April 21, 2021 | Net Health

3 Minute Read

7 Rules of Reputation Management for Physical Therapy Marketing

Being great at your job used to be enough to drive new business through the door. However, as big data and online information accessibility continue to reshape the physical therapy market, things are changing. Now, your online reputation is more important than ever and is a direct factor in how successful your team is at acquiring new patients.

And like with many changes, this creates opportunities. By understanding how to manage your online reputation effectively, you can set your practice apart from the competition and capitalize on the chance to be the clear frontrunner for quality service in your area.

Here are seven rules to help you establish or improve your online reputation.

1. No News is Not Good News

Much like a credit score, not having an online reputation isn’t a great thing. It’s not like the teachers in school who started you off with an ‘A’ that was yours to lose. Having no online reputation can be just as limiting to your physical therapy clinic’s marketing success as having a bad reputation.

2. Effective Benchmarking Begins with a Clear Starting Line

The process of effectively managing your reputation starts with understanding where you’re at. Do you have any reputation or reviews? If you do, are they overly positive or negative? How many review platforms or social media channels do you have a positive presence on?

Once you better understand these things, you can develop a plan forward and accurately benchmark the successes of your future changes.

If you’d like to get started now, we’d encourage you to take our free marketing and reputation audit now. The audit looks at over 80 online directories and reviews sites to give you a clearer picture of your current online reputation.

3. Timeliness Delivers Results

Driving more positive reviews relies heavily on your ability to reach your patients in a timely manner after their positive experience. Not only does this help to increase your response rate, but it helps to shield your reviews and reputation against things outside of your control like insurance issues, billing problems, or troubles with other providers. By leveraging automation and system integrations, you can strike while the iron is hot.

4. Focus on Accessibility

Make sure your communication channels are ones that are easily accessible and convenient for your patients. Remember, when someone is leaving a review, they’re going out of their way to do you a favor. It’s our job to make this as easy as possible out of courtesy but also to drive a higher response rate.

5. Spread the Love

There are literally hundreds of online review platforms and social media channels where patients may go to get an idea of the quality of your service. While you shouldn’t spread yourself too thin trying to be everything everywhere, you do want to spread the love around as much as possible. The good news is that building an online reputation in the outpatient rehab therapy setting is an ongoing process and isn’t something you have to complete on day one.

6. Monitor Your Review Response Rate

It’s important you’re aware of how many patients you’re asking for a review and how many are following through with giving you one. If the rate is abnormally low or suddenly changes, it’s something to investigate. Often, issues here can be a result of a lack of timeliness, challenges with accessibility, or how much you’re asking for from your patients.

7. Leverage the Patients with the Best Experiences

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with focusing on getting reviews from patients who had positive experiences. Identify which of your patients are having the most success and may be the most open to leaving a positive review. By focusing your efforts on these people, you can really move the needle.

Taking the Right First Step

When you start to realize just how important reputation and reviews are to the outpatient rehab therapy setting and just how much goes into managing how the digital world sees you, it can be a bit overwhelming. Thankfully, it’s not a process you have to endure on your own. In the past, reputation management companies have attempted to help the physical therapy market with surface-level, band-aid-type solutions that don’t integrate effectively into the process.

Recently, this all changed. Net Health’s Digital Marketing Solutions’ reputation management product, Net Health Trust, now directly integrates with the Net Health Therapy EHR solution through a high-tech API feed. The integration allows you to identify patients with positive experiences, reach them much quicker with a user-friendly, automated review request, and, ultimately, drive your reputation through the roof.

If you’re ready to explore using healthcare analytics and laser-focused integrations to turbocharge your reputation and drive more business, we’d invite you to schedule a demo today.

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