Reconnecting with Lapsed Patients (the non sleazy, non cheesy way)
Reconnecting with lapsed patients is a really important part of your marketing, but something I’ve found a huge number of healthcare practices just don’t do.
Your marketing activities generally fall into 3 categories
- Patient acquisition – attracting new people to you
- Patient retention – keeping your patients connected and coming back or referring
- Reconnecting – reenergising your relationship with patients or referrers that you have not seen or heard from for a while
The last category is a part of marketing that is often overlooked in healthcare but is an area that can give your practice a real boost in patient numbers.
Letting your relationships with existing patients drift is potentially not good for them and not good for your business.
DISCLAIMER – I am totally in favour of doing business ethically so what I am not advocating here is pursuing lapsed patients and hounding them into booking a return appointment. What I am advocating is reconnecting with your lapsed patients and seeing if they need any further help from you, or if you could be any help to their family or friends.
The focus must be on providing more support and more help. However you use what follows, please do so in a way that absolutely has the patient's best interest at heart.
Reconnecting with Lapsed Patients – Why is it so important?
1. You could help more
People don’t rebook for a myriad of reasons.
- They forget
- They are busy with family
- They are working away
- They are in much less “pain”
- They have other more pressing health issues
- They have gone to another practitioner
None of these mean you could not still be in a position to help them more, or help a close friend or family member.
TOP TIP – reconnecting with lapsed patients can trigger referrals and not necessarily a repeat booking.
Please don’t assume that patients will rebook automatically with you whenever they feel they need more help.
It amazes me how a simple reminder can result in a flurry of patient bookings, when your assumption would be “if they need me they will just book”.
2. It makes good business sense
From a business perspective, selling to existing clients or patients is much easier than selling to people new to your practice. The data I found, but cannot corroborate, states that there is a 60 – 70% chance of selling to an existing client or patient vs a 5 – 20% chance of selling to a totally new person.
The data also suggests that reconnecting with an existing client or patient is 5 times cheaper than finding and connecting with a totally new person. Now as I say I can’t corroborate that data but they are quoted widely in the marketing industry.
So from a business perspective then, reconnecting with lapsed patients is a no-brainer.
So How do You Reconnect with Lapsed Patients?
I saw somewhere that healthcare practices usually operate with about 58% of the patients on their books as inactive. If that is the case, that’s a huge pot of potential patients you could be reengaging in order to help more people, fill your appointments and bring further revenue into the business.
SO WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?
Get reconnecting with your lapsed patients !!!
Thank you soooo much for taking the time to stop by my healthcare marketing blog today.
I really hope you found value in spending some time here today.
I’d be so grateful if you could spare me just another 5 minutes to share your thoughts & feelings in the box at the end of this page. I’d love to hear from you.
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Until next time
Thank you
