Comments on: Marketing Your Practice Revisited http://npbusiness.org/2007/07/16/marketing-your-practice-2/ Resources for NPs in Business Thu, 24 Jul 2008 06:57:18 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6 By: Carla Anderson http://npbusiness.org/2007/07/16/marketing-your-practice-2/#comment-332 Carla Anderson Sat, 13 Oct 2007 09:28:14 +0000 http://npbusiness.org/2007/07/16/marketing-your-practice-2/#comment-332 Update-my practice opened in July of this year, but as I am in a town where the median income is 75,000, and many people work here but do not live here, the community has many options. So I knew that I would need to do more than provide patient care, even though I am the only Family Practice Clinic in town. One of the most important things was getting credentialed with the insurance companies, and I now am with most of them as of a month ago. As soon as this happened, I started to get a few patients calling as I became listed for their insurance as a pcp. Second, after many cards and brochures with maps to my office were brought over to the local pharmacy, as well as a few cups of Starbucks coffee, and seeing a couple of the employees as patients, that pharmacy started referring potential patients to my office. The pharmacist said to me "basically I refer to you, because you are more affordable and nicer". This was a great compliment. I also have seen results from each one of my advertising. I have received patients from my online dexknows, from my sign out in front, and two newspaper articles. I have had only a few patients that have been referred by other patients, but to me word of mouth is the greatest compliment and the ultimate in advertising, so I think that will be the next area that will take off. I continue to take each week to go to a business and inform them I am in town, and I am forming goody bags with logo items for future talks at apartment complexes, kiwanas club meetings and others. In addition, I have just put the logo with the practice phone number on my vehicle, and I am interested to see if that works. My patient numbers are not high yet, by any means, but for the month of October for the first time, I felt a shift, and now I am getting known. Thanks to this site for support, and wonderful ideas. Regards, Carla-Healing Presence Family Practice, PC. Update-my practice opened in July of this year, but as I am in a town where the median income is 75,000, and many people work here but do not live here, the community has many options. So I knew that I would need to do more than provide patient care, even though I am the only Family Practice Clinic in town. One of the most important things was getting credentialed with the insurance companies, and I now am with most of them as of a month ago. As soon as this happened, I started to get a few patients calling as I became listed for their insurance as a pcp. Second, after many cards and brochures with maps to my office were brought over to the local pharmacy, as well as a few cups of Starbucks coffee, and seeing a couple of the employees as patients, that pharmacy started referring potential patients to my office. The pharmacist said to me “basically I refer to you, because you are more affordable and nicer”. This was a great compliment. I also have seen results from each one of my advertising. I have received patients from my online dexknows, from my sign out in front, and two newspaper articles. I have had only a few patients that have been referred by other patients, but to me word of mouth is the greatest compliment and the ultimate in advertising, so I think that will be the next area that will take off. I continue to take each week to go to a business and inform them I am in town, and I am forming goody bags with logo items for future talks at apartment complexes, kiwanas club meetings and others. In addition, I have just put the logo with the practice phone number on my vehicle, and I am interested to see if that works. My patient numbers are not high yet, by any means, but for the month of October for the first time, I felt a shift, and now I am getting known. Thanks to this site for support, and wonderful ideas. Regards, Carla-Healing Presence Family Practice, PC.

]]> By: Carla Anderson http://npbusiness.org/2007/07/16/marketing-your-practice-2/#comment-117 Carla Anderson Tue, 17 Jul 2007 08:30:35 +0000 http://npbusiness.org/2007/07/16/marketing-your-practice-2/#comment-117 Wonderful information Barbara. I love hearing about the rural areas, because when I was an employee, I worked at clinics and a mobile van in rural areas of California..people flocked to us. The van would go to the school. But now I am on the opposite side of the fence in a well to do suburb, where the median income is 70,000, most people are used to driving 10-20 miles for their healthcare, and so any change sees resistance. In case there are others out there with practices in my situation, I will offer what I have discovered: people still do not know where I am or that I exist after 2 phone book listings, chamber of commerce website, feature article in the paper, and hand carrying brochures to about 20 merchants. They either do not know, or they already have a provider a few miles a way. So the next step is the community involvement. I love the flyers in the real estate office idea. I have not done that yet, but the realtor that sold me my house said she will pass the word that I am open, and I am going to stop by soon. In addition, many realtors do not have insurance or buy a group insurance discounted for the group. So they may want the care for themselves. I am going to join the Kiwanas club as they have monthly guest meetings at the library,, where I can be a speaker and introduce my services. I plan on attending the health faires, and running events as a volunteer. I do have many large companies like xerox around the area, that I plan to visit to discuss the employment physicals, and also visit the schools to meet face to face with the athletic directors and nurses. I plan on offering a special for example, with your visit, free cholesterol, or free womens exam on next visit... I am working on these ideas day by day, and the groundwork is being laid. I do offer weekends and evenings and housecalls. I am a 1/4 mile from the office to home so I can see a patient whenever it is convenient for them. I just finished the Medicare paperwork and hopefully it is done correctly. They had so many websites on questions and errors, and those were just as confusing. For example, there is a section on 855i, section 4c, where it says to put in your "group or practice location, and then it says put in your "personal, not your supplier or group npi"...when we have an individual medicare number we have our own npi, and our social security number. Then when we incorporate, we have a tax id and a clinic or group npi..and I have called 3 x, and spoken to a live person, and it still is clear as mud. I am sending it all in, also filled out the 855r, and hopefully, it is done right. Because this area of town about 30% of the population has Medicare.. Thats all for tonite. I will keep you all posted. I love this site, and hope to see more NPs around the nation. Carla Wonderful information Barbara. I love hearing about the rural areas, because when I was an employee, I worked at clinics and a mobile van in rural areas of California..people flocked to us. The van would go to the school. But now I am on the opposite side of the fence in a well to do suburb, where the median income is 70,000, most people are used to driving 10-20 miles for their healthcare, and so any change sees resistance. In case there are others out there with practices in my situation, I will offer what I have discovered: people still do not know where I am or that I exist after 2 phone book listings, chamber of commerce website, feature article in the paper, and hand carrying brochures to about 20 merchants. They either do not know, or they already have a provider a few miles a way. So the next step is the community involvement. I love the flyers in the real estate office idea. I have not done that yet, but the realtor that sold me my house said she will pass the word that I am open, and I am going to stop by soon. In addition, many realtors do not have insurance or buy a group insurance discounted for the group. So they may want the care for themselves. I am going to join the Kiwanas club as they have monthly guest meetings at the library,, where I can be a speaker and introduce my services. I plan on attending the health faires, and running events as a volunteer. I do have many large companies like xerox around the area, that I plan to visit to discuss the employment physicals, and also visit the schools to meet face to face with the athletic directors and nurses.

I plan on offering a special for example, with your visit, free cholesterol, or free womens exam on next visit… I am working on these ideas day by day, and the groundwork is being laid. I do offer weekends and evenings and housecalls. I am a 1/4 mile from the office to home so I can see a patient whenever it is convenient for them.

I just finished the Medicare paperwork and hopefully it is done correctly. They had so many websites on questions and errors, and those were just as confusing. For example, there is a section on 855i, section 4c, where it says to put in your “group or practice location, and then it says put in your “personal, not your supplier or group npi”…when we have an individual medicare number we have our own npi, and our social security number. Then when we incorporate, we have a tax id and a clinic or group npi..and I have called 3 x, and spoken to a live person, and it still is clear as mud. I am sending it all in, also filled out the 855r, and hopefully, it is done right. Because this area of town about 30% of the population has Medicare.. Thats all for tonite. I will keep you all posted. I love this site, and hope to see more NPs around the nation. Carla

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