your best prospective new patients. Unlike a brand-new patient, your past patient has already experienced your practice. They have tested out one or more of your services. They know you as a practitioner.
In many industries, getting a new client is at least five times as expensive as keeping the client the business already has. According to research by Bain & Company, increasing customer retention by just 5% can increase profits by 25% to 95%.
If you can understand why your patient left, you have an opportunity to win them back.
When you dig a little deeper, you will find that most patients leave because of one of several reasons.
You can get to the root of your patient’s concerns or objections by asking for their honest feedback.
If you send newsletters or service updates to your patients through email, you can put together a campaign to reach out to your lapsed patients.
You can send them an electronic survey where past patients can answer questions about their experience with your office. Include several multiple-choice questions along with a few write-in questions so that you can get more specific feedback in your patient’s own words. When they write out their thought, you will get more insight into what really caused them to leave your practice.
If your office doesn’t regularly use email to reach patients, you can send your past patients a postcard asking for their feedback. Include a link to your survey so that they can send you their thoughts.
You could reduce in-person visit wait times by scheduling buffer time between appointments. Adding virtual visits through Well World can also give patients back their time by cutting out travel back and forth to your office.
You can offer visits via Video Chat in your Well World practitioner portal — you initiate the call with your patient, and they can speak with you through the Well World app on their smartphone.
If your patients feel neglected, it may be that you need to add in a process for following up.
It could be as simple as a calendar reminder in your own schedule. If you have staff, you could delegate follow up to them, and have them report to you their follow up with patients.
You can also improve the way patients feel about their care by offering them the Well World app. In your practitioner portal, you can assign them a lifestyle plan and supplement recommendations, which they can purchase through the app. Each plan has automated reminders — which you can customize based on your programs and protocols.
Well World can act as their automated wellbeing coach and help them stay on track with their plan.
You could try implementing a self-serve scheduling program (such as Acuity Scheduling) to let your patients schedule themselves for appointments at times that work for them. You could include one day a week where you offer appointments outside regular work hours to accommodate patients with difficult schedules.
To prevent patients from becoming inactive, it helps to stay in touch with them. Whether you choose to update them with regular email newsletters, within a social media group, or through postcards, each touchpoint will help keep more patients coming back to your practice.