How to Gain 1,000 New Patients in 12 Months

Most community health centers are non-profits, and if they’re not, they’re probably part of a government structure like a county or a city. But that doesn’t mean like they should operate like a non-profit or government entity. Health centers are no different than any other healthcare organization. They aim to provide high quality healthcare in their communities and do so with competent healthcare providers. So, why do so many of them operate on a shoe-string budget while barely keeping the doors open? Because they’re not building on sustainable revenue by doing things that will attract new patients.

Just like any business, people utilizing your services means dollars in the bank. Community health centers do a great job taking care of the patients they see, but they don’t do a great job at marketing their services or telling everyone how great they are at what they do. When I started as the CEO of a health center, we had a 27% brand recognition in the community. Yikes. By the time I left there, nearly 9 years later, we had a 94% brand recognition, and our patient population had more than doubled. 

So, how did we become so well known in the community? How did we attract more than 1,000 new patients every year? We took any opportunity we could get to tell our story, brag about our amazing staff, AND show we were the lowest cost healthcare with the best quality outcomes in our community.

Here are 4 steps to attracting 1,000 new patients this year:

1. Talk to large employers: Employers, especially those with more than 50 employees, will often have a self-funded health insurance plan. Since they are funding the insurance policy, they are always looking for ways to save on their employees’ healthcare costs.

Talk to the CEO or HR director about becoming the employees’ preferred primary care provider. The employer could even incentivize their employees to use the health center’s services by waiving the copay or greatly reducing the copay.

It’s a win-win for the employer – employees receiving affordable preventative primary care services (which reduces the employers’ costs) and a win for the health center with steerage of those employees to their services.

2. Use the health center to host the community: getting people through the doors is the trick here, especially people who don’t know what you do.

Host open house events (be sure to offer food!) or offer your conference room for free to groups who want to host meetings or presentations, and then give them a tour of the health center.

The more familiar they get with your facility and the staff, the more likely they will be to think of you when they are looking for a healthcare provider.

3. Offer community workshops: you have a clinic full of experts, use them to bring in people. Health centers usually offer medical, dental, behavioral health and pharmacy services, which means you have doctors, dentists, behavioral health clinicians and pharmacists on staff.

Offering free workshops to the public from your clinicians will be great advertising for you.

4. Get in front of your community: put together a 30-minute presentation on everything your health center does, who you serve, whic insurances you accept, how quickly people can get an appointment, and anything else you can brag about.

Then, start calling all the civic groups, churches, community forums and discussion groups you can find and ask if you can have a spot on their agenda to give your presentation.

Again, this is free advertising for you, and presenting it in person will help them get to know the people who work at the health center, too.

Attracting new patients is the best way to grow the revenue for your health center. Don’t assume the public knows about you. Find ways to get in front of them and tell them about the amazing services your health center provides. 

For a copy of my free workbook on Attracting 1,000 New Patients In 12 Months, click here.