In a country where health insurance is now completely unaffordable, and providers are leaving in droves, burnt out, Direct Primary Care is increasingly becoming a viable – and preferable – alternative for both patients and physicians. Marketing a direct primary care (DPC) practice is as much about education as persuasion. Let’s break it down!
Direct Primary Care requires education – and marketing of something new that people don’t have a built in framework of experience around can be challenging. You have to first convince them that DPC can be a whole lot better but also you have to then convince them that YOUR practice is the one they should choose.
We’ve worked with several (and are patients of one) direct primary care practices and providers, before it was popular. Educating clients on what DPC is and how to get over the “but without insurance, how do I go to the ER?” hurdle is challenging, but here’s how you can do it.
For our our physician clients, we encourage them to bring in educational materials from trusted sources – outside videos and informational links really do show your patients that “this is totally normal!” and reassure them there are models for both better patient care and also safety net for the big, unplanned things too.
Answer the big questions first! What is Direct Primary Care?
The first thing you should do with your website is answer, right up front, what is direct primary care? And WHY they should want it. We all know the benefits but you’ll have to be much more direct and up front about it first, before you can convince them that YOUR practice is the one they should choose. We have multiple levels of information – the basics up front, the “what do I do if?” scenarios and then the breakdown of monthly memberships and how that works to sustain a practice. Some people might balk at that (particularly if they are dropping insurance altogether) but it is important to show them that they can quite easily call your practice for almost anything – a stubborn cough, that ingrown toenail, feeling low energy or moody – and learning that they don’t have to suffer through anything, when your practice is there for THEM all the time because THEY have paid for your services – not a middleman who’s job is to say “no!” to everything, but for your services to care for them and their families!
Answer the next big question what if I’m diagnosed with something catastrophic?
We usually guide our DPC practice clients to have extensive FAQ scenarios – what does it mean if there’s an emergency or a life-altering illness? And explain options in detail to your patients. But we also encourage you to flip the health care conversation around and start talking about supporting real health and longevity that might eliminate that catastrophic need in the future.
All of our DPC clients have slightly nontraditional offices too. Many operate in “doctor’s office practice” areas – in buildings in urban settings, and suburban – but almost all of them have gone entirely away from the sterile doctor’s office experience that most people are familiar with. And presenting a very different experience – a warmer, more caring, a trusted friend experience – is something you’ll have to communicate at first. Once your patients experience it, they’ll wonder why they didn’t have this far sooner.
Compare the monthly cost of most health “insurance” plans to DPC (and factor in those nasty deductibles for out of pocket care
The current health care crisis is in many ways, a shift for most Americans back to the kind of medicine where your physician knew you and your family from birth onward, and where they made the commitment to supporting you and your health all the way along, heading off problems with health care that nurtures good eating, ample movement, and supportive behavioral practices. Once we, as a nation, get used to the kind of medicine that the rest of the world enjoys, DPC will not be something we have to educate, but instead, a default selection for someone looking for a medical practicioner.
- Emphasize longer appointments for more listening and problem solving
- Focus on immediate accessibility to clinicians in your practice
- Highlight the warmth and care that you can’t get from a traditional practice with 3-4X the patient load
- Educate, educate, educate. Your website and marketing should be at least half about “what is DPC?”
- Explain that labs and tests can be considerably cheaper when “going direct” and offer better testing options
- Alleviate fears of costs by presenting “here’s what you pay now and you get one visit a year with traditional insurance-based care” and “Here’s what you will pay and you can visit monthly if you need care” Presenting VALUE over cost
- Have options at the ready for wraparound emergency and catastrophic diagnosis insurance
In our next series, we’ll dive into a few of our DPC client websites and talk about content, design and marketing and how that impacts how patients see your practice fitting into their lives. We’ll further explore how DPC clients market that is different from traditional medical care (including online video, online communities, podcasts and print newsletters.) We’ll also look at popular EMR packages our clients have chosen to integrate.
