Building Client Equity in a Medical Practice

Many practitioners distinguish themselves in the medical community in many ways. Some ways include:

• Specializing in a medical field

• Associating with a prestigious hospital or clinic

• Achieving advanced certification in their field

• Associating with a medical group that provides a menu of services

• Serving certain population segments such as seniors, public health, or children

Distinguishing your practice can build your brand. But to grow your practice, it take more than brand building. You must grow your client base; you must build client equity.

Growing the Client Base

Spending precious dollars on building your brand is important.  But for a practice to be successful over time, the focus must switch to maximizing client lifetime value – that is, the net profit a practice accrues from services with a given client during the time that client has a relationship with the practice.  The practice must focus on client equity  (the sum of the lifetime values of all the practice's clients across all of its service offerings) rather than brand equity  (the sum of clients’ assessments or a brand’s intangible qualities like reputation, positive or negative).

Client Equity Rather than Brand Equity

Let’s use a scenario that frequently occurs in a medical practice. A person makes an appointment with your practice to get advice on a particular problem she is having. Maybe she was referred to you by a colleague. Maybe she found your practice through social media. You meet that person, give advice and counsel, address the particular problem the patient was having, and send her on her way. You do a good job; you improved your brand (e.g., good ratings on Google). But, you have done nothing to build your client equity. Client equity is more than just solving a current, patient problem. Building client equity requires the physician to play a deeper, long-lasting role in the patient's healthcare. Your patient care should not end once the patient leaves your office. Today's patients expect more than a cure; they expect a healthcare relationship.

Keeping Patients Engaged

Physicians Practice offers these tips on keeping patients engaged to build client equity:

• Send personalized follow-up messages using your electronic health record (EHR) system.

• Send post-visit check-in texts to your patient. It's a "checking in to see how you feel" note.

• Have the check-out staff demonstrate your practice portal's main features such as secure messaging, refill request, and lab access. This may boost portal usage by patients.

• Host monthly 15 to 20 minute virtual town halls on topics like asthma management or vaccine updates.

• Publish mini-newsletters to discuss specific patient conditions (e.g., diabetes, hypertension).

• Leverage remote patient-monitoring data by integrating home monitoring devices (e.g., blood pressure cuffs, glucose meters) into the EHR to receive data in real time.

• Launch a simple, 3-question post-visit survey to get instant feedback on their visits and where you did solved their problems (e.g., was your concern addressed, do you understand your care plan, and how can we improve).

• Create micro-learning videos. Produce brief (1 to 2 minute) instructional videos using smartphones and inexpensive lighting. These can be simple videos such as how to change a wound dressing or use an inhaler.

• Send a congratulatory message or virtual badge when a patient hits a milestone goal - like improved A1C or weight loss goals.

• Book the next appointment before the patient leaves the office.

Building client equity not only grows the practice, it also better serves your patients. By keeping communications open with your patients, it helps you and your patients build a healthcare relationship. That may assist the physician in anticipating potential issues your patient may have. It helps the physician facilitate better health outcomes.