PRACTICE MANAGEMENT

Help Desk

MD-created Web Site

■ Mark Brown, M.D., in private practice in Mobile, Ala., started his Web site, www.EyePlastics.com, in 1997, when the world was young — the Internet world, that is. He saw it as a way to help doctors avoid "reinventing the wheel."

"Patients needed a resource where they could get reliable information," he explains. "But doctors didn't need to keep posting definitions of what droopy eyelid is." Dr. Brown registered EyePlastics.com and oculoplastics.com.

The Web site features information on an array of oculoplastic procedures ranging from blepharoplasty to thyroid-related eye disease — all written specifically for patients.

The Web site helps the physician's practice in two ways. First, it provides the practice's name in the "Locate a Doctor" directory. The listing allows patients to locate OculoFacial specialists who have completed a fellowship. Dr. Brown describes the Web site as an "extremely helpful" marketing tool for his practice, but finds that other physicians remain slow to appreciate its value. Many people look on the Internet on the weekends and at night while your office is closed, and a Web site is more informative than a Yellow Pages ad. Dr. Brown says the site gets 1,400 to 1,500 visitors a day. EyePlastics.com has more than 100 website domain names that all lead back to the main EyePlastics.com root site which in turn find your practice.

The second way the Web site helps practices is through its "private label' service for $325 per year. Physicians receive their own website, accessible via their name, such as www.DrMarkBrown.com. Their page is tailored to feature only the procedures the surgeon performs. Content is provided from EyePlastics.com. Other companies that create in-depth medical Web sites for practices, Dr. Brown points out, typically charge approximately $10,000 or more. "Where we live, a 3" × 5" ad in the Sunday paper costs more than a 1-year listing on the Web site."

The personalzed Web site also allows patients to complete office medical history forms and to learn about the procedures.

"Everyone should have a Web site presence," Dr. Brown says. "It's one of the few things that works for you 24/7. And it's unbelievably cost-effective." OM