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Taking your practice into the digital age

As more and more medical practices convert certain areas of their practices from paper to digital communications, no matter how you feel about adopting new technologies, it's very likely that you will see them soon in your own practice. Market forces and direct pressure in the form of significant financial incentives from the federal government are pushing medical practices to adopt them at an ever-increasing rate. Should you jump on the band wagon or stick to your guns?

How far behind the digital eight ball is your practice?.

With digital technologies and medical practice, there's a kind of historical hierarchy of adoption that looks something like this . . .

1. Build a simple informational website (which many practices already have),
2. Update your informational site to a more sophisticated (aka “Web 2.0”) website that includes interactivity and SEO strategies,
3. Adopt digital medical billing practices,
4. Communicate via secure email with patients,
5. Build one or more internal practice portals (aka “intranets”),
6. Implement EMR|PMR|HIE (and take advantage of significant government incentives under ASSR), and
7. Build (or subscribe to a third-party) secure patient portal to allow for real-time two-way communications between your practice and your patients.

Over the next few issues of the Minute, we'll explore a little of the history of medical practices adopting these digital technologies and take a look at state-of-the art practices in each area.

In This Issue: Establishing a Web Presence: Where Do You Start?

Creating a web presence, or updating and upgrading your existing site to a Web 2.0 site (like PBN did recently) can have a big impact on your practice. Many practices (and other businesses) still maintain a “Web 1.0” site without regard to whether anyone could possibly find the site, or whether you’d want them to see it if they did.

If your only presence is a listing on a third-party business or community site (as is true of many small practices), a good starting place is to hire a firm to secure a domain, set up a simple informational site that reflects your professional image and accurately describes your background and practice, then build it out with some simple interactive functionality (like patient satisfaction surveys, information requests or subscriptions, contact forms that go directly to a doctor or specialist in the patient’s area of interest, etc.).

You have a website . . . does anyone know?

Along with a more professional, up-to-date look and feel, updated information about your practice and staff, and adding new ways for visitors to interact with you, applying some simple SEO (Search Engine Optimization) strategies can help you increase your visibility on the web.

If you already have a website, check to see if it’s visible at all . . .

• can you find the site with a simple Google search using the business name?

• can you find it using each doctor’s name?

• can you find it with a general search using logical search terms like your specialty area and locale?

Ideally, each of these searches should list your practice on the first page. Minimally, searching on your name (business or doctor) should.

Why it matters (and is worth the effort and expense) . . .

Having a website no one can find is a complete waste of money, as is maintaining a site you don't plan to actively use as an effective marketing tool.

Having a website you are proud of (and can update periodically to keep it relevant to your clientele) provides a platform for adding more digital communications and other technologies to better serve your patients, work with your vendors, and make your practice more efficient.

Contact PBN when you’re ready to get started or if you’d like to know more..

PBN Business Development, 800.288.4901, pbn@pbnmed.com

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Overland Park, KS 66210 | 800.288.4901 | www.pbnmed.com

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