As a health care provider, your website is a critical tool in the success of your practice. It can perform a variety of services. It can serve as an advertisement for your practice, spreading the word about the services you provide, demonstrating your expertise, and sharing other resources with patients and your wider community. It can also help with scheduling appointments, managing billing and payments, and granting patients access to their medical records.
Whether you already have a website up and running or are in the early stages of planning, you should think about how robust you want the site to be. There are dozens of free tools available to help you get a functional website up and running. However, if you are concerned about ADA and HIPAA compliance requirements, there are also many companies that can help review and/or develop a site that meets these standards.
Here are three tips to help you optimize your site and in doing so, build your practice. These tips will help make your website convenient not only for you, but also for your current and future patients.
Location, Location, Location
Just like in real estate, location is key, but in this case, it isn’t your office location. For your website, the first key is to prominently feature your location, contact information, and business hours. This might seem like common sense, but you just might be surprised how many practices make themselves difficult to find on their own website. If a patient must hunt and scroll to find you, they might move on to someone else.
If you have multiple office locations, consider utilizing a location finder on your homepage or add a link to your main navigation bar so it’s obvious to users that they need to find which location will serve them best. A couple of options for your location information include the top menu bar or the footer of every page.
Start With What’s Important
People searching for a practitioner want to know what services are provided immediately. As soon as they land on your homepage, they should see exactly what your specialty is and what services you can provide. If you want to go more in-depth, consider adding buttons for more detailed information. However, the more quickly patients understand what you do, the quicker they can decide if you are the one to meet their needs.
You can certainly go into more detail about your practice, your team, and your philosophy and even products you may sell, but putting what’s important first sets you up for success in getting people to go deeper and explore the rest of your site – and by extension, you and your practice.
FAQs and Patient Resources
Having a prominent Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) page clearly visible and with links to additional patient resources can be critical to your success in attracting patients. You might include questions like:
- What can I expect at my first appointment?
- Do you accept insurance? If so, what carriers do you accept?
- How do I pay my bill?
- What is your cancellation policy?
There are ways to include this information on specific pages of your website as well. For example, if you have a page dedicated to a specific type of procedure or a particular condition, add FAQs to the bottom of the page that address things like the cost, risk, length of the procedure, side effects of treatment, etc. Providing your patients and potential patients with this information can reduce repetitive or unnecessary inquiries. You also might consider including links to patient resources such as reputable articles about specific health conditions you treat.
Bonus Pro Tip
If your FAQs page is becoming unruly and difficult for patients to navigate, consider utilizing a chatbot to answer questions. You’ve probably seen these chatbots pop on sites you have visited. When you land on the homepage, a bot pops up in a corner of the page offering to answer questions. You can pre-populate your answers to common questions. This gives you the advantage of screening the questions before a prospective patient reaches out in person.
There are many other bells and whistles you can add to your site to make life more streamlined for you and your patients. These include allowing your patients to pay for services online, providing them access to records (as discussed earlier in this article), and allowing patients to see what times are available and book appointments online.
Remember, your patient experience starts with what they see on your website. Establishing a safe, secure, and clear website for your practice helps you offer a great user experience, improve your practice efficiency, and reach new clients in your community. A well-built site can help you build relationships with your patients and establish trust.
