Four pillars of a successful practice: 2. Attract new patients

Start by organizing your current patients. I have discovered that it is easiest to start with patients in your own practice when organizing these meetings. These women know others with similar problems and soon invite them to your group.

How to start a support group

Choose a date for your meeting. Keep the following in mind:

• Select a date 2 or 3 months in the future. Decide on several possible alternative dates as well. Don’t choose a date near a major holiday. Because I practice in New Orleans, for example, I would never pick a date a week before or after Mardi Gras.
• Tuesday and Wednesday evenings are the best nights of the week. Most people do not schedule social engagements during the middle of the week.
• If your target audience is senior citizens, they may not be able to attend or drive at night. A Saturday morning or weekday afternoon meeting might be better for them.
• At the meeting, provide a sign-in sheet to record the names and email addresses of all who attend. You can use this list to contact attendees later through an online newsletter.

Within 1 week after your support group presentation, send a follow-up email and appropriate additional information to attendees on your sign-in sheet. The letter should thank them for attending and let them know you are available to answer any questions. You can then add their names to your database and contact them periodically when new treatments or diagnostic techniques become available.

Ethnic communities require special attention

With so many different ethnicities in many US metropolitan areas, you may have an opportunity to attract new patients from these groups. If possible, try to learn to speak the language of the ethnic group you primarily serve—you will have an advantage in attracting foreign-born immigrants if you can speak their language. Alternatively, you can serve their needs by having someone on staff who can translate for you.

Be aware, however, that professional medical interpreters recommend employing a trained medical professional to manage the translation. Without specific training in the language and familiarity with the nuances of translating during a medical examination, diagnostic cues and treatment recommendations may be missed or misinterpreted.

Some translation services specialize in medical translation. You can contact the service and request a translator in nearly any language, including Vietnamese, Russian, Serbian, and Afrikaans, and they will arrange for a translator to arrive at a designated time. The fees are reasonable, and using such a service ensures that you can communicate with patients when neither you nor a staffer speaks the language.

It is still a good idea for you to learn some basic vocabulary, such as greetings, farewells, and the names of body parts. Not only will this make diagnoses more efficient, it will make your patients feel welcome.

Provide translations of your educational materials for patients who are more comfortable with a language besides English. If these materials are not already available from pharmaceutical or medical manufacturing companies, have the most frequently used information translated. The nearest university or college might be a good resource. The language departments at these institutions often can refer you to people who do translations on a freelance basis.

Be sure to add information to your Web site and other social media that makes it clear that you accept patients who speak other languages.

Consider writing articles for lay publications

How many referrals or new patients do you get from articles you have written for professional journals?

There is a good chance that your answer is the same as mine: “None.”

My CV lists nearly 175 articles that have been published in peer-reviewed professional journals, but I have not seen a single referral or new patient as a result. However, I have written several hundred articles for local newspapers and magazines that have generated hundreds of new patient visits to my practice.

Become a media resource: Write, be proactive, be responsive

By writing articles for the local press, you can easily become a media resource. Reporters and editors will notice your pieces. Often they will contact you for articles or ask you for quotations to be included in articles they are writing. If you are responsive, they will keep you in their database as an expert to call on whenever your specialty is in the news.

You can promote this transition yourself. When Whoopi Goldberg shared her experience with urinary incontinence on the television talk show The View, I contacted my local paper, the Times-Picayune, and offered to provide information about the problems of incontinence and overactive bladder and how an outpatient evaluation can often lead to cure of this disease.