Depending on your practice, you have different restrictions and different opportunities available. Grab 1 or 2 ideas from this list and run with it!
Perform emergency services. – If you have been mandated by your local government to cancel all elective procedures, it’s time to go all in on emergency services.
Call ALL urgent care providers, hospitals, and ERs within a 25 minutes drive of your office to let them know you are open and can handle any emergencies procedures that they are unable to perform.
Call your location competition. Many offices are electing to just close down during these times. Their patients need help too! Let the owner know you can help any one who is in pain or needs emergency help. Have them put it on their website, phone message, or anywhere their patients may be looking for help.
Telemedicine – If you can help patients virtually or over the phone, now is the time to implement telemedicine. Here are a few small tips on how to implement Telemedicine
Let your patients know you are offering telemedicine. Put it on your website, phone message, and send an email out to all your patients that you can still help them during these times.
Create a small survey patients can take online or over the phone to determine if the patient qualifies for telemedicine
Depending on your state, you may need to get consent to perform Telemedicine. Patient Studio is offering this for free for all medical offices.
At Home Visits – Not every practice can perform its services remotely and now more than ever, people are scared to leave their homes, especially people who are at higher risk. These patients still need your help.
Call local retirement homes to let them know you can come treat their residents. Let them know you will follow all best practices to avoid putting their patients at risk (You better).
Make sure to collect all their patient information prior to seeing them. On top of their basic information and insurance you will want to collect:
Medical Information – What pain or problems are they experiencing? Unfortunately you won’t have time to go see everyone. You will need to use this information to help prioritize who you can help.
COVID19 Symptoms – You will be putting you and/or your staff at risk when they go onsite. Asking patients about possible COVID 19 symptoms and exposure will help reduce this risk.
New Patient Consults – Some industries are just not considered essential. These could be offices that deal with plastic surgery, optical, reproductive health, or anything else that’s optional. You need to shift your focus to building your pipeline with new patient consultations.
You can still collect all your paperwork digitally from the patient. This allows you to conduct some or all of your new patients’ consultation over the phone or digitally. You can use tools like Skype or FaceTime to speak with your patient about their future goals based on their paperwork
Give patients a reason to schedule a consultation right now. Here are some incentive ideas:
If you usually charge for your consultation, consider offering some type of price discount
Run a contest. Enter the patient into a raffle if they have their new patient consultation this month. Give away an Amazon Gift Card, Dinner Delivery for the family, flat screen TV, discounts to business you partner with, HBOGo/Hulu/Netflix/Disney+ free for a year, Digital Workout Plans or Training Sessions, or anything that’s relevant to your patients.