6 Ways New Physicians Can Prepare for Success
The road to success can be long and arduous especially if you’re a doctor. Medicine is a job of experience. Who would you rather take out your appendix: someone who’s been doing it for 15 years or someone in their 2nd year of residency? It’s a very simple procedure and the odds of complications happening are minimal, but still. When it comes to health we all want what’s best for us. In medicine what’s best is someone who has done something hundreds of times not just a dozen times. Why get your appendix taken out by someone new when you can get it done by someone who can do it with their eyes closed?
That’s why you need to prepare for success at the very start of your career. You need to really put yourself out there from the very first day and build up a reputation. Reputations are the essence of how popular a doctor is with patients and how well his or her practice does. As we know, however, reputation takes a lot of time to build so you need to find ways to speed things up a bit. A lot of very young doctors achieved success and blossoming practices early on in their career because they gained an amazing reputation really fast. Some did it by being exceptionally good that patients started spreading the word about how good they are. Others did it by accident by simply being there during an emergency and becoming famous for acting quickly and on their feet. Finally, some did it by working smart and putting their name out there for the world to see.
You need to be known even if simply as a name. People could simply know you as the new family physician that opened in town. As long as they know your name then they’ll definitely come to you because if they don’t already have a family physician or are looking for a new one then your name is right there in their heads. There are lots of ways new physicians can achieve this such as digital marketing, picking a great location for their office, public relations, local direct mail, directories, and of course a FindaTopDoc profile.
Digital marketing is an advantage that doctors and all professionals have these days that wasn’t available maybe 15 years ago. The best way to reach a lot of people a few years ago was through a newspaper where ads could be easily skipped or even missed unintentionally due to the small font. Now digital marketing is a great feature that everyone can use to promote their business. The great thing is that it can be targeted as well. Now when you look something up on the internet it’s very likely that you will keep seeing ads about it for a week or so on YouTube and other sites.
If someone searches cardiologists in their area for instance or cardiology related questions and you’re a cardiologist then you could arrange for your ad to target these search items. You could also market your clinic for free on Facebook by creating a page for it. This is something a lot of doctors are doing these days and the page could also have the address and contact information of your office. It’s also great because it can have a rating system so if your patients like you and the service you provide the high ratings will attract even more patients and so on. Of course you could also use social media for paid ads and these might be targeted too.
Location is very important when it comes to choosing an office. Would you go to a doctor who’s a 30 minute drive away or one who’s a 10 minute drive away? Wouldn’t it be more convenient if the office wasn’t in an area that’s too crowded and parking was easy to find? If you don’t drive then I’m sure transportation is something you’re worried about and it would be much easier if the office was close to a bus stop or subway station. After all you’re not going to the doctor because you’re feeling extra healthy and the last thing you need is a 15 minute walk from the bus stop to the office. This is a trip a patient will also be making on their way home.
So basically as a starting doctor you need to choose the location of your office carefully and not just be concerned about space and cost. You might need to pay a little extra for a great location but you’ll make up for it by having extra patients come in. Patients don’t particularly enjoy tiring visits. If you’re planning on having your office in a building then make sure it’s on a low floor. Even if there’s an elevator now it might stop working for a day or two for some reason in the future and you don’t need patients to climb five flights of stairs to get to your office.
Establishing public relations is a necessity in the modern age. You need to have great relations with sponsors for instance who can provide your office with equipment and may also be able to boost your image and the popularity of your practice.
Local direct mail is also a simple and time efficient way to help you pave the road to success. You could send mail to people living in your town to let them know about your office opening up. You could also include a few details about you to make them feel like they know you a bit and about your credentials. Don’t overdo it though because you don’t want to seem too desperate and like a spammer.
Directories are another convenient way to leave your name out there. A lot of people don’t have an obgyn for instance and are still looking for a new one. They can try to find you by searching online directories as well as printed ones. It would be great to leave your name in there because the odds may be in your favor. It would also be a good idea to find ways to make your directory stand out.
FindaTopDoc is one of the leading websites when it comes to everything about doctors and the medical career. It’s trusted and very reliable. Making sure your FindaTopDoc profile is up to date and all set up will definitely boost your chances of being found. The website also has a wonderful new feature that allows people to ask medical questions and doctors to answer them telling them whether or not they need to go to a hospital as soon as possible. There’s a column on the page of each question that will list all doctors in the specialty the question is about that are near you. The list will contain all doctors listed in that specialty in the country whether or not they’re associated with FindaTopDoc. If you’re associated with FindaTopDoc, however; you could get your name to appear further up on the list.
It’s very important to get off on the right foot. There’s no need to waste valuable years of your life waiting for your practice to blossom. You need to start well and keep working on getting even better. If your beginnings are great then you can start making your practice much better than others straight away. We’re living in the digital era so there’s no shortage of ways for you to get your name out there and let people know that your practice is taking off. Digital marketing, public relations, a great location, directories, sending local mail, and FindaTopDoc profiles are just a few ways to boost your image. These are things that will get your practice running but whether or not patients come back to you will depend on how good of a physician you are. What are some other ways that you have tried in order to make your practice more successful?
