Reference Guide: Custom Prosthetics and Orthotics in St. Louis

P & O Care Brochure - Upload a Document to Scribd

Ratio of Prosthetic and Orthotic Practitioners to Potential Patients in State Population

Ratio of Prosthetic and Orthotic Practitioners to Potential Patients in State Population - Upload a Document to Scribd

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Healthcare Market Strategy

health care market strategy - Upload a Document to Scribd

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PeerClip: Online tool for Doctors

Social bookmarking has become very popular in the past few months. Sites like Digg and del.icio.us are popular with a wide audience, but now there's a special option just for doctors. Social bookmarking basically works like the "Favorites" tool on your browser, except that you can allow your friends or colleagues to see which sites you have marked. When you select a website, you improve it's performance on search engines like Google. On the bookmarking site's home page, you can also view which pages on the web are most popular with the community.

From PeerClip website:

A simple online tool that enables physicians to organize, share, discuss and discover relevant medical information.

Using PeerClip’s “research assistant” tool that integrates easily into any Web browser, physicians can “bookmark” any type content, including journal articles, blogs, podcasts and videos. Bookmarks are conveniently stored online for easy access in a central location, creating a personal homepage of relevant medical information. Physicians also can organize, keyword tag, rate and share bookmarks.

The PeerClip “research assistant” also provides physicians with at-a-glance information on articles that their peers have tagged and rated as useful. The combined ratings and tagging of all physicians helps the PeerClip member quickly find the information he or she is looking for. Additionally, the PeerClip “research assistant” also recommends other relevant information based on the member’s profile and interests. The simple act of member participation guides the recommendations as well as the member’s discovery while browsing.

Physicians also can invite peers to join the network as well as create personal online peer networks in order to track future bookmarks and comments by peers or Key
Opinion Leaders across the PeerClip community.

Here is a quick snapshot of how PeerClip works:

1) Using PeerClip, physicians can click a button in their browser tool bar to store their favorite online articles, blog postings, podcasts and videos on a personal
home page for easy future reference.

2) Physicians can also view bookmarks, comments and ratings on content their peers have bookmarked in PeerClip.

I will drop more comments as and when I receive the beta invitation.

Posted by Dr.Subrahmanyam Karuturi at Thursday, September 20, 2007

Promoting Your Allied Healthcare Practice: Tip #7

Don’t ever treat people like they owe you. Inexpensive items like pens or tape measures with your logo and phone number are actually mini-billboards your contacts can hold in their hands. They don’t obligate anyone to use your services. If you bring in lunch so you can get more time with a group of doctors, you are simply buying time, not their business. It would be grossly unethical for a practice to refer to you because you brought them a candy jar or fed their employees, so don’t think that way or use any other pressure techniques. Even if it works, it will create resentment and never get you more than the one patient they might feel obligated to hand over. You’re in this for the long haul, and you could never afford to repay a truly loyal source of referrals.

Promoting Your Allied Healthcare Practice Tip #5: Don’t talk negatively about your competitors

You might even want to say something complementary about them. In healthcare especially, being perceived as greedy or overly competitive will hurt you. If yours is the only practice making sales calls and asking for referrals, that could become even more of a perception. When you make sales calls, make it your mission not merely to increase business but also to benefit people. Your competitive presence might provide the incentive that raises the quality of care across your region. And as a resource available to your patients’ physicians, you add value to the care they provide, too.

When competition is seen as an important but friendly (and fun!) game, everyone has the chance to win. But when competition devolves into warfare and turf battles, everyone looses, especially your patients and their doctors.

Promoting Your Allied Healthcare Practice Tip #4: Be a Valuable Resource

Be a valuable resource. Don’t show up and just ask for more business. Your business exists for your patients, and so does any healthcare practice. For them, you exist to help them serve their patients better. Have one thing in mind like free home visits or consultations that they can remember easily and pass along to a patient. Bring a newsletter with interesting, quality information, or leave behind a good article from a magazine you picked especially for them. You want to be the expert they think of when a patient comes in with unique problems not solved by your colleagues in the field.

Allied Healthcare Promotions Tip #3: Smile

Smile. When you visit medical offices to connect with your referral sources, make it your goal to brighten someone’s day just a little bit. You don’t have to be clever or get the place roaring in laughter, but if you’re grumpy over the traffic, because business is slow, or because no one will talk with you long, it will show. Small talk is under-rated, as long as you don’t waist anyone’s time. Be the one they enjoy to see walk in the door.

American Healthfront

P&O Care recently appeared in a segment of American Healthfront on St. Louis NBC affiliate KMOV4. The two minute segment features two of our prosthetists, Jon Wilson and Greg Doerr, as well as two of their patients, Denise and Sharon.

Allied Healthcare Promotions Tip #2: Don't Wast Anyone's Time

Healthcare practices are very busy, and you might be resented if you contribute to making patients wait to see their practitioner. It’s fine to show up unannounced; sometimes you can visit more places in less time this way. But if you don’t have an appointment, you must be willing to leave something behind, ask graciously for a call-back number, or try to find out when would be a good time to return. If your contact has time to talk, don’t stick around for more than a friendly hello and 15-20 second summary of why you are there this time. Bring a newsletter or brochure with you, maybe some pens or tape measures, and ask if he or she has any questions or feedback. If you want, see if there might be a better time to come back and give a more thorough presentation. If you can get in and out in less than 1 minute, more power to you. In the unlikely event that your contact isn’t busy, chewing the fat a little while won’t hurt at all.

Healthlink Outtakes

Have you ever wondered what it's like to film a commercial? Check out this authentic behind-the-scenes peek at the filming of our two-minute news clip that appeared on KMOV4's "American Healthfront" September 6, 2007. It might make you laugh.

Allied Healthcare Promotions Tip #1: There is No Little Guy

Some sales advice will tell you to only focus on VITO, or the Very Important Top Officer, such as a physician. That’s crazy. Yes, many times doctors will be very involved in where their patients receive allied health care services, but many will also defer to their nurses or medical assistants. Receptionists have very important jobs but get very little respect, and they know it; so if you respect them, learn their names, and maybe even ask them about themselves once in a while, you are much more likely to get the meetings you need with the people they serve. Good professionals respect the opinions and first impressions of their assistants. If you come across as arrogant, smug, or condescending, forget about it!

Promoting Your Allied Health Care Practice

Over the next few weeks, I will be periodically publishing my top ten tips on how to personally promote your allied health care practice. Here is a preview:

1. There is no little guy.
2. Don't waste anyone's time.
3. Smile.
4. Be a valuable resource.
5. Don't talk negatively about your competitors.
6. Don't be pushy.
7. Don't ever treat people like they owe you.
8. Emphasize quality and accountability.
9. Gather information.
10. Keep your loyal users happy.

These tips will also appear in the weekly e-newsletter of Outsource Marketing Solutions.

Tips for Marketing Your Health Care Practice

I have found two articles by marketing consultant Elizabeth Mansfield incredibly helpful in provoking new ideas for promoting P&O Care. I think many of these tips could easily be adapted by any health care practice seeking to increase the number of people they can serve. In "Marketing 101" in the O&P Almanac, Mansfield gives her "Top Ten Marketing Tips." In "Diabetes and Niche Marketing," in O&P Business News, Mansfield recomends that any group serving large numbers of diabetics tailor some of their literature and programs specifically for this sizable demographic.

Award-Winning Blog and Newsletter Lift St. Louis Health Care Practice

Early in 2007, Prosthetic and Orthotic Care, Inc., launched a new blog, The Care Digest. Winner of a Gold Star awarded by the popular marketing consultant Elizabeth Mansfield, this blog is an electronic version of P&O Care’s popular print newsletter by the same name, available for download on their website at http://pandocare.com/news.html.

The Care Digest’s frequent blog posts profile patients and practitioners, and it allows anyone to rate their experience with the clinical practice. It also summarizes news and provides commentary with a personal perspective on the P&O industry here in St. Louis and around the world. Together, the blog and newsletter reach over 1,100 people in St. Louis and enable P&O Care to connect better with their patients and referring health care professionals. “We hope patients take the opportunity to upload their own commentary, pictures, video and unique stories,” says blog creator Bill McLellan.

Both versions of The Care Digest form part of an innovative outreach campaign begun just over a year ago. Since August 2006, the successful plan has enabled P&O Care to grow from five prosthetists and orthotists to eight, and from twelve to twenty employees. Prosthetists Manny Rivera and Dan Luitjohan came on in 2006, and Orthotists John Lartonoix and Shawn McAdams started this year. The practice also added orthotic intern Luke Brewer and prosthetic resident Maggie Ware-Smith in June and July. With the addition of Bill McLellan as Director of Sales and Marketing a year ago, P&O Care has a dedicated liaison coordinating the crucial relationships among patients and their doctors, nurses, therapists, prosthetists and orthotists.

“We don’t want to be the biggest P&O practice in town, just the best,” says CEO Jim Weber. “This business is all about providing a superior clinical service, not just manufacturing limbs and braces. Though not widely utilized by health care practitioners, good marketing ensures that competition works the way it’s supposed to. Patients get more for their money, such as fast, quality service and complementary home visits.” McLellan adds, "Turning a quality newsletter into a blog is easy and fun. It's a good idea for any professional practice, whether in health care or other fields of specialized service. Blogs are interactive and easily updated with stories, pictures, and online video; and they provide an excellent way to stay connected with patients and colleagues."

To sign up for the e-mail or snail mail versions of The Care Digest, or to become a contributor on this blog, contact Bill McLellan at BMcLellan@PandOCare.com. P&O Care is a team of health care professionals with a common goal of creating innovative prosthetic and orthotic solutions to help people live their lives to the fullest by regaining their mobility, strength and independence. Their care centers are located in Des Peres, MO, and Fairview Heights, IL.