Restart Your Practice with an Effective Patient Communication Plan Part 1

About

In Part 1 of our series, we’ll discuss the essential elements of a patient communication plan to help your practice restart and thrive in the post-COVID era. Learn key strategies for effective patient outreach.

Transcript

Great.

Awesome.

All right, I'm going to pin this.

There you go as the feature video.

That way it's easier to find for everyone on Facebook.

Okay, so I know we're a few minutes early here so hopefully people are jumping on.

Are you playing music right now?

Nope.

Oh, sounds like music.

Oh, I thought there was a special feature.

You're going to play my hands working the keyboard there.

Oh, gotcha.

All right, all right, good.

So hopefully some of those who have registered are starting to jump on a little bit early.

Maybe some are as early as we are.

Sound levels are okay, hopefully.

Yeah, you sound great, Jill.

Okay, good, as do you.

Great.

So if anybody's joining us, feel free to say hi.

Chat on the bottom.

I like the idea that we're doing this a little bit differently than we normally do through a regular webinar where, you know, there's no interaction really whatsoever.

Right.

At least on Facebook live there's a little bit more interaction and, you know, people can post things and ask questions and things like that.

That's right, that's right.

Tino Maura joined on YouTube.

Thanks, Tina, for joining.

Yeah, it's great.

We've got about two and a half minutes until the top of the hour here.

So, all right, very good.

Looks like it's working on our end.

David Gross joined on YouTube.

Says hello, Jill.

Nice to meet you, Ryan.

David, thanks for coming today.

Oh, hi Dr. Gross.

Glad you could join us.

We're going to get started in just, uh, what, a minute or so, Ryan?

Yeah, okay, just waiting for everybody to get situated.

Hopefully everybody's in a nice comfy chair with a nice soft ottoman putting your feet up and relaxing.

Great, we have a little more time.

Uh, yeah, we can, uh, we can kick it off here in 30 seconds.

Okay, great.

Sounds good.

Looks like Jay Hamel joins Bond East Iran.

Thanks everyone for saying hello and thanks everyone for joining.

Hello, Sonia Mendes as well.

Oh, hey Sonia.

It's great.

So we're all the comments jumping up on YouTube for you, Ryan?

Oh, yeah, there's a few out there.

Yeah, there's, uh, about thirty-two on YouTube, about seven on Facebook here.

Oh, great.

Okay, very good.

Great.

Well, let's go ahead and get started, Jill.

It's two o'clock and all right.

Welcome.

Sounds good.

So good afternoon.

Ryan and I are so excited to be here this afternoon, and we're really excited to kind of present this webinar in a different way as well.

You know, I think most of us are probably used to the typical webinar that is not quite as interactive, but quite frankly, you know, I was in Hawaii in January.

Ryan, you and I were both at the ice ups convention in March, which was probably one of the last meetings that took place.

We kind of missed seeing everybody.

Although we can't see your faces, you're kind of stuck with seeing our faces, but at least if you can leave little comments down on the bottom right-hand side.

I think you can do this on the right-hand side of YouTube and also on Facebook.

You know, just say hi just so that we can see your names because we do miss you guys.

So feel free to leave little comments down there.

There's also those cute little emojis at the bottom.

There's the new one that just showed up last week, Ryan.

I don't know if you've used this one yet, which is that cute little emoji care who's holding the little hearts.

So feel free to throw those out there once in a while just so that we know you're still awake and you haven't fallen asleep and you're comfy cozy chair with your feet up on the ottoman.

But I think we are ready to get going.

Thank you so much for joining us.

The other thing that I wanted to mention too is everybody's kind of getting situated and getting online here is that we are going to give out a $100 Amazon gift card to kind of a random winner who shares something that you have done to communicate with patients to show that you care.

You know, SP as I've been speaking with some of you over the last few weeks, some of you have been calling patients personally or maybe you've been posting fun things on Facebook just to stay connected with your patients.

So feel free to share any of those things that you might be doing and we will certainly pick a random winner at the end of the webinar today.

The other thing too is on the bottom right-hand side where you can write your comments if you have any questions feel free to throw your questions in there.

If for some reason we miss a question, please do not hesitate to contact Ryan or myself after this.

You know, before all of this eight weeks ago I thought I was really good at multitasking, but now that I've been thrown into an office with my husband and my children and making three meals a day I'm realizing that about the expert at multitasking that I once was.

So if we miss you just you know certainly reach out to us later on.

So you know when this all began almost eight weeks ago I thought no problem, you know we're going to shelter in place for eight to twelve weeks and then on June 1st we're just going to flip a switch and life is going to be back to normal.

But at about week three, and you may have felt this way as well Ryan, you know I realized that there's really no switch and we're probably going to have to really plan on a new normal.

So that's part of the reason why, you know, we really started talking about this topic of restarting your practice with an effective communication plan, a patient communication plan.

I've been working with practices over the last couple of weeks.

I'm hearing that most practices seeing emergent and urgent patients are only at about 10% of volume.

Most are expecting to start with maybe 25% of patient volume.

Hopefully, in 3 to 6 months, we'll be at 50% to 75%.

In 9 months, it could take a good year to get back up to 100% patient volume.

So, I think having an effective patient communication plan is going to be absolutely vital.

So, for some of you, I think you already know who I am.

But for those of you who don't, I'm Jill Maher.

I'm the business consultant with Maher Medical Practice Consulting, and I work with ophthalmology practices on anything dealing with practice management, financial benchmarking, strategic planning.

A big part of what I do as well is searching for ophthalmologists, optometrists, and administrators as well.

So, Ryan, why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself?

Yeah, Ryan Schumacher, Satisfied Patient.

We help practices get actionable patient feedback internally and then also positive online reviews to ultimately help build a better practice.

Alright, Story Time.

Very good, very good.

So, I have to start just by sharing a quick story before we even get into the background.

This quick story happened to my husband.

It was a week ago from Sunday.

After 21 years of marriage, he decided to start cooking.

Yeah, so it's a pandemic to get my husband to start cooking, and he was in the kitchen.

I was in a different part of the house, and I heard some slicing going on, and all of a sudden, I heard a scream and didn't pronounce slicing anymore.

Yeah, so I realized he had cut his finger.

And of course, it's a Sunday evening.

We did not want him to go to an emergency room for obvious reasons, so I quickly called the urgent care.

It was about 5:15 in the evening.

They told me over the phone they closed at 5:30, so I was trying to get as much information to them as possible.

You know, should my husband wear a mask?

Should he wait in the car?

You know, what are we supposed to do?

What are those safety precautions?

Frankly, they could not answer any of those questions that I was asking.

Yeah, they, you know, I said, well, should he wear a mask?

And they said he doesn't have to, and I'm thinking, oh no, he's going to wear a mask, don't worry.

So, I sent him out the door, and he's perfectly fine, don't worry, although I do get reminded on a daily basis that he almost died from slicing his finger.

So, I actually have another key point here: don't ever use a mandolin to slice potatoes without the safety on it during a pandemic.

Yeah, lesson learned there.

But anyway, your patients are extremely fearful.

They're anxious.

They're uncertain.

We were anxious and uncertain about him going even to the urgent care.

So, really restarting a practice among COVID-19 is going to require a strategic approach to patient communication that is detailed, reassuring, and drives operational excellence.

I think that's absolutely key.

So, our goal today is really to help practices achieve a successful restart by delivering an effective patient communication plan.

And, you know, even "restart" almost again sounds kind of like that switch, you're flipping on a switch and you're going to restart.

But I think this patient communication plan is going to have to be consistent and ongoing.

Right?

That's right, that's right.

So, the patient communication plan that we're going to kind of go over here is, you know, a couple things: what information is key to communicate with your patients, then on a consistent basis as well.

We'll talk a little bit about best practices for patient communication across all of your marketing channels to make sure that you've got a consistent message, and that's very reassuring to your patients.

And then, as a bonus, you will receive a free patient communication plan that can be edited for your practice, so you can tailor it specifically.

Every practice is going to be completely different, and I believe we're going to send that out to you after this via email, and then you can tailor it as you need to.

That's right, that's right.

Yeah, great point, Jill.

I mean, at the end of this, you know, the framework we're going to walk through today is the patient communication plan, and everyone will receive an electronic copy of what we're going through.

So, you know, feel free to continue to take notes as we go through this today, but just know that everything in here from a patient communication perspective you'll receive via email as well.

Sounds good, great.

Well, like everyone here today, we believe that the single most important factor is the patient experience.

And underlying that patient experience is patient communication.

As Jill alluded to, and as many of you have experienced, and most of our clients have experienced during the emergent and urgent phase, patients are hesitant to come back in.

So, this patient communication plan is something that, you know, will help you get patients back in the door.

Help ease their concerns.

Ultimately, help you continue to build a better practice, which is why we're here today.

There's really two pieces of it.

The first key piece is going to be what are we communicating to patients.

What are we communicating to patients during this time?

Then the second piece of it is how we take that communication and we infuse it into each one of these marketing channels down below.

You'll see website, email, social media.

They may not all apply to you.

Website likely does, as well as scheduling, which is towards the end of this.

You'll hear me talk about marketing channels and communication channels interchangeably throughout the presentation today.

The first key piece that we want to cover is the messaging.

In order to develop the messaging, we have to develop three key questions.

It's very simple.

The three key questions are: What patients are we seeing?

What can you expect when you come to our practice?

What extra steps are in place to keep all of us safe?

So the three buckets, right?

As Jill mentioned, you know, with her husband, they were trying to contact them to see again what additional steps are in place to keep us safe.

So three buckets: patient, second one there, what can you expect, that expectation-setting component, and then the safety piece of that.

We'll talk more as we break each one of these down.

So now we're going to answer these questions.

This is where after this call today, after the webinar, you go back and you can adjust these to fit your need and align with your policies and practices that you've implemented.

The first question here that we use to develop our first key message, and you're going to see this in two parts, and we've done this intentionally.

This is the emergent-urgent scenario, right?

So if you're in places like I am, where you're not, you know, you're on stay-at-home until May 15th, most of our local practices in this area are communicating a message similar to this.

So let's break down this message.

First thing is who are you seeing?

I consider myself highly educated.

However, you know, Jill, as you roll out these phased approaches, the governmental has one piece of it, the county has another piece, and you're trying to confuse who's open and who's not open.

You don't really know based on so many different things.

So tell them what patients you're seeing.

Is it open to everyone?

And then tell them how.

Tell them how to reach you.

Second piece of that second paragraph is are there any key statements from any academies?

For example, American Academy of Ophthalmology, any associations, any local government messages that you want to communicate there.

The third piece is telemedicine.

So again, you know, you're seeing some communication best practices communicated in here.

We intentionally highlight, you know, ABC Eye Care is seeing emergent pain and discomfort patients only.

We intentionally highlight telemedicine.

We intentionally highlight COVID-19 exposure, and so those are going to be your key messages during this time to the patients to let them know what are we seeing.

And as you transition into a phased approach, which a lot of our clients are in right now, they're in this process of starting to open back up.

It's not a question of if we're going to open back up, right, Jill?

It's a question of when we're going to open back up.

That's it.

We're all going to open back up.

It's when.

And so telling them that date is critical.

So in the second piece of this, and again this is an altered version of the first question, what patients are we seeing as of May 11th?

We're seeing all patients again.

Continue to call us.

That's how we prefer, and then for those practices that have implemented a telemedicine policy, you know, continue to communicate that.

Right, you can use that as not only an appointment and a visit as you should to ease those patients, but you can also use that call to help express some of the additional safety measures which we'll talk about in question number three with your third key message so the patient is reassured the next time that they do want to come in and see you face to face.

And then lastly, your COVID-19 exposure piece there.

Yep, and again it's going to depend on the state and everything that's going on.

And you're right, I mean there's so many conflicting messages that patients don't know if you're seeing patients or not or what type of patients so that's why this message is so important.

Yeah, absolutely.

The second piece here as we get into Expectations, question two: what can you expect when coming to our practice?

Right, so as we move on into the reopening, we're open, everyone's going to be open at some point in time, and what can they expect.

So that patient expectation component here and we've broken it down into a couple key pieces.

First one being mask or no mask.

Right, what's the policy?

Are they going to get one if they don't have one.

You know where I'm currently at, you know they're required.

They're mandatory.

Screening, no screening.

Again, you can see there.

You can edit this entire template that you can edit.

Your temperature threshold of 104.3 or whatever it may be.

And then a quick statement on your safety guidelines.

Just letting them know any patient who's unwilling to comply with your screening process for safety, you know, needs to reschedule for a later time.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure when that'll be.

None of us know the answer to that.

Waiting room.

So what is your policy for waiting room?

Are our patients waiting in their calls and in their car until they're called?

What is the policy?

The updated visitor and companion policy.

A hot topic right.

So it's, uh, you know, I was joking with Jill.

You know how many non-essential family members do you have?

Because last time I checked, all mine were essential.

So, you know, it's just, it's a difference of wording there.

But you know it's a visitor and companion policy and what is it?

Are you going to allow additional patients?

And we all know patients love to show up to their appointments with a big group of their family.

And then social distancing guidelines.

The last piece.

You know, not only are our staff adhering to that, but you know your chairs are spaced appropriately.

So the expectations piece of this is huge.

You know, letting them know what they can expect.

Because it's a new world that we're in now.

Absolutely and really communication equals patient satisfaction.

So the more you can communicate with your patients on this, the more satisfied they're going to be.

Expectations are huge.

Some of these things that are listed here, it's not a complete list.

So there might be more things that you add.

And some of this is going to depend not only on the state but also just the logistics of your office.

Right there are the reception areas where the parking lot is located.

How large the practice is.

Or the lanes.

Or the rooms.

Or the dilation area.

Or whatever it might be.

So there's so many different factors that go into kind of these rules.

These new rules I guess.

Absolutely, absolutely.

And you know you have to keep in mind too.

I mean not everyone on this call knows this but this is incremental right.

This is incremental to do what you're already communicating which you know makes it challenging.

But it's about that patient experience.

And it's a, you know, you don't want them to be shocked when they show up, and you know they're having their temperature taken.

Obviously, they'll be appreciative of it, but you want to make sure you set those expectations in advance.

Absolutely.

The third key question here, and it's worded this way specifically and I think this is important, what extra steps are in place to keep all of us safe?

And it's not just the patients, right?

It's doctors, it's techs, it's, you know, front office, back office, it's everyone.

What extra steps are in place to keep all of us safe?

I continue to see a lot of practices talking about what steps are we doing to keep our patients safe.

I think the key thing is to keep all of us safe, including staff and doctors.

You know, that first statement there: "Your safety, along with the safety of all of our staff and doctors, is our number one priority."

Infection prevention precautions: you guys can read that, but it gets so detailed into the, you know, removing all shared items like magazines, right?

Staffs have eliminated handshakes and other forms of non-essential physical contact.

So this is a great answer here for some of your infection prevention precautions.

You can add obviously to this list with your additional policies and procedures.

Yeah, and it's, you know, clipboards are clean at check-in.

You'll receive a pen that you may or may not keep.

Online patient intake forms can be filled out in advance and again, a lot of these other safety measures.

Then go into the other, you know, inserting your appropriate Academy information there and links to those organizations if patients want to learn more.

You know, my wife had a recent experience two weeks ago.

She finally went to an appointment that she had continually pushed off and pushed off.

You know, Jill, similar situation where she had called and finally felt comfortable with getting out of the house and going to the appointment.

They had masks, they had screening.

She tried to fill out the paperwork online in advance, but unfortunately, the practice didn't have any PDF versions online for her to fill out.

They didn't email them.

So anyway, she went in, filled out the paperwork, had a good experience, but when she went to hand the paperwork back, they said, "You know what?

You can keep the pen that we gave you." It's just that little feeling of, you know what, keeping the pen for her was like, wow, that kind of sealed the deal.

Like these guys have thought of everything throughout this entire patient journey.

Yeah, and I have heard of quite a few practices just buying a ton of pens, you know, that are branded with the practice name on it.

It's, you know, so instead of the business card, you're given out a pen.

Yeah, yeah, just one of those little things, just, you know, that all the details thought about at that practice.

So very good.

So as we talk about it again, those are three key messages, so you can take the templates at the end of the webinar that we're going to email out.

You can take those, you can adjust those three key messages.

Now we're going to talk about how to take those key messages and really pull them through each one of these communication channels.

And the first thing we're going to talk about is a COVID-19 page on your website.

This is not your homepage.

This is an actual dedicated page on COVID-19.

Unfortunately, we all know that it's not going away anytime soon.

There will probably be additional information we need to communicate to our patients.

On that page, we're going to show you a couple examples of a couple pages here in a minute.

And the three key messages on those pages are the three key messages we just went through.

So what patients are really saying and your answer, what can you expect in your answer, what extra steps are in place and your answer.

One of the things, again, my wife was having that experience when she was constantly contacting that clinic, and again, it reduces a call driver for you.

An unnecessary call driver is when you have a page like this, put a date on it, so the patient knows, okay, look, this was last updated this date.

Okay, great, my appointment's next week.

Driving all traffic back to this page is a key, key piece.

And let this, you know, page do all the heavy lifting for you.

So Ryan, really, when practice updates a page like this on their websites, they probably want to check it on a regular basis, because with so much information changing, really, I used to say a monthly basis, now it's more like a weekly or a daily basis.

You really want to check what you have on there, because some of that information may be changing pretty quickly.

That's right, that's for sure.

Great point.

I mean, I would, you know, it's something you want to be reviewing, you know, on a weekly basis or as things change, and it's a living, you know, breathing page, right?

So it's something again, it's not going away, you know?

The last piece of this is adding an alert header.

An alert header is really the very top of your website.

It’s a static header that doesn’t change.

So if you’re on the doctor’s page and you’re looking at all the doctors, at the very top of it, you still see the alert header.

You see an example there on this slide.

At the very top, it carries through.

This is a dedicated COVID-19 page on your website and it says, "Important Patient Updates on COVID-19.

Learn More Now." So if you go to the homepage, that little bar is there and static.

It’s a great mobile experience.

You click on that, and then as you go through it, it’s the components we talked about.

So you have your date, you have your three questions.

Tell them that upfront and then answer those questions again down below.

So tell them what you’re getting ready to tell them, resizing those key points.

So Ryan, I’ve looked at a few websites, quite a few websites, over the last couple of weeks.

What I’m finding is that as soon as this all occurred, you know, eight weeks ago or so, a lot of practices put up this white box with all this black lettering.

It almost looks like Skull and Bones, you know, saying that the office is closed and not to come into the office.

And so I think that is such, and it’s like right over the front page of the website.

So it’s not inviting in any way.

It’s a little bit scary and intimidating.

Yeah, I kind of feel like we now need to pull that back and have something that’s a little bit more inviting because we need a new message of saying we are open now, or whatever the case may be.

We need kind of friendly language and positive language to bring patients back, as opposed to that scary message that was placed on these websites, you know, eight weeks ago.

Yeah, absolutely.

I couldn’t agree more.

And, you know, it’s a long-term solution too.

So I think a lot of practices were, right, it was the band-aid approach, like you were mentioning, just to kind of meet an immediate need.

And now, as we shift into this being a long-term strategy, you’re going to want to shift your plan as well.

And here’s an example of that alert header that we’re talking about from another OP practice.

They’ve added a nice touch, which is "We Are Seeing Patients" to the top of it as they’re back in full swing.

And then they say "Important Information Regarding COVID-19." I do think that message should be "Important Patient Updates" because unfortunately, the word "Information" just kind of blurs all of us.

It’s like I have to read this, but you know when it’s patient and it’s geared towards me.

So, some key language there.

The other thing I’d say is stay away from pop-ups.

I’ve been on several websites recently where it’s just an automatic pop-up, right?

And that’s a traditional retail or e-commerce execution, you know, when you’re shopping for jeans or a suit or whatever it may be.

Stay away from that.

The reason being is 60 to 70 percent of your traffic is going to be on their mobile device, right?

So, two things are going to happen.

One, that experience on mobile is not very good with a pop-up, and two, the basic user behavior is just to X out of that.

I was on a very large hospital system site earlier today, and they had an alert header that expanded.

It was about three inches wide.

Once you X'd out of it and you went back to the website, it was gone.

So, once you reviewed it for the first time, because again it’s an interactive banner versus being a static banner across the top of the page, the patients will never see it again.

This thing is going to continue to go on.

I’m sure they’ll eventually catch that, but it’s just one of the best practices.

Yeah, and usually when you see those things, all you do is hit that little X to X out of it, and then it’s gone for good.

Yeah, that’s it.

You’re absolutely right.

You know, as we transition to email, Joe, how many emails have you received from brands or major companies, you know, about COVID-19?

I don’t know, two dozen a day.

Yeah, it’s a lot.

Yeah, it’s a steady stream for sure.

And, you know, a couple best practices here with emails to your patients.

The first thing is, you know, what’s your one thing?

That’s kind of the rule of thumb.

And the second bullet on this slide is really an example.

I mean, don’t literally write out, "The purpose of this email is," but it gets you thinking, right?

What is the purpose of this email?

The purpose is, we’re open as of May 11th, you know.

And question two, here’s what you can expect.

You can use the answer to that question two in that email.

Then, you can have a nice, you know, I saw Dr. Wood on the call here.

You could have a nice signature on the bottom of that that says, you know, like, you take it from question three and say, "Your safety, along with, you know, all of our staff and our doctors, is our number one priority." You know, sincerely, Dr. Wood.

And you can send that out to your patients.

You know, it’s the doctor helping reinforce the message of safety and you’re not going into a laundry list of everything you’re doing from a safety perspective.

You’re linking back to the COVID-19 page that you have because guess what happens?

You’ve just told them in that email, and now they go look at this website and they get reminded again of all the steps that you’re taking and what to expect.

So, reinforcement to the patient, which is great.

You can add some personalization.

Yeah, right.

I’d also say, too, you know, a lot of the emails that we’ve received over the last eight weeks, you know, the subject line always includes COVID-19.

So, I’d rather see an email from my doctor as a subject line saying, “We are open,” you know, whatever the date is, or, you know, whatever words you want to use, but something positive and inviting that I’m going to want to look at that and go back to the office.

That’s right.

Great point on the subject line and, you know, the purpose of it, you know, should reflect your subject line as well.

And you’re right, I mean, COVID-19 is turning into wallpaper a little bit, right?

Yeah.

Great point.

As we talk about social media, leveraging social media, I think the first key piece is just auditing your current content queue.

One of the things that we’ve seen with a lot of practices is the steady stream of social is still turned on.

It hasn’t been adjusted to the relevant context and relevant messages.

So, that’s one of the biggest pieces with social media as it relates to the patient communication plan here today.

You know, we all know as marketers, you know, and people who are setting patients’ expectations is content—it’s tough to develop content.

But the way to think about it is to think about question two.

So, the expectation-setting question: what can you expect when coming to our practice?

You’ve got masked, no masks; you’ve got screening, no screening; you’ve got visitor and companion policy; you’ve got waiting room procedures.

Those can be four separate posts.

So, you can develop four separate posts just from question two.

You can link all those back to your COVID-19 page, and that’s a very, very easy thing to do.

And how often should you be posting things on Facebook or social media?

Yeah, I think it depends.

So, I would, you know, just in a pure week, it depends kind of where you’re at in the phased rollout.

Right, so then the first message obviously is, “We’re open.” You know, right after that, or coupled with that, is what can they expect?

But I would definitely say on a weekly basis, two times a week at a minimum, just on Facebook, using Facebook as an example.

But the key is listening to your patient feedback, right?

So, the more feedback you get, guess what?

Everyone’s upset with the visitor and companion policy that you have in place.

This is an example, of course.

But if you’re getting that feedback internally, then that may shift up to be, you know, you may need to communicate that twice in one week.

So just listen to your patients.

Continue to follow the good rule of thumb, which is to communicate two to three times a week.

Keep in mind that only five percent of your Facebook followers see your messages.

Five percent! So, a very small percentage of people following you on Facebook are even going to see your messages.

That’s why you should chunk them out and communicate them that way.

The other thing that I’ve seen that has been really effective on Facebook is having one of your doctors do a videotape of themselves.

Literally show what it’s like for a patient walking in the door.

Show patients exactly what to expect when walking in.

What is it going to look like when you go to that front desk?

Do you have to go to the front desk at all?

If you get a phone call, what does it look like when you go into the examination lane?

I think those have been really effective because it also puts the patient’s mind at ease that the practice is doing the right thing, taking all the safety precautions, and they know what to do and what to expect when they walk in the door.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

That’s it.

Yeah, a great example, and there have been a lot of really good ones.

Absolutely.

You can do more than one on that, you know?

Oh, for sure.

Absolutely.

You could take the same approach here as well.

I mean, you can take your doctor, you know.

The beautiful thing about iPhones now is they’ve put a lot of production companies out of business because of such high quality.

You can create a short little message, put it in iMovie, and edit it quickly.

You can put it out there, and it’s real.

I mean, it’s authentic and relatable.

Look, we’re all scared.

We’re all in this together.

We’re all wearing masks.

That’s the beauty of this.

Google My Business: The next piece is Google My Business.

Google My Business is getting more traffic and more eyeballs than your website.

Most of you probably already know this.

Your Google My Business listing includes your online reviews, a link to click to your website, a link to call your practice, and a link for driving directions.

They have a COVID-19 update message that you can add to your Google My Business listing.

Think of this as putting a giant billboard outside your practice, except many more people are going to see it.

A couple of key things to keep in mind, though: You can’t include your phone number, so don’t include your phone number in it.

Your phone number is already on your Google My Business listing.

The messages that you type in this box are text only.

It’s a great opportunity to say, “We’re open” or “We’re now seeing patients.” You can also direct them to visit your website by typing “visit our website” to see what you can expect when coming to our practice.

This is a great opportunity that Google has put in place.

I think this is huge because I don’t think anybody knows about this.

I think it’s really important because, so often, I find that any business we’re looking at on Google has inaccurate or inconsistent information.

We don’t know if the hours are accurate or if they’re open or closed.

The information seems to be inconsistent on Google My Business.

I think putting this message out there shows that you’re being really active and helps educate your patients quickly.

It’s a great thing to utilize, and it’s free.

You just jump on and place that message on there.

Absolutely.

Yeah, completely free.

It doesn’t take long to do, and it’s probably one of your most visible touchpoints.

Hey Ryan, I just want to take one minute because I know that some people jumped on later in the call after we already started.

On the bottom right-hand side of YouTube and Facebook, there is a place to write comments.

Feel free to throw your questions out there.

We’re happy to answer any questions you might have while we’re going through all of this.

Also, I mentioned at the beginning that if you have a great idea or a way that you have communicated with your patients to make them feel cared for during this time and keep that communication open, feel free to share your ideas.

We’re going to randomly pick a winner for a $100 Amazon gift card because everybody can use an Amazon gift card right now as they’re ordering stuff.

Feel free to place any ideas you have, whether they’re things you’ve already tried or ideas that are on your to-do list but you haven’t gotten around to yet.

Great reminder, Joe.

The next slide here is about the study of negative online reviews.

Earlier this year in 2020, we did a big study where we pulled all the negative online reviews off of Google, Healthgrades, and Facebook for ophthalmology practices across the United States.

We analyzed those, and I don’t think it’s any surprise what number one was, but I mean, I know we've got something to add to this as well, Joe, but the number one piece of feedback was, you know, wait time.

Yes, I mean, we've done thousands and thousands of patient satisfaction surveys over the years.

I've never seen the number one patient complaint as anything else but wait time.

So, the biggest concern that I have for practices right now, and I don’t know what you think about this, Ryan, but my biggest concern is, well, it might be good for some of us that wait time may not be the number one patient complaint anymore.

What we don’t want to do is replace that wait time complaint with a safety complaint.

That’s really my biggest concern.

If we don’t get this communication right and set realistic expectations with patients upfront and consistently over time—since this could take a year—we're going to wind up seeing the number one patient complaint not as wait time, but as safety issues.

That’s why I think this is so important.

Yeah, great point, Jill.

The other thing I would add too, as we looked at all the data and analyzed everything, is that number two was “did not receive an exam.” The underlying component of that, oftentimes, is communication.

They received a thorough exam, but it could have been the doctor or the tech who just didn’t explain the steps in the process.

It was the 23rd patient of the day, or however many it was, and they just didn’t explain the steps in the process.

So, it was really patient communication that led to that feedback on “did not receive a thorough exam.” Our clients’ biggest concern is to avoid any negative reviews on COVID or safety during this period of time.

That’s why it’s so critical to keep your finger on the pulse of your patient feedback.

As you’re surveying your patients, get that feedback, make these changes, and adjust your communication plan.

If the companion piece of how many people they can bring to their appointment is the biggest issue, let’s tackle it head-on and communicate that.

Absolutely.

We want positive word-of-mouth to come out of every appointment, right?

Patient and physician referrals are key.

Patients are going to come in and have that experience.

Like if my wife had—like we talked about—it was very positive.

She’s mentioned that to a couple of people on a couple of Zoom meetings already.

And so we want that but the other pieces of this are we need to not forget about your referring physicians.

Don’t forget about your core services either.

As we think about communicating to referring physicians who are referring to our practices, reinforce your core services.

Let them know, “Hey, we’re open. Here’s what your patients can expect.”

The last thing you want is them going back to that referring physician saying, “Look, I had a bad experience. These guys weren’t buttoned up for COVID. Here’s what it was.”

You don’t want to cut that referral off, so you want to make sure that you’re communicating with those referring physicians, letting them know what they can expect and informing them about your procedures and operations.

The message you’re sending to your referring physicians is pretty much the same as what you’re sending to your patients.

You could almost use the same letter that goes out to your referring physicians.

I’ve also heard of some practices and physicians who are doing a great job of staying connected with their referring physicians by doing a Zoom meeting.

Something so simple but utilizing your time wisely, this is a great time to stay connected with some of your referring physicians.

Educate them and make sure that everyone knows what your process is as patients are referred to you.

Absolutely.

The in-office patient experience will take care of itself.

As you continue to deliver a high level of patient satisfaction, you could develop an in-office brochure that patients pick up on their way out and check out.

This brochure could talk about how you’re dealing with COVID, your safety procedures, and reinforce your core services.

We’re still in business to do the things that we’re professionally trained to do.

So, let’s not stop talking about those things but infuse the appropriate messaging to make everyone comfortable and set their expectations.

Very good.

It doesn’t even have to be a three-fold brochure.

It could be very simple.

Simplistic is really the best.

The next piece here is scheduling.

One of the most difficult jobs in the entire practice is setting those expectations during the scheduling process.

Some practices may be going through a phased approach, right?

So, you don't have all of your front office staff back in currently.

That’s typically answering the phones.

When a patient, after you've gotten through the scheduling component of actually booking the appointment, and after you've let them know what they can expect, they also want 15 minutes of you explaining all of the safety guidelines you've gone through.

Well, if you're short on staff, you don't have 15 minutes.

So again, another benefit of having that COVID-19 dedicated page is you know, letting that patient know, “Look, safety is our number one concern.”

They can go into it a little bit.

You can redirect them to your website again, where they’re reminded of what they can expect, who you’re seeing, and those safety measures.

Focusing on the second question, I think, is going to be key.

We’re all going to reopen, and I do believe at some point in time, as a lot of the bigger brands show, safety is going to become a little bit of wallpaper.

It’s going to boil down to execution, and it's going to go down to expectation setting.

So, a great example is buying online and picking up curbside at Home Depot.

Three different people brought stuff out to your car this weekend under stay-at-home orders.

One had masks on and gloves on.

The other one was wearing the mask under the neck.

The third had no masks and was servicing the vehicle.

So, there were three different experiences.

That also reminds me.

Even with your staff, you could be going over all of this with patients, but you've got to make sure that your staff is totally buttoned down on every detail of the safety measures that you're taking.

You probably want to have some sort of a meeting on a weekly basis just to make sure that the message is really consistent and nobody's kind of falling through the cracks or miscommunicating with patients because they're getting word of it.

Yeah, that’s it.

The person who serviced me at Home Depot at that curbside pickup had everything right.

However, I saw the woman parked next to me.

I saw her face, and she kind of gave me a look like, “Whoa, this person’s getting ready to come over here with no mask.” So, not a good experience.

But, you know, a couple of key things.

Obviously, there’s already a checklist you probably have with your scheduling group.

Adding these things to your checklist, masks, no masks, you know who can attend, etc., and then adjust it as you see fit.

The scripting component is important.

I am a firm believer in scripts and scripting it for your staff to follow.

The last slide here, before we get into the communication plan and just a couple of other final details, is kind of the kitchen sink.

Think about whether you have these in your practice or not.

If you do, consider what to do with them.

I think about the waiting room TV, text messaging, and signage.

You saw that Walgreens signage; they even have it on their drive-through sign outside communicating it.

The big thing is to start with the one thing you want to communicate in each of these communications, if you have them.

Then, talk about how all the digital communications link back to your COVID-19 page.

In the communication plan that we’ll talk about next, there’s a checklist where you can go through and say yes or no if you have these communications.

Waiting room TV: If your waiting room is open and you're social distancing, and you have a TV, you want to talk about your commitment to safety in that medium.

SMS text messaging: Maybe you can use it for world signage.

You might want to include what we talked about previously, like what to expect or safety, depending on where it's at.

I would also add LinkedIn, even though it might fit under this section or the referral section.

Having a big message saying we’re open on LinkedIn as well could be beneficial.

Many physicians are on LinkedIn and might be connected more with referring physicians, but they might also have some patients they are connected with as well.

You just don’t want to forget about those other mediums.

Absolutely, it’s a great point.

The next slide here is the patient communication plan, planned by channel.

Everyone will receive two documents at the end of this today.

The first one will be a Word document with adjustable, editable answers to each one of those three questions: What are we saying to patients?

What can they expect when coming to our practice?

What extra steps are we taking to keep all of us safe?

Lastly, it will have a grid.

It will come with a separate checklist.

Again, this is too small for anybody to see.

We promise it will be larger, yeah, but the last piece is a checklist, so that's pasted into this Word document.

You can paste it in there.

It’s really a checklist for you to go through.

We’ve added some best practices for communication and what message to communicate when.

If you have an email strategy, the first email should obviously be, "We’re open as of when," followed by the number two message of what they can expect with a link to learn more about additional safety measures, etc.

All this is adjustable and editable for everyone.

Yep, perfect.

We’ve got some great suggestions here on YouTube as well.

Oh, great.

Can you share any of them?

Yeah, I’m going to read a couple in here.

So, today the Gross says, "We purchased a restaurant-style paging system to use for those waiting in cars and don’t have cell phones." How about that?

Oh, good idea.

I’ve got another one here from Denise Lee.

Denise Lee says, "We’ve been calling patients a day before to screen for an illness and remind them to wear masks.

If not, they’ll be rescheduled.

We place sneeze guards where appropriate." Oh, very good.

I’ve got a few others coming in.

Tomorrow, and apologies if I mispronounce anyone’s name: Any standard cut-offs for what constitutes a fever for temperature screening?

North Shore Health System uses a conservative 99 degrees.

I’ve seen others use over a hundred.

Yeah, you’d have to check with the AAA on that.

I have seen that vary a little between 99 and like 100.3.

So, I think that does vary.

It’s going to depend on where you’re at.

Great.

I’ve got a couple other questions here.

Let’s see, "We’ve been able to access phones and our EMR remotely for all calls and refills.

We have also called each patient directly to determine urgency of future appointments." That’s from Mary Riley.

How very good.

"We’ve been open every day for all calls and emergency visits." That’s from Tina O’Mara.

"We’ve also been calling patients that were scheduled to let them know that we’re here if they have any emergencies." These are great.

Jeremy Ross got another one on Facebook here.

I’ve got about three more over here, Jill, and then I’ll switch over to you for Facebook.

Jeremy says, "We’ve kept the phones answered every day so any patient that has wanted to reach out to us has been able to." And Joe, why don’t you go ahead with a few of the Facebook ones there?

Okay, yeah.

We’ve had a few of them that I thought were great.

Sorry, I’m reading as I’m talking.

Again, it’s that multitasking thing.

Quite a few have said that they’ve been calling patients, talking about protocols to keep them safe.

Calling patients to keep them in the loop with what we’re doing.

We sent out a Mailchimp email to our recent and future scheduled patients and also updated our website with a COVID-19 update link, just like we were talking about earlier, great.

We are calling all patients, going over all new protocols and procedures we are putting in place for safety.

We are also updating our website and Facebook page as well.

See, there was another one here: "We’re calling our patients weekly.

Also, we had a furlough about 70% of our staff.

We wanted to keep them engaged, so we have been offering free webinars and calling them to check in weekly." So, they’re communicating with their staff, which is awesome.

The more communication, the better by far.

Then we have a question here from Joe.

Gee’s question: "Any tips on how to communicate the struggle of rescheduling the canceled appointments from the last six weeks?

There’s only so much time in the schedule.

How to explain the accommodating canceled appointments in the ongoing annual visits that are coming as the year progresses?

How do we not disappoint our patients?”

That’s a good question, Joe.

Gee, and certainly a big question.

I think the more—again, it goes back to communication—the more you can communicate with patients, I think the more satisfied they’re going to be.

It might be something that you want to actually script out.

Make sure that you have a script with your scheduling team who’s actually calling the patients.

I would always start with an apology.

I think everybody is pretty understanding at this time that things are a little bit crazy, but an apology always still goes a long way, along with empathy for what the patient is going through.

And then doing the best you can to schedule with them.

So, a very good question.

Yeah, great, great question, Joe.

Gee.

I would also add to that, we’ve seen several practices extend their hours.

So, they’re in the phased approach but they’ve extended hours to accommodate patients.

And, again, I know it’s challenging.

I know a lot of practices that we work with have been busier during this timeframe than ever because of all the communication adjustments and other factors of COVID that have come down.

I have seen some practices that are going into the evenings and onto Saturdays as well just to be able to accommodate and to really spread out those patients coming in so that they’re not all arriving at the same time.

Absolutely.

Very good.

Alright, so any other questions on your end, Ryan?

No, I think that’s it.

I think I’ve got a favorite.

What do you have, Jill?

Yeah, yeah.

So, I have a favorite as well.

What’s your favorite?

No, you go ahead, please.

So, I was actually going with the one that was from Jody McCoy Pitman.

I have to go back to it now if I can find it.

Yeah, calling all patients and going over all new protocols and procedures that they’re putting in place for safety.

Also, updating their website and Facebook page.

Great, Joey, it is Jodi.

Julie, whoo! Alright, we'll get you that $100 Amazon gift card.

And I think that’s about it.

If there are any questions that you all have that we were not able to answer, don’t hesitate to reach out to Ryan or myself.

We’re more than happy to answer any questions that you might have.

We will definitely be sending out that communication plan to each of you via email.

So, I think you should expect that later today, Ryan?

Yeah, that’s right.

And one last thing I’d say is, you know, we’ve got a second session of this same content.

So if there are any additional staff members or colleagues that you think would find value in this session, please extend it.

Please share the original invite link that you got from the appropriate parties.

We’re doing this again Thursday.

So, we’re just thankful that you guys attended and happy to help you guys in any way, shape, or form we can.

Thanks so much for coming out.

Absolutely.

Thank you for joining us.

Take care of yourselves and be safe.

This is definitely a strange time for all of us, but just take care of each other and be safe.

We really hope to see you all real soon.

Thank you.

You have a great day, everyone.

Bye.

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