It’s the challenge that every healthcare marketer faces: How do you represent your physicians so patients will choose your hospital or practice?
We polled patients over a six-week period in May and June of 2014 to find out what information sways consumers to choose physicians. (You can see their demographics at the end of this blog post). We asked 200 people via SurveyMonkey to answer these two questions:
- When you select a physician, what is most important to you?
- What is most important to you when choosing a physician to perform a procedure?
When you select a physician, what is most important to you?
People care most about:
- Insurance Coverage (2.8/5 average rating)
- Experience (2.78/5)
- Recommendation by friends and/or family (2.54/5)
- Personality (2.48/5)
- Gender (1.68/5)
- Ethnicity (1.22/5)
This data suggests that when you’re promoting physicians, you should focus on their experience. You should also try to demonstrate the doctors’ personalities, through pictures, videos or a line in their bios about what they enjoy doing in their leisure time. Paint a holistic picture of a doctor because the details do matter to patients.
What is most important to you when choosing a physician to perform a procedure?
Overwhelmingly, patients want to know how many times a doctor has performed a procedure. However, we know that doctors typically work in teams to provide comprehensive, seamless care for patients. Therefore, it makes sense for service line and department pages to include information about the total number of times that team has performed a procedure or treated patients. Content strategy tip: Include the year, so that the information is relevant and recent (You should update it every two years).
Example: Since 1999, our department has performed 1,500 electrophysiology studies. The national average for most centers in the United States is 800. Our depth of experience is crucial for determining your heart health, as well as treating your condition.
