These days, medical practices have a revenue problem. Gone are the days when you could take the patients who were sent by insurance companies or word-of-mouth and grow your practice with them. One reason for this is insurance itself: they’re slashing reimbursement rates and increasingly demanding that patients go to an in-network provider. As a result of these changes, medical practices increasingly need to do traditional marketing.
Unfortunately, “traditional marketing” no longer means just putting an ad in the paper, the phone book, and a display ad or two online. Nowadays, medical professionals need more intense tools, like CRM software for physicians. Let’s look at what a CRM is, and how you can pick the right one for your practice.
What is a CRM?
The acronym CRM stands for “customer relations management,” in this case, through software. The earliest CRM for medical professionals was a set of index cards stored in a box, with names and addresses, along with patient medical files. Those card files barely exist anymore, and the files are on the way out, too.
Marketers and businesses use a CRM to gather, nurture, and convert leads. For a medical practice, this means getting people to express interest in your practice, then following up with them. Converting them into patients means getting that appointment and first visit. In an increasingly competitive field, this is an important way to grow your practice.
How can I choose the best CRM software for physicians?
Simply put, find something that has all the features you need, and that’s easy to use. You don’t want to have a whole bunch of software programs to perform the relatively basic task of patient acquisition. For that reason, not all CRM software is suitable for doctor’s offices.
Here’s what you need:
- Automated lead capturing, which takes information from your lead generation efforts and adds it to the system. This information can be from your website, social media, and other sources.
- Lead nurturing, or automatically reaching out to potential patients. A good CRM for medical professionals will contact them using calls, messages, and email as appropriate.
- Updates on your leads, including suggestions on how you can get them to sign up.
- Integration with other applications, such as Stripe payments and your electronic medical record. These let you sell convenience to leads and also manage patient accounts.
Patient Stream: the perfect CRM for medical professionals
Here’s the thing: Patient Stream’s CRM is designed for medical professionals, and only medical professionals. For this reason, it has all the features you need and even a few you want. They’ll help you grow your practice by running automated marketing and CRM functionality, and also keep track of current and past patients. It’s the only CRM you’ll ever need.
