Understanding the healthcare consumer journey map is crucial for attracting and retaining patients for your practice. In today's competitive healthcare landscape, patient journey mapping is a valuable tool that can help you enhance patient experiences, optimize marketing strategies, and improve financial outcomes.
Not grasping the healthcare consumer journey map can lead to costly errors that could hinder a practice's profitability.
Patient journey mapping tracks every step of patients' experiences, from their first Google search to their fifth follow-up visit. It gives you a visual of your patients' decision-making process, identifies patient touchpoints (such as website visits, phone calls, or post-appointment reviews), and uncovers gaps in your services.
Creating a healthcare consumer journey map for your patients allows you to evaluate if you're developing your services around their needs or your comfort zone.
A clear picture of your patient acquisition cost (PAC) is often the difference between private practices that thrive and those that barely survive. Many clinics waste their budgets on ads targeting "ideal patients" that are so rare they're almost fictional.
For example, a physician or medical office administrator who doesn't understand the importance of patient customer journey mapping could spend about $100,000 yearly on services like Google Ads only to acquire ten patients who need a $1,000 procedure in one go. That's not a sustainable business model with a patient acquisition cost of $10,000. These financial projections equate to a $9,000 loss per patient acquired who is willing to receive this $1,000 procedure despite the allure of a thousand bucks from a single visit.
Meanwhile, the clinic's competitor spends $36,000 annually on SEO services that bring in over 300 patients during the same period, earning as much as $360,000 yearly. The competitor charges about $150 per quarterly visit, with the average patient coming in four times. The clinic's PAC would be $120 per patient, so the practice earns a profit after each patient's first visit. The moral of this scenario is that lifetime value is greater than short-term cash grabs.
Prioritize long-term marketing strategies like SEO. SEO offers better ROI in general in these cases, and a long-term marketing strategy allows you to better understand consumer behavior related to your field, which is crucial for understanding your patients.
One example would be our article on what spinal taps test for. From patient experience information, we know that many patients are sent unnecessarily for lumbar punctures by neurology when a less-invasive approach could have been used first.
These patients often do not receive education on risks and are wary before the procedure, so they turn to Google. Articles typically begin ranking for multiple keywords, allowing you to see the many questions patients are typing into Google concerning this topic.
Why am I being sent for this? What are the risks? What is the purpose of a spinal tap? How dangerous is it? Are there alternatives? This insight allows you to better tailor your SEO in your medical blog articles and cover these questions in your social media strategy.
There are articles on the growing lumbar puncture market, which has significant projected future growth. The market is characterized by the rise of lumbar punctures performed primarily by radiologists and the increased number of complications when radiology performs the procedure.
Anesthesiologists commonly tell us about their concerns with radiology causing patient injuries that anesthesiology must fix due to the known fact verified in research that radiology does not opt for the correct needle type and size that would minimize the impact of a spinal leak from the dural puncture.
In one review of neuroradiologist compliance to best practices, research found that 47% do not wear a face mask as is best practice with an open connection to CSF and potential introduction of bacteria and that 91% of radiologists use the Quincke cutting needle by default despite the research showing that non-cutting needles are superior for reducing headache likelihood after a puncture.
Considering that the online publication Radiology Business describes lumbar puncture administration as a market that radiologists can benefit from “with more opportunity on the horizon” and the fact that research has shown that the majority of iatrogenic spinal leaks are not self-limiting, this is yet another customer segment of patients in need that anesthesiologists can expect who want to specialize in spinal CSF leak care.
Some of the benefits of mapping your patients' experiences include:
Provides answers to questions like "Why do patients no-show for appointments?"
Patient no-shows can be just as costly as they are annoying. A healthcare journey analytics tool could provide insights into why some patients don't bother letting you know they won't be showing up for appointments. It could be due to reasons as simple as your booking system being more complicated than trying to solve a Rubik's Cube.
Clinics can often reduce no-show rates by making simple changes, such as sending automated reminders or creating online scheduling systems that make booking, rescheduling, or canceling appointments easy.
Helps to design a patient experience journey that works for your clinic
Patients aren't looking for transactions; they want relationships with their physicians. Use patient satisfaction metrics to gauge what your patients value. Patients might be interested in telehealth options, short wait times, or getting quick responses to any questions they have.
Leads to more effective marketing strategies
Instead of burning your marketing budget on ads for unicorn patients, use healthcare consumer insights to target underserved markets. Use tools like search engine optimization and social media to build trust slowly. Publish educational content that showcases your expertise while providing patients with helpful information that improves their lives.
Ready for some math? Calculating patient acquisition costs is straightforward. Simply divide your total marketing spend by the number of new patients acquired.
If you spend $50,000 on marketing and gain 500 patients, your PAC is $100. Compare that to the lifetime value (LTV) each patient brings. If each patient brings in $1,500 over the next few years, you've earned $750,000 from your marketing campaign.
A healthcare consumer journey map is the blueprint for practices that thrive financially and ethically. You'll reduce no-shows, boost patient retention, and stop hemorrhaging cash on ineffective ads by focusing on what patients want.
Ready to turn your patients into lifelong clients? Start focusing on how your patients experience your practice to ensure you're meeting their needs.
Don't let your practice become a cautionary tale. Contact us to explore our medical SEO packages and create a patient journey that will keep patients returning.