Understanding Your Customers To Make Your Practice Successful

Like it or not, our patients are our “customers.” As healthcare in the United States has evolved, so has the doctor-patient relationship. It is a foolish physician or medical group that doesn’t appreciate that patients are customers. No matter what kind of foot and ankle care you are providing, understanding the importance of treating your customer well goes a long way to maintaining a successful business and be sure to understand that your practice is a business.

Long gone is the lifetime physician-patient relationship. Sure, it still exists in certain circumstances but more commonly, people are switching their healthcare providers for a variety of reasons. Accessibility, specialization, office culture, billing practices, and friend and family recommendations are all reasons why people switch their healthcare provider, not to mention the obvious success of treatments previously rendered. 

Now insurance companies are putting added pressure on this relationship by increasing deductibles so patients become true consumers, looking for value in their healthcare, not just blindly receiving healthcare. Never has providing healthcare been more competitive.

Look at all the different providers that provide foot and ankle care. One could pursue treatment by podiatric physicians, primary care or general practitioners, orthopedic surgeons (with or without a foot and ankle fellowship), nurse practitioners, chiropractors or physical therapists. Alternately, patients may seek treatment at urgent care centers, walk-in-clinics at local pharmacies or shoe stores specializing in problematic foot conditions. Others may seek treatment solutions from a host of magazines including Skymall on an airplane or a variety of different Internet sites. If you are not aware that consumers are looking at all of these providers/outlets, you are missing the boat.

Understanding your consumers better will position you to maintain or better improve upon your current business. Our practice has always been about customer service. As an example, 10 years ago, we changed our telephone and front desk philosophy, and adopted a hotel philosophy by separating the phone answering component from the check-in area. In basic terms, people who are checking in to the office are not having a person who is doing many things but only focusing on checking the person in. Additionally, people answering telephones are only doing that job so the first experience with our office is a positive experience and not one of distracted interruptions. We want to make sure that if people are calling our office, they turn into a patient/customer in our clinic.

Recently I saw a link about understanding consumers. At first, I hesitated to spend the time to go to the link and spend the 10 or so minutes necessary to watch the video at the link. I was just too busy. Then one night when I was finishing up some work, I decided to take a look and wow, it was worth it. This video took my thoughts to a whole new level. 

The link is https://rosshoneywill.com/neos/ .

I have now watched the video on the link several times over and it becomes more interesting to me each time. While the video does not directly apply to medicine, it certainly sheds enormous light on consumers. It may not be possible to translate all of the information into your business immediately but it will help thought processes that will improve your your relationships with your customers and ultimately improve your business.

If you find this link interesting and stimulating, you won’t want to miss the Foot and Ankle Business Innovations (FABI) Annual Event on January 23-25, 2015 (www.FABI2015.com ). At FABI, we spend three days discussing things we did not learn or discuss in podiatric medical school, namely how to run a successful practice.

Understanding your customer is just one of many things to help your practice thrive. Don’t sit on your hands and let the world dictate how you will practice. Do things to protect the business that you developed and enjoy the fruits of your labor.