Why ICD-10 Matters

Many people might be wondering why CMS is even moving forward with the implementation of ICD-10 codes, but we are here to tell you why ICD-10 matters. It’s a daunting task, getting everyone in healthcare to adopt this new set of billing codes, which is why it has been pushed back so many times before. The time has finally come however, on October 1, 2015 ICD-10 codes will be implemented and healthcare providers will have 55,000+ (no, those zeroes are not a typo) new codes to learn.

Other than the fact that the ICD-10 train is coming and we don’t have a choice but to jump onboard, let’s take a look at a few ways ICD-10 will improve the health care industry:

• It is vital to health care reform as it will help patients achieve better quality of care, improved care access and lower costs

• It will improve quality reporting programs like PQRS

• It will include new procedures and references to medical breakthroughs/innovations

• It will help researchers to have a better, more focused understanding of public health

• It will enable physicians to be more efficiently reimbursed for the care they are providing

Yes, learning all the new codes will take time. Yes, it might be a little annoying at first, but change is always a little uncomfortable. Just think, in a couple of years you won’t even remember what it was like before ICD-10. You’ll be all like, “You’re still hanging on to ICD-9 codes? Psh. Might as well be carrying around a flip phone in your cargo shorts while you listen to your Walkman.”

How To Use SEO the Pitch to Health Care Reporters

Earlier this week, we shared some insights we learned about pitching to health care reporters and jumpstarting your health care public relations efforts. Boston Globe columnist, Scott Kirsner, shared a lot of advice on how to relate better to journalists and his lessons translate well in regards to pitching to health care writers as well.

Read our Top 5 takeaways from “Getting Ink: Inbound Strategies for Building Relationships with Traditional Media Outlets and Bloggers”

Now, let’s explore the advice Arment Dietrich’s CEO, Gini Dietrich, shared at Inbound 2015. Her session about the power of combining media relations efforts with your search engine optimization strategy gave a unique approach to pitching to health care reporters.

Gini’s presentation; “Using Media Relations to Drive SEO,” was an intensive presentation filled with insanely helpful tricks and lessons for anyone trying to improve their health care public relations efforts. Check out her most valuable lessons:

1. Be aware of your domain authority. You can check the scores of any of your competition as well by downloading the MOZ Chrome extension at moz.com/tools/SEO-toolbar. When this is turned on, you’ll be able to see the domain authority of any website you visit. You can also see the DA scores in search results.
2. You should pick 3-4 phrases or long-tail key terms you want to rank for and use as your anchor text. You can use Google’s free keyword planner to see how often those key terms are being searched and how competitive it will be to rank for them. You want to focus on terms with a high search volume and low competition.
3. Trying to decide if you can rank higher than another website in organic listings? Check out their domain authority in comparison to yours. If you’re within a 10-point range, you can compete. If not, you might need to pick another term to focus on first. Gini made this analogy… “If you’re walking you can speed up to beat someone running, but you can’t beat a bike. If you’re biking you can’t beat a car and if you’re driving you can’t beat a helicopter. The same rule applies for competing with higher domain authorities.”
4. When reaching out to reporters asking to be a written about on their blog or in their articles, share a piece of valuable content within your blog that they can link to, rather than your home page. Writers want to send their readers to more content they can engage with, not a dead end.
5. Don’t be afraid to ask writers if you can share syndicated content with them. Most publications do this, the only one who won’t is TechCrunch. Share with the writer what your health care organization does, mention that you know they syndicate content and then provide five ideas for content to share.

Want to learn more about the importance of having a strong health care public relations team, check out our article on why your practice needs a PR strategy. 

6 Reasons Your Practice Needs A PR Pro

(Image via PerezHilton.com)

Okay, so needing your own public relations team is not actually scandalous as you might think. On ABC’s Scandal, the team of “Gladiator” PR pros face quite outrageous scenarios. Your practice might not deal with the same kinds of situations but you certainly have your own challenges to face, like pitching to health care reporters and keeping your practice together.

Olivia Pope, Scandal’s main character, can handle just about anything. Her clients are some of the most powerful people in the world (a South American dictator, a congressman, a governor, and a senator, just to name a few), but even they need to enlist her help every once in awhile to manage their reputation.

Doctors and their practices are no different.

Here are our six reasons why your practice could use its own team of “gladiators”:

1) A PR Pro can help foster your brand by developing campaigns and building your reputation at community events and networking opportunities. Need to get your name out there a little bit more? You can rely on them for that.

(ABC via Giphy.com)

2) When someone gives your practice a good review or promotes you on social media, you need to work to spread that positive feedback. Your PR team should keep an eye out for particularly happy patients and ask for a testimonials and help acquire more good reviews.

(ABC via FlawedLoveableTaylor.Tumblr.com)

3) On the same note, your own gladiator can manage and respond to negative Facebook and Yelp reviews/comments. People are most likely to provide feedback after negative experiences, so having a plan for how to handle those scenarios is imperative.

(ABC, via Buzzfeed.com)

4) They can help you become an expert authority in your community and industry. By helping you establish yourself with a significant presence on medical forums and networking websites like LinkedIn and other social media.

(ABC via iVillage.com)

5) They can plan and manage all kinds of events: from a happy hours to introduce your new doctor or technician, to an open house to showcase your facility, to community service or charity fundraiser.

(ABC via BlessedBeYoundMeasure15.Tumblr.com)

6) Consider this gladiator an inter-office staff member. They can help manage your online interactions and build relationships with other offices.

(ABC via UProxx.com)

Are you ready to get your team of gladiators together? We would be happy to help. Here is the form to request a consultation with Atlantic Health Solutions so we can get started making a difference in your practice.

How To Pitch to Health Care Reporters

Pitching to health care reporters can be challenging, but if you know some of the tricks of their trade you can capture the attention of top writers from publications like Huffington Post, The New York Times and USA Today.  The trick is realizing that there really isn’t a trick. Health care writers are people too! Keep in mind that they have a job to do too and they want to do it well, so if you can be a genuine health care industry resource to them to help produce better content, they will see the value in your relationship.

Need more help pitching to healthcare reporters? Download our Press Release Checklist

Recently, we attended Hubspot’s Inbound Conference in Boston and we learned a lot from two knowledgeable speakers, Gini Dietrich (CEO of Arment Dietrich and SpinSucks) and Scott Kirsner (Columnist from The Boston Globe). Both discussed ways to get more out of your public relations efforts, but their diverse backgrounds gave us a unique insight to what public relations professionals can do to get the attention of reporters.

Scott’s presentation; “Getting Ink: Inbound Strategies for Building Relationships with Traditional Media Outlets and Bloggers,” taught us a lot about what reporters and writers are looking for, here are our top takeaways:

1. Journalists are skeptical by nature, but if you show them that you want to help them succeed, you’ll get farther.
2. Your website’s “Media Inquiry” page can help you or hurt you. Contact forms will often be ignored, but if you have the contact name and direct phone number and email address of someone on your team a reporter is more likely to reach out to you.
3. Unique bios showcasing your affinity for kickball and cat shirts can be fun, but ultimately could be hurting your chances of getting found. Meatier bios of your staff, especially your leadership team, can help you catch the attention of a reporter who, for instance, is looking for a Florida State University alum working for a health care startup.
4. Steer clear of sending comprehensive Ebooks and whitepapers, no matter how interesting YOU find them. You are not your audience. Think about how the journalist you are targeting would search for a subject and tailor your messaging to fit them. Keep in mind, sharing infographics and short videos can be a great idea.
5. Create lists in Twitter of reporters and writers who write about companies in your space, then tweet to them regularly about their articles. When it comes time to share your content, they’ll be more receptive.

For takeaways from Gini Dietriche’s presentation, Using Media Relations to Drive SEO, read our next blog post.

How to Analyze Your Healthcare Website Like a Pro

So you’ve built this awesome website and now you’re ready to start attracting new patients. You make it live and sit back, waiting for the appointments to start rolling in. But just like when you were 15 and waiting for your crush to call… the phone just doesn’t ring. (Oh wait, that’s just us? Moving on.) Where did you go wrong? What could you have done better? Is it you? Is it them? Why does my health care practice’s website not attract patients?

You are not alone. The process of reaching patients is a challenging trek.  It’s not easy, you have to build an engaging website, battle for organic and paid search space and grab the attention of leads. How can you make it through the second two steps though, if you haven’t successfully completed the first step? It’s time to take a good hard look at your website and poke holes in its weak spots.

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Tip 1: Look at your website from an unbiased perspective. If you designed your website you probably put a lot of time, energy, money and tears into it, so it might be best to get an outsider’s opinion. Get an online reputation and website evaluation done by someone who knows what to look for.

Tip 2: If you want to do the research yourself because you’re determined like that, start out by doing a crawl of your website to look for any error codes, missed meta descriptions or empty title tags. Screaming Frog SEO Spider is simple and easy to use if you know how to read the reports. You can download a free version here.

Tip 3: Hubspot also has a free website grader you can use to evaluate your website. Don’t get too hung up on the 1/100 grade they give you, but it can give you a very topical idea of how your website stands up against others. This can help you see how well Google sees your website as it searches for an onsite blog, lead generation forms and meta descriptions.

Tip 4: Don’t stop there, you can stalk your competition too! See how well they are doing online so you have an idea of how well you stack up against them. Knowing your enemies’ weaknesses can sometimes help you prevail. I’m fairly confident this was a lesson from Disney’s Mulan or The Art of War, but it still rings true in healthcare marketing.

Tip 5: Do some good old fashioned searches. Think like your potential patient. Ask yourself what their needs are and what they would type into Google to find your practice. If you aren’t coming up in the organic searches or your Adwords ads aren’t showing up, take note. You need to capitalize on those missed opportunities and find ways to incorporate those key terms into your website content so you will show up in potential patient search queries.

You too can act like a website marketing pro. Another bonus tip is to never stop learning. Subscribe to our blog and other tech websites to stay up on best practices to continuously improve your website, whether you are a medical practice, hospital or healthcare organization.