What were the key insights from the largest gathering of ENT professionals in the nation? We were there talking to practice managers, and they all agree on what practice administrators need to be doing to drive success.

In this episode of the DrMarketingTips podcast, Jenn (Taggart), and Sue share the hottest topics from the nation’s premier ENT administration conference and the insights they gleaned along the way.

Tune in to discover:

• The role of telemedicine and why you need to figure out how to do it
• Why internal and intergenerational communication is now critical for medical practices
• How the tight labor market continues to affect practice administration
• The number one mistake practices make when marketing on social media

Transcript Notes

Speaker 1: Dr. Marketing Tips. Paging Dr. Marketing Tips. Dr. Marketing Tips, you’re needed in the marketing department.

Speaker 2: Welcome to the Dr. Marketing Tips podcast, your prescription to the answers you seek to grow your medical practice easier, better, and faster. This show is all about connecting practice administrators and medical marketing professionals with peers working in practices, learning from experiences, making mistakes, and sharing successes. Let’s get started.

Jen: Hey, it’s Sue and Jen with Insight Marketing Group. We are on our way to the airport after attending the 2019 Ottolaryngology Conference in Austin, Texas, and wow, did we learn a whole bunch of stuff. We saw some great people, didn’t we, Susan?

Susan: Absolutely! Met some really fantastic people.

Jen: Yeah, it’s really like a family, this conference. A bunch of them commented and how you know every year they come. It’s nice to get together and see the same people and the same vendors and it’s a really comfortable, great group and they’re really a tight knit group. Anyway, one of the big common things that we found and Susan, I think you’ll agree with me on this one, is communication was a big thread that went through all of the sessions. All of the practice managers that we spoke to are having the same issue and it all revolves around communication, don’t you think, Susan?

Susan: Yes, and they talked about it wasn’t necessarily communication with the patient. It was a lot of communication internally with office staff and that seemed to be a common thread with all the practice managers and also it was a multi generational communication and how our older employees are communicating with our younger and vice versa.

Jen: Yeah. It was like they were saying, they were afraid to talk to each other.

Susan: Exactly.

Jen: There was a breakdown in how they should communicate and a respect level in their work ethic and just a whole bunch of different things that are making their day to day jobs just a little bit challenging. You add that too on top of the fact that every practice we talked to is really complaining of being understaffed and it’s making it really challenging on everybody in the practice. So I think that’s really something that I’m seeing anyway in all of the practices I talk to across every specialty is, you know, staffing is an issue and keeping up with the demand.

Jen: That actually leads me to another trend that we saw here at this conference, which is telemedicine. That was huge. I sat in on a session talking all about telemedicine and how involved patients are with it and how much they really, truly like it. And they’re seeing an uptick in their patient engagement with telemedicine because at the first sign of a call, they can pick up the phone and call their doctor, get talk, you know, their symptoms can be addressed right away. You know, it really is something that in the session I attended, they said, if you’re not doing telemedicine, you need to figure out how to do it.

Corey: Hey guys, Corey here, cohost of the Dr. Marketing Tips podcasts, and I wanted to interrupt this episode just for a minute to tell you about Insight Training Solutions. So Insight Training Solutions is an ongoing employee engagement and training platform for your medical practice, meaning employees can log on and take these medical practice specific trainings whenever and wherever they are. And each training is meant to increase employee engagement, improve practice reputation, and develop some patient service mindsets. If we’re being honest, something that we all know, some of the employees may lack, not calling anybody out by name, but one of the cool things about Insight Training Solutions is they’re always developing new content and they just released 10 Steps to a Phenomenal Patient Experience where you’ll learn how to create a phenomenal patient experience, strengthen job security, and discover customer service secrets for your entire team.

Corey: So this course is in addition to the other ones they already have, which include communication across generations and how to understand today’s multi generational workforce and how to develop overall patient experience. This is another course of the new approach to customer service. We’ve also got Eight Ways to Wow Patients and you can sign up for a free trial to see what everything is about at insighttrainingsolutions.io. That’s insighttrainingsolutions.io or just google Insight Training Solutions. You’ll be glad you did.

Susan: Right. And when you talk about telemedicine, think of telephone. They were also saying that goes along with not enough staff, that they’re understaffed because it’s such a tight labor market. Everybody is experiencing this, that when an employee leaves, it’s very hard to fill the position and so their telephones aren’t being answered in a timely manner.

Jen: Yeah, I mean-

Susan: And they’re all experiencing that.

Jen: Yeah. I had an experience like that this morning. I mean, I was on hold for 20 minutes. Our entire ride to the airport just now, I was on hold with my doctor’s office and I never did get to talk to anyone. They never answered the phone. It was really sad. But anyway…

Susan: Another common theme with the practice managers was, what’s their perceptions are regarding marketing.

Jen: Absolutely.

Susan: When you ask someone, how does your practice market and what do you do with your marketing efforts? The perception’s all over the place. Some of them say, “Oh yeah, we market, we go and knock on doors of our referrals.” [crosstalk 00:00:05:51].

Jen: And the guy that talked about working with the football team, the local football teams in pop Warner and they put banners up at the football games and that’s about all they’re doing. You know, I think that goes back to that old school, new school if you will, or that older physicians and newer physicians and the technology and they’re really thinking that if they have a Facebook page, whether they’re using it or not, or posting it or not, using it for testimonials or not, they think that’s all they have to do.

Susan: Right. They think their Facebook page is, “Well, we have a Facebook page” and they’re not thinking about what their reviews are out there on the internet.

Jen: Or even using that Facebook page to talk about what’s going on in the office. You know, another big trend that we saw with all of them is the unbundling of, for example, hearing aid products that these big box stores like Costco and some of the other… Costco and I get… What was the other one they said? Sam’s maybe. Going in and selling hearing AIDS and different services all piecemealed, which the offices normally bundled together in one service. That coming apart, they talked about leasing hearing aids now as being a new trend. So I think all of it, there’s kind of that old school, new school, you know, we used to do it this way before, but since technology is here and all this other stuff is here, things are changing and it’s a new way of doing business, new way of communicating.

Susan: I have to say these conferences that we attend, I recommend that others do the same because you really do learn a lot and you feel as though you’re becoming some sort of a family because you see the same people in attendance in other conferences. Like you stated in the beginning about a comradery and that was really the overall feel of the whole conference.

Jen: Yes, absolutely. They did say too that it made them feel better that they thought they lived in this crazy world in this crazy office and to get there and talk to everybody else and see that everybody lives in that crazy, crazy world. So it was really nice. It was really nice. It was good for us get out and kind of see what’s going on and meet some new people.

Susan: Alrighty.

Jen: All right. See you.

Susan: Take care.

Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to the drmarketingtips.com podcast. If there’s anything from today’s show you want to learn more about, check out drmarketingtips.com for our podcast resource center with all the notes, links and goodies we mentioned during the show. If you’re not already a subscriber to our show, please consider pressing the subscribe button on your podcast player, so you never miss one of our future episodes. And if you haven’t given us a rating or review yet on iTunes, please find a spare minute and help us reach and educate even more of our medical practice peers. Thanks again for listening and we’ll catch you next time. Doctor’s orders.

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