Depending on your work situation, you may not have previously needed to increase your patients. If you have worked in a traditional hospital setting in the past, you will not have needed to find your own patients.
Hospital administrators will do the hard work for you as a surgeon in getting patients through the hospital’s front door and ensuring there is work for you to do. However, if you are opening your own surgery or you want to increase the number of patients in a new surgery, there are several ways you can do this.
We have picked three ways to increase the number of patients you attract without needing to employ an administrative company. Employing an administrative company for a small or new surgery will not be the most cost-effective way to increase your patient numbers.
If you find that the below do not work for you, or you have already assessed that your surgery is big enough to need an administrative company, the below can still be utilized to help your business.
Advertise
One of the easiest and most cost-effective ways to increase the number of patients in a surgery is through advertising. There are several ways in which you can advertise a business with varying costs depending on which option you choose.
You can set up small advertising campaigns such as leaflet drops where you mail out leaflets advertising your services. Sending out information to local addresses is beneficial as you will be more likely to increase patient numbers with people who live close to your surgery.
You can also mass-produce leaflets for a mail-out, which will help keep the cost of producing them low. While you may be wondering why we are not recommending you send out an email advert, this can only be sent when you have email addresses to send an advert to.
If you have email addresses for potential patients, it is because they have already interacted with your surgery in the past. Previous interaction may mean they have been a past patient; therefore, you will not gain anything new from the time spent advertising.
Depending on your advertising budget, you can also take out larger advertising campaigns, such as billboards, television, or local radio. It is worth investing in the advertising for your surgery early as you will increase your patient numbers quickly, which will increase revenue and lead to more money available for advertising.
Alternatively, you can partner with other local businesses, such as doctor’s offices or free clinics. Entering into a partnership with a related business will enable customers to be referred directly to you if they require your services.
A local doctor’s office is unlikely to have a surgical staff member, so ensuring that your surgery is on top of the referral list will generate a considerable new patient list and revenue stream.
SEO
In addition to advertising your surgery, it is important to work on your website’s search engine optimization (SEO). With so many people using internet search engines to find what they need, it is important you are on the first page of results when someone is looking for a surgeon.
If you wish to increase the number of patients walking through your doors, focusing on surgeon SEO for 2024 should be at the top of your list. Improving your website will increase the number of people who will see your site when searching for surgeons in your area.
You should ensure that your website content is optimized to increase the number of potential customers who will be directed to your website. Increasing the number of visits to your website will naturally increase the number of people who will then wish to use your services, providing your website is optimized.
The process of optimizing your website may take some time and require the help of professionals if you have not previously worked with SEO. Making use of a company to improve your website ranking with search engines is similar to advertising; if you do it correctly, it is worth the money you will spend.
You can find companies that specialize in SEO and who can put a package together to achieve the results you want for your website. Bespoke packages are available depending on what you need for your website.
Ensuring that your website is as visible as possible in this period of digital accessibility is the best way to get customers you may not have otherwise been able to reach.
Word-of-Mouth
The final suggestion we have to increase the number of patients that attend your surgery is via word-of-mouth recommendation. Satisfied patients will tell anyone who mentions that they need the services of a surgeon about their good experience.
Word-of-mouth recommendations are free advertising for your business. However, this type of recommendation will be limited when you first set up a business. As your patient list increases, the reach of word-of-mouth recommendations will also increase.
However, you can again move this to a digital channel by setting up social media pages on various platforms. With social media as popular as it is and many people receiving recommendations regarding all areas of their lives, this is an excellent way to get the word out about your business.
Instead of relying on patients seeing a friend or telling a family member about the excellent work you do, ask them to put it on social media instead. Although social media is not a guaranteed quick fix for improving the number of patients you have, it can be easy under the right circumstances.
All it takes is for one patient to have a big social media following and to post a review or mention your business in a video that becomes popular. With thousands or more followers seeing a recommendation for your business, you can see a significant rise in both patients and revenue.
Using social media for word-of-mouth recommendations is not difficult to do and will cost you nothing unless you enter into a paid partnership with an influencer. Simply ask satisfied patients to leave a review or mention your business when telling their followers about their experience.
