Almost every practice has its numbers. Patient volume down, revenue down and reserves often too thin to hold on to the entire staff. COVID-19 has spread everything from sickness and death to fear and uncertainty and has resulted in hardship in all corners of the economy. Healthcare included.

A report from Medical Group Management Association 97 percent of practices have experienced a negative financial impact and on average they report a 55 percent decrease in revenue and 60 percent decrease in patient volume due to COVID-19.

Patient visits are, of course, the lifeblood of successful practices. But fear of exposure to the virus and uncertainty of what will happen in the process of going to a clinic or hospital, and in some cases policy limitation of service, is keeping patients at bay.

Now that we are seeing the economy reopen, albeit on rocky footing, getting patients back to the practice is slow going.  

“Now more so than ever before, marketing is critical because patients are going online to get up to the minute information. Being able to communicate with your patients in the place and at the time they want to be communicated with, is really the difference maker between the practices that are going to get through this successfully and not through this successfully,” shares Jennifer Thompson, president of Insight Marketing Group in Orlando. 

In a recent Central Florida Medical Group Management Association podcast with Daniel Williams, Thompson said that marketing communications with patients in a quick, real time status is best done through your website and social media. If a new office protocol is established or the CDC makes a new recommendation or even if, because of the surge in COVID cases, elective surgeries are put on hold again, it’s the best method to communicate with patients and employees to communicate changes as quickly as possible.

“How do we prepare the patients who are still coming in for an appointment where they're going to be maybe waiting in their car versus sitting in the waiting room? How do you prepare them for a doctor who might be in gloves and wearing masks and is requiring them to wear a mask? How do you teach them how to use telemedicine? Patient readiness has come into play and it requires us to step up our communication skills and at the same time, be very deliberate because what we're putting out there, people are paying more attention to now than they've ever paid attention to before,” she said.

It’s not just patients with whom the practice needs to communicate.

“I would say that the marketing team is critical to the day to day operation of the business because you can't communicate without them at this point. And that goes also to the employee side and employee engagement. How do we communicate with employees of large practices? How do we keep furloughed employees or employees who are working at home right now engaged in what's happening in the practice. Three months ago, we were at almost full employment. Now we're at double digit unemployment numbers and it might be easier for them just to stay at home and get a different job than trying to come back to a practice,” said Thompson.

For example, it was just a few weeks ago that elective surgeries were not being performed and there has been a backlog of cases built up. That means that practices have to ramp up staff quickly and everyone, patients and staff, need to be informed that in some cases there might be Saturday and Sunday hours just to get through the backlog.

“I think the biggest takeaways have been being able to really pivot fast from a website and social media standpoint to stay relevant and engaging with your employees, because if you lose your employees, you lose everything,” she said.

The Telemedicine Element in the Equation

Marketing has also changed as a result of expanded use of telemedicine.

“We knew about telemedicine/telehealth, but the regulatory environment was so strict and the reimbursements were so poor that it didn't ever really feel like anyone was truly going to invest fully into it… then that changed literally overnight,” said Thompson.

She pointed out that learning to help practices integrate telemedicine into their service was a “deep dive” to understand, but it was also a real game changer for practices and  it has allowed them to continue bringing in revenue and at the same time stay relevant with their patients. The question is, will the rules for its use continue to be as flexible as they have been?

“I was very optimistic yesterday. I actually downloaded a 118-page telehealth grant. There’s about $300 million that the government has agreed to provide as a reimbursement to providers who get on with telemedicine,” said Thompson. “It's really aimed at rural practices and for-profit hospitals and those providing care to the indigent population. But that $300 million investment tells me that we've kind of gotten to the point of no return. So, I'm really excited for the first time ever in what telehealth is going to bring to this industry.”

Thompson is looking at what telemedicine is going to mean in the future, past this pandemic.

“I’ve had some docs who are saying ‘well, I don't want to do these telehealth appointments,’ but then you've got the patient side. I think the genie's out of the bottle and you're not getting the genie back in the bottle. I was talking to an orthopedic hand surgeon about the future of telehealth and I asked if he was going to continue seeing patients (this way). He’s a younger guy and he said ‘absolutely, because not only did it work during this process, but now I've got a backlog of surgery and I'm going to do my post-ops through telehealth.”

Another advantage has been the benefit it has had on the issue of burnout.

“For the first time, in a long time, the docs were able to work from home a little bit because they're using telehealth. They were spending a little bit more time with their family and the schedule was a little relaxed. And so you can't just expect these physicians to pivot completely and come back to the 60 plus hour weeks because telehealth now affords them a little bit of a reprieve and it tackles the physician burnout dilemma head on. Does this help you attract the next younger breed of physician and will the physician expect this?”