Physical Therapy Marketing: 6 Steps to More New Patients

Many patients come to physical therapy without a clear understanding of what you can do for them. In their minds, it is like medication: The doctor writes the prescription, and they come to you to fill it. It is up to you to educate your patients about the full range of services you provide and the benefits to building a healthy lifestyle, including regular physical therapy.

You need to explain to them how different treatment modalities work and the potential outcomes that are available for their acute issue. But then, they need to know about the long-term benefits you can provide with land-based therapy, aquatic therapy and other modalities. You want your patients to see physical therapy as not just an answer to their acute needs, but also as a tool to promote ongoing health, mobility, pain management and injury prevention.

By educating your patients on all the services you offer, you can help them understand why building a lasting relationship with you would be a great benefit. Making these efforts to educate your patients will help them feel cared for. When they sense you are concerned about their well-being, they are more likely to want to develop and continue a relationship with your practice.

There is nothing worse than a no-show patient. Your time is wasted while another patient remains on your waiting list — or worse, they find another physical therapy clinic. On top of all that, your no-show patient is not benefiting from your services and has had an interruption in their therapy that could set them back.

The fact is that even the most well-meaning patients can miss an appointment sometimes. Everyone is busy, and physical therapy often takes people out of their normal routine. By reminding patients of their appointments, you are not only protecting your schedule, but you are doing them a big favor as well. There are several different ways to execute patient reminders.

Phone calls, emails and text messages are, of course, the most common. Set up a system that works for your physical therapy clinic and can be automatically launched from your calendar.

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Consider asking patients on their intake form what method of communication is most convenient for them or which combination of methods they might prefer. Using two forms of appointment reminders can be more effective than one.

Appointment reminders are an essential way to keep your patients coming in. Whether they had a good experience or not, people want a chance to tell you about your physical therapy clinic. Making the feedback process formal with an actual written or online survey takes a little more time, but it offers some advantages over just asking patients how it went. A physical therapy patient satisfaction questionnaire is an excellent tool to increase patient retention.

In person, people are more likely to give you the answer they think you want. A written survey tends to elicit more factual information. Offering the survey will make your patients feel important, like their opinion really matters to you. The information you get in your survey can help you make changes that improve your practice. You are a professional, but what is most important is that patients perceive the value of your services.

If there is a way to present them differently to increase the perceived value, you want to make that change. A satisfaction survey is also a means of re-connecting with a patient who might have dropped out. You can follow-up with a phone call after the survey to try to address their specific concerns.

Even with a survey and a personal phone call, retaining an existing client requires fewer resources than attracting a new one. Patient referrals are a way for your satisfied patients to share their experience with their family and friends. A referral program provides additional incentive and makes this referral process easier for your patients. Everyone likes to get something for free, so use your clinic to incentivize referrals. The best way to encourage long-term physical therapy patient relationships is to give away a free diagnostic test.

This way, you and your patient will be gaining information that can guide future treatment for additional health benefits. In order to keep the referrals coming, set up a graduated program where patients get a bigger reward when they reach certain referral milestones. Give your patients a chance to earn a free fitness item after their fifth referral.

Make the incentives fun, wellness related and valuable to match the value of patients bringing in new patients. Standing out from the crowd will get more patients in your physical therapy clinic and help you retain those patients. One of the best ways to stand out is to offer new, interesting and innovative therapy modalities. Patients tend to get bored with the same therapy routines, so you have to give them something to get excited about to keep them coming back. Aquatic therapy, for example, is not a modality that every physical therapy clinic offers.

Adding aquatic therapy or an underwater treadmill to your physical therapy clinic would set you apart from your competitors and invigorate your patients. Plus, it is possible achieve better, faster results for your patients. The patented training system of HydroWorx could make you a leader in sports medicine and conditioning , as well as physical therapy. Whether the majority of your patients are injured athletes or aging Baby Boomers, aquatic therapy can improve their outcomes and their attitudes about therapy all at once.

The HydroWorx underwater treadmill quickly increases range of motion for those recovering from joint injuries or joint replacement surgery, and you know that increased range of motion is one of the top priorities for most patients. Training under water, of course, eliminates body weight and joint impact concerns and reduces the chance of further damage.

Decrease Physical Therapy Patient Churn Rate

The underwater treadmill is the perfect environment to begin gait training. Unlike others, the HydroWorx treadmill replicates the same biomechanics as land-based training, so performance improvements made in the water can be duplicated on land where they really count for athletes.

Keeping current on new services you could offer patients is a great way to improve your patient retention rate. Use the rapport you build with your patients as a tool to keep them coming back. When you provide the service your patients need and your own special brand of customer service, they will want to continue working with you. HydroWorx hydrotherapy and conditioning products are an excellent way to keep your physical therapy patients engaged.

To learn more about the benefits of the patented HydroWorx system, visit us online today for a free info kit. Fortunately, physical therapy patient retention methods are not difficult to learn or execute. Decrease Physical Therapy Patient Churn Rate Your patient churn rate is the percentage of patients who drop out before they have completed the recommended number of physical therapy sessions. Start with a great first impression. Many people are intimidated by physical therapy because they have no experience with it, and most of your patients come to therapy with pain that can severely affect their mental outlook.

Make sure each patient gets a fantastic first impression of your clinic. You want them to feel comfortable and hopeful that you are going to make them feel better. Exceeding patient expectations is a great way to keep them coming back. This means managing their expectations from the beginning and then providing a better outcome. Physical therapy clinics have become popular in the last decade. Learn what your competitors offer and what you can do to stand out. Be a good listener.

You are the expert, but it is the patient who is experiencing the pain. Recognize that there is an emotional component to physical disability, even if it is only temporary. Getting your patients to feel that someone is listening to them and genuinely wants to help will allow you to develop a better rapport. The more patients know about their physical therapy treatments, the more compliant they will be. Explain some of the theory behind what you are doing and how it is going to help your patient overcome their condition.

When your patients arrive for their appointments, let them know you were expecting them and have prepared for their session. Make them feel like an important part of your day. With it, your physical therapy marketing gets blasted using:. Watch the Everywhere Small Business video to see how this program works. Plan to integrate social media into your physical therapy marketing, and ensure that your special offer, messaging, and design are all the same!

So beware of any company that claims to guarantee to get your website to 1 on Google in a short amount of time…. Get a professional video made that clearly shows prospects how your practice helps them especially if you have any special technologies! I recommend getting a video made that introduces your practice to prospects by giving them a tour of your space in under 2 minutes.

The beauty of live chat is it puts a real person on your website, answering questions even after your business has closed for the day. Live chat turns your website into a real human interaction so prospects get answers immediately, and most live chat assistants are trained to direct calls to your business when possible… getting you real leads in REAL time! Point blank — your website NEEDS to operate to get you leads , not just be a fancy or expensive spot on the internet remember 6 and 7!!

Following up with your leads can be done automatically with free email marketing tools. Most email marketing tools have ready-made templates where it just takes a couple clicks to design professional-looking emails you can set up on an automatic schedule to send to your prospects. No graphic design skills needed! How to set up email marketing for your practice to increase sales. You can use that same email marketing tool to send out a monthly newsletter to keep your current patients feeling like they have a good relationship with you and your practice.

Feature practice updates or even special events maybe on nutrition and healthy eating! Again, you can set up these automated email campaigns in most email providers — such as MailChimp — or we can set these up for you easily for a fee. According to the U. Many of those people need new local physical therapists! By automatically mailing to all the new movers in your area, your practice can simply receive a steady stream of new patients who need your help.

How to generate leads with a profitable win-win partnership. Partnering with local doctors is the most obvious form of referral marketing for physical therapists, so make sure you have a healthy stack of physical therapy marketing materials on hand to give out — brochures work great! Easily set up Google Analytics for website tracking.

But… maybe only 5 people made it to your contact page to actually contact you and become real leads for your business. Consistency can make or break your marketing campaign read why here! You can watch his video here! So there you have it! If you want more help on a one-on-one basis with you r marketing, contact one my marketing experts for a FREE consultation by calling Or, you can always email me directly at Joy. Even just a couple of these could change your practice — so here you are!

Honestly… I see this a lot: Here are some examples of physical therapist USPs to give you more ideas: It helps you look like a professional trustworthy business It creates name recognition Both of which amount to more leads and patients! Create an irresistible special offer that gets new patients calling Your special offer has 2 MAJOR functions in your physical therapy marketing: Market consistently year-round for more leads and less hassle No one knows when their body may take a turn to Painsville. Check out this example: Check out these statistics: In short, y our physical therapy postcards need to: Another reason you should market consistently?

You undoubtedly have competition looking to take away your business! Direct mail physical therapy postcards A Google ad anywhere online Facebook — specifically ads Or even a Google review. But like I said: Word to the wise: So you need to make sure you have this data entered correctly, specifically: So make sure your contact information is correct on these websites too: Yelp Facebook Other social media accounts YP. Here are some ways to do that: And if you need a step-by-step guide to gain more reviews, grab this: Love that they have 19 stellar reviews!! Would love to also see more photos!