In order to file for their IPO, Facebook had to disclose quite a bit of information about their business. The rumors were finally laid to rest about how much money Facebook really makes – over $3.7B in revenue last year, giving them a nice $1B in profit. They also disclosed that they now have over 845M active users. A quick look at their site shows over 155M of these users are in the U.S., meaning that around half of the U.S. population is using Facebook. And they’re not just using it to play games. They’re using it to share.

Along with the 250M photos uploaded daily, patients are making 2.7B comments every day. A chunk of these comments are in the form of recommendations to their friends & family. Facebook, being the bright people they are, realized the potential for this and recently took steps to increase these word-of-mouth referrals being made online. They’ve changed how practices display referrals on their own pages and they’ve launched social apps to drive more patient-to-patient referrals. And, they’re just getting started; because raising as much as $10B from their upcoming IPO will rapidly move them along to becoming the place for online referrals.

Want to be part of the largest patient referral network on Facebook?  Claim your free DoctorBase profile and have the Panda automate your word-of-mouth referrals to new patients on Facebook at:

http://doctor.DoctorBase.com/claim

Sadly, a decade-and-a-half later, many healthcare providers have forgotten what this means with regard to their own patient data. Understandably, as the Privacy & Security Rules have been the most relevant aspects of HIPAA for most practices, the safekeeping of your patients’ Protected Health Information (PHI) has become the number one priority for most doctors. Because of  the narrow focus on safeguarding PHI, we’ve seen EHR & practice management software vendors preying on this in order to keep doctors locked out of accessing their very own patients’ records under the false auspices of “HIPAA security.”

Let us be clear – we know patient privacy is of the utmost importance. (It’s why we were the first website to provide doctor profiles that allowed patients to submit questions to their doctors through an encrypted form.) Unfortunately, when a vendor tells you you’re not allowed to access your own patients’ data because it will violate HIPAA, they themselves are the ones violating HIPAA! Securing your patients’ PHI should be a priority for your practice, but it doesn’t give your vendors the right to lock out of your own patients’ information.

Want a HIPAA-compliant service for your practice? Claim your free DoctorBase profile and learn how the Panda gets you new patients while keeping their info secure at:

http://doctor.DoctorBase.com/claim

The good thing about timeline is that it was developed to not only give a chronological baseline to your patients’ life on Facebook, but also to make it more seamless to share when & what they do with their friends. This opens up an even stronger platform for genuine word-of-mouth referrals within the Facebook ecosystem. With the introduction of new apps for timeline earlier this month, it’s becoming quite clear that Facebook is committed to leveraging their platform to become the go-to place for referrals on the web. And, with rumors of them filing the paperwork for their upcoming IPO as early as next week, it will be interesting to see if they can use this money to fight off the competition to dominate the online referral space.

Want a head start on bringing in new patients from Facebook? Claim your free DoctorBase profile and have the Panda get your patients to create word-of-mouth referrals for your practice on Facebook at:

http://doctor.DoctorBase.com/claim

That’s not to say that el Goog isn’t also pushing Google+ directly to users. Anybody who watched any (heartbreaking) football this past weekend saw the TV ads for Google+. This is in addition to the full ad campaign they launched for Gmail last year. But, it appears that they’ve confirmed how they believe they can compete with Facebook in the social-networking space – buy weaving Google+ very tightly into everything else they already do so very well.

Want stars woven into your Google listings? Claim your free DoctorBase profile to have the Panda display stars in Google’s search results for your name at:

http://doctor.DoctorBase.com/claim

We commented last October on how Facebook removed the ‘review’ tab from their business pages; and these new social apps are another step away from businesses doing their own self-promotion. We’ve also maintained for years that the best marketing is done by your patients – not by yourself on your own page that few potential new patients will ever see. While it’s still a valuable branding resource to have a Facebook page for your business, the best way to actively reach new patients is to have your existing patients telling their friends about you. And, as it becomes easier to share online with more sites integrating with Facebook, the simpler it becomes for your patients to make these genuine word-of-mouth referrals online.

This latest move by Facebook to enable even more users to seamlessly make realtime recommendations keeps forging ahead with what we’ve been preaching for years – have your patients do the work of referring their friends on Facebook, just like in the real word. We’re happy to see that Facebook themselves are also committed to this far more effective & efficient approach to increasing your word-of-mouth referrals.

Want your patients to refer you to their friends on Facebook? Claim your free DoctorBase profile to and the Panda will give your practice the referral-power of a social app at:

http://doctor.DoctorBase.com/claim

As insurance companies continue to increase premiums and the number of procedures they deem as “elective,” patients are electing to bypass their insurance providers and simply use Groupons instead.  For example, a LASIK surgeon may charge $5,000 to perform the procedure on 2 eyes.  A patient with an insurance plan that deems this an elective procedure and only covers 20%, along with an high annual deductible of $4,000, will end up paying $4,000 for the procedure.  With a Groupon (which average around a 50% discount), a patient can have the procedure done for $2,500 – a $1,500 savings.

As we’ve mentioned before, there are still a number of issues that are still being sorted out with regard to the legal ramifications of offering these deals.  And, I think it’s safe to say that most of us hope a true solution to our current state of affairs involves a bit more than just Internet coupons.  But, when practices are bringing in new patients and patients are saving money, it’s at least a start.

Thinking about trying a Groupon for your practice?  Claim your free DoctorBase profile to have the Panda give you the online reviews necessary to qualify your practice for a daily deal at:

http://doctor.DoctorBase.com/claim

With Search+, patients will see a search results page that looks like:

As you can see, this personalized content doctors a huge advantage to taking control of how a search for their own name is displayed on Google.  By being able to have your own content as the top results displayed, you’ll be able to deprecate any 3rd party websites that have been using your name to advertise for your competition.  (This is also why many of those other sites are crying foul and using words like “antitrust.“)

There are a few catches though.  In order for your results to show up in a patient’s personal search results, you’ll need to be connected to them.  (This is another one of those brilliant backdoors we’ve mentioned before that Google has devised to gain users to catch up in the social networking space.)  And, currently, the patient has to opt to turn on Search+ by clicking a button on the search page.  (Which we imagine will be one of Google’s arguments against the antitrust accusations.)

Patients are already researching healthcare online.  More than 2/3 of that research starting on a search engine like Google – which itself owns around a  2/3 share of the search market.  As everything online becomes more social, and as patients continue to look for advice from people they know & trust, Search+ has the potential to make online search an even more effective channel to reach patients.

Want some shiny stars to go with your Search+ results?  Claim your free DoctorBase profile and learn how the Panda gets your star ratings displayed in Google Search+ results at:

http://doctor.DoctorBase.com/claim

Once doctors get past their initial aversion to “competing for patients,” an equally overwhelming reaction arises as doctors start feeling like their survival now requires an MBA in addition to all the years of medical/dental school they’ve already completed.  Fortunately, during the same time that competition has grown in the healthcare space, there’s also been growth in the number of services available to small & medium business (SMB) space.

Here’s where the opportunity awaits the savvy practice owner.  Although declining, around half of all doctors in the US still work in a private practice.  Over 99% of all employers in the US are SMBs.  While there are some excellent services out there dedicated to growing a private practice, there are hundreds of services popping up each month that are dedicated to growing SMBs. Once you start running your practice as an SMB, you’ll be able to tap into the ocean of innovative services that have been built with the sole purpose of bringing more consumers patients into your business practice.

We understand this is can be a tough pill to swallow.  (Horrible pun intended.)  Most of you made the decision to become a doctor in order to help people – not to manage a bottom line on a balance sheet.  For that we’re grateful.  Fortunately, with the help of services that simplify the business part of your practice, you’ll be able to continue to help those in your community for many years to come.

Want to spend less time on practice management?  Claim your free DoctorBase profile and learn how the Panda automates new patient generation for your practice at:

http://doctor.DoctorBase.com/claim

Now, this isn’t the flashiest infographic on the web, but the subtle difference between the two graphs is a big one.  The straight-line graph showing the growth of voice calls is linear, meaning that with each new practice that joins DoctorBase, the number of phone calls they get from patients stays about the same.  The curved-line graph showing the growth of texts & emails, however, is becoming exponential.  This shows the trend that an increasing number of patients are opting to contact their doctor via email or text message.

It makes sense – most patients contact their doctors during regular business hours from their own workplace.  It’s far less disruptive to send a quick text or email than it is to make coworkers listen to a one-sided conversation with a doctor’s office.  Plus, the convenience of being able to take care of everything on their own schedule (instead of a horrible game of phone tag with each other’s voice mail) is a benefit that patients are starting to expect from their doctors.  While it seems like common sense, our inner-geeks here at DoctorBase are elated to see the metrics are backing this up.

Want to give patients the option to contact you via text?  Claim your free DoctorBase profile and learn how the Panda automates HIPAA-secure patient communication via email & text message at:

http://doctor.DoctorBase.com/claim

Note: The ad copy (text) repeats the search phrase

Google only really gets paid when someone clicks the ad, so they will reward ads with higher click-through rate; in other words if you ad appears 100 times and 5 people click on your ad (and your competition has less for the same exposure), then Google will reward you with higher ranking in your ad location. This is why the ad copy is important, what the ad says will inspire more or less people to click it. It is found that repeating the search term in the ad is best practice for this. In other words, if you are paying for “orange county rhinoplasty”, the term “orange county rhinoplasty” should appear in the ad copy. The basic psychology is that it affirms with the searching patient that they have “found exactly what they are looking for”.

Back to the point that this is like a Stock market; Terms like “Los Angeles Dentist” will be expensive but other terms such as “Los Angeles dentist delta dental” would not be and if you only accept delta dental insurance, that might be better traffic for you since patients who other insurance you don’t accept might be wasted visitors anyway. Longer search terms are less searched but tend to be better traffic since they tend to be more focused on what they want. Being found on a large portion of longer search terms can be more cost effective than a few shorter searches. Once the potential patient clicks through on your ad, now you face the next hurdle in getting efficiency out of your ad campaign. Where do you send them? Beginners in this arena will send to the front page of the practice website, not a good idea. The most ideal page to send them (for the ad for “Orange county rhinoplasty”) to is a page designed to sell rhinoplasty to people in orange county. There are a couple of reasons for this;

1. The person came looking for rhinoplasty specifically, if you make them search your site for that information you lose a certain amount to that activity alone thereby reducing your efficiency. Every time you make a visitor click another page, you lose some so why make them work by giving an extra step?

2. All good web marketing directs a person to what is commonly called a “landing page”. Any amazon product page is a perfect example of this, it is designed to capture the visitor on the specific inquiry they had and get them to buy. Similarly, the eager plastic surgeon  should direct his paid traffic on rhinoplasty inquiries to a page detailing his or her offices strong points on Rhinoplasty and make it easy for the patient to reach for an appointment. Sending them to a page that merely educates “what is rhinoplasty” is a waste … they are already looking for rhinoplasty, they do not need to be told what it is. What they do need to be told is about your experience, education, reviews, technology etc.

Did we mention that doctorbase profile pages are superb landing pages? Click the image if you want yours for free.