MSD Insider 00:00
Welcome to MedShark Insider with Bill Fukui, your expert host on all things medical marketing and SEO.
Bill Fukui 00:08
Welcome everybody to another episode of MedShark Insider today. I have a returning guest, Mindy. And Mindy is an intake and business development practice building expert who’s been in the business for an extremely long period of time, almost as long and as I have, but not quite as long. But she is here today, and we’re going to be talking about one of the areas that I think practices struggle the most, and that is, how do they take leads and opportunities that many times just fall in their lap, but they’re either not tracking it or they’ve not trained staff members to effectively convert them. So I’m just going to be grilling our expert Mindy today on really that, that intake process and follow up process that’s so critical Mindy just kind of as a kind of as a precursor, what have you typically found When doing, you know, working with practices in terms of helping them with with lead gen, and that’s a large part of your business is, is managing those what do you typically find in in situations?
Dr. Mindy Millman-DiCrosta 01:33
Sure, I can certainly go over that and Bill, thank you for having me. Really love to be back. What, what I find is that there are just big gaps, right? And it depends on the practice, and whether they’re just bringing in a new modality of treatment, or they’re brand new, or where they’re sitting, right? So, you know, let’s take, for example, mid level practice, and they brought in some new modalities of treatment, and they’re running some digital marketing to bring those leads forward, right? So, right? I think we’re what we’re finding, and what I found over the years is it’s really, really important to answer them quickly. And then the bottom line is, the goal is to book them as soon as you can, not the following week. If you can book them in the same week, your success rate is a lot higher only because they they don’t you know, you’re dealing with a population that doesn’t want to get out of bed at times, right? Let alone come there, and it’s best to get that sooner than later. They’ve also inquired, usually, excuse me, in the middle of the night, when they can’t sleep and they’re worried or anxious or depressed, so you want to get them in as soon as possible. That’s what I would say. The top two are, answer quickly and then get them in as soon as you can.
Bill Fukui 03:11
So in practices, and you know this, you get practices whose schedules are so busy, right? I’ve I’ve recommended for quote, marketing driven, you know, leads and consultations, that kind of stuff, to maybe, if they’re once the demand is is recognized and people are getting scheduled Wait, like you said, two, three, a month out, right? In some cases, right? Does it make sense to block time out in schedules for those types of marketing driven consumers because they’re different than like referrals or other types of repeat patients that you know we’re going to come in right
Dr. Mindy Millman-DiCrosta 04:02
exactly. So those need to be treated differently across the board. And there’s a few tips I can give in how to do that effectively when, when it’s really that’s a one of the biggest challenges right there. So first of all, those leads do need to take priority. Why? Because the doctor referral, they’re going to wait. They will their doctor send them there, and they will wait a little bit longer, and they have a trust factor that’s already there. So a couple of tips are blocking out just sometimes, whether it be every Tuesday and Thursday, one to four, those are reserved for internet leads, right? And so you can, you can do that, and that’s definitely helpful, and it’ll work. And another thing to do, Bill that it depending on how the practice is set up, most people should be giving some type of complimentary assessment or consultation with. Then it’s a new modality of treatment. So if it’s TMS or ketamine, spravato, if it’s psychedelic, when psychedelics comes down the bike, you know all of that. If you can get them under your wing with someone in your office first, just call it, whether it be an assessment or you have clinical people that can do almost a mini consult. Mm, hmm, if you can do that, and then they have to wait a week, that’s fine, because you’ve already put your arm around them and they’re comfortable. Does that make sense? That’s really where there’s gotta be, like something. That’s just a little tip that if an office can do it, and they do now, you’ve eliminated that piece where they just waiting to see you for a month, because five people will call them in between, and you will lose them.
Bill Fukui 05:55
Yeah, no question, no question. You know, one of the things that, and I’m, I’m newer to the mental health space than you are. You you’ve had many years in the mental health space. So when I’ve got practices talking about telehealth or telemedicine, you know, tele treatment, how does that all fall into you know? How you know best practices on, on, moving patients through the, you know, through through, through treatment, right? And potential leads that come in getting them into treatment
Dr. Mindy Millman-DiCrosta 06:29
when you run digital, and it’s for telehealth, and then those leads are coming in, right? So, typically, nationwide, there are really long waiting lists for therapy, so you can only do so much, right? You’re not going to do spravato, ketamine, TMS. That’s not going to be telehealth, right? Maybe the first consult is, but that’s not going to be telehealth. So it’s usually med management or therapy, and that’s where the waiting lists are. And so if you’re dealing with a practice and they don’t have a waiting list, you’re ahead of that game right there, because, yeah, because I can tell you, they’re they’re a mile long, and it’s sad people are waiting three months, four months for a therapist, yeah, and that’s not great. So the first thing I would say is to for that practice to utilize the fact that we don’t have a waiting list, and let them know right up front that when those leads are coming in, they should be prioritized as well. Same thing, because if the office doesn’t prioritize the internet leads, it’s only hurting them that digital spend is going out the window. Mm, hmm, because again and now with therapy, they won’t get those five people calling them because there aren’t five people that have slots for therapy, so for so when you’re talking about telehealth, if you segment it out to those pieces, there are a lot of doctors that don’t want to do med management anymore, right? They just, they don’t, it’s full. And so, you know, that’s what I would say. There same priorities and but letting the people know that we don’t have a waiting list, and you need to get your arm around them right away as well,
Bill Fukui 08:31
right? You know, I’m going to jump back to the your initial point about, you know, you know, responding quickly, getting calls and getting back to the the patient’s prospective patients quickly, whether you’re answering the phone or having to call them back, right? I typically find that a lot of people that are doing the callbacks, many times they’re they’re the receptionist or front desk people, not always treatment coordinators and stuff like that. So it’s a variety of people that are trying to implement, you know, follow up or take incoming phone calls on the incoming phone calls, because you guys are experts at lead intake. Is there particular steps, or what would you say would be the most important thing when, just say, answering the phone, answering the phone, right for, say, a marketing driven consumer?
Dr. Mindy Millman-DiCrosta 09:35
Yes. So first of all, here’s the thing a doctor’s office, if you think about it, right? We all have doctors, whether it’s a dentist or or mental health, healthcare, whatever it is, they don’t chase patients. So think about when you call your doctor, right? And you’re, you say, I’m coming in, and then you say, I can’t make it. They’re, they’re just like, Okay, well. Let me know when you can they are. They’re not taking an advocacy approach. They are taking a scheduling approach. So that’s why it usually doesn’t work to have even the most experienced coordinators do that because for all the years they’ve been doing it, they’ve not and nor should they. It’s not appropriate for them to chase a patient and tell them why they should be coming in. That’s just simply not what they’ve done their entire career. When different treatments came in and when there became a mental health crisis in this country and the world, the what’s what happened was you really needed and that’s why we became experts at what we do. That’s literally why we were born. It’s because when those leads come in, however they’re coming in, whether it be a phone call or a form fill that needs to be called back. It matters that the way you ask them, I’ll give you an example, if you ran digital for somebody, and they answer the phone and they said, Oh, I saw your inquiry about spravato, that person doesn’t remember spravato. They were in the middle of the night, they just know they were in trouble. That’s what they remember. So when you’re answering the phone, you need to talk about you inquired about XYZ, but not necessarily what the ad was. It’s what they were feeling you were, you might have been, you know. So you’re going to do it that way, because a lot of the mistakes are made where somebody is saying, I know that, you know, you wrote in and it was about spravato, or it was about and the person’s like, No, I don’t remember, bye. So that’s it. It does matter the way that it’s answered, and it needs to, and everybody’s different, and there’s no rule book. You have to be really good at what you do. That’s why we do what we do, to take that off of people and be able to do things in a way that matches with the practice and really be an extension. So whoever the practice has doing that. And some people like to take that internally, you know, in side their four walls, they’ll say, let me hire somebody, which is fine, and it’s great if they can not be doing 10 other things. That’s my other tip. Is that what happens is, everybody listen, we’re all guilty of it. You want to take that best person, whether it’s your tech, your clinical coordinator, whoever that may be, and you want it now, they’re so good. I want them to do these five things, yeah, then all of a sudden they can’t. Now, a, they didn’t sign up for it. And B, they’re not. Their skill sets aren’t in all those areas. So it’s really, really good if you can, if they’re going to hire somebody, we’ve we often train people, you know, at times, if you’re going to hire somebody, I would say, make sure that their skill set is giving the patient what they need, or the potential patient, what they need in a digestible language that they can understand,
Bill Fukui 13:28
no so kind of maybe taking that to the next step, if I’m I am looking for somebody right what kind of background or who makes for for somebody that would be good at that? Who would you would you make recommendation as to how you would recruit or find this kind of
Dr. Mindy Millman-DiCrosta 13:51
person? Yes, you there are things that you could do, but it’s really indicative of the type of practice. Oh, okay, that it’s in. Because there are some practices that would look at this and say, you know, I really do need somebody with a sales background, but won’t be salesy with this, right? And that’s fine. That’s that’s actually a fine way to go. However, your training is very long there, because they really do have to know what they’re talking about and and depending on how much the practice offers, that may or may not make sense, if it it was a practice just offering one thing, you can go that direction. But if you have a practice that’s offering seven different modalities of treatment, then you may want to go for a clinical person who also can be a. Good at keeping things short and succinct. See, that’s, it’s, honestly, it’s a challenge. It’s, again, why we do we do it’s a challenge because finding those people is really tough. You can’t take a clinical person and make them into a mini salesperson, and then not have them be salesy. They don’t want to do it, and nor does anyone in the office. So that’s why it’s a tough nut to crack the can’t take a salesperson and make them into as much of a clinical person as you need them to be, and it’s and you really need the right people, so it is indicative of each practice, what they’re looking for. And so then we can talk about, okay, let’s, if you really want to do this internally, let’s go about it this way, and it just takes a little back and forth conversation, because you want to get somebody that’s going to stay love what they do and do it well,
Bill Fukui 16:10
what about some tactics? Say, say, for example, telephone tactics, somebody you know, not somebody that I have to call back. But maybe somebody that just called in noticed that we were running. They found us on Google for, you know, say, TMS. Let’s just say somebody asked, calling in about and, and asking about, you know, about TMS, right? What would you say? Would be some, some good ways of or maybe initial conversations that you can start with them. Or how do you get the conversation started with? Because you got people doing this all the time, get that conversation going where this person could now feel comfortable, kind of maybe peeling back the onion, and you know that kind of stuff.
Dr. Mindy Millman-DiCrosta 17:02
Well, you don’t want to say, how are you? Okay? They will tell you, and it’ll be very lengthy. So what the tip? One of the tips, I would say, is that you really want to be controlling that call in a way that gives them information and allows you to extract information that could tell you a lot about, about not about what’s wrong with them, but about what you’re dealing with in that are They going to show up if it’s cash pay? Can they afford it if they don’t have insurance? Are Do you have resources to send them off with if they can’t right? So there are different ways. And again, you either need somebody who innately has these skills to be able to do this and determine it, or you outsource it. It’s that simple. Do you know what I mean? So if you because, again, it’s an internet lead everything else, it’s just fine in their practice. If somebody walks in and says, Oh yeah, Barbara is a patient of yours, and she told me all about TMS, and that’s why I’m here. Totally different ball game. They can talk just as they always would, and they’ll probably get that because they got Barbara who’s trusted. Same thing if it’s a doctor on that internet lead, it’s they don’t know anybody, and they don’t know anything. So you first need to be warm and caring. You need to remind them of why they call. So unless you’re answering right then, then they know why they’re calling. But if you’re calling back, you’re going to remind them of why they called. If it’s an incoming call, then you just I the best tip I could give somebody is that you need to control that call. You need to lead them. What do you want out of this? At the end of the day, what you want is them to come in for a consult. That means you don’t have to tell them everything at once, but you need them to be comfortable enough to come in for a consult.
Bill Fukui 19:20
No, and I, I love the the fact that you’re pushing for taking control of the call. I mean, what happened? Like you said, a lot of patients will come in, you know, call, and what do we do when we answer the phone, we basically say, How can I help you? Right? Hi. This is Bill Fauci with TMS of the Rockies. How can I help you? Right? So what we’ve done is we’ve just given them control. Now they control, and they’re like, Oh, well, I you know, and they can go off, right? Or they can just ask you question, and now you’re in defense mode, and all you’re doing is blocking and trying to. Of you know, handle their questions. You’re not in control, right? We’re you’re trying to give them good answers, but you’re not in control,
Dr. Mindy Millman-DiCrosta 20:08
exactly. So, yeah, and that’s all done in training with the staff. Like, if somebody wants to go grow their own staff to do that, you know, which is fine, then it’s just all done. There’s a lot of training. There’s a lot to it. I you know, I remember when I was younger, I was actually in finance. I was a commodity broker. We were trained by the best back then, you know, to do what we did. And funny enough, a lot of that training, you know, it just doesn’t go away. It comes, comes in through life with you. But you can’t use those tactics with mental health, but you can use the premise in which they’re built. And it’s, again, it’s a it’s a tough it’s a tough balance, if that makes sense,
Bill Fukui 21:01
yeah, it is. And I think you’re right that a lot of people that come into these positions and dealing with incoming calls, they’ve never really gotten comfortable with how do you take those questions and say, Hey, I’d be happy to answer all of your questions about TMS. Can I ask you a couple of questions. First, exactly you know, and all of a sudden they’re like, they’re not going to say, No, you know. But now all of a sudden, you’re the one asking questions. You’re the one asking questions. You’re the one you know, because at the end of the day, I want are even when they’re newer people taking intake, I want them to know they know so much more about exactly than what the caller does, right? The caller doesn’t know. That’s why they’re calling. We are the experts we in the office. We are the experts. We know what they need to know, right? Yeah, not having them ask enough questions to maybe they can figure it out. It’s what do we need? Like you said, be concise. How can we take, yep, what could go, you know, could go on a long time with just answering questions. You know what they need to know, right? You You know, so by taking control, like you’re saying now, all of a sudden, I can get to those things much quicker than hoping they stumble onto them with maybe the right question,
Dr. Mindy Millman-DiCrosta 22:31
right? Exactly, yes, for sure. And then it’s really about expectations with the leads, right? Because when you’re running a campaign, and the leads are coming in. Yes, you want them all to be good and qualified, and you hope you know for that. And the reality of it is, if you’re getting one or two out of every 10 to become a patient, and the other eight go somewhere else in the practice, or part of the other eight goes, not all of them, because they won’t, it’s just a numbers game. Won’t all go, but part of the other eight goes somewhere else in the practice, and the rest you send off with resources that’s realistic. So it’s finding and spending the time with the ones that you know, and that’s, again, an art. It’s an art. And you’re either going to have somebody train the people in the office to master that art, which can be done, and it can be done very well, or you send that out to be done the way it needs to be done, and you make sure that it represents your brand and your office the way you want. One of the biggest mistakes I see people make is going with a third party center of any kind that the end user feels like they’re outside, they’re not there, or they can’t answer anything, or they can’t book or they’re just going to take a message, because that’s very, very bad for when you’re running a digital marketing campaign and you’re spending money. You lost that lead right there. So that piece is really important. If you’re doing it in house, you got to do it right, you have to do it quickly, and you have to do it in such a way that the person can trust and the same thing if you’re outsourcing,
Bill Fukui 24:33
yeah, you know, one of the other questions that I would always get, and we would Secret Shop practices, not just on the phone. We, I mean, obviously a lot of practice, you know, consultants will will Secret Shop the practice, see how they answer the phone, and if they’re doing the things like you’re saying, taking control and being able to, you know, manage. That lead in a way that we can come to a conclusion as to, are they? Are they a candidate? Could do they qualify? Does it? You know, all those kinds of things. But what I get with a lot of, you know, practices, they say, Oh, I get phone calls, but they don’t, they don’t answer, and, you know, they’re in chase mode right there. They don’t answer, or they gave me a wrong phone number or stuff like that, but they they filled out a form, right? So the the next question is always, well, well, how do we respond to them? What do I, if I say I’m interested in this, and how much does it cost? What do we? How do we respond to that? You know, what do you? What do you would coach or advise practices do when, just generally, how do you answer emails?
Dr. Mindy Millman-DiCrosta 25:50
Okay, so, because they won’t come to the phone.
Bill Fukui 25:52
Yeah, because they’re not on the phone or say they they, they got on the, you know, they submitted a form, and then I got the form, so I tried to call, but I I left the voicemail message, right? I left the voice, which happens a lot, right? Yeah, you
Dr. Mindy Millman-DiCrosta 26:10
Yeah. So here’s, here’s the bottom line, when somebody’s asking you through a text or an email, but they will not pick up the phone and they’re just saying, How much is this right? You would if you tell them, let’s say that it say it’s cash pay. But you never got to talk to them. It’s TMS, it’s cash pay. And you write them back six to $12,000 you’re not going to get them anyway. You’re not going to get you don’t do that. You’re not going to get them anyway, and you need if they’re not going to come to the phone again, it’s one or two out of every 10. Don’t spend all your time. I’m not saying don’t nurture you do need to nurture the lead so, but don’t spend all your time on those others and Chase, Chase, Chase. Spend your time on the two that are going to become a patient. But on the on the other eight right, you’re going to segment, and four of them are out of area. They, you know, they saw an ad. They were at their mothers. They out of area that it’s not good something, you know else. But you got four left, and let’s say they are those. They’ll text you and they’ll email you. You’ve got to get them somehow to talk to you and the way to and they’ll come back. We’ve gotten people may have done this hundreds and hundreds of times. We’ve gotten people that come back a year later, three months later. So just, just keep doing what everybody’s been doing, just nurture them right? Don’t drive them crazy. Send an email. I know that we we couldn’t get on the phone, but let me give you a little bit more information. Send them some statistics. Reach back out to them in another two weeks. Don’t drive them crazy every week, because they’ll be numb to it anyway. So you know what I mean. So just nurture it and the and eventually, the ones that are going to do this, they do rise to the top and they come back. Don’t stop calling, because you catch them on the right day. Don’t forget, Bill. You know, these people are hurting. They’re struggling. They have worry, they have OCD, they have PTSD, they have anxiety, they have depression, whatever that’s going on with them. They don’t want to get on the phone. They it’s hard for them to pick up the phone, but they will. You might catch somebody on the right day. I think people in offices have to remember, and I think they they lose sight. What they do is awesome. What the those, what the doctors we work with, do is nothing short of amazing. But because they’re on the front lines and they’re they’re there all the time. They don’t walk around all day thinking we’re helping so many people. We’re, oh my goodness, look what we’re doing. No, they’re just being the doctors they are, and doing what they went to school and and committed to do exactly what they’re really doing is amazing. And so their staff needs to keep that in mind every day, and somebody needs to be telling them that all the time, so that they’re actually acting accordingly. If they’re doing this in house, if not, when we do it or somebody else does it, it needs to be done in such a way that your motivation is to help people, and that’s what goes wrong in this industry a lot, because you’ve again, I know why I do what I do. You can’t be a company that does this just to do. It with dollar signs in your eyes, because if you are in the end, sometimes it doesn’t work because there’s someone struggling really badly on the other end. It’s no joke. This isn’t like, we’re not selling a widget here, or, you know, a shirt there. Yeah, we’re we’re trying to get people help, and we’re trying to get them to come in to an office that maybe they have to come five days a week. And nobody thinks they can do that, but they can, and when they do, they’re crying when they leave because they have a TMS family.
Bill Fukui 30:40
Yeah, yep. You know you, you made a point to in terms of truly understanding the prospect. I mean, a lot of these patients, whether OCD depressed, you know, major depressive disorder, whatever they they’re struggling with, they’re not they, they’re not like you and I. They’re more versed to socializing with with people, especially strangers you know, people they don’t know, or institutional kinds of kinds of things. So I do recommend many times when say, for example, just responding to an email, right? I picked up the phone, tried to call them. And I love the idea of nurturing. You gotta nurture. You gotta nurture them. It’s just not one and done. You gotta stay in front of them. But I think one of the things to be truly helpful, and I love that word being helpful, is how can we help them get information in a way that they can digest it and also in a way that helps differentiate us? Because they probably may have reached out to other people? Yes. So I would say with email, follow up, definitely leverage links. Don’t assume that you know I got a lead from my website or from this from the Google or whatever. But I don’t need to send them back to my website. Absolutely you need to send them back to your website links to follow up if, whether it’s cost, hey, maybe have a page on affordability, or, you know, affordability and insurance, right? That you know that we can make this treatment affordable for you, right?
Dr. Mindy Millman-DiCrosta 32:29
Yes, that’s great, if you can do that on the site, and then they’re the person that didn’t, won’t come to the phone, well, then they can at least see the way that practice makes it affordable,
Bill Fukui 32:43
For sure. You know, I think that and and I would even say, take it even more personal. Take it to the personality level. People will communicate with you and come in when they feel like they know or like you, right? How do we create that sense of likability? And I think the main thing with that is, don’t be afraid to use pictures like in your email signature, put your picture in there, let what you look like. I mean, realtors do this all the time, like they you never get a business card that doesn’t have their photo on it. Well, they do that for a reason, right? And so, you know, I encourage practices to make investments in their website using custom photography, custom the about the doctor page or the provider pages, right? Those are really, really important pages to feed patients to right. Yes,
Dr. Mindy Millman-DiCrosta 33:43
Yes, even video. We script out video all the time, and it’s so great, because if you know again, we’ll, we’ll take, you know, you want to grab those differentiators and really script it out well. And they’re using that and repurposing it even in a little sound bite, like you said there, and this way you’re a person to them, and you’re not just this exactly.
Bill Fukui 34:11
You’re not brick and mortar, right? It’s now. You’re kind of humanizing and advancing the rapport and relationship long before they or maybe they build up enough courage to pick up the phone and call or reply to your call, right or respond to your email. But you’ve got to kind of break down that barrier, and it’s a social barrier, and I think once we kind of put ourselves, like you said, in the in their shoes, understanding who these people are and their needs and how to communicate with them, then I think we can come up with better ways to to engage with them, that that meets them where they’re at
Dr. Mindy Millman-DiCrosta 34:56
Absolutely and that’s that’s really what it’s all about. Out. And I know that so many of these practices are again, bringing in the greatest treatments, and I find it so sad that so many people still don’t know about them. Mm hmm, it, you know, and that’s I think.
Bill Fukui 35:18
Completely agree. Completely agree. Well, I love this topic. I can talk all day on this topic, and I know I’ve taken up a fair amount of your time, I do want to maybe reach out to you. We’ve got a lot of topics that we can be talking about. This is just one of them, so I’m going to probably tap you here in the future, Mindy and see if we can get get on another webinar. But thank you for your time today.
Dr. Mindy Millman-DiCrosta 35:47
My pleasure. Always happy to help. I hope you have a great Fourth of July weekend. You do the same. Take care everybody.
MSD Insider 35:54
Thanks for joining us for the med shark insider with Bill Fukui, join us next week for another dive into all things medical marketing. All episodes can be streamed at www.digital.com/medshark-insider
