How To Attract More Of Your Ideal Patients To Your Private Practice

Having a steady flow of ideal patients is one of the most important aspects to running a successful private practice.

According to the Pareto Principle, most businesses gain 80% of their total revenue from only 20% of their clients.

Therefore, it is important for private practice owners to take the time to understand not only what their ideal patient looks like, but also how to go about attracting more ideal patients to their practice.

If you’re wondering how to grow your private practice and attract more ideal patients, you’ve come to the right place.

We’re Symbiosis, a medical coworking space in Washington DC dedicated to helping healthcare providers just like you to start and grow their own private practices.

Keep reading to find out more.

Have A Clear Idea Of Your Ideal Patient

Before you can focus on strategies to attract ideal patients to your practice, you must first have a clear understanding of what your ideal patient looks like.

Different types of medical practices will have different definitions of what makes an ideal patient.

For instance, if you’re starting your own psychiatry practice, you might have an interest in specific psychiatric disorders, or a specific population.

On the other hand, if you’re starting your own physical therapy practice, you might be interested in chronic conditions, or sports medicine.

Additionally, your definition of an ideal patient can change over time with the needs of your practice.

It’s important to recognize, though, that there needs to be enough of your ideal patient to make your practice financially viable.

For example, if you’re an occupational therapist starting a private practice and you’re interested in working with amputees, you might be disappointed to learn that about 0.1% of Americans are amputees.

That doesn’t mean you can’t still work with that population, but you’ll need to offer a wider variety of services to keep your practice financially viable.

If you are struggling to determine what your ideal patient looks like, try asking the following questions:

• What conditions are you most passionate about treating?
• What conditions are you not interested in treating?
• What sort of demand is there for your area?
• Which types of patients are more likely to refer others to you?
• Which types of patients are more likely to leave you a positive review?
• What services will insurance cover most readily?

Brand Yourself Accordingly

Once you’ve determined what your ideal patient looks like, you can begin to figure out how to brand yourself to attract those patients.

You want to ensure that your branding strategy effectively communicates your core values and services to your patients.

One of the ways you can accomplish this is emphasizing how a patient might feel after receiving treatment.

On the other hand, your branding strategy might highlight why potential patients should chose you over other healthcare providers.

Your branding strategies should be applied everywhere, including:

• Your private practice website
• Signs in and around your practice
• Communications, such as emails and paperwork

Establish A Wide Reaching Online Presence

In today’s modern era, most potential patients will direct their health inquiries to the internet.

Therefore, in order to gain more ideal patients, it is important that your practice have a wide reaching online presence.

One of the first steps you can take to accomplish this task is to set up a practice website.

Make sure your website is set up in to attract ideal patients to your practice.

For example, create pages for the type of patients and conditions you’d like to attract more of.

Not only will this help you rank better for such terms in Google search, it will also help your potential patients see you as an authority with such conditions.

Blog About Your Areas Of Special Interest Regularly

As previously mentioned, most of your potential ideal patients will turn to the internet to answer health related questions.

In addition to having a website, regular blogging can help those ideal patients find your practice.
Through regular blogging, you can emphasize aspects of your practice that might attract more ideal patients.

For example, blogging about high value treatments your practice offers can encourage others looking for such services to contact you.

Aim to blog regularly to boost your search engine ranking and subsequently make it easier for ideal patients to find your practice.

Network With Allied Healthcare Providers

Networking with other healthcare providers is an excellent way to attract more ideal patients to your practice.

Specifically, networking can allow you to gain referrals from allied healthcare providers who treat the conditions you are looking to treat from a different angle.

For instance, many patients, such as one with a cleft palate, will require treatment from a variety of medical professionals, such as plastic surgeons and speech therapists.

In cases such as these, networking allows allied healthcare providers to refer patients to you for additional treatment.

Strategies for how to network with allied healthcare providers include:

• Joining a professional organization
• Attending events both within and outside of your area of expertise
• Connecting with other medical professionals through social media
• Working in a medical coworking space

Questions? Ask Symbiosis

Are you considering starting your own private practice?

Or, having already started one, are you struggling to attract more of your ideal patients?

Either way, Symbiosis can help.

Contact Symbiosis today to get started.