Use Social Media to Your Advantage

Physicians are beginning to develop an appreciation for new marketing opportunities.

By Bill Kekevian, Associate Editor

In this fast-paced, instant Web-search world, it is already out-of-date to claim the future of patient care lies in communicating with patients over the Internet. The time for integrating practices and social media is upon us, perhaps even behind us. Some doctors may not have the time or interest to develop a social media presence, but the price could be lost patients.

“Ten years ago, when someone had an eye problem, they went right to the doctor,” explains Bob Main, a consultant specializing in the eyecare practices. “Now, they go right on the Internet.”

Mr. Main, president of Bob Main Consulting in Salt Lake City, says it's troubling to think patients are getting advice from unqualified online sources. Physicians, Mr. Main says, need to intervene by being that online source. That means setting up a Facebook page, Twitter account, or blog.

“Most aren't taking advantage of it,” Mr. Main says. “They're almost proud they don't have a Facebook page. Your personal Facebook is different from your practice. This is your opportunity to stay connected with your patients.”

In effect, patients are shopping for doctors online. The responsive doctor with an online presence and who uses the Web as an opportunity to demonstrate his or her knowledge is the doctor who is going to get the patient.

A Cost-Free Advertising Avenue

“The thing that's really neat is, for the smaller guys, this is a way to level the playing field with the ASCs and big hospitals,” Mr. Main says. While big hospitals have large advertising budgets, smaller practices may even have an advantage in the social networking world because they can interact more personally. Yet, some physicians may hesitate to utilize these tools.

“I shied away from social networking because like others, I didn't want to lose my sacred privacy. What a naive stance that seems to me now,” says Paul Krawitz, MD.

Dr. Krawitz is an eye surgeon in Huntington, N.Y. and the creator of Visivite, a vitamin supplement designed for macular degeneration patients. He started experimenting with social networking to plug Visivite, but found a much greater benefit.

“There aren't many ophthalmologists out there with 6,000 Facebook and 5,000 Twitter fans,” he says.

A Twitter search confirms only a handful of ophthalmologists use that site to promote their practice. The ones who do are posting seasonal reminders (“#BackToSchool: Kids' Vision Tests Don't Catch Common Eye Problems,” reads one, accompanied by a link), general eye health suggestions, new studies, industry news, and even educational tidbits.

Staying Connected

Mr. Main speculates that, just by posting each day, a doctor could potentially improve his patients' compliance rates. Posting a note to Facebook once a day, he says, keeps the doctors name in front of the patient. Just seeing that could serve as a daily reminder. “It's all about connecting and staying connected with the patient,” he adds.

Dr. Krawitz can't be sure if his daily updates have had a direct impact on patient volume. “The payoff of social networking is not like evaluating the success of a newspaper ad,” he says. “It's both difficult to measure and subtle. I can't say that it has made my practice busier or more profitable.”

Derek Preece, the principal and senior consultant at BSM Consulting, says that he's yet to find a practice show any substantial evidence their patient flow is increasing because of social media, but it can be a way to advertise special events, like running discounts or the purchase of a new laser.

While ignoring the Internet isn't going to completely deflate a practice, Mr. Main says “it's a slow leak.” To a younger generation of patients who have lived a decade with social networking, the practice they can't find online may not be found at all.

To a similar affect, Mr. Preece says, “we're still looking for a practice that really cracks the code on social media marketing.” But, for now, he says, it's a sort of business insurance.

In a patient satisfaction survey by BSM, 35% of patients found their physician through word of mouth and 28% found physicians using their Internet.

A study released in April by another consulting firm, PricewaterhouseCoopers, showed of the one-third of consumers using social media to find medical information, 41% said social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter influence their choice of hospital or doctor. That may not be a direct link, but it's indicative of a trend. “It lets patients know you're not behind the times,” says Mr. Preece.

Doctor of Viral Marketing

Younger patients checking practices against Facebook may not seem important, but, according to Mr. Preece it could be especially helpful to drum up new LASIK patients, a procedure for a typically younger demographic.

Salt Lake City's Hoopes Vision Correction Center has taken particular advantage of this phenomenon. Its practice Facebook page has received a staggering 5,283 “likes.” They post roughly four times a week and the focus is LASIK centered. A May post reads “Make this Mother's Day unforgettable with vision correction surgery from Hoopes Vision - featuring the safest LASIK and Intraocular Contact Lens (ICL) technology.” Another tells of a photo contest for which Facebook fans vote for their favorite patient submitted photo. The prize? Free LASIK surgery.

Many posts find clever ways of making everyday topics relevant to eye health. “First snow day! Anyone have a bad experience mixing glasses or contacts with skiing?” Reads a post from October 2010.

They post images and notices about community service, helpful hints and new technologies. In a way, it's a return to the small-town doctor ideal. Neighborhood involvement has just shifted from being a conversation in a bodega to a few clicks of a mouse. Posts from patients say it all. “I am just sooooooooo happy!!! And thankful!!!” reads one.

“Doctors used to have to be good doctors,” Mr. Main says. “Now they have to be good doctors and good online marketers.”

Don't Go It Alone

For those who have decided to stake a claim online, getting set up can seem daunting. Some consider delegating that responsibility, but beware. Not taking this task seriously could be a potentially huge error.

Mr. Main advises doctors not to let “a teenage daughter set up your Facebook account.” It might seem to save money, but, he says, “it's inviting HIPAA [Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act] violations.”

Liz Boten, media relations representative of the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA), agrees. “It's vital the staff member designated to manage the practice's social media platforms understand the channel she'll be working on and have a grasp on the patients or broader audience the practice is trying to reach,” she says. “It's also important this person knows the information or resources that the practice intends to share and is able to engage with followers when appropriate.”

Ms. Boten authored an MGMA-members exclusive piece, in July titled “In a twitter about social media? Patients assume you're already online. Association members share learnings from Web efforts.”

Having a properly trained staff member ghost blog or hiring a professional may not even be necessary.

“I'm not a real fan of managing sites,” says Mr. Main. “A professional should build them and then that professional should take the time to show you how to use it. The key is to graduate that doctor or the staff so they can do their own posting.”

Professionals, like Mr. Main, do just that and offer maintenance services. For example, Bob Main Consulting works with search engine optimization and ad specialists for focused areas of assistance.

But whether doctors rely on a ghost blogging staffer or not, professional training is an absolute must. Anyone posting under a practice's name needs to be aware of potential liabilities and how to avoid them.

Post As the Practice

First of all, if a doctor is going to assign staff members to post on social networks, he or she should only assign a select few.

“To maintain the page, appoint a very small number of designees who are properly trained in navigating potential privacy and security issues,” Ms. Boten says.

Second, be sure that individual is properly trained. Mr. Preece says employees who understand Facebook, but not HIPAA, “can blunder into some pretty egregious violations.”

He offers some advice on who can be trusted. Like Ms. Boten, he says the job is best left in the hands of one individual. The person best suited to manage a social media page should have a sturdy understanding of all three legs of the issue: Traditional marketing, social media, and HIPAA regulations. “I'd make sure that those who had any access to uploading content to social media have a really good understanding of HIPAA,” he says. “These people need to be trained and the Facebook page needs to be monitored by a doctor or administrator.”

While Dr. Krawitz and others have had success posting about their hobbies and families, Ms. Boten warns that a practice's Facebook page may link back to a personal page. For those who want to keep their personal and professional lives separate, there are ways to lock their personal pages.

Personal Health Discussions

It might seem obvious that social media is not the place for personal health discussions between patients and doctors. But while doctors are cognizant of that ethical boundary, patients may still post to your wall a personal health question. Sometimes the questions are even so easy to answer, staff might be tempted to respond. Doctors need to remind their staff that, when using social media, even a comment like “sounds like it could be pink eye” is trouble.

Mr. Preece has seen posts that make him cringe. “It's a Mine field,” he laments. “Years ago, when HIPAA was first published, [a practice's staff] had to be taught not to speak about patients too loudly. Now it's about what they post. It's more permanent, too.”

For situations like this, Mr. Main suggests employing Facebook options that allow the page owner to review posts, even from others, being posted on their page. That way, when a patient posts a question that could violate HIPAA, a doctor can censor that before the world sees it.

Patients, he adds, want to communicate with doctors via e-mail. If you're taking your practice online, he suggests your site have two contact buttons, one for appointments and a separate one that goes directly to the doctor and only the doctor.

Don't Overdo It

In advertising, there's a tendency to hammer a target audience into submission. But while television commercials blare at maximum volume and billboards are unavoidable eyesores, advertising on the social networks is different. Practices that over saturate clients on Facebook or Twitter, don't benefit from the exposure. It's part of the staff member's role to know when to rein it in or risk being “unfriended.”

“I'd want to post once a week, but I'd monitor everyday,” Mr. Preece says. “If I had a marketing director devoting 10 hours a week, I might expect a post everyday or every other day. If you try to post a lot and you don't have any new information, you run the risk of being boring and people will drop you.”

He says while social media can present great marketing tools, people aren't really on there to be marketed to. They're there to check in with family and friends.

The Right Response

If doctors are making contacts with patients over e-mail, they need to commit to answering in a timely manner. “If someone has an eye issue and they write a doctor and the doctor doesn't get back to them, that's an issue,” Mr. Preece says.

Ms. Boten provides an analogy. “Imagine a patient calling your office and placing them on hold for an extended period of time,” she says. “It might not leave a good impression.”

It's not only patients that e-mail a doctor directly that require a timely response. The Internet is full of user review sites like Yelp and Google Places. Patients with a gripe may find their ways to these sites and post scathing comments.

Practices need to be ahead of that game. One way to keep up with so many review sites is to schedule a Google alert to notify a practice by e-mail whenever they're mentioned.

“If you do receive negative feedback on your social media accounts, consider this an opportunity for service recovery and respond to these as quickly and thoughtfully as you would in person,” says Ms. Boten. “A patient may remember this interaction when determining where to book their next appointment.”

Mr. Main points to the Web for interaction too. “The old way of sending out postcards won't cut it,” he says. Not in today's fast-paced, instant Web-search world. OM