3 Ways to Convert Prospects to Patients

Imagine standing in front of an audience of hundreds of potential patients. What would you say to them? How would you explain that you’re uniquely positioned to help them? 

As every successful public speaker knows, first speak in terms of your audience’s needs. Start with what they want. 

Yet this simple principle is often ignored when the situation is taken out of the auditorium and happens online.  

You may have hundreds of people a week visiting your website, more than will ever walk through your office door or call your phone. What are they looking for? What happens if they can’t find the answers to their questions?

Luckily, some of them will call anyway to get answers and schedule a consult or appointment.

But most of them? They’re gone. Potential patients that you could have helped. Not because they got to your site and changed their minds, but because they made it to your site and couldn’t easily find what they wanted. 

When it comes to elective healthcare, one of the top three questions asked by patients is “How much is it going to cost, and how can I pay for it?” While safety and outcomes are important, like it or not, cost is also a deciding factor for patients considering elective healthcare. 

So how can you help? It’s easy. Make it easy for patients to find the answers to their “cost” questions.

1 - Make Your Financing/ Affordability Page Prominent 

When categorizing navigation tabs, many practices choose to place their financing page under “Patient Tools” or “Practice Resources”. This makes sense from an organizational perspective. However, according to research shared with ALPHAEON CREDIT from numerous offices across all medical specialties, the most visited web pages on a practice’s website are (in order):

1. Homepage 

2. About the Doctor(s)

3. Financing / Affordability

If your financing / affordability page is hidden in a drop-down, making your patients play hide-and-seek for one of your most popular pages can be a frustrating experience. The best solution is to prominently display your financing / affordability page as its own navigation tab on your home page. In addition, by addressing that cost is a concern upfront, you may find patients choose your practice over another.

““Practices that understand the value of promoting financing to their prospects often see the financing page hit more frequently. It’s interesting because even if the patient may not finance the procedure, the fact that it was in the messaging is often what helps them feel confident that they can take the first step....Fear and price are usually the two reasons people do not move forward so financing is a great way to help eliminate the cost/price issue.””

— Jonna Kieler, CEO of Fast Track Marketing

Manrique Custom Vision’s website is a perfect example of promoting financing well. They have financing as one of their top navigation tabs on their homepage. By placing this tab on their homepage, they are proactively addressing any cost concerns of potential patients.

You may be saying to yourself that your patients don’t need financing, as they typically can pay out-of-pocket. That may be true, but in saying that, you are making two distinct logical fallacies:

Survivorship Bias - Also called “Dead men tell no tales” or “You have not, because you ask not.” In short, you do not see the missed opportunities from people who chose another provider because you have not offered financing. Perhaps many otherwise perfect patients who didn’t schedule just needed a little help paying for their procedures. 

False Dilemma - Also called “All-or-nothing fallacy” or “Only a Sith deals in absolutes.” By not highlighting financing, people who might otherwise be inclined don’t take advantage of it. Just because you have the means to pay out of pocket, doesn’t mean that’s always the best choice. People finance for  reasons, including creative budgeting, spreading out the cost over months to improve their credit history, or just getting the procedure slightly sooner than they might otherwise. 

Money Under 30 listed three times when it makes sense to pay using credit rather than cash including when deferred interest and low APR options are presented. As you know these examples are similar to patient financing promotional plans.

Plus, you never know when someone who isn’t interested in financing will tell a prospective patient that would be interested in financing. The more patients you tell, the faster the word will spread that the procedure or treatment they are considering is not out of anyone’s reach.

2 - Guide Patients Toward the Option You Want

There’s a term in psychology called “paralysis by analysis.” The term refers to the fact that when presented with choices, especially choices that aren’t especially clear, a portion of people will freeze.

The phrase may be relatively new, but the idea is ancient. In one of Aesop’s fables, a Fox boasts to a Cat that he is nimbler than the Cat. He’ll never be caught, the Fox says, because he has a hundred different ways to escape. The Cat admits that she has only one: she can climb a tree. When the Hunter comes, the Cat scurries up a tree, her only defense, while the Fox stops to deliberate about the many ways he could escape, and consequently is caught by the Hunter. Especially when you’re presenting information online, where a patient has hundreds of potential distractions, asking them to make an uninformed choice can be deadly for holding their interest. 

This doesn’t mean you don’t mention other options at all, but clearly guide patients toward your preferred patient financing provider (which we hope is the one with the stronger approval rates and superior credit limits). Your engagement rate will increase as potential patients are no longer saddled with the emotional frustration of trying to make a decision based on nothing more than which colored logo they prefer.

Maybe you feel like you’re being too meddlesome in pushing a decision on a future patient? That’s understandable. No one likes to feel like they’re being forced into something. But consider this: one of the strategies Behavioral Science in the 21st Century uses for avoiding analysis paralysis, is to choose a trusted recommendation. 

And who knows the best choice better than you? A patient may go through the process of medical financing once or twice in their lives. Your office might process dozens of patient payments a week. You are the trusted expert here, and patients appreciate hearing your recommendation. 

3 - Call Patients to a (Simple) Action

Now it’s time to ask them to take the next step: do you want them to set up an appointment with you, or do you want them to walk in with financing in hand? 

Obviously, it’s easier if everyone already has financing. It saves you time and means you’re already speaking with potential patients who can afford the procedure. In fact, that’s the path taken by many plastic surgery and dental offices.

On the other hand, it might make more sense for your practice to talk through the financing question at their first consultation. This is the route taken by many of our ophthalmology and dermatology offices. They recognize that there is value in guiding the patient through their financing in person, and applying for them in the office.

““It’s all about creating the relationship and providing a great experience for our patients.” “We walk them through the process of applying to show them how affordable the procedures we offer can be without any intimidating guesswork on their part.””

— Ryan Walsh, Practice Administrator at Travers Lasik Vision Care.

Neither is right or wrong; it’s all a matter of what you want for your patients and team. 

Regardless, it’s time to ask for something. It’s time to turn interest into action. Either “Apply Now” if you want them to apply before coming in or “Call Us for Your Free Consult” if you want to guide them through your preferred patient financing vendor. 

By asking them to take action, you’re testing them to see if they are interested in moving forward, but also laying out a specific next step. 

On a website, a call-to-action button maybe your best attention-grabber. Wordstream recommends using buttons that are “large and legible”, feature “action packed“ text like “Apply” or “Call”, and are colorful enough that they stand-out from the rest of the website.

In Summary

Moving people from invisible website visitors to patients is a challenge, but one that can be made easier by laying out a specific path. Navigating from the homepage, to the doctor’s bio, to your financing options, to a call to action, makes the most sense. 

Take a moment to look at your website and pretend to view it for the first time. Can you easily find those steps? Can you move through the process? Is there a clear “Call to Action” at the end?

If not, it might be time to reevaluate. Luckily, it might not even require a full site redesign. Simplifying your top menu and adding a contact form at the bottom of key pages might be enough to see a bump in website engagement. 

The next time you redesign your site, keep these principles in mind, and you’ll be doing a better job of taking the “potential” off of “potential patients.”

3 Things You CAN'T Say to a Patient

You’re familiar with the restrictions placed on medical professionals by HIPAA and other laws regarding patient privacy. After all, patients need to feel secure, trusting that practices can be counted upon for their confidence and discretion. Doctors who value doctor-patient confidentiality take many steps to make sure their teams comply with all the legal and ethical safeguards.

But what practices can or cannot say to the patients are sometimes overlooked. This is especially true regarding financial transactions, where laws and statutes never written for medicine, still apply. It’s in your best interest to occasionally review your discussions with patients to ensure you are fully compliant with all pertinent regulations.

At ALPHAEON CREDIT, we know that the logic of financial regulations can often feel worlds apart from a practice’s goal of helping patients. So to help clarify, we’ve compiled a list of the top three things that you can’t say to a patient.

You can’t say “No Interest” or “0% Financing”

Well, you can, but only when you follow with additional information about potential charges.

WHY NOT?

Over 50 years ago, Congress passed the Truth in Lending Act (TILA). Included in this act was a provision called Regulation Z. Regulation Z requires that lenders disclose the interest rate and certain fees when you apply for a loan and at regular intervals after. ALPHAEON CREDIT and our financial partners inform patients at those regular intervals as required by the law, but when discussing financing with a patient, they need to understand what they’re agreeing to.

The act has been modified and expanded since the 1960s, including a 1988 change that specifically focused on credit cards.

Regulation Z considers “no interest” or “0% financing” to be a “trigger term.” A “triggering term” is a phrase that must automatically “trigger” further disclosures.

According to the guidelines published by consumerfinance.gov, “If the phrase ‘no interest’ or similar term regarding the possible avoidance of interest obligations is stated, the term ‘if paid in full’ must also be stated in a clear and conspicuous manner preceding the disclosure of the deferred interest period.” It is especially important that all printed and marketing materials communicate this clearly. Always offer a brochure with financing information to your customers, this will help them evaluate their options. If you apply on their behalf, you will also need to provide them a credit card agreement form as well.

When discussing Deferred Interest Payment Plans, it must be clear to the patient if they fail to make their payments and pay off the balance within the promotional period, they will be charged interest for the entire purchase amount. The patient needs to understand that not paying their promotional plan balance in the required time may cost him or her additional hundreds or thousands of dollars.

WHAT CAN I SAY?

Instead of “We offer no interest plans,” you may consider saying, “We offer 12-months no interest financing if paid in full within 12 months. If the entire purchase amount is not paid within the 12 month period, you will be charged retroactive interest back from the date of purchase, which often can amount to hundreds or thousands of dollars.”

This is for verbal conversations. If you promote deferred interest payment plans in print or online, you must include additional disclosures.

Sometimes, practices are worried that these disclosures are going to scare off potential patients from choosing to finance. However, we believe disclosures (besides being required by law) create trust by empowering patients to make educated choices regarding financing options.

You can’t say, “We offer financing, and charge a small fee if you use it.”

As a matter of fact, you can’t charge a fee for financing at all.

WHY NOT?

Well, remember TILA? According to the way that law was written, adding a fee for “no interest” or a program with a fixed APR changes the offer. That additional fee can be viewed as additional interest charged. And in order to charge for it, you’d have to disclose it as part of the calculated Annual Percentage Rate (APR).

At that time, the government was trying to crack down on some shady financing offered, specifically from the car sales industry.

WHAT CAN I SAY?

“We offer financing to all patients, however if you’re interested in paying in cash, we do offer a cash discount”.

When the cost of offering financing is a concern for a practice, we recommend you build the price of financing into the cost of the procedure, and then offer a cash discount.

We’ve written about this before. This is something we encourage all practices to implement because it’s a great way to cover your costs, while still remaining in compliance with the law.

We even offer a Cash Discount Calculator so you’ll know exactly how much to add into your procedure cost and how much you can reward your cash-paying patients.

You can’t ask “What does your Credit Score Look Like?”

You may think you’re helping patients by guiding them to the best financing options, but you might be breaking the law.

WHY NOT?

The Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA) guarantees that all applicants have access to the same lending opportunities. At first glance, it looks like you’re helping guide them to the appropriate lender that will finance their procedure.

But here’s the problem: guiding patients to a different financial company based on what you perceive as their ability to pay, runs afoul of the law. Because the plans offered aren’t exactly the same, there might be differences in interest rates or terms. Even using something like their credit score could be seen as discrimination.

WHAT CAN I SAY?

“We encourage all of our patients to apply with ALPHAEON CREDIT. Approval is not contingent upon credit score alone; multiple variables are considered. We won’t know with any certainty until you apply. It only takes a minute or two to apply and we will receive a response instantly. Do you have time to apply right now?”

If you are offering multiple patient financing companies, we recommend leading with the company that offers the best chance of success from the beginning since patients are, understandably, reluctant to apply with another company once they have been declined once.

As Lisa Taylor, Vice President of Business Development at ALPHAEON CREDIT comments, “Offering financing to every patient is the easiest way you can help your patients. Even patients you think can easily afford to pay out of pocket, appreciate the flexibility of paying over time. By offering them ALPHAEON CREDIT, you’re offering a great option for those that need financing and those that simply want financing.” Ensuring that patients both understand and feel comfortable with their payment plan is essential to their overall feeling of satisfaction with their treatment.

You Want Customer Loyalty? Be Brilliant at the Basics

The following guest post is from John R. DiJulius, best-selling author, consultant, keynote speaker and President of The DiJulius Group, the leading Customer experience consulting firm in the nation. You can subscribe to his blog at www.thedijuliusgroup.com

Customer Bill of Rights – Burden of the Brand

World-class service companies have what I like to call a “Customer bill of rights” that every person in that organization clearly knows and follows 100 percent of the time. Would you ever expect to see a Disney cast member, in full uniform on break, chewing tobacco and spitting on the ground near the front entrance where guests are walking by? Doubtful. Or would you ever think a Ritz-Carlton employee, when asked for directions to the ballroom, would give a response like “I don’t know, I work in housekeeping”? Highly unlikely! One of the most effective ways to elevate your company’s Customer service level is by instituting your own Customer bill of rights.

If anyone is going to wear your uniform or name tag or represent your brand, you only need a small set (six to ten actions/standards) for your employees to live by. These nonnegotiable standards are also referred to as the “never and always” list. The critical importance is, if they do occur, you have to be confident enough that your employees recognize and understand your “never” and “always,” and you can be confident that your employees would “never” do this and “always” do that instead. If your company does nothing other than institute the “never and always” list and makes everyone aware of them, if your Customers rarely experience a “never” and consistently experience an “always,” then you are in the top 5 percent of Customer service organizations! As you read through the list, you will see that they are all simple and common sense, but the majority of businesses and frontline employees too often execute the “never” list and don’t consistently execute the “always” list.

In the examples shown, you will see that each one matches the following three criteria:
1. The items are typically one to three words in length.
2. They are black and white; there is no room for personal interpretation.
3. They are crystal clear and do not need any additional explanation.

Some things you wouldn’t see on a “never and always” list are things such as “Always be professional” or “Always return calls promptly.” Why? Because they are vague. What is professional to one is completely different to someone else. What is “promptly”? To one person it may be two hours; to another it may be two days. Let’s show some examples of a few good Never & Always:

Point versus Show

This is typically thought of in the hospitality business (e.g., showing someone to the restroom instead of pointing them there). However, in the business-to-business and call-center world, pointing happens all the time. For instance, it happens when we say things like “You can get that off our website” or “You need to call this person in this department.” Why are we making the Customer do the work? We can send them the link, and we can transfer them to the correct department.

Saying no versus focusing on what you can do

Eliminate the word no from your company’s vocabulary; no one should ever be allowed to use that word. You may not always be able to say yes, but offer alternatives and options and never allow anyone from your company to utter the word no. You will be amazed at how creative your team will get at satisfying Customers. I never want a Customer of mine to tell me that someone from my organization said no to him or her. To me that is the worst swear word you can use in front of a Customer.

While we cannot do everything our Customers request, we can always respond with what we can do. If someone asks if we can sell them something we don’t even sell, we can answer with “While we do not carry product X, what we do carry is product Z, and the reason we do carry product Z is because it is proven to be the best, longest lasting, healthiest, whatever.” By the time you are done explaining the benefits of product Z, that Customer should never want product X. If for some reason they still want product X, then you explain how and where
they can get product X.

“No problem” is a big problem

The biggest street-slang terms used in every business today are the responses “no problem” or “not a problem.” In fact, as a result of reading this right now, you will be shocked at how many times you will hear “no problem” over the next two days. Joe Schumacker wrote an excellent blog titled “No Problem, Big Problem” that articulates this point really well. “No problem” is a problem for two reasons. The first issue with saying “no problem” is that it consists of two negative words. We shouldn’t be using any negative words, let alone two back-to-back.

The second problem is that the “no problem” auto-response sends the message that what the Customer is asking of you is not a problem for you. However, when we are serving others, it is not about our convenience; it is about what the Customer wants. The phrase “no problem” places the staff member’s comfort ahead of service to the Customer. Customers want to feel that their interests are first and foremost in the mind of the staff member, not that they may have inconvenienced a staff member by being a Customer.

Excellent responses instead of “no problem” are “certainly,” “my pleasure,” “I would be happy to,” “consider it done,” and “absolutely.” Using “certainly” or “my pleasure” is so much more professional than the often heard “not a problem.” It elevates the professionalism of your employees’ terminology. It starts establishing a culture of hospitality where the Customer is first.

The following are great examples of “never” and “always” items that are a Never & Always from great companies that The DiJulius Group helped to create. Ideally, you only want a maximum of ten “nevers” and ten “always.”

Action Plan – Create a small set (6-12 actions/standards) that match the following criteria:
*    The standards are 1 – 3 words
*    Do not need any additional explanation
*    Not stage specific (i.e. do not apply towards phone, check in, check out, etc.)

Getting Dialed In

Have you ever launched a pay-per-click campaign and received emails and calls, but for some reason the conversion rate was lower than expected? If you answered yes, then there may be room for improvement in your team’s phone skills. I’ve noticed that even the most skilled front office associate sometimes tends to miss an email or forgets to ask for the patient’s name and phone number on a call. I know these actions seem rather simple, but you’d be surprised at how many times they’re overlooked. 

At least quarterly, practices should "mystery shop" their own practice, by calling and pretending to be a patient, to learn first-hand what their patients experience and to identify areas for improvement. You can use the following "Perfect Phone Call" checklist when evaluating your practice. 

The Perfect Phone Call

• Superior Communication Skills - Enunciation, tone of voice and demeanor reflects positively on the practice. 

• Takes the Lead - Who’s the expert here? The trained office associate, or the patient? Letting the patient lead the conversation may not be the best tactic. 

• Key Questions Asked - Asks the right questions: Name, phone number, how they heard about you, main concern, special event coming up, etc. 

• Credentialing - Every team member should have each provider’s CV down, backwards and forward. Why would the patient want to choose a certain practice if they don’t understand the value behind it? 

• Procedure and Product Knowledge Shared - When a patient is calling in with specific questions, sometimes they can only be answered in a consultation with the provider. However, each team member should have a good amount of knowledge about the products and services sold in the practice and know how to explain them in a way as to not provide medical advice and pricing.

• Books the Appointment - After the above steps are completed, booking the appointment should be a breeze, right? But how do we know they’ll show?

• Completes Follow Up - Personally emailing the patient to confirm before the end of the day is very important, as well as a confirmation phone call the day before the scheduled appointment. I’m sure this is happening most of the time, but what exactly is being emailed to these leads? Text message confirmations and automated emails are super convenient, but then the personalization is left adrift.

The checklist above is definitely something to consider when spending your marketing dollars into paid advertisements. Is your team ready? Do they know what campaign you just launched? How will you keep track of who may need training or a refresher course for phone etiquette?

About the Author: Lacy J. Banks is the owner and CEO of Aesthetic Practice Concepts providing phone and consultation trainings for board-certified plastic surgeons and their staff. If you’d like a complimentary assessment of your team’s phone skills please feel free to contact her at (760) 747-1111 or at lacy@apc.management. She’d love to hear from you.

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When Credit Limits Hurt Patients

When evaluating financing options for patients, most practices look for a company that will approve as many patients as possible, for as much as possible, and at the lowest rate to their practice. 

Often if patients receive credit limits high enough to cover the costs of the procedures, the practice and the patient are satisfied. Everyone wins - right? However, did you know that credit limits only covering the procedure costs may be hurting your patients?

A little background...

A patient's credit score is heavily influenced by their utilization ratios. This is calculated by comparing credit card balances to the actual credit limits. While the models vary by each credit reporting agency, most look at both the patient's usage of individual credit cards, as well as overall usage for all credit cards. Having one or multiple card balances  close to their limits or worse, maxed out, lowers the patient's credit score. In fact, credit card utilization ratios account for 30% of an individual's credit score. The only factor that is weighed more heavily is payment history. 

So, when a patient is only approved for the credit limits needed for a procedure, it may unknowingly, negatively impact one's credit score. 

In addition, patients who don't receive the credit limits needed to say "yes" often end up going to another provider who offers procedures for less. Or, they start compromising by selecting another procedure or service that is within their credit limit. 

While practices want to help patients with the procedures they desire or need, cost can get in the way. So what can be done?

The best course of action is to evaluate patient financing companies based upon average credit limits provided...most companies will tell you their average credit limit or even the average credit limit for your particular practice. By promoting the companies that provide the highest credit limits to begin with, patients will be in the best possible position from a credit utilization ratio. 

Want to learn more?

30% Credit Utilization Rule: Truth or Myth

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