How I chose a clinic from cold, what are the key factors and why you could be losing patients and money to the clinic down the street.

Last week I injured my back with some repeated twisting (emptying buckets of water!) #irony! This led me to seek a local clinic.?

The process revealed the pattern a potential patient will follow when they look at your clinic.? I thought I’d share the lessons of how I chose a clinic to demonstrate how clinics may be losing patients / money by not taking care of some basics.

I’ll go through my evaluation process and then put forward my suggestions.

Word Of Mouth

You may get most of your patients by word of mouth, that is good ... or is it?? Because it also means that the cold audience, ie people who aren’t referred by a friend are choosing NOT YOU but someone else instead.

I live in Bishops Stortford in Hertfordshire and hadn’t had treatment locally for back pain.? So I chose a clinic from cold.

Here is how it played out.?

Google Search

I began with a search “Practitioner type Bishops Stortford” – I did “physiotherapy/ Osteopathy/Chiropractic clinic Bishops Stortford”.? I arrived at the Results Page

Google My Business – who has got the most google reviews gets first dibs on my custom.? I look at their website first.? But then I do go back and look at clinics in my town and some neighbouring towns.

Website – first impression makes a difference.? If your website is ugly, you are going down the pecking order. Obviously.

About Us – I go here.? I want to see the name and I definitely want to see the face of the person who might treat me.? I want to read a bit about them to see what they do.?

Social proof – The busy restaurant test.? Evidence you are good that others choose you.? I want to see some testimonials, ideally taken from your review site and ideally recent.

Pricing – I am interested to know the price.? I am not a money-no-object person but I am not on a low budget.? I do want to see the first appointment and follow up price.? Not so much to compare, I just want to know.?

Book Online – I don't want to phone up and check for availability, I just want to see what’s available and book what suits me.? I dismissed the clinics who didn't have online booking without much of a second glance.

So what are the lessons.

Websites

In my day job we work with clinics for IDD spinal decompression, we look at lots of clinic websites to evaluate if they may be suitable for adding a spine specialism.? As a prospective patient, the process was similar but a little different.

They say don’t judge a book by its cover.? But whether it’s a product on amazon, a youtube video thumbnail, a restaurant, we judge.?

Some clinics have awful photos! I think a professional friendly staff photo is worth its weight in gold.?

Note I say professional.?

You don’t need to have super model looks, but we know what professional looks like.? You trust someone more if you have met them or seen them.? It builds a picture in your mind.

Google My Business – make sure you have plenty of professional photos there for people to browse and full clinic service details, opening hours etc.

Google Reviews -? If you have less than ten reviews, people will wonder if you are any good and will look more favorably on a clinic with lots of reviews.?

It’s about ticking boxes for your online presence.? Make a point of getting more reviews.? This also helps the website ranking locally.?

Have a qr code with a link to your google review page positioned inside your clinic which people can scan to take them to your review page. (look at QR code monkey to make a qr code for any webpage url).

Website – if your website is old and tired … you are losing money to a fresh faced clinic.? ?If you are meaning to update your website, just do it.? You can improve on it as you go but just get started because you are losing patients otherwise.

About Us – I am looking for competence.? You may treat everything under the sun, but in my case I want to know you treat backs.? I want to know you are an expert so convey that.?

You can add a couple of things you treat/ like to treat but as the person who treated me said, he likes sports injuries but 75% of his case load is backs.?

A list showing you treat everything under the sun is less likely to convert.? You can cover many things by saying you are an expert in treating joint pain and muscle injuries.

Some practitioners like to tell their whole life story.? I would much rather read about who you have learned from than what you like to do at the weekend.?

By all means say a line or two about your interests but focus on why you are competent and I can put my body on the line in your capable hands.

Social Proof – do you read reviews on Amazon before you buy anything?? Add testimonials to all your pages.? Video testimonials will be great.? Certainly have some evidence. Someone may only go to one page on your site, so make each page count.

Pricing - Display the initial consult and follow up treatment prices.? Clinicians get hung up about being competitive.?

Price does make a difference for some patients, but my main priority is to get someone who is good and not going to waste my time or make me worse!?

If you are cheap, then I take that as a sign that you are not very good.?

I have a rough idea of what it costs and a ￡10-￡20 spread on the price isn’t going to make a huge difference.? I am not buying on price like I might buy petrol.?

The number one priority for me is skill and competency.?

I want to know whether my injury is serious and that it can be dealt with professionally.? I do want to know how much I will pay, but it’s not to compare with others.?

If you are dilly dallying around putting your price up (suggests you know you are underpriced for what you give), do it with confidence but make a point to show that you are worth the price by working on your profile and expert positioning.?

Online Booking – All I can say is if you don’t have online booking in this day and age you have either been living in a cave or you have more patients than you can handle.?

I wanted to choose a time based around my diary and I didn’t want to spend time back and forth with a receptionist to check what is available.? I was either going to book Saturday or Monday.

And remember, many patients are looking at clinics after hours because they want an appointment. Many will not wait until tomorrow to phone up, they want to book there and then. You are DEFINITELY losing patients without online booking.

(Note - when I booked online I completed a questionnaire where I typed about my injury symptoms etc, that saved ten minutes “dictation time” in the treatment time. I also got an email with an option to pay there and then, which I did ... ).?

Other thoughts – it can be worth having information pages about conditions.? These don’t need to be long winded anatomy lessons.?

The main thing is that you tell me what you are going to do differently, or rather, how you will identify what is my problem, that you treat those conditions regularly and you will let me know what to do next.?

Websites - So many websites have irrelevant content of no interest to what the patient wants.?

Home page – make it easy for me to call or book online.? Let me see you are an expert in certain conditions, let me see social proof and evidence you are good.?

Photos - Don’t let me see tired old photos.? Get your photos crisp.?I would get pictures of you treating patients so we can see you in action.? I want some hands on treatment, so showing pictures of you in situ treating patients will give me confidence.? Show pictures treating men and women in a variety of poses.?

It is well worth paying someone to come in and take photos of your clinic with lighting etc.? If you don't have much budget, you could contact a local college and get a photography student, helps them and costs you less, win-win!?

Improvements - If your clinic isn’t pretty on the inside, make it “pretty”.? By that I mean your clinic needs to scream professional to me.? That’s good for your website photos and also good for patients coming in.?

Now, you can cover up a multitude of sins by being a guru clinician with zero personality if you can help my back.

But your clinic is like the proverbial water bucket and if any of these elements I describe here are below standard, each one is a hole and a leak where you are losing patients and money.

Any area you think “I ought to improve that”, is an area you must improve, unless you are happy seeing patients go past your window (with their money) to someone down the road.?

Or you may prefer to think of your expert care. A patient may be wasting their time and not getting the result they could have got if they go to an inferior competitor just because you couldn’t make the time to work on your online business profile.

NOTE: if you are so busy that you don’t have time, great.? If you are happy as a solo practitioner who wants to keep things simple, that is fine.?

But if you have team members who would love to see more patients or you want to build the practice so it is less dependent on you, then these details compound.

Think of them as the 1%ers. Cliché but true, marginal gains compound.

Personal Story

I remember when I had my clinic (sold in 2022), I asked a visitor “do you have any feedback on this space”.?

They said, that it was really nice.?

I pressed.

“but if you could do something ….”

They said “well the walls in the treatment room are a bit grubby …”

I was mortified.? There were a few marks where chairs bashed the wall but as I took a step back I saw what she meant.?

We painted that weekend!

Why not ask your regular patients that question.?

Ask them what they think of your website. What’s the reception like, what's the outside paintwork like, the signage, the branding etc

And when they say “its fine”, press them

“but if you were tasked with making things a bit better, what would you do ….”? That will help you.

Patient Profiles

Now some people do just want to phone up.? Some people don’t like booking online and hate computers!? My parents would NEVER have booked online, my children would ALWAYS choose to book online.

Why wouldn’t you appeal to both audiences??

If your online profile is second division, a few simple improvements will easily bring you to premier league.? Think – if I had to sell my clinic next week (and get the maximum sale price) what would I do??Write down a list of improvements

Copy writing side note.? Is your website copy dull?? If it is go on upwork.com and find a copy writer.? ?Give them a list of pages and ask them to write you engaging copy for your website.? Or, give Chat GPT a brief to do it and then tweak it.?

Summary

The thing to remember is it’s not a sprint.? It takes time but it is easy to get stuck.? Inertia takes hold and the should-do list stays just that!? Get your list, maybe start with photos and work from there!

Good luck!

Author: Stephen Small is Clinic Development Director for IDD Therapy Spinal Decompression, specialist conservative treatment for unresolved disc problems, stenosis and sciatica.

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