The Often-Forgotten Five-Minute Rule for Every Physician Practice

February 22nd, 2012 HealthcareSuccess

If you live and work with the hints and helps in short maxims, there are dozens of “five-minute rules” to guide you in everything from computer science to digital discourse. Some of these “rules” are informal at best.

In computer science, the five-minute random rule says to cache randomly accessed disk pages that are re-used every five minutes. (If you don’t know what that means, you don’t need it). In college, if the professor isn’t present five minutes (or is it ten?) after the start time, the class may leave. Or, there’s the guideline that says you can sneak away from work five minutes after the boss has gone. Read more »

The One Thing That Apple Can’t Include Inside the Product Package

February 20th, 2012 HealthcareSuccess

If your healthcare marketing materials were as easily created and remarkably beautiful as an Apple product demonstration, you would never need professional design or writing services again. Ever.

Apple’s advertising is powerfully compelling. Creative materials—books, photos, videos—appear intuitively simple to do, and some people are mesmerized into believing that do-it-yourself (DIY) is a short cut to success. But tragically, D-I-Y usually spells disaster. Read more »

Physician Salaries Endangered in Some Hospital-Owned Practices

February 17th, 2012 HealthcareSuccess

In many hospital-owned practices, physician salaries are endangered when productivity and net collections drop. Sadly, it’s a common and documentable by-product of the ongoing shift from privately owned practices to hospital-owned practices. It turns out that in many instances, if you sell your practice to a hospital, your income may go down.

The causes behind this disturbing outcome—and how to correct the problems—are examined in an insightful article by George Conomikes published on MedScape: Why Income May Drop if You Sell Your Practice to a Hospital: Why Profits May Plummet After Sale to a Hospital. Read more »

Should You Apologize for Marketing Healthcare Services?

February 15th, 2012 HealthcareSuccess

 Do you need to apologize for marketing your healthcare services? We’d like to hear from you about the controversial questions raised in last week’s USA Today article about some of the marketing methods used in healthcare. (The primary focus of this piece is hospital marketing, but the implications extend to private practices, health systems and providers in nearly every category.)

The article, titled Hospitals Use Patient Data to Tailor Marketing to Customers, raises the question: Is there something inherently inappropriate about healthcare marketing and, in particular, the use of data mining. Let us know what you think. Read more »

Healthcare Branding: That Was Then. This Is Now.

February 13th, 2012 HealthcareSuccess

There’s been a dramatic increase in the need for healthcare branding. In fact, we’d have to call it a huge rise in doctor branding, physician branding and hospital branding—all propelled by various factors in the marketplace.

Broadly speaking, we’d put the change-agents under the umbrella label of “healthcare reform.” And three of these forces—empowered patients, growing competition and insurance relationships—are at the top of the list. Read more »

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