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Practice Optimization

Data-Driven Decision Making: 4 Strategies to Increase Consult Conversion

Key Takeaways

  • Big data is crucial for creating comprehensive and personalized patient experiences that increase patient conversion.
  • Knowing how patients communicate and engage with your content will help you tailor the consult to fit their needs.
  • Microinteractions are changing the way healthcare practices communicate with patients by using data to learn about and focus on patients’ individual needs.

If you’ve been working in OMS for a while, you probably have a decent track record for getting patients to say “Yes” to treatment at the consult. What if there was a way to make the process easier and increase patient conversion by 20%? What about 40%? How much would this increase your practice revenue?

Oral surgeons across the country are getting more patients to say “Yes” to treatment after harnessing the power of big data to personalize the consultation experience. When patients feel like their individual needs are recognized, the decision to start treatment is easy.

What Is Big Data & Why Is It Important?

In a nutshell, big data refers to data that is overly large and/or complex. Healthcare data is a prime example of big data and includes data in patient portals, electronic health records (EMRs), staff schedules, and more.

Big data is defined by using the three Vs:

  • Volume: The greater the volume, the more insights you can glean about how to convert specific patient types.
  • Velocity: How quickly you can collect data about the patient and act on it plays a huge role in utilizing it in your practice.
  • Variety: Gather a lot of data types to deepen your understanding of patient preferences and personalize their visit and experience.

The right time to gather this data is before the consult. This means you have a limited window of time to generate the data you need to convert more patients and increase your bottom line. With the right systems in place, you can automate the collection process, use patient data the right way, and enjoy positive results immediately.

4 Big Data Points You Should Collect Before the Consult

Message Open, Click Through, & Response Data

The very first message you send to patients—and every message from there on—contains a gold mine of data! Are they opening the messages you send them? Are they engaging by clicking through or responding? This type of engagement data allows you to tailor your consult and increase your likelihood of conversion.

  • For engaged/active patients, spend less time educating them on procedure details and more time building a relationship.
  • For unengaged/inactive patients, prepare for a longer consult, more questions, and a harder conversion. Is there a doctor in your practice best suited to work with patients like this? Pair them up in your schedule with unengaged patients to maximize conversion.

Video Watch Rate

Videos are a powerful medium that informs your patients and builds trust. When they see you and your team in videos, they feel like they’ve already met you by the time they arrive at their consult. You can send videos to patients throughout their care journey, delivering the information they need in an easily accessible format.

If you are providing video-based education to your patients, but not tracking any of the metrics, you are missing important data that could help you personalize your consult. Does your patient have a high or low watch rate? Where did they stop watching? How many times did they watch each video?

Understanding where the patient is in their discovery process coming into the consult will help you tailor the appointment to their needs.

Microinteractions

Microinteractions are small moments where you and your patients interact. This data can help you assess a patient’s level of preparedness and see what they still have questions about. Use them to ask your patients pointed questions as they prepare for their consult, then use their responses to take your data power to the next level.

Microinteractions in healthcare may look like:

  • A space for patients to leave questions/comments as they prepare for the consultation
  • A “What else would you like to learn about?” section with links to other content or videos
  • A “Was this helpful?” section at the bottom of messages, letting you know what content is more effective
  • Interactive features on your site or in messages; something as simple as an animated button or graphic will draw users’ attention and make engagement more appealing
  • A quick and easy process to leave a review after treatment, even if it’s just a tap to leave a rating

Knowing what your patient needs before their visit gives you an opportunity to drip targeted content and to focus your consult around their specific areas of concern. With microinteractions, you can learn how your patient likes to learn and care for them the way they want to be cared for.

Communication Style Profiling

Leverage data in the points above to find out your patient’s communication style. Are they direct and only want the main bullet points? Do they need a lot of information to make a decision? Are they swayed by emotion?

If you can determine your patient’s communication style based on the way they interact with your content, you can adjust your style to match theirs. This gives you the ability to talk with patients in a way they understand and respond best to. When they can understand and connect, they are more likely to follow through with starting treatment.

How Can I Start Collecting Big Data?

Big data is a vital tool for your practice’s success. If you’re not leveraging big data or you are gathering a lot of data with different tools but not connecting the dots, you’re missing out on a critical opportunity to generate more revenue.

Only one platform in the OMS space processes big data in a way that allows practices to harness patient information and increase their revenue. WUWTA is an all-in-one solution that leverages all the data above—and more. With WUWTA, you can:

  • Generate a Patient Engagement Score, which provides pointed tips on how to interact with your patient based on the data you receive
  • Tailor your consults based on these tips for optimum conversion
  • See an increase in consult conversion rates and revenue
  • Automate it all from your practice management system

The best news is: there is no extra work on your end! WUWTA gathers, organizes, and analyzes patient data seamlessly with most PM systems, so you can increase your bottom line and get more patients saying yes to treatment at the consult.

Start Harnessing the Power of Your Practice’s Data

Practices that collect and use big data provide patients with more individualized care and improve consult conversion.

If you’re ready to leverage the power of your practice’s data to increase your bottom line and consult conversions, sign up for a 30-minute presentation to see WUWTA in action today.

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