Do you want more freedom & profit in your practice? Then you need to create systems that make your practice run without your constant supervision! A “system” is just a planned way of doing things. And one of the most important systems that you need in your practice is a medical marketing system that automatically fills your schedule with patient visits every single week.
In this blog, we interview Chris Hicks, PT and Ali Martinez of Foundation Therapy in Bridgeport, Texas, on how creating systems in their practice has led to more freedom, profit, and joy.
Chris Hicks, PT and Ali Martinez
Practice Promotions Clients Since 2019
→ Practice Promotions has a proven, effective marketing system that has helped hundreds of clinic owners get more new patients, more freedom, and more profit in their practice.
Chris, as a business owner, you can’t possibly do everything yourself. What systems or processes have you built in your business?
The first things I turned over to Ali were scheduling and the phones. All processes start at the front desk! Over time, Ali built systems around the front desk.
- Front Desk Systems
- Be ready to answer questions about direct access and reactivations
- Always confirm the next visit
- Everybody is part of patient collections! Our job as therapists is to encourage every patient to check in and check out to give the front desk staff every opportunity they need to collect, schedule appointments, clarify insurance, etc
- Talking with patients at graduation visit about goals, progress, graduation photo, and then ask for a Google review.
- Marketing Systems. In 2019, Chris & Ali signed on with Practice Promotions as their marketing provider! Each month, Practice Promotions works to…
- Increase Foundation Therapy’s Google Rank with SEO services.
- Make sure their website remains healthy & converts visitors
- Get past patients back by designing a custom newsletter that is printed and mailed to all patients every month
Chris, what are the benefits to building systems in your practice?
- Systems Eliminate Surprises For Our Team
When we have systems, or a planned way of doing things, my staff knows what is expected of them. I hate surprises, and I don’t expect our staff to be any different!
When my teams knows my expectations, they know what to do. All that’s left is to let them feel empowered to make things happen. I expect people to make decisions, but I have to know that they have the right expectations set first.
This frees up my team to be more autonomous, also. I don’t have to be involved in everything, As the saying goes, “If I have to do it for you, then I don’t need you.”
- Systems Give Me Freedom As an Owner
When patients know what to expect, my staff has fewer surprises.
When I’m gone I can expect things to go well. When I am gone, I know I’m not coming back to problems, just questions to clarify.
- When Work Runs Itself, I Can Go Home and Be a Dad
Work/life balance is always my greatest hurdle to being in business for ourselves.
Without a doubt, it has become a family business, but going home is still the absolute best part of my day.
Thus, I want work to be able to run itself and come home and just be a husband and dad to the best of my ability. There are no do-overs with being a husband or parent.
- Systems Improve the Patient Experience
When our patients come to the practice for the first time, everything is organized. Patients know what to expect from us.
How do your medical marketing systems fit in with your overall clinic growth strategy?
Marketing has helped us keep a consistent branding strategy. Social media and newsletters are probably our biggest two priorities. Then the website is that constant source folks can go to. Practice Promotions helps us with all three.
Not everything needs to be a call to action. For example, our monthly mailed newsletters have informative or useful information. Let that content make connections on a personal level and community level.
Do you have any marketing wins to share?
Quick Stats
- Over the past 3 years, Foundation Therapy more than DOUBLED their number of reactivated patients! Our secret? Printing & mailing newsletters to past patients EACH month!
- They also had 1000 more patients in 2023 vs in 2020! That’s an increase of 19%!
- In 2023, they won the Bridgeport Business of the Year award!
- 107 Google Reviews – and they’re all 5-star reviews!
“The Newsletters Have Paid Off”
Chris: The newsletters, which you all help us with, gets us in front of patients. That was a big step for me, to say: okay, let’s do a printed newsletter! And it’s paid off. Now it’s kind of a no-brainer.
Those newsletters help us get out content about what’s happening in the clinic.
How do you measure if your medical marketing systems are working? Can you give an example?
Certain things are trackable, so we track them!
Practice Promotions has a “Stat Tracker” that has been so helpful in understanding our weekly, monthly, and year over year patient growth. Plus, on our monthly meetings Practice Promotions helps us track…
- New patient referrals,
- Graduations,
- Patient re-activations,
- Gross visits – not only weekly, but month and year over year.
On our own, we also track…
- Attendance Rates
- Accounts receivable
- Waitlist – we don’t have a formal ‘tracker’ for our wait list, but it’s been pretty consistently over 2-3 weeks since November of last year. Been up to 6wks several times. This may be the biggest number I’ve focused on when considering adding a therapist. We also use our EMR to help track the capacity of our schedule for the clinic and each therapist.
We increase accountability by having checklists and people reporting completion of their jobs. Our EMR helps quite a bit. It checks eligibility for visits and PN/POC trackers, even when I forget to send a fax.
How has your experience with Practice Promotions’ medical marketing systems and specialists been?
Word of mouth can only get you so far! We are in an area that is growing, but still considered rural.
Our plan: the Ultimate Marketing Plan, which includes…
- SEO services
- Patient-centered website design
- Practice Newsletters!
To Succeed, You Need to Work Alongside Practice Promotions’ Team
Practice Promotions Has Helped Us Grow Despite Competitors
We’ve had a PT clinic pop up 1 block away in the past couple months. We had a chiropractor open up (and already closed) right across the street. They were great folks that we were actually rooting for, but they just simply didn’t have enough traffic in the parking lot. A very solid competitor has opened up just 10 miles away (very close by our standards!) and they are trying to mimic things we used to do. As they say, “Imitation is the best form of flattery.”
But we have consistently grown through all of that. Marketing has to be a part of the solution to getting your brand in front of people, especially the ones who don’t know who you are.
How can YOU feel more free in 2024?
For 20 years, Practice Promotions has helped physical therapy & chiropractic clinic owners grow their practices with powerful marketing systems.
When you invest in Practice Promotions’ medical marketing system, you will have the freedom & profit in your practice.
Here are your next steps:
- Watch an instant video demo of our marketing system.
- Schedule a live demo.
- Join Practice Promotions & finally have a proven, marketing system that gives you freedom.
When you have a marketing system that automatically fills your schedules…
- You feel relieved
- Your team knows exactly what to do
- You control your clinic growth
When you invest in Practice Promotions’ marketing system, you will have the freedom & profit in your practice. You will finally run the clinic you always dreamed of.