Restart Your Practice with an Effective Patient Communication Plan Part 2

Jill, we're live.

How are you?

Good, how are you doing, Ryan?

I'm great.

I'm great.

Happy Thursday to you.

Yes, happy Thursday, almost Friday.

That's right, almost.

Good weekend.

We've got about a minute before we get started here, before we get to the top of the hour.

Oh, good, we're closed.

So, for those of you who are joining right now, feel free to type in your name.

Just say hello at the bottom right-hand side just so that we know that you're here.

I think, Ryan, you can see everybody jumping in on the call.

Yeah, all right, good.

Looks like it's sunny where you're at, Ryan.

It's nice.

Yeah, same here until the polar vortex hits.

Yeah, right, kind of crazy.

Don't expect that in May.

Are we ready to go already?

Yeah, let's do it.

We can go ahead and get started.

All right, awesome.

So, good afternoon, everybody.

Thank you so much for joining us.

Ryan and I are really excited to be doing this on kind of a new type of platform on webinar live and also YouTube live.

And quite frankly, it's been a while since we've seen some of you at some of the conventions and you're in your offices.

So, unfortunately, we can't see you, but you're stuck seeing us.

But we can at least see your names popping up, which is kind of nice.

And that gives us a little bit of comfort knowing that you're there.

So, feel free to say hi at the bottom there on the right-hand side.

There's also those cute little emojis.

If you're watching this on Facebook, there's that cute little care emoji that just came out last week.

So, feel free to use that.

And what we'd also love to do is, and Ryan, I think we talked about this habit, if you have a great idea to share.

Something that you've done to communicate with your patients to show that you care for them and that you're helping them along through this kind of challenging time.

I know some practices are calling their patients personally and talking to them.

Others are doing some fun things on Facebook.

Feel free to share some of the ideas that you've had.

And we will randomly choose a winner at the end of this webinar.

The winner will receive a $100 Amazon gift card, which I think everybody can use these days.

And I think the last time we did this, somebody had some great ideas.

They were actually taking pictures of themselves with their patients that are 100 years old.

I think it was even through telemedicine or something like that.

I don’t even know if they were together at the time, but kind of a fun thing to place on Facebook.

Alright, so when this all began like eight weeks ago, I thought no problem, we're going to shelter in place for a good eight to twelve weeks.

And then on June 1st or so, we're just going to flip a switch and life is going to be back to normal.

Probably around week three or so.

I don't know when it hit you, Ryan, but probably around week three, for me, I realized there is no switch, and we really need to plan for a new normal.

Most of the practices that I'm talking to these days, they're seeing probably about 10% of their normal volume of patients.

As states are opening up and practices are starting to open up over the next few weeks, they're really starting at about 25% of their normal patient volume.

I really think that over time, it's going to take a while for practices to really be at full capacity.

I'd say probably, you know, within six months, practices are going to be pretty lucky if they're at 50 to 75%, and in a year, hopefully, everybody will be back up at a hundred percent.

Although, I think the news this week has not been so good.

You know, I'm hearing that this is going to be kind of long term, two plus maybe three years, which I'm hoping, quite frankly, that they're super wrong on that.

So, that's the whole reason why this whole topic of restarting your practice with an effective patient communication plan is so incredibly important.

Because patients are really nervous right now, so that communication plan is going to bring patients back in the door.

So, can we start with introductions, Ryan?

Yeah, let's do it.

So, some of you on the call already know who I am.

I'm Jill Maher.

I'm the business consultant with Maher Medical Practice Consulting.

I basically work with practices on anything dealing with practice management, strategic planning, marketing.

And then, also, a big part of my business is really recruiting for physicians, ophthalmologists, optometrists, administrators to really bring some more efficiency to practices.

So, Ryan, you?

Yeah, Ryan Schumacher, Satisfied Patient.

We help practices get actionable feedback internally from their patients and positive online reviews to help grow.

We also provide a little bit of differentiation in the marketplace.

We provide insights, reports allowing you to kind of keep your finger on the pulse of your patient feedback that directly impacts your revenue.

All right, very good.

So, as you're getting the presentation put up, I don't know if it's up on your end, I'll just share a quick little story with you.

And that's something that happened to my husband about a week ago Sunday.

After 21 years of marriage, he decided to take up cooking.

It takes a pandemic to get my husband to cook.

I could hear him in the kitchen.

I was not in here, but I heard him in the kitchen.

He was slicing away at something, and all of a sudden, I heard a little squeal and realized that something was probably not right.

So, I came running in, and of course, he had cut his thumb.

It took about 15 minutes of him being pretty upset, and I finally took a look.

I looked at it and said, "We've got to get you to, you know, urgent care."

We obviously did not want to walk into an emergency room, so we really wanted to get into an urgent care.

I called, and of course, it was a Sunday evening.

It's 5:15 at night.

They close at 5:30, so we had 15 minutes to get him there.

I was really hoping for some reassurance from the urgent care person who I was talking to on the other line to tell me, "You know, what safety precautions should we expect?"

I asked if he should be wearing his mask, and you know, they were like, "No, he doesn't have to wear a mask."

I was like, "No, no, he's going to wear a mask, right?"

I was hoping to, you know, as I sent him out the door to get there before 5:30 when they closed, I was hoping that they were going to take his name and insurance card and things like that information from me over the phone so he wouldn't have to do it when he got there.

They didn't do that, so I did not have that reassurance that I think a lot of patients really need right now.

That really is absolutely key.

Yeah, absolutely critical right now.

Yes, so Ryan, do you have the presentation up there?

I do.

Oh, okay.

I must be doing something wrong because I don't see it.

Yeah, it's still good.

We're live.

Okay.

Is the actual PowerPoint up?

You wouldn't want to leave me a quick Alberti in our faces, right?

I thought for sure it was me.

All right, very good.

So, just a little background on, you know, as I was saying, you know, I was fearful for my husband walking into an urgent care.

That's what patients are feeling right now.

They're fearful, they're anxious, they're uncertain.

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

So, that patient communication aspect is absolutely vital to help restart and ease patients' concerns so that they can walk in the door feeling comfortable in knowing exactly what to expect when they're walking in the door.

So, our goal for this webinar is really to help practices achieve a successful restart.

You know, I say restart, restart kind of sounds again like that switch that you're going to flip on the wall and everything's going to be back to normal.

You know, when I say restart here, I'm really kind of saying we're going to have to continue to consistently provide this patient communication over time.

It could be, you know, upwards of a year or two.

So, we really want to help practices achieve a successful restart by delivering an effective patient communication plan.

So we're going to look at what information is absolutely key to communicate with your patients.

What do they absolutely need to know?

We'll talk about best practices for patient communication across all of your marketing channels.

So the more information that you can get out to your patients, the better, right?

Then finally, we'll provide this little bonus.

You'll receive a free patient communication plan that can be edited specifically for your practice.

So you can tailor it and that will be emailed out to you later today.

I think it's an Excel spreadsheet, right?

So it can be specifically tailored for each practice.

That's right.

That's right.

Very good.

Great.

Well, like everyone here.

Patient Communication Plan.

You know, we believe the most critical part is the patient experience.

The underlying component of the patient experience, and a big piece of that as Jill mentioned, is having a patient communication plan.

So today we're going to walk through really kind of two different components.

The first component is what should we be messaging?

So what are those key messages?

It's going to start with three key questions.

Then we're going to take each one of those.

Once we have our key messages, we're going to go through each one of these communication channels.

You'll hear me say communication channels and marketing channels interchangeably today.

We'll start with your website.

We'll go all the way to scheduling, which are obviously all very critical aspects of each and everyone's practice today.

For those of you taking notes, keep in mind after today we will send out the editable patient communication plan as Joe mentioned.

You can completely edit that.

This is a framework, so there's information in here that is completely adjustable.

We did use obviously ophthalmology as kind of the case study as we go through this today.

Again, you can tailor it to meet your particular practice's needs.

The first piece of this again is what are those three key questions?

As a patient communication plan, it serves as a roadmap for your entire practice to communicate.

Patients need to know what patients are you seeing?

I know that kind of sounds funny, but you know I'm at a place where you know stay at home is still in place, but slowly they're phasing it out.

I'm even scratching my head on what's open, what's not open.

Again, you know very simply.

What patients are we seeing is question number one.

The second piece is what can you expect when coming to our practice?

So setting that patient's expectation your practice may be the first health care experience they've had since you know stay at home order.

So keep that in mind it's going to be brand new for a lot of people.

And then lastly what extra steps are in place to keep all of us safe?

So again patients expectation safety.

We're going to talk through editable answers of each of these coming up on the following slides here.

First one to jump in what patients are we seeing?

So we've broken down this first question into really two answers.

One A and one B.

And one A being for the practices that are currently still at a stay at home order.

And again using ABC Eye Care or seeing emergency and paying patients only.

You'll need to call the office.

I know that sounds very simple but it's very key right now.

Any type of statement from your local Academy or potential governmental agency right there we have an example of the AAO.

And then telemedicine.

So are you offering telemedicine?

If so, how do they take advantage of that offering?

And the last piece, the COVID-19 exposure.

As you transition, because we're all going to transition, it's not a question of uh yeah, yeah for sure, no we are, it's not a question of you know if we're open, it's more of a question of when we're going to be open.

So as we transition we're going to transition into 1B and it's going to be as of a certain date.

Right, that might be phased approach is to depending on your local area but as of May 11th ABC Eye Care is seeing all patients.

So reinforcing that, letting them know to contact you.

Telemedicine keep that in there it's up to you but it's a great opportunity again to also provide the experience via telemedicine.

But reassuring the patient the steps that you put in place for safety.

Right, so when they do if they're uncertain and they don't want to come in but they do want to take advantage of telemedicine you can also use that call to let them know what you're doing in the practice to drive them in the next time they need major services.

And then lastly the COVID-19 exposure there.

So that's really quickly the what patients are we seeing.

As we go to question number two what can you expect when coming to our practice?

So the biggest component here is setting that patient's expectation.

Again the new normal this could again keep in mind be their first experience out with the healthcare provider.

And we've broken it down into sections.

And the first piece there is mask so mask or no mask.

Second piece is screening Jill we had a you know a question yesterday about the temperature.

And again this is editable.

Right, so it just says 99 as a placeholder.

You need to plug in the appropriate temperature there.

Waiting room.

Are you asking patients to stay in their car?

Are they coming into the waiting room?

That is a key piece to set their expectation.

Updated visitor and companion policy.

So are you limiting how many people?

How many guests?

We all know everyone loves to bring a lot of people to their appointments.

But you know what, what are those specifics and communicating that upfront?

Absolutely, and I think so many of these things are going to be very different among each practice.

It could be dependent on state.

It could be dependent on what type of practice it is.

What the business model is.

And it could depend just on the logistics of where the parking lot is compared to the office and how large the office is to keep everybody at a distance.

So I think there's a lot of different factors that have to be played here for each individual office.

Yeah, that's right.

I mean, and the key is using this as a framework to adjust it to meet your particular practice's needs from a communication perspective.

But this is the information patients are seeking, right?

So they want to know what to expect and you can tailor it appropriately.

Absolutely, I would also add to that you know we're talking about patient communication here but you've got also make sure that your staff is fully aware of all of these new rules and regulations as well so that there's no confusion when they're communicating with patients.

Yeah, great point Joe.

One of the things in the editable communication plan that everyone will receive at the end today is you know there's a third step.

And that third step is you know consistently reviewing the patient communication plan with your staff.

So great point, great point.

The third key question and there's a subtle nuance here is what extra steps are in place to keep all of us safe?

And I think that's important, the all of us safe, right?

Patients oftentimes have the perspective to think of them and only them.

But guess what, the doctors, the staff, you know every practice is trying to keep everyone safe.

And so it's not just what extra steps are in place to keep you safe, it's really all of us as we're in it together.

A great statement there at the beginning letting them know your safety along with the safety of all of our staff and doctors is our number-one priority.

The next piece there is infection prevention precautions.

This is a pretty thorough answer.

Again, you want to customize it based on what you have done at your particular practice.

You know, great example we've removed all shared items like magazines.

That's another key piece matter, even toys and pamphlets and things like that.

Everything's got to be cleared away.

Yeah, yeah, the next piece, check-in procedure.

So there's some answers there again about, you know, clipboards are cleaned to check in.

You'll receive a pen that you may be able to keep to fill out your paperwork.

And then online patient intake forms.

So a great opportunity to send those in advance, post them to your website.

You know, give the opportunity to the patient to fill that out prior to.

And you know my wife had continuously been pushing off a recurring appointment during this timeframe.

And finally ended up going to it and you know, again, mask was there, there was screening.

She tried to fill the paperwork out online in advance, it wasn't an option.

But you know one of the things that they did was she filled out the paperwork, she gave it back to them.

They said look, keep the pen and again, it was just a subtle gesture to keep the pen.

But it really you know reinforced the level of detail that this particular practice had taken and ensuring that they've kind of thought through every type of scenario from a patient perspective.

Probably made her feel a lot more comfortable.

Absolutely, absolutely.

So those are your three key questions.

And again, you have to develop your three key messages.

This is a framework to help you create those three key messages.

The rest of the presentation we'll talk about best practices for communicating those three key messages throughout all of your marketing and communication channels.

The first one up is website.

And I saw our local MGMA sent out a note that 72% of practices would be communicating the majority of COVID information via website.

And you know, we've got some examples in here on the next couple slides as well of some websites that you'll see.

But communicating those three questions on your website with specific answers including a date.

So as patients start to get back in the community, as they start to get out and about, they're going to want to know when was the last time this was updated.

And so that's something to keep in mind to always update your COVID-19 page.

And again, this is a dedicated COVID-19 page on your website, it's not the home page.

And I think that's something for all of us to keep in mind that's very important.

This is not something that's going to be done in a month, two months, three months, four months.

We don't know the timeframe right.

So by having a dedicated page you allow that additional flexibility over time to make easy updates.

So you're making one update to a website that then you're driving all of your additional communication channels back to, so really making your life a lot easier.

The last piece, the alert header we'll talk about in a second.

As you can see there's a COVID-19 example page here.

Alert Header

This is a 1.

We'll start here with an alert header at the top, and what this does is it allows you to communicate important patient updates at the top of your website, and that would be static.

So it would be on every page of your website, you'd see that header.

I think that's an important note.

So I like the idea of having, you know, some sort of a header that's like part of the website that patients can click on to take a look.

You know I've been to a few websites now where I've seen kind of this big white box that pops up and it covers up the entire front page of the website.

I mean it might as well be kind of a skull and bones saying we are closed don't come in.

You know it's a little bit intimidating and scary.

And so I think the messaging needs to change and we need to have this information about safety but it's got to be a little more welcoming.

So I like the idea that there is kind of a header that patients will click on to get more information so it's part of the website as opposed to, you know, something covering up the website if that makes sense.

Yeah absolutely, great, great point.

And you know the other key with the alert header is you know there's a lot of sites that I've been on that pop-up messages, and the normal user experience is to just X out of those.

And you have to keep in mind 60 to 70 percent of your traffic is going to be on your mobile device.

So what does that pop-up look like on a mobile device, an iPhone, etc.?

Probably doesn't look so great.

So that's the benefit of you know having a dedicated alert header at the top of your page that then drives to a dedicated COVID-19 page.

And then the rest of it literally lists the three questions at the top.

Let them know those three questions, and then down below you answer each one of those three questions.

Here's a great example of another practice with alert header.

They've added a nice touch as we're seeing patients.

I'd love for the second piece of this to be updated to important patient updates versus important information.

Information just really doesn't get that patient's attention but the red definitely does.

So you know they've accented this with a nice red color to make it pop and again it drives to a dedicated landing page where they can communicate all of their COVID-19 information.

And I like the words that they're using too: we're back.

You know the other words that I've seen quite a bit lately is we are open.

I just got something from my dentist on that.

You know so I think you know the more inviting the words the more and that patients are going to take a look at and look at the safety precautions.

But I think you know we're back we're open we've got to get patients feeling confident and coming back as opposed to you know the skull and bones saying we're closed.

That's right that's right 100%.

Oh and I did want to mention real quick Ann had mentioned you may wish to provide masks to all patients because doctors may need to touch the patient's face.

A patient's own mask is sometimes unknown so you know if practices can get a hold of masks and be able to provide that to every patient you know that's more ideal.

So Mary commented on that, yeah great point.

And as we move from website we talk about email.

So Jill how many emails have you received related to COVID-19?

I think in the initial weeks I probably was getting at least a dozen or two per day.

Yeah a bit overwhelming.

Yeah a hundred percent.

I think every major you know big brand, fortune 100, sent out, you know I know one day a couple weeks ago I got emails consecutively from American, JetBlue, Delta, and Southwest all in the same day about everyone's commitment to safety.

So there was a great reinforcement there from the airlines all at one time but you know a couple things on email.

First one being what's your one thing?

And so we say obviously you know your email is going to communicate more than one thing but that second bullet there is just a great example of how to develop your one thing.

Don't write in the email the purpose of this email is but you know think about it from that context.

The purpose of this email is we're open right.

We're seeing new patients you know we're seeing patients and then couple that with question number two.

So the question number two key message number two what can they expect and then driving a link back to you can put a note in there about your commitment to safety and then drive that back to your COVID-19 dedicated page.

Because guess what, it's going to do.

It's going to tell the patient again when they go back there what they can expect.

Your safety measures, so again, reinforcing that communication via email is key.

Making it do the heavy lifting for you, but not making it, you know, too much to read.

I think patients are more likely to open it when it's coming from their doctor, their personal doctor, as opposed to a large company, you know, like United or American or Delta or something like that.

They’re more likely to read it as long as it’s nice and simple.

Yeah, and I would even say, you know, the other piece of this, the second to last bullet, is adding the personalization.

So the personalization of the doctor’s, you know, from Dr. Timothy Kessler, you know, at the end, you know, “we’re committed to safety” is a great touch.

Yeah, that gets their attention.

The next piece here is social media.

So, you know, the one thing that I’ve seen, which I think is fascinating, is a lot of people continue to have their same content flowing and they haven’t done an audit of their content queue.

And again, it could be for various reasons, you know, just trying to put band-aids in other places.

But for the time being, and how quickly this came out, but audit your content queue.

So make sure you have relevant content.

You’re going to continue to use your three key questions, your three key messages, and everyone in social media knows the hardest part is coming up with content, right?

But here’s an easy way to do it.

So think about what you can introspect when coming to our practice.

If you think about that question right there, you can break that down into four separate posts: mask, no mask, screening, no screening, your visitor companion policy, waiting room procedures.

Right, there’s four unique posts.

And if you use those individually, they’ll work a little harder for you.

Because keep in mind, only 5% of your posts, on average, are going to be viewed by your followers.

So, you know, it’s not a big percentage of your followers that are going to see that.

So break those up.

That’s a great, great tip to help share the message.

If you have four posts like that, should you be placing all four posts on the same day or spread them out amongst a week or two weeks?

What’s the best way to kind of get that out?

Yeah, great, great point.

I, you know, I think the first key message, obviously, is going to be, you know, for most places, look, we’re back open and here’s who we’re seeing, if there are any adjustments, hours, etc.

Posting two times a week, specifically just on Facebook itself, you may need to dial that up.

I think one of the key things, you know, that's a benefit as you continue to listen to patient feedback.

One of, let's just say hypothetically, one of the biggest pain points, you know, as we start to move forward could be the companion policy, right?

So, it could be the fact that, hey, I’ve showed up, I’ve got two family members with me, they’re not leaving, I want them in the building.

It becomes a pain point and it becomes something that you realize you’ve got to communicate and put more emphasis on.

So, you may need to readjust your entire social messaging plan.

You may need to post once a week just about your visitor policy based on patient feedback.

So, you know, good rule of thumb is, you know, two to three times a week, but definitely, you know, listen to that patient feedback and then use that to tailor your message accordingly.

Yeah, the other thing I’ve seen work really well on Facebook is just those personal videos from a physician who’s walking through the office, showing patients what to expect as they come in.

You know, what they have to do as soon as they walk in the door, if they have to get hand sanitizer or they have to make sure their mask is on, how they register, and what it looks like walking into an examination lane.

That’s right.

That’s a great example.

And, you know, the iPhone takes an amazing video these days, and you drop it into iMovie and you can edit that pretty simply.

It’s a very low-cost solution to really be authentic.

You’re authentic, you’re relatable.

This is unfolding real-time.

It doesn’t have to be a high-end production to let your patients know that you care.

And it puts everybody at ease when they can see a video like that.

So, just a little reminder, since we’re about halfway through.

If you have a great idea you want to share, some way that you’re staying connected with your patients, whether you’re posting things on Facebook or if you’re personally calling them.

If there are any unique ways that you’re doing that, or you might just have this idea in your head that, in the last eight weeks, you haven’t had time to get to, but you have this great idea that you want to do to stay connected with your patients, feel free to post that on there.

We’ll be randomly picking somebody at the end for a hundred-dollar Amazon gift card.

So, just wanted to throw that idea out there.

Yeah, yeah, that’s great.

Yeah, let’s see some ideas.

Somebody wants a hundred-dollar Amazon gift card.

I know there are a lot of creative people on the call today, so thank you guys for joining.

Google My Business:

Google My Business, the 800-pound gorilla, the place that gets more traffic than your actual website, is your Google My Business listing.

Again, that’s got your online reviews, it’s got a link to click on your website, it’s got a link to follow directions, and it has a link to call.

A couple of things here: they’ve rolled out this COVID-19 message update.

It’s a static message.

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

I definitely recommend you update this.

A great example: don’t put your phone number in here.

They’re going to reject phone numbers.

It makes sense because your phone numbers are already on your Google My Business listing.

But, you know, great, “Hey, we’re open, we’re seeing patients. Visit our website to see what you can expect when you come to see us.”

Those are two key messages that this Google My Business listing can support.

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

I think it’s really important because if you go to Google My Business on different businesses' sites now, the information is not always accurate in terms of the hours of operation or, you know, little bits of information.

You don’t know if it’s accurate or not.

So, I find myself going to Google My Business and calling these businesses to find out answers to the questions that I have.

I think it’s kind of nice to be able to actually have the business post something in there saying, “Yes, we’re open now. Please call to make an appointment,” whatever the case may be.

That’s a great tool today.

It’s free and takes two seconds.

Absolutely, a great point.

I mean, you know, I think often times, one of the things that’s overlooked is call-backs.

So, you know, people are calling you to ask basic questions, which could be answered on your COVID-19 page or on your Google My Business listing.

So, you know, while it does seem like a lot of work to update some of these places, if you start with that key, consistent patient communication plan and disseminate that across all your channels, it’ll help you tremendously.

Yeah, absolutely, good.

The next part here: Joe Negative Online Reviews.

Include this; you know, we did a study of negative online reviews, and I know you’ve got some to add.

It was specific to ophthalmology, but you know, there were two—we basically pulled in hundreds of thousands of online reviews that were just negative.

Literally just negative reviews.

We hooked up our feeds, pulled them in through Google, Facebook, and Healthgrades.

We did a, you know, what are these negative reviews saying?

The number one piece of patient feedback was, you know, wait time.

Yep, I’ve done so many patient satisfaction surveys over the years; wait time is always the number one patient complaint.

I’ve never really seen it as anything else.

But I think the biggest concern now, based on everything that's going on, is I think that wait time, for the first time in history, might actually get replaced by safety issues or concerns that patients have.

So, I think this is why negative online reviews, or any online reviews, are so important to focus on right now.

Because patients, if they’re not being communicated well to and they’re not sure about the safety when they’re walking in the door or they notice something is wrong, guess what?

They’re going to go online and they’re going to post a negative review, and it’s all going to be about safety concerns.

So, I’m a little bit concerned that wait times are actually going to get replaced, you know, for the first time in history with safety.

So, that’s why I think this patient communication is so important.

Yeah, I think it’ll be interesting to see where the data comes out.

And, you know, the second point here, as I’ve had this conversation with a lot of docs, you know, is “did not receive a thorough exam.”

The underlying piece of this and the insights isn’t always that they didn’t receive a thorough exam; it’s that they didn’t receive communication from the tech or from the doctor.

And that actually played a part in why they didn’t receive a thorough exam.

So, clinically, they saw they had a good example, the communication with the exam, you know, walking through the steps and the procedure, etc.

What the patient perceived was that they didn’t have an exam.

So, the point of that being is patient communication is such an integral part of this whole piece.

Yeah, it’s funny.

Whenever I’m doing customer service training, patient communication is always the number one thing that you really need to be doing and focusing on.

But it’s funny; it’s even more important today than it was, you know, just eight weeks ago.

It’s crazy.

Yeah, yeah, it is.

And we’re going to talk about scheduling coming up here next, and in two slides, they’ve got a big job, right?

So, you know, you want to again continue to live an amazing patient experience.

Set those expectations because it's going to directly tie into your patient and physician referrals.

Specifically, talking about physician referrals first: use this time to reach back out if you have referring physicians who are sending patients to you.

Communicate your core services.

Let them know, and again, in this example, let them know you’re back doing cataract surgery, you’re back doing LASIK.

Let them know, again, “Look, hey, here’s what your patients can expect when they come to our practice. Here’s a link to our website that shows these additional steps.”

But use this as an opportunity to recommit to your physician referrals.

You don’t want your patients going back to those physicians who refer you business and say, “Look, I didn’t have a good experience. Here’s what happened. They didn’t tell me about the safety procedures and what I could expect prior to.”

Yeah, absolutely.

And I think, you know, the email that you send out to patients is pretty much the same email that you’re probably going to be sending to your referring physicians as well.

I’ve also heard of some practices that are really taking advantage of this time and doing Zoom meetings with their referring physicians.

You know, just talking about what safety precautions they’re putting into their office, educating them on things that they might be doing a little bit differently.

That’s a great way to stay connected with those referring physicians because it doesn’t cost a thing and it’s really easy to schedule something like that.

So, to be able to get those referring physicians on a Zoom meeting is really quick and simple to do.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

And, you know, I say as you transition over to the patient referral component, reinforcing your safety commitment to them, letting them know, communicating your core services, and a potential brochure could be an opportunity for you.

Set it at the counter and check out; let them pick it up.

That could be an opportunity for you as well.

Because we’re going to continue to, you know, “Hey Jill, have you been to your ophthalmologist lately?”

And if Jill says, “Yeah, I had a great experience. Here’s what you could expect,” and, you know, my experience may be, “Well, I’m not sure if you know the provider I go to buttoned-up or not.”

So, that’s, you know, a little bit of role-playing, but that’s how that could go.

Absolutely, good.

You know, one of the biggest pieces and the toughest jobs for any practice is scheduling.

There’s already a laundry list of things that need to be communicated to the patient in advance of their appointment.

A lot of scheduling right now may involve bringing your staff back in a phased approach.

During the time when they’re rebooking appointments that have been pushed out, they’re going to get a lot of questions.

They’re probably going to get a lot of questions around safety.

You also need to be setting that expectation on what they can expect when coming in.

So, you may not have the bandwidth to go into a 20-minute conversation as you’ve got 10 calls on hold and reduced staff about the additional safety steps you’ve put in place.

So, again, it’s a great opportunity to drive them back to your COVID-19 website to learn more.

Not saying not to talk about it, just saying you can give them a little bit of information and send them there for more, but really focus on what they can expect when coming in.

Absolutely, and I think that that checklist obviously needs to be a little more robust than just those three items.

Yeah, absolutely.

You know, use a checklist; that’s the key here.

There’s a lot to remember.

A checklist is a great tool to remember those key things.

Then, a script—so we’re big fans of scripts.

Give them exactly what you want them to say.

And again, this patient communication plan, as you fill it out, could be the script.

So, keep that in mind.

The other thing I was going to mention is that the script might be changing, so you might have to revisit that script on a weekly basis just to make sure that the message is still accurate and consistent.

You know, things are going to be different a month from now or two months from now.

We really don’t know what’s going to happen.

So, I think that script is really vital.

Yeah, yeah, great point.

Other communications to patients—this is a little bit of the kitchen sink, but the key takeaway here is really to think about your one thing as it goes across each one of these touchpoints.

And what I mean by that: a great example is if you have a waiting room TV solution that’s serving messaging to your patients and you are having them in the waiting room at this time, you want them, you know, you’d want to communicate a lot of your safety messages.

They’re already there, so they already know what patients are seeing.

But you want them, you’d want to recommunicate your safety measures on hold messaging—I think that's one that's forgotten about.

I’ve called several practices recently, and it’s the same old on-hold message.

There’s no deviation from what’s been communicated earlier, and that’s a great opportunity to let them know what they can expect.

Let them know what patients are saying and then let them know what safety measures are in place.

If it’s the same old on-hold message, you kind of wonder if they’re really open or if anything has changed.

So, yeah, I think that’s an important one to remember.

Last thing here, I’d say on this slide, Jill, is just, you know, by having a dedicated COVID-19 page versus a pop-up or a different type of execution on your website, it allows you the flexibility to drive all your digital communications back there.

So if you’re sending a text message, for example, letting them know we’re open, learn more here at this link, it’s an easy way to drive those digital communications back.

Absolutely.

The last piece of this is your patient communication plan by channel.

At the end of the webinar today, everyone will receive the patient communication plan.

It will be in a Word document.

You’ll be able to go through each one of the three questions to develop your three key messages.

You obviously cannot see this slide because it’s an eye chart.

It will be bigger.

Yeah, yeah, you have no problem.

So you don’t want to send through.

But then the last piece of this is the communication by channel checklist.

You go through that; it’s a very simple document that says, “Do we have a waiting room TV? Yes/No.” Okay, no, we don’t have it, so we don’t need to worry about that.

But, you know, we do have referring physicians, and so we want to develop an email to referring physicians.

Here’s what we’re going to say to them: it’s a combination of who are we saying yes, we’re open and what can they expect.

So again, it’s a guide.

All this is editable to framework, but that’s what you get for coming to the webinar today.

Excellent, great.

Are there any questions on your end that you’ve received?

No, I see there’s a couple ideas.

It looks like Debbie Dent Klinefelter has a suggestion there.

If you can see, yeah, we divide our doctors up on certain days, so there’s only one doctor in the office at one time, and we only see about 10 to 15 patients in the morning only, and that’s what we’re seeing pretty commonly in all the practices, some practices are actually starting to kind of expand their days.

They’re actually going into the evenings and sometimes on to the weekends as well, just to keep everybody at a distance and to be able to get all those patients in with just one or, you know, maybe two physicians in at any one time.

Yeah, yeah, great.

Well, Jill, do you want to select a winner here?

Well, um, I don’t know if we did.

Did we get any ideas in?

I see Debbie, and then looks like we’ve got one more back here on a piece of feedback from Ann Bidwell about providing masks.

Oh yeah, yeah.

You know what? How about Ann Bidwell as it was today?

Congratulations, a hundred dollar Amazon gift card coming your way.

We’ll send that via email; you’ll get that, and I’m sure you will use it wisely.

We just ordered what was skateboards for our kids on Amazon.

The things you can get, it’s amazing.

Yeah, so we’ll make sure that we get that out.

Almost, I know words.

Ryan?

No, I just like to say, you know, thank you everyone for taking the time to join us today.

Again, you’ll receive this emailed out after the webinar today.

But thank you so much for taking the time.

I hope you guys found this as a valuable experience today.

Again, enjoy your upcoming weekend, and thank you so much.

Yeah, and if for some reason somebody had a question and we did not answer it, please don’t hesitate to reach out to Ryan or myself.

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

Certainly take care of yourselves and be safe, especially as practices are starting to open up again.

We really hope to see you all real soon.

Thank you.

Alright, thanks.

Bye bye.

Have a great day.