3 Steps Organizations Can Take to Boost New Patient Acquisition

In the digital age, effective strategies for new patient acquisition involve several key components. Centralizing and optimizing provider and location data to ensure accuracy across digital platforms is a crucial first step. It not only enhances the consumer experience and improves operational efficiencies, it can even help prevent care gaps. 

Ensuring accurate provider data and appointment availability across various channels, including health plan sites and search engines, can improve provider’s broader digital presence and facilitate direct scheduling from these platforms. 

Understanding the Impact of Patient Preferences on New Patient Acquisition

A majority of today’s patients prefer researching online to select healthcare providers. Recent research has found that not only do 70% of patients rely on the internet when searching for care, but over 50% actually access three or more different online resources before they make a selection. 

Patients trust the internet almost as much as personal recommendations from friends or family members. When selecting healthcare options, key factors such as cost, quality, and convenience play a crucial role in their decision-making process. The ease of accessing comprehensive and transparent information online allows patients to compare services, read reviews, and evaluate the credentials of healthcare providers. Organizations must understand that if they are looking to effectively capture new patients, they must prioritize their digital presence.

Step 1: Centralize and Optimize Provider and Location Data to Ensure Accuracy

Provider data is stored across various platforms within a health system or hospital, including spreadsheets, credentialing systems, and electronic health records (EHRs), among others. Managing this data can be quite burdensome and time-intensive, particularly due to the need for regular updates and the involvement of numerous users. 

Centralizing provider data is essential for maintaining its accuracy and consistency not only across multiple access points within the organization, but also across digital platforms, which is vital for guiding patients to the right care. 

To optimize provider data and help consumers find a care provider that is best suited for their needs, it’s essential to curate comprehensive profiles that include key attributes such as accepted insurance, clinical expertise, and appointment availability—all crucial factors for patients making decisions.

Enhancing these profiles with additional details like personalized professional statements, introductory videos, and inclusivity indicators can further assist patients in assessing the patient-provider match. By ensuring this information is up-to-date, easily searchable, and tailored to patients’ priorities, organizations can significantly improve the care matching process.

Such centralization and optimization not only enhances online visibility and improves patient access but also streamlines the patient self-scheduling process. Ultimately, by centralizing provider and location data, healthcare organizations can provide reliable information to patients, thereby improving new patient acquisition and overall engagement.

Step 2: Automate Provider Data Updates Across Digital Platforms

Many organizations have up-to-date information about their providers on their own website, but struggle to manage their digital listings across the web. Consumers are often searching for care on their health plan website or a search engine, and managing information on these sites tends to be an extremely time consuming and manual process. 

By centralizing and optimizing provider and location data, healthcare organizations are empowered to manage listings more seamlessly and push updates live automatically across all digital platforms that are connected to their provider data management system. This reduces manual errors and inconsistencies, ensuring that the information remains accurate and up-to-date while reducing administrative burdens on your team.

The other benefit is that new patient acquisition and engagement also improve. A recent study found that 30% of consumers reported skipping or delaying care in the last year as a direct result of encountering inaccurate provider information. Ensuring that this information is accurate may help to prevent care gaps in the future.

Leverage Online Reviews and Social Media to Attract New Patients

In addition to having accurate information on your providers, organizations should encourage patients to leave positive reviews. These reviews help to attract new patients and build loyalty. Consider implementing systems to request feedback through online surveys or emails and respond to reviews whenever possible to show engagement and care.

Social media is another useful platform for engaging with patients, especially among younger consumers. Recent research has shown that over 25% of younger consumers utilize social media when searching for care. Organizations should consider using it to raise awareness and engage with potential patients. It’s a valuable tool for expanding your reach and improving new patient acquisition.

Step 3: Implement Patient Online Scheduling 

Earlier, we discussed the importance of consumer preferences on care selection. Some factors, such as the availability of patient online scheduling, are so important to patients that they will go as far as to seek care with someone else for access to this option. 

Patient online scheduling allows for a seamless connection with real-time availability that is directly integrated with a healthcare organization’s electronic health record (EHR). This convenience can promote greater patient engagement, increasing the likelihood of a scheduled appointment and thus improving new patient acquisition rates. 

Many organizations have patient self scheduling on their website, but fail to offer this capability in other channels that consumers frequent most often. With health plan websites being the first place that most consumers go when searching for care, it is a natural extension for organizations to offer patient self scheduling on these sites. 

Reach Farther, Grow Faster

Acquiring new patients requires a strategic approach. By prioritizing accurate provider data, ensuring an optimal digital presence across platforms, and embracing patient online scheduling, healthcare providers can effectively boost new patient acquisition.