Are You Maximizing Your “Find a Doctor” Strategy?

November 3, 2017

Part 1: Make Sure You Achieve These 5 Strategic Goals

// By Noel Coleman //

How do your customers identify providers in your network? Your answer could be very important to your organization’s success. Here’s why:

Today, Find-a-Doctor tools (such as a physician directory on your website that is optimized to meet your patients’ needs and search habits) are an important part of doing business in the healthcare field. Therefore, this topic should be on any healthcare marketer’s radar screen. But the simple fact that your health system has an online physician directory doesn’t mean it’s maximizing its full potential. In fact, often the directory falls short of its goals. Not all Find-a-Doctor tools are created equal. And many organizations don’t realize just how crucial they are for growth, or how important they are to your overall marketing strategy. After all, if patients aren’t finding the clinicians they want quickly and easily, they may go to your competitor who offers an easier-to-use and more advanced online physician search tool.

For many organizations, a directory is built, then ultimately ignored, except to add new providers or locations. This is a huge mistake. Here we will explore why and how your physician directory must tie closely to your organizational goals. Next month, in Part 2, we’ll delve into how to make sure you’re making the most of your efforts in this area, and explore examples of successful strategy tied to successful implementation.

Why Find-a-Doctor Tools Matter

Odds are that your Find-a-Doctor page is the second-most-trafficked part of your website, after the careers page. So why wouldn’t you put extensive energy into building it out as much as possible? Do you think Amazon thinks about the search and buying process on its site? No need to answer that.

Starting with Strategy

If you think of your Find-a-Doctor tool as just another widget on your website or simply a sleek interface on top of a database, you’re not fully tapping into its incredible potential.

Putting real thought into setting strategic goals for what you want out of it will not only set you up for success, but will also demonstrate to leadership that your digital strategy investments are worth it.