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As a care provider in radiation oncology (or even radiology), are you aware that information about your practice, your "bedside manner," compliments and complaints are easily available on physician rating sites, blogs and other online forums--completely independent of your Web site?
Two years ago, Florida Radiation Oncology Group (FROG) took a look at this as they faced stiff competition from a proton therapy center going after the market that it dominated.
To protect market share and combat heavy direct-to-consumer marketing, FROG, a 36-radiologist group with 28 locations, decided to use existing and prospective patients' visits to online physician ratings and reputation management sites to its advantage. In 2009, it began managing the Internet profiles of its physicians on Vitals.com, an Internet physician directory. The goals were to make sure FROG's physician profiles were accurate and up-to-date, to monitor patient reviews and, ultimately to boost specialists' standing on Google and other search engines like Bing so they appeared at the top of the search engine's results.
Heavy Web traffic
Consumers routinely go online--30 million of them, according to Google-- to select a doctor, learn about them prior to a visit and read what others are saying about them. Such content affects a business for better or worse, making a strategy for online reputation management essential to garnering top visibility on web search results. That is so important because studies have shown most people do not look beyond the first page or the first half dozen search results.
Leveraging online strategies helped FROG successfully counter the aggressive and costly marketing campaign a competitor had launched to attract cancer patients and break established referral patterns by primary care physicians (PCPs). Despite the marketing onslaught, many PCPs continued to refer to FROG, which had responded only by communicating with PCPs and using free online reputation management tools to reach out to consumers directly.
In addition to leveraging the free tools available to manage physician profiles, ratings and comments, the FROG group also started a relatively modest relationship with Vitals to more prominently promote their doctors to patients looking for cancer treatment near their facilities. This expense has made the more robust medical marketers in their community spend far more money, time and effort to gain similar results with their direct-to-consumer advertising attempts and allowed them to maintain their natural market share with very little loss.
FROG has more than recouped its money. The move, for example, helped a radiation oncologist specializing in stereotactic body radiosurgery and prostate brachytherapy gain eight new patients when he relocated his office 200 miles from Jacksonville to Tampa. This is impressive because he was competing with urologists who owned their radiation centers and had practiced in Tampa for two to three decades. Additionally, it generated between $6,000 to $40,000 of revenue per patient for FROG.
Keys to success
Based on its experience, FROG recommends that physicians and practice owners seeking to use the Internet to increase business and better compete against hospitals and other providers:
. Physicians should set up Google Alerts for their name and also search themselves roughly every two weeks to track their online profiles and see what patients say about them. Search engines now feature physicians ratings directly in the search results, making it that much more important to proactively manage online profiles.
Correct factual mistakes and develop your own content. After Googling themselves, physicians will likely find that online physician rating sites have incorrect, outdated or incomplete information about them. Many of those sites offer free tools allowing doctors to create, write, edit and manage their own profile. They can update contact, biographical and education information and share their areas of expertise, which will help them attract the type of patients they want.
Handle misleading or false information with caution. Some sites will remove postings that violate either its terms of use or patient privacy upon request. However, negative comments by themselves are not violations, and it is a good idea to respond to them unless patients are criticizing the quality of care they received and a physician's competency. The later type of complaints are best dealt with offline to avoid compromising confidentiality and getting into a public argument that can actually exacerbate rather than solve issues. In addition, negative reviews often help identify areas of needed improvement that may go unnoticed.
Optimize content for search engines. When creating content for online rating sites and their own web site, radiologists should write at a 10th grade level and use specific terms to describe themselves and their treatment capabilities in an honest and open way. Most patients really want a good local option. The key is to let the Internet search engine know you can engage on their platform.
Ask patients to write reviews on top sites. Approximately 10 to 20 percent of patients will do this upon request. They typically write positive reviews, which increase the online visibility of physicians, especially if comments are on heavily trafficked sites. Also, the more positive commentary there is on a site, the more likely it will drive negative comments down to the second page of results and beyond. FROG makes sure to include a direct link to Vitals from each website's online physician directory so patients can remember to rate their physicians.
Post a photo. FROG radiologists who put up photographs receive more patient self-referrals than peers who do not.
Physicians in the competitive field of radiation oncology who spend approximately two hours weekly on the above tasks, will find the time well worth it.
Jamie Cesaretti, MD, is a board-certified oncology radiologist with a special interest in the application of both stereotactic body radiosurgery and prostate brachytherapy. He is a partner at Florida Radiation Oncology Group, a 36-doctor private practice with 28 locations in Florida. See his profile: http://www.vitals.com/doctors/Dr_Jamie_Cesaretti.html#ixzz1eUWFF6bC
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