There’s a fine line when it comes to marketing a medical centre. Naturally, you want to promote your medical centre, but at the same time, you don’t want to irritate patients by going overboard. So, what’s the magic number? How many times a year should you promote relevant clinical health services to your patients?
To answer this question, we conducted a survey* of 620 bulk billed patients and what we found may surprise you — most bulk billed patients want relevant clinical health services information (i.e. flu shots, skin checks) to be promoted even more often than they are currently.
Let’s take a look at the numbers…
What bulk billing clinics are currently doing
The majority of our survey respondents said their clinic promotes clinical health services two or three times a year (40%). While some clinics promote their services as often as once a month (13%), most promote them even less frequently.
For example, 24% of patients said they received promotions once a year and 24% said they got them even less than once a year.
What bulk billed patients actually prefer
Patients, on the other hand, would like to hear from medical centres far more often. Consider the statistics. The vast majority (76%) would like to receive relevant health promotions several times a year. What’s the ideal number? While patients differed on this answer, 52% said they wanted this information two or three times a year, 20% wanted it once a month and 3% desired it as frequently as once a week.
While, of course, there are some patients that want to receive relevant promotions less often, they’re a distinct minority. Only 20% of respondents wanted information about clinical health services once a year and just 7% wanted it less often than that.
The conclusion we can draw from these results is simple. Patients want to hear from their providers when they have relevant health information to share. They find this information valuable and enjoy learning about services that’ll help them proactively care for their health.
Looking for a better way to communicate with your patients?
Talk to us about HotDoc Inform. It’s a tool that lets you educate patients on additional services available at your clinic. It works by displaying a message at the time a patient is confirming a reminder or checking-in. Watch the video below to see how Inform works.
*Source: Patient Survey 2018, HotDoc
