It's a New Year! You need a new approach to providing healthcare

If you are leaving 2009 underpaid and unsatisfied it’s time to make some changes. Don’t allow your practice, clinic or hospital to enter 2010 without sound strategies for building a profitable medical practice. More than ever, marketing is going to play an essential role in your success for 2010. But, do you really understand the impact marketing has on the way you provide medical care?

Healthcare marketing is so much more that creating brochures, developing a website, or running a yellow pages advertisement. These elements of marketing are essential, but they are only address the promotional facet of marketing.

What about strategy? What about pricing? What about providing superior patient care? What about educating the public? What about impacting your community? What about taking measures to improve your bottom line and your personal income? All of these questions should be addressed in your medical practice strategy for 2010, and they are all rooted in marketing.

Properly defined strategies will be the blueprint for your success in 2010. With a through marketing plan you will be able to identify your position at this time, develop projections for the future, and create and plan of action to get there.

So, what can a healthcare marketing plan do for you?

It will:

• Define your goals
• Establish your services
• Compile market research
• Analyze competition
• Identify your target customer base
• Develop internal and external systems to increase income
• Provide tactics to accomplish your goals
• Establish a budget and monitor return on investment
• Improve patient care and patient satisfaction

A well prepared plan will help you make informed decisions. It will help you choose the right partners and vendors. It will help you implement systems that can reduce your overhead and improve your productivity. With the appropriate guidance and expertise you can develop a marketing plan that will dramatically improve the way you practice medicine.

In an article published by The Harvard Business Review, Regis McKenna said “marketing is everything and everything is marketing.” This is because the critical dimensions of how a business operates are ultimately a marketing function. Well, in case you were unaware…you are “in business.” Don’t let the fact that you practice medicine distract you from the fundamental truth that you provide services for a fee i.e. you run a business

This is exactly way establishing a strategic healthcare marketing plan is essential for your success in 2010. So get started on the right foot as you enter this New Year. Begin to develop strategies that will bring you closer to your personal and professional goals. Write these strategies down, and then implement them.

With the many changes facing healthcare today, it is time that health care providers, physicians, and doctors take control of their professional futures. You can change the business of health care so that you are adequately compensated while providing phenomenal patient care, but it starts with you.