Women are still the dominant force in caregiving. And this can give healthcare providers an ‘in’ when trying to secure a family’s ongoing…matronage.
The times are ever-changing. Yet some things are slower to change or may never change. Go ahead, insert your favorite ‘politicians’ joke. I’ll wait.
One thing that has been true for all of human history is that, typically, women are the caretakers. “Mother” is the root word for many words, phrases, and proverbs regarding taking care of another person. “Motherly” love is sweet and warm, whereas “fatherly” love isn’t a concept that is ever even mentioned.
It is true, nowadays, that fatherhood means more than just going out and hunting the food. There are more men becoming stay-at-home-dads or primary caregivers than ever. Many countries have begun to legally recognize that a father’s right to spend time with his children is equal to the mother’s. Equal paternity leave is on the rise.
However, women are still the dominant force in caregiving. And this can give healthcare providers an ‘in’ when trying to secure a family’s ongoing…matronage.
We’ve come a long way from the breadwinner days of the ‘50s. Even so, women are still the primary caretakers in any given family. A study by the Kaiser Family Foundation, published in 2018, emphasizes that this is still the case, despite the difficulties women face in getting paid time off or benefits.
Allow us to focus on that last element first: the lack of benefits. This is one of the most important takeaways of KFF’s results. “Low-income women, women who are employed part-time, and women who live in rural areas are less likely to be offered…benefits,” the study states of its findings. It then emphasizes that “the disparity in workplace benefits is particularly stark between full and part-time workers [for both men and women].”
A lack of benefits or paid time off makes it difficult for families to meet their healthcare needs. This does not mean that every family that walks through your doors will be gravely in need. What it does represent is an opportunity – one that we will expound on momentarily.
The most crucial point of the KFF study’s findings, for our considerations in this article, is the confirmation that women do the majority of the healthcare management for the family, particularly the children. On this subject, KFF notes that “[a]mong mothers, about three-quarters report that they are the ones who usually take charge of health care responsibilities such as:
choosing their children’s provider (79%)
taking them to appointments (77%)
following through with recommended care (77%)
This is “…compared to approximately a fifth of fathers who report they take care of these tasks.” According to an article by the Seattle Times, even “cardiothoracic surgeon and TV personality Dr. Mehmet Oz has admitted that he has deferred certain health care decisions for their children to his wife, trading his doctor expertise for the “Mister” role at home.”
These numbers represent the opportunity to win the loyalty of an entire family, as opposed to just picking up patients one-by-one. The problem lies in the nature of the diagnostics business – most patients won’t be in with any sort of frequency. After all, you don’t need an x-ray unless something is broken, and you certainly don’t need an MRI until something is potentially seriously wrong.
There are very few people who want to get an MRI (and pay for one) for kicks.
You can find the final piece of the puzzle when you combine the needs of working mothers with the lack of benefits. According to KFF, forty percent of working moms “say they must take time off work and stay home when their children are sick.” Of that forty percent, “56% are not paid for that time off”.
Back to the opportunity – if you maintain awareness of these statistics and apply leverage properly, you’re ensuring that when a working mother needs to get an injury checked out, your practice is her first thought because your staff is friendly and it was so easy last time.
A working mother with an injured child is the most stressed out person you’ve ever met. If you have impressed her previously, she will hope for a repeat. If you succeed in making this easy for her, reassuring her and her child, then you will have won her eternal gratitude.
Effective Patient Retention is Central To A Good Radiology Marketing Strategy
Despite the emphasis that we’re placing on making your female patients happy, we need to make it clear that the best ways to earn their trust is to simply implement good patient retention strategies (which work on everybody, regardless of gender).
There are many simple tips that you can utilize to make a great impression and encourage patient retention. As unlikely as it is that you’ll see any particular patient again, you never know when somebody they care about will need the exact services you provide.
Happy patients are the cheapest advertising you can find!
A happy patient has the potential to bring you additional patients through positive reviews or word-of-mouth. And, if that happy patient is a wife or mother (or both), then she has a very direct influence over the healthcare decisions of her family.
So what do you do? For starters, the most important retention strategies have nothing to do with knowledge or your skills as a radiologist. The details (positive and negative) that patients most commonly refer to in reviews are all soft skills, including:
The most effective tools in your arsenal, however, are still empathy and good customer service skills. Once you’ve mastered those, you can move on to our more thorough list of radiology marketing strategies.
Make Your Mama Proud
Patient retention is always important. Making patients happy should be a goal that you strive for in order to properly secure your reputation. However, we have to admit that, especially for diagnostics facilities, there is a certain logic to the idea that expending just a little more effort to ensure that women leave happy could have additional benefits in the long run.
Besides, you never know who goes to church with your mom.
Marketing to physicians should be a cornerstone of any imaging center’s overall strategy.
Effectively marketing to physicians comes down to professional relationships. Building and maintaining relationships with both current and prospective referring physicians is the name of the game. Email is an effective and surprisingly personal method for doing just that.
But what should your radiology email marketing convey? When should you send them? And how do you determine what’s working and what’s not?
Needless to say, setting up automated email funnels for various groups can be tricky. Today we are here to help you build your roadmap to email success.
But before we dive in, remember, your marketing is only as good as your reputation.
If your reviews are less than stellar, not only will patients look elsewhere for care, physicians will look elsewhere when sending referrals.
Writing physician emails to increase patient referrals
First and foremost, your focus should be on your physician emails. Since doctors are the ones referring patients to your facility for diagnostic tests, they need to be your focus. As a diagnostic center, one of your most valuable relationships is with referring physicians.
There are three groups of physicians to consider here.
Potential relationships: Doctors who have not referred anyone to you, but that you would like to build a relationship with. (Cold leads)
Previous relationships:Doctors who have referred patients in the past, but not within the last few months. (Warm leads)
Current relationships:Doctors that have recently referred patients. (Hot leads)
Each of these groups needs to have their own automation funnel which we will go over next.
New Physicians: Using a radiology newsletter to build relationships
Gaining traction with a provider that has never referred to your center is the most difficult group to engage so it’s very important that you are selective with the content you include in your radiology newsletters to these offices.
For radiology email marketing, the most important question you can ask yourself here is:
How can I best provide value to the person I am reaching out to?
Here are some proven tactics to use:
Personalize each email by medical specialization. By targeting the physician’s specialty you can provide information that is specific and therefore most useful to that office.
Let them know you researched them. If you’re sending cold emails you don’t want people to think you’re emailing every doctor this side of the Mississippi, but that you chose to reach out to them for a reason (which should be the truth anyway). Tell the referring provider exactly why you chose to reach out to them. These reasons could be:
You have a relationship with one of their partners
Introduce your facility. Let them know who you are and why they may be interested in building a relationship with your radiology center. This is your chance to focus on your strengths.
Ask them a question. Give them an opportunity to tell you what they are looking for or what they are having trouble with. You can send out a survey asking things like:
What difficulties do you face when referring patients to a diagnostic facility?
What are the biggest factors you consider when choosing a facility to refer patients to?
Important note: Always be respectful and courteous of their time. When marketing to physicians that you have not worked with previously, make it very clear that they can choose to stop receiving your radiology emails marketing at any time and make it easy for them to do so.
Winning back physicians who have referred patients to you previously
There could be a number of reasons that a physician who has previously referred patients to your imaging center is no longer doing so. Marketing to doctors in this category means striving to understand what caused them to stop referring and what you can do to make them interested in sending patients once more.
Here are some strategies to use when reaching out to this group:
Update them on what’s new with your facility. If they haven’t talked to you in a while, they likely aren’t up to speed on any new equipment, software, and referring guidelines you may have. Letting them know what they missed could mean you’ve already resolved the thing that made them leave in the first place.
Remind them of your referral process. Sometimes reminding people of how easy it is to work with you makes a big difference.
Let them get to know your staff better. Did you hire a new office manager? Let people know who to contact to get in touch with you. Giving everyone the chance to learn who’s who on your team will help strengthen relationships with physicians. Putting faces to names also helps make your business memorable.
Maintaining relationships with physicians who are currently referring patients
Making sure you’re fostering strong relationships with currently referring physicians is vital. The content you send to this group is highly dependent on the nature of your current relationship. So, always be sure you’re only sending emails to these doctors if and when they are wanting to receive them. If you have determined that these providers are interested in getting emails from your imaging center, here are some tips:
Tell them something they don’t know. Do some research so they don’t have to. Maybe there is a new imaging technology that is being developed for their specialty or maybe there are some new findings in how to interpret the results of a scan. Find the information that is most valuable to show them you care about their interests.
Make every email personalized. Maybe you have a doctor that is interested in hearing about new medical technology, and another doctor that is interested in hearing about upcoming community events. Ask people not only if they are interested in getting your emails, but also, what they are interested hearing about.
Learn how you can help them. It may be that there are ways you could help your referring providers out that you don’t know they need. So why not ask them? Finding out how you can best help people means you will understand what you can do to provide value to them.
Effective email marketing to referring physicians takes time
Maintaining mutually beneficial relationships doesn’t have to be hard, but it does take work. With these tactics, you can write effective radiology email marketing to your referring physicians that provide value to your referring partners. Every physician’s office is unique and research is an ongoing process. Measure your progress often to find what emails are best for your diagnostic imaging center.
In need of effective and professional email marketing centered on increasing provider referrals?
Marketing to physicians should be a cornerstone of any imaging center’s overall strategy.
Effectively marketing to physicians comes down to professional relationships. Building and maintaining relationships with both current and prospective referring physicians is the name of the game. Email is an effective and surprisingly personal method for doing just that.
But what should your radiology email marketing convey? When should you send them? And how do you determine what’s working and what’s not?
Needless to say, setting up automated email funnels for various groups can be tricky. Today we are here to help you build your roadmap to email success.
But before we dive in, remember, your marketing is only as good as your reputation.
If your reviews are less than stellar, not only will patients look elsewhere for care, physicians will look elsewhere when sending referrals.
Writing physician emails to increase patient referrals
First and foremost, your focus should be on your physician emails. Since doctors are the ones referring patients to your facility for diagnostic tests, they need to be your focus. As a diagnostic center, one of your most valuable relationships is with referring physicians.
There are three groups of physicians to consider here.
Potential relationships: Doctors who have not referred anyone to you, but that you would like to build a relationship with. (Cold leads)
Previous relationships:Doctors who have referred patients in the past, but not within the last few months. (Warm leads)
Current relationships:Doctors that have recently referred patients. (Hot leads)
Each of these groups needs to have their own automation funnel which we will go over next.
New Physicians: Using a radiology newsletter to build relationships
Gaining traction with a provider that has never referred to your center is the most difficult group to engage so it’s very important that you are selective with the content you include in your radiology newsletters to these offices.
For radiology email marketing, the most important question you can ask yourself here is:
How can I best provide value to the person I am reaching out to?
Here are some proven tactics to use:
Personalize each email by medical specialization. By targeting the physician’s specialty you can provide information that is specific and therefore most useful to that office.
Let them know you researched them. If you’re sending cold emails you don’t want people to think you’re emailing every doctor this side of the Mississippi, but that you chose to reach out to them for a reason (which should be the truth anyway). Tell the referring provider exactly why you chose to reach out to them. These reasons could be:
You have a relationship with one of their partners
Introduce your facility. Let them know who you are and why they may be interested in building a relationship with your radiology center. This is your chance to focus on your strengths.
Ask them a question. Give them an opportunity to tell you what they are looking for or what they are having trouble with. You can send out a survey asking things like:
What difficulties do you face when referring patients to a diagnostic facility?
What are the biggest factors you consider when choosing a facility to refer patients to?
Important note: Always be respectful and courteous of their time. When marketing to physicians that you have not worked with previously, make it very clear that they can choose to stop receiving your radiology emails marketing at any time and make it easy for them to do so.
Winning back physicians who have referred patients to you previously
There could be a number of reasons that a physician who has previously referred patients to your imaging center is no longer doing so. Marketing to doctors in this category means striving to understand what caused them to stop referring and what you can do to make them interested in sending patients once more.
Here are some strategies to use when reaching out to this group:
Update them on what’s new with your facility. If they haven’t talked to you in a while, they likely aren’t up to speed on any new equipment, software, and referring guidelines you may have. Letting them know what they missed could mean you’ve already resolved the thing that made them leave in the first place.
Remind them of your referral process. Sometimes reminding people of how easy it is to work with you makes a big difference.
Let them get to know your staff better. Did you hire a new office manager? Let people know who to contact to get in touch with you. Giving everyone the chance to learn who’s who on your team will help strengthen relationships with physicians. Putting faces to names also helps make your business memorable.
Maintaining relationships with physicians who are currently referring patients
Making sure you’re fostering strong relationships with currently referring physicians is vital. The content you send to this group is highly dependent on the nature of your current relationship. So, always be sure you’re only sending emails to these doctors if and when they are wanting to receive them. If you have determined that these providers are interested in getting emails from your imaging center, here are some tips:
Tell them something they don’t know. Do some research so they don’t have to. Maybe there is a new imaging technology that is being developed for their specialty or maybe there are some new findings in how to interpret the results of a scan. Find the information that is most valuable to show them you care about their interests.
Make every email personalized. Maybe you have a doctor that is interested in hearing about new medical technology, and another doctor that is interested in hearing about upcoming community events. Ask people not only if they are interested in getting your emails, but also, what they are interested hearing about.
Learn how you can help them. It may be that there are ways you could help your referring providers out that you don’t know they need. So why not ask them? Finding out how you can best help people means you will understand what you can do to provide value to them.
Effective email marketing to referring physicians takes time
Maintaining mutually beneficial relationships doesn’t have to be hard, but it does take work. With these tactics, you can write effective radiology email marketing to your referring physicians that provide value to your referring partners. Every physician’s office is unique and research is an ongoing process. Measure your progress often to find what emails are best for your diagnostic imaging center.
In need of effective and professional email marketing centered on increasing provider referrals?
Understanding the law and what is allowed and Marketing your Diagnostic Center, you will attract new patients, grow your practice, and get the attention of referring physicians. Lack of understanding, and you could face steep fines or possible jail time.
So, where’s the line and what can you do to grow your patient base?
Marketing is easy when your online reputation is top notch.
5-star reviews build trust with patients and referring providers. So long as your reviews are from real, unbiased patients, growing your online reviews is always a safe and effective marketing strategy.
The Laws You Need to Consider When Marketing your Diagnostic Center:
When marketing your practice, there are multiple legal restrictions which dictate what is lawful and what is not. There are two areas which are especially relevant.
First, you will need to be aware of anti-kickback laws. This is a federal law which prevents you from offering money or gifts to entice patients into your clinic. This is a felony. If charged and convicted, you could go to jail. Second, you will need to be aware of the Stark law. This law prevents you from offering incentives, money or gifts to providers in return for funneling patients to your center. This is a civil code, thus, if convicted you will not face jail time. You will, however, enjoy a substantial fine. An important fact to know and understand about this law, you do not need to show intent to be in violation. You can be in violation without knowing and still be ordered to pay a fine.
Here are some instances which illustrate what you should and should not do to market your practice or clinic:
Situation #1: Playing the Social Media Tagging Game with your Radiology and Diagnostic Center
A radiology or diagnostic center partners with a local business to promote awareness for breast cancer screening. Marketing brochures are placed within the business instructing participants to post a selfie with the brochure and tag your practice for a chance to win a small prize.
Allowed?: Probably good to go. This situation is about breast health awareness and not specifically bribing patients to come in to your clinic.
Situation #2: MRI Merch for your Radiology and Diagnostic Center
To promote a new MRI machine, a clinic offers branded marketing merchandise to the first 25 referring physicians for a certain period of time.
Allowed?: Nope.
This is a violation of the Stark law. You cannot offer an incentive to referring providers only. You won’t face jail time, but you could face a large fine.
Situation #3: Lunch & Learn at your Radiology and Diagnostic Center
A center offers free lunch to local physicians while providing an educational seminar on new relevant technology.
Allowed?: Should Be Fine.
Education does not run against the Stark law, just make sure that education is, in fact, the focus. If you prefer to be extra cautious, keep an accurate accounting of the cost per guest attending the event to report on your non-monetary compensation spreadsheet.
Situation #4: The Holiday Gift Basket Bash for your Radiology and Diagnostic Center
Your office is one of many within a hospital marketing to referring physicians. You want to send them a nice holiday fruit basket to make sure they remember you.
Allowed?: Hmm, You Better Watch Out
The amount of non-monetary gifts you can give to a provider is calculated by entity and not by department. Thus, if radiologists, orthopedists, cardiologists, hospital administration, or any other department are also sending baskets, you could be in violation of the Stark law. You should try to see who is giving what and an idea of cost.
Situation #5: Your Radiology and Diagnostic Center in Full Color
You just got a bunch of 5-star reviews and some extra budget for marketing, so you put out an ad proclaiming your practice as the best in the region.
Allowed?: Maybe Not – Be Careful.
Something to always keep in mind when advertising your radiology or diagnostic center is truth-in-advertising laws. Are you really the best around? Did you conduct a verifiable survey?
If you cannot prove your claim, you could be in violation. You will also need to take into consideration the models in your advertisement. If they are current or former patients you must have a signed release granting permission, otherwise, you could be faced with a HIPAA violation.
Situation #6: Fancy Dinner and 15 Min. Talk About Radiology & Diagnostics Centers
A center invites referring providers to an expensive dinner at an upscale restaurant. To check off the educational portion of the evening, a fifteen-minute lecture on the latest in the radiology and diagnostic field is discussed. The rest of the evening is spent enjoying wine, spirits, and delicious gourmet cuisine.
Allowed?: It’s a no-no.
This is the reason the Stark law exists. They are written to keep large, expensive gifts from being given to entice referring providers to send patients your way. Fancy dinners with all the trimmings qualify as large gifts. This is also a situation where you may, in fact, have to attribute the entire cost of food to each guest rather than noting a per person amount.
Situation #7: Extra, Extra: Get Your CME Right Here … at this Radiology and Diagnostic Center
A radiology and diagnostic center would like to offer CME to area providers.
Allowed?: Maybe.
If the referring provider would normally be paying for this CME, you will need to charge a fee. If you decide against charging, the cost will need to be recorded on your non-monetary compensation spreadsheet.
Situation #8: Diagnostic & Radiology Center Mixer
A practice manager at the office of a provider requests that a diagnostic and radiology center bring in lunch for everyone to enjoy together. This is also a great way to break the ice and network.
Allowed?: Don’t do it.
No individual at any referring physician office may request a gift of any kind, which includes food.
Situation #9: Diagnostics Coupons and Special Deals on Exams?
Can a radiology or diagnostic center offer a promotion through a coupon service such as Groupon?
Allowed?: Maybe, but be careful.
So long as the promotion excludes Medicare patients, you should be clear to proceed. If the discount includes Medicare patients and Medicare pays for the service provided, this is defined as a kickback. Not to mention, Groupon received a cut, which is like a commission for sending patients. These are not allowed.
Situation #10: Let’s Party! With Your Favorite Providers
Can a radiology and diagnostic center throw an appreciation party for referring providers?
Allowed?: Record Keeping is the Name of the Game
The Stark law provides a predetermined amount that may be spent each year on non-monetary compensation. This can be food, pens, stress balls, etc. Use a spreadsheet to keep a record of how much is spent per year per physician.
These situations are just a sampling of scenarios which radiology and diagnostics centers can face at any time. Knowledge and understanding of current laws and norms are of the highest importance when operating a successful practice. Whether you are in the radiology and diagnostic industry or another field, be sure to realize and put into practice all guidelines and laws governing your practice today.
Looking for a little help growing your diagnostic center?
Understanding the law and what is allowed and Marketing your Diagnostic Center, you will attract new patients, grow your practice, and get the attention of referring physicians. Lack of understanding, and you could face steep fines or possible jail time.
So, where’s the line and what can you do to grow your patient base?
Marketing is easy when your online reputation is top notch.
5-star reviews build trust with patients and referring providers. So long as your reviews are from real, unbiased patients, growing your online reviews is always a safe and effective marketing strategy.
The Laws You Need to Consider When Marketing your Diagnostic Center:
When marketing your practice, there are multiple legal restrictions which dictate what is lawful and what is not. There are two areas which are especially relevant.
First, you will need to be aware of anti-kickback laws. This is a federal law which prevents you from offering money or gifts to entice patients into your clinic. This is a felony. If charged and convicted, you could go to jail. Second, you will need to be aware of the Stark law. This law prevents you from offering incentives, money or gifts to providers in return for funneling patients to your center. This is a civil code, thus, if convicted you will not face jail time. You will, however, enjoy a substantial fine. An important fact to know and understand about this law, you do not need to show intent to be in violation. You can be in violation without knowing and still be ordered to pay a fine.
Here are some instances which illustrate what you should and should not do to market your practice or clinic:
Situation #1: Playing the Social Media Tagging Game with your Radiology and Diagnostic Center
A radiology or diagnostic center partners with a local business to promote awareness for breast cancer screening. Marketing brochures are placed within the business instructing participants to post a selfie with the brochure and tag your practice for a chance to win a small prize.
Allowed?: Probably good to go. This situation is about breast health awareness and not specifically bribing patients to come in to your clinic.
Situation #2: MRI Merch for your Radiology and Diagnostic Center
To promote a new MRI machine, a clinic offers branded marketing merchandise to the first 25 referring physicians for a certain period of time.
Allowed?: Nope.
This is a violation of the Stark law. You cannot offer an incentive to referring providers only. You won’t face jail time, but you could face a large fine.
Situation #3: Lunch & Learn at your Radiology and Diagnostic Center
A center offers free lunch to local physicians while providing an educational seminar on new relevant technology.
Allowed?: Should Be Fine.
Education does not run against the Stark law, just make sure that education is, in fact, the focus. If you prefer to be extra cautious, keep an accurate accounting of the cost per guest attending the event to report on your non-monetary compensation spreadsheet.
Situation #4: The Holiday Gift Basket Bash for your Radiology and Diagnostic Center
Your office is one of many within a hospital marketing to referring physicians. You want to send them a nice holiday fruit basket to make sure they remember you.
Allowed?: Hmm, You Better Watch Out
The amount of non-monetary gifts you can give to a provider is calculated by entity and not by department. Thus, if radiologists, orthopedists, cardiologists, hospital administration, or any other department are also sending baskets, you could be in violation of the Stark law. You should try to see who is giving what and an idea of cost.
Situation #5: Your Radiology and Diagnostic Center in Full Color
You just got a bunch of 5-star reviews and some extra budget for marketing, so you put out an ad proclaiming your practice as the best in the region.
Allowed?: Maybe Not – Be Careful.
Something to always keep in mind when advertising your radiology or diagnostic center is truth-in-advertising laws. Are you really the best around? Did you conduct a verifiable survey?
If you cannot prove your claim, you could be in violation. You will also need to take into consideration the models in your advertisement. If they are current or former patients you must have a signed release granting permission, otherwise, you could be faced with a HIPAA violation.
Situation #6: Fancy Dinner and 15 Min. Talk About Radiology & Diagnostics Centers
A center invites referring providers to an expensive dinner at an upscale restaurant. To check off the educational portion of the evening, a fifteen-minute lecture on the latest in the radiology and diagnostic field is discussed. The rest of the evening is spent enjoying wine, spirits, and delicious gourmet cuisine.
Allowed?: It’s a no-no.
This is the reason the Stark law exists. They are written to keep large, expensive gifts from being given to entice referring providers to send patients your way. Fancy dinners with all the trimmings qualify as large gifts. This is also a situation where you may, in fact, have to attribute the entire cost of food to each guest rather than noting a per person amount.
Situation #7: Extra, Extra: Get Your CME Right Here … at this Radiology and Diagnostic Center
A radiology and diagnostic center would like to offer CME to area providers.
Allowed?: Maybe.
If the referring provider would normally be paying for this CME, you will need to charge a fee. If you decide against charging, the cost will need to be recorded on your non-monetary compensation spreadsheet.
Situation #8: Diagnostic & Radiology Center Mixer
A practice manager at the office of a provider requests that a diagnostic and radiology center bring in lunch for everyone to enjoy together. This is also a great way to break the ice and network.
Allowed?: Don’t do it.
No individual at any referring physician office may request a gift of any kind, which includes food.
Situation #9: Diagnostics Coupons and Special Deals on Exams?
Can a radiology or diagnostic center offer a promotion through a coupon service such as Groupon?
Allowed?: Maybe, but be careful.
So long as the promotion excludes Medicare patients, you should be clear to proceed. If the discount includes Medicare patients and Medicare pays for the service provided, this is defined as a kickback. Not to mention, Groupon received a cut, which is like a commission for sending patients. These are not allowed.
Situation #10: Let’s Party! With Your Favorite Providers
Can a radiology and diagnostic center throw an appreciation party for referring providers?
Allowed?: Record Keeping is the Name of the Game
The Stark law provides a predetermined amount that may be spent each year on non-monetary compensation. This can be food, pens, stress balls, etc. Use a spreadsheet to keep a record of how much is spent per year per physician.
These situations are just a sampling of scenarios which radiology and diagnostics centers can face at any time. Knowledge and understanding of current laws and norms are of the highest importance when operating a successful practice. Whether you are in the radiology and diagnostic industry or another field, be sure to realize and put into practice all guidelines and laws governing your practice today.
Looking for a little help growing your diagnostic center?
Diagnostic Imaging Marketing Strategies & How to Make Them Work for Your Practice
The healthcare scene is constantly changing, and diagnostic imaging is no different. To put your business ahead of other local facilities, you need to be in front of your referring providers, patients, and employers in ways that your competitors aren’t.
Did you know? Healthcare is second only to hotels and restaurants as the industry with the most read online reviews.
One of the fastest and most effective ways to market an imaging center is to have excellent reviews and community trust and that means being proactive about your reputation. Even with 10 or 20 good reviews, your average star rating could plummet with just a couple of unhappy patients.
With these simple strategies, your diagnostic imaging center can rise above the competition and automate a lot of that work!
1. Get Ranked on Google to Grow Your Radiology Marketing
From a digital perspective, one of the MOST important things for your diagnostics center’s online marketing is to be ranked on Google Places when people search for you or for diagnostic imaging in your area. Remember, patients, providers, and employers don’t think about the technical terminology the same way you do. Make sure to help them by using layman’s terms on your website so you rank for what they are searching for. For more information on how to set up your Google Places for a diagnostic imaging center take a look at this article.
If you want to know if you are showing up properly, just go to Google and search for the following terms:
MRI exam
CT exam
Cat Scan
Ultrasound
MRI in my area
Best MRI near me
At the top of the page, you should see a map of local companies providing imaging services. Getting to the top of this list can be the difference between success and failure. Remember, Google is going to show what is most RELEVANT, so make sure you have the right content on your site to get to the top.
If you’re not at the top, make sure to click the ‘More Places’ link at the bottom and see if you’re on the full list. There are a lot of resources online to show you how to reach the top of this list.
Contact us if you’re interested in getting to the top of Google Places and growing your referrals!
2. Keep Your Radiology Marketing Focus Local
Make the biggest impact on your medical imaging marketing by focusing on what you can impact the most. We all know that diagnostic centers support their regions. By tracking exactly what zip codes people are coming from, you can tailor your marketing efforts for maximum effectiveness.
The big question we so often hear is, “How do I do that?”
Sponsor after-school events for the top school or schools in the area.
Run Facebook ads to the businesses in the specified locations.
There are tons of ways to target the right people once you know who they are. If you’re interested in learning about new ways to do this, some of our other blog articles go into specifics.
Grow Your Diagnostic Imaging Referrals
I know what you’re probably thinking, “Of course I should grow my referrals! That’s why I’m here reading your article!” So let’s get right into it! Here are a few of the many methods of growing your imaging center’s referrals:
3. Consistent Diagnostics Patient Outreach
The easiest way to get new sales is to sell to existing customers. So why are you letting your customers go to another diagnostics facility? Keeping in front of customers is simple. Sign up for an email marketing tool such as MailChimp or Drip.co, put together an automated set of emails that go out to new customers or patients starting a week after their visit and STAY IN FRONT OF THEM!
4. Educate Your Patients
A lot of people won’t come back for another exam because they won’t need one. But their friends will. So send them important information about their health, interesting articles about what is going on with the amazing technology involved in diagnostic imaging, as well as specials and coupons to be shared with friends, and you could be looking at a pretty substantial ROI pretty fast.
Another simple tactic is to send a canned email out to each new patient with a link to a video about their exam. Use videos that other diagnostics facilities have done that are not in your region. No one is going to notice a logo from a company in California if you are in Georgia. But if they have great videos, your patients, and your company should benefit.
5. Make the Rounds
One of the very best and most important things you can do to promote your diagnostics center and grow your referrals is to make the rounds to your referring providers.
Maintaining and improving relationships with referring providers is probably the number one way to keep your diagnostics center growing. While you’re out saying hello, make sure you remember the Stark Laws and know what you can and can’t do!
If you’re nervous about giving something physical to a provider or their office at all, how about just something intangible, like knowledge? Education such as emails, links to Youtube videos, and emailed PDFs. to help providers learn how to grow their practices is never illegal as far as we know.
6. Stay in front of your diagnostics customers
Another simple way to improve your diagnostics marketing is to stay in front of your diagnostics customers with some simple modern technology. If customers have opted in and agree to receive educational emails from you, then you can send out:
Surveys – find out what you did right and wrong, but also use these to stay in front of patients!
Educational Emails – Instead of talking about radiology and promoting your diagnostic marketing, how about going into your customer’s day to day lives? Education on how to avoid injuries could be more helpful than learning how to scan for injuries that they have.
Let your patients refer one another – There are no laws against patients referring one another, and there are a ton of ways to do that. Just reach out to patients online or in person and ask if they know anyone that needs help.
7. Stay relevant by showing your personality
Your business isn’t made up of robots. The people at your diagnostics center or centers are loving, kind, good people that want to help. So many companies do group lunches, the Thanksgiving pie making contest (Julie won last year, but I was in a close second), learning events, and training.
Showing your customer base that you are real people creates a story and personality. The easiest way to show everyone is through social media, and particularly through Facebook and Instagram.
Adding to Facebook is super simple. Just create a business page on Facebook, log in, and start adding posts. Some things that you may want to show the world:
Customer testimonials as text and pictures or as videos.
Employee of The Month
Office events or parties
Provider testimonials
A diagnostics center walkthrough, showing all the rooms with all the modalities. You can just do this on your iPhone or Android, it doesn’t have to be perfect the first time.
While you’re setting everything up, make sure to add to your Facebook page:
Address – it will automatically show a map to your location for your audience here.
Website Link
Hours – A lot of people look at Facebook first to check business hours
A picture of your facility – Showing the front of your facility as the main image can make it a lot easier for people to find you.
Links to other important information such as pricing, other locations, the patient and provider portals, pre-exam forms, etc.
8. Know your neighbors!
You have the greatest impact in your immediate area. The easiest way to start drawing in new patients and referring providers is to get out and knock on some doors or send direct mail to your neighborhood businesses and residents. Forming relationships with people is key to keeping your business running, and who better to start with than the business next door?
9. Majority of referrals comes from 20% of providers
If you haven’t already, know who the top 20% of referring providers are, and KEEP THEM HAPPY! We don’t have to tell you the best ways to do that. But is easy to forget who keeps the business running and treat someone sending you a lot of patients the same as someone sending in just a few per month or year.
Not everyone is the same, and some providers deserve more attention than others. So, how do you do that?
Know who they are – if you don’t already, you should be able to look into your RIS system and check the top providers right away.
Make a list of your top providers and post it up for your team to see.
At your team meetings go through this list and read off the list to everyone.
Make sure that if a provider on this list is having some difficulty, you can get them special treatment or a higher level person to handle their needs.
Consider a concierge-level service team just for these providers that calls regularly to check in with everyone, makes sure they are always ordering the right exams, and caters to their needs.
10. Don’t tell, ASK!
So often, marketing reps making calls on referring providers want to talk all about the facility, the new magnet they just installed, and what they can do for the providers’ offices. What these reps so often forget to do is ask the right questions then let the office manager or provider talk.
If you ask the right questions, they will tell you how you can meet their needs. Remember, the one thing that everyone wants to talk about is themselves. So, ask open-ended questions and let them talk!
Some questions to consider asking:
How is business going?
Any issues with getting your exams recently?
What can we do better?
How are things changing in your practice?
What are some of your biggest problems right now?
If they don’t feel like talking, that’s another story. But most people do.
11. Find your strengths, know your weaknesses
Some questions you may want to ask yourself and your team:
What advantages does your diagnostics center have over your competition?
What makes your team unique?
What are the major areas you can improve upon?
What are your biggest obstacles to growth now? In the future?
These are all part of a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis. Putting together a bi-yearly SWOT analysis for your diagnostic center marketing plan as well as for your company and team as a whole, then comparing it against the previous analysis can provide great insight into your team’s growth and failures.
Use These Techniques to become a Diagnostic Imaging Marketing Pro
In the face of lowering reimbursements, Stark Law, dropping industry profits, and an overall difficult business environment, reaching out to your providers, customers/patients, and local employers is absolutely key to success.
Now that you’ve got some marketing ideas on how to grow your diagnostics imaging marketing plan and business, we would love to know what you liked and didn’t like from our list.
What did we miss? Are there any tactics you want to share that have worked well for you? How about some advertising methods? Post what you’ve got in the discussion below.
Diagnostic Imaging Marketing Strategies & How to Make Them Work for Your Practice
The healthcare scene is constantly changing, and diagnostic imaging is no different. To put your business ahead of other local facilities, you need to be in front of your referring providers, patients, and employers in ways that your competitors aren’t.
Did you know? Healthcare is second only to hotels and restaurants as the industry with the most read online reviews.
One of the fastest and most effective ways to market an imaging center is to have excellent reviews and community trust and that means being proactive about your reputation. Even with 10 or 20 good reviews, your average star rating could plummet with just a couple of unhappy patients.
With these simple strategies, your diagnostic imaging center can rise above the competition and automate a lot of that work!
1. Get Ranked on Google to Grow Your Radiology Marketing
From a digital perspective, one of the MOST important things for your diagnostics center’s online marketing is to be ranked on Google Places when people search for you or for diagnostic imaging in your area. Remember, patients, providers, and employers don’t think about the technical terminology the same way you do. Make sure to help them by using layman’s terms on your website so you rank for what they are searching for. For more information on how to set up your Google Places for a diagnostic imaging center take a look at this article.
If you want to know if you are showing up properly, just go to Google and search for the following terms:
MRI exam
CT exam
Cat Scan
Ultrasound
MRI in my area
Best MRI near me
At the top of the page, you should see a map of local companies providing imaging services. Getting to the top of this list can be the difference between success and failure. Remember, Google is going to show what is most RELEVANT, so make sure you have the right content on your site to get to the top.
If you’re not at the top, make sure to click the ‘More Places’ link at the bottom and see if you’re on the full list. There are a lot of resources online to show you how to reach the top of this list.
Contact us if you’re interested in getting to the top of Google Places and growing your referrals!
2. Keep Your Radiology Marketing Focus Local
Make the biggest impact on your medical imaging marketing by focusing on what you can impact the most. We all know that diagnostic centers support their regions. By tracking exactly what zip codes people are coming from, you can tailor your marketing efforts for maximum effectiveness.
The big question we so often hear is, “How do I do that?”
Sponsor after-school events for the top school or schools in the area.
Run Facebook ads to the businesses in the specified locations.
There are tons of ways to target the right people once you know who they are. If you’re interested in learning about new ways to do this, some of our other blog articles go into specifics.
Grow Your Diagnostic Imaging Referrals
I know what you’re probably thinking, “Of course I should grow my referrals! That’s why I’m here reading your article!” So let’s get right into it! Here are a few of the many methods of growing your imaging center’s referrals:
3. Consistent Diagnostics Patient Outreach
The easiest way to get new sales is to sell to existing customers. So why are you letting your customers go to another diagnostics facility? Keeping in front of customers is simple. Sign up for an email marketing tool such as MailChimp or Drip.co, put together an automated set of emails that go out to new customers or patients starting a week after their visit and STAY IN FRONT OF THEM!
4. Educate Your Patients
A lot of people won’t come back for another exam because they won’t need one. But their friends will. So send them important information about their health, interesting articles about what is going on with the amazing technology involved in diagnostic imaging, as well as specials and coupons to be shared with friends, and you could be looking at a pretty substantial ROI pretty fast.
Another simple tactic is to send a canned email out to each new patient with a link to a video about their exam. Use videos that other diagnostics facilities have done that are not in your region. No one is going to notice a logo from a company in California if you are in Georgia. But if they have great videos, your patients, and your company should benefit.
5. Make the Rounds
One of the very best and most important things you can do to promote your diagnostics center and grow your referrals is to make the rounds to your referring providers.
Maintaining and improving relationships with referring providers is probably the number one way to keep your diagnostics center growing. While you’re out saying hello, make sure you remember the Stark Laws and know what you can and can’t do!
If you’re nervous about giving something physical to a provider or their office at all, how about just something intangible, like knowledge? Education such as emails, links to Youtube videos, and emailed PDFs. to help providers learn how to grow their practices is never illegal as far as we know.
6. Stay in front of your diagnostics customers
Another simple way to improve your diagnostics marketing is to stay in front of your diagnostics customers with some simple modern technology. If customers have opted in and agree to receive educational emails from you, then you can send out:
Surveys – find out what you did right and wrong, but also use these to stay in front of patients!
Educational Emails – Instead of talking about radiology and promoting your diagnostic marketing, how about going into your customer’s day to day lives? Education on how to avoid injuries could be more helpful than learning how to scan for injuries that they have.
Let your patients refer one another – There are no laws against patients referring one another, and there are a ton of ways to do that. Just reach out to patients online or in person and ask if they know anyone that needs help.
7. Stay relevant by showing your personality
Your business isn’t made up of robots. The people at your diagnostics center or centers are loving, kind, good people that want to help. So many companies do group lunches, the Thanksgiving pie making contest (Julie won last year, but I was in a close second), learning events, and training.
Showing your customer base that you are real people creates a story and personality. The easiest way to show everyone is through social media, and particularly through Facebook and Instagram.
Adding to Facebook is super simple. Just create a business page on Facebook, log in, and start adding posts. Some things that you may want to show the world:
Customer testimonials as text and pictures or as videos.
Employee of The Month
Office events or parties
Provider testimonials
A diagnostics center walkthrough, showing all the rooms with all the modalities. You can just do this on your iPhone or Android, it doesn’t have to be perfect the first time.
While you’re setting everything up, make sure to add to your Facebook page:
Address – it will automatically show a map to your location for your audience here.
Website Link
Hours – A lot of people look at Facebook first to check business hours
A picture of your facility – Showing the front of your facility as the main image can make it a lot easier for people to find you.
Links to other important information such as pricing, other locations, the patient and provider portals, pre-exam forms, etc.
8. Know your neighbors!
You have the greatest impact in your immediate area. The easiest way to start drawing in new patients and referring providers is to get out and knock on some doors or send direct mail to your neighborhood businesses and residents. Forming relationships with people is key to keeping your business running, and who better to start with than the business next door?
9. Majority of referrals comes from 20% of providers
If you haven’t already, know who the top 20% of referring providers are, and KEEP THEM HAPPY! We don’t have to tell you the best ways to do that. But is easy to forget who keeps the business running and treat someone sending you a lot of patients the same as someone sending in just a few per month or year.
Not everyone is the same, and some providers deserve more attention than others. So, how do you do that?
Know who they are – if you don’t already, you should be able to look into your RIS system and check the top providers right away.
Make a list of your top providers and post it up for your team to see.
At your team meetings go through this list and read off the list to everyone.
Make sure that if a provider on this list is having some difficulty, you can get them special treatment or a higher level person to handle their needs.
Consider a concierge-level service team just for these providers that calls regularly to check in with everyone, makes sure they are always ordering the right exams, and caters to their needs.
10. Don’t tell, ASK!
So often, marketing reps making calls on referring providers want to talk all about the facility, the new magnet they just installed, and what they can do for the providers’ offices. What these reps so often forget to do is ask the right questions then let the office manager or provider talk.
If you ask the right questions, they will tell you how you can meet their needs. Remember, the one thing that everyone wants to talk about is themselves. So, ask open-ended questions and let them talk!
Some questions to consider asking:
How is business going?
Any issues with getting your exams recently?
What can we do better?
How are things changing in your practice?
What are some of your biggest problems right now?
If they don’t feel like talking, that’s another story. But most people do.
11. Find your strengths, know your weaknesses
Some questions you may want to ask yourself and your team:
What advantages does your diagnostics center have over your competition?
What makes your team unique?
What are the major areas you can improve upon?
What are your biggest obstacles to growth now? In the future?
These are all part of a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis. Putting together a bi-yearly SWOT analysis for your diagnostic center marketing plan as well as for your company and team as a whole, then comparing it against the previous analysis can provide great insight into your team’s growth and failures.
Use These Techniques to become a Diagnostic Imaging Marketing Pro
In the face of lowering reimbursements, Stark Law, dropping industry profits, and an overall difficult business environment, reaching out to your providers, customers/patients, and local employers is absolutely key to success.
Now that you’ve got some marketing ideas on how to grow your diagnostics imaging marketing plan and business, we would love to know what you liked and didn’t like from our list.
What did we miss? Are there any tactics you want to share that have worked well for you? How about some advertising methods? Post what you’ve got in the discussion below.
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First and foremost, your focus should be on your physician emails. Since doctors are the ones referring patients to your facility for diagnostic tests, they need to be your focus. As a diagnostic center, one of your most valuable relationships is with referring physicians. 
Important note:
Making sure you’re fostering strong relationships with currently referring physicians is vital. The content you send to this group is highly dependent on the nature of your current relationship. So, always be sure you’re only sending emails to these doctors if and when they are wanting to receive them. If you have determined that these providers are interested in getting emails from your imaging center, here are some tips:
Second, you will need to be aware of the Stark law. This law prevents you from offering incentives, money or gifts to providers in return for funneling patients to your center. This is a civil code, thus, if convicted you will not face jail time. You will, however, enjoy a substantial fine. An important fact to know and understand about this law, you do not need to show intent to be in violation. You can be in violation without knowing and still be ordered to pay a fine.
This is a violation of the Stark law. You cannot offer an incentive to referring providers only. You won’t face jail time, but you could face a large fine. 
If the referring provider would normally be paying for this CME, you will need to charge a fee. If you decide against charging, the cost will need to be recorded on your non-monetary compensation spreadsheet.
These situations are just a sampling of scenarios which radiology and diagnostics centers can face at any time. Knowledge and understanding of current laws and norms are of the highest importance when operating a successful practice. Whether you are in the radiology and diagnostic industry or another field, be sure to realize and put into practice all guidelines and laws governing your practice today.
