In the digital age, having a strong website is critical for any business – and hospitals are no exception. A solid web presence that encourages patients to use the site in a number of ways is ultimately good for your bottom line. Reasons you could lose money run the gamut from losing out on new patients to lowered profit due to basic inefficiencies.
Even most small cities have several different hospitals to choose from. You want your website to convey a sense of well-being and security for your patients – or they may go to your competitor, instead. A professional, attractive and informative site gives people a feeling of confidence.
Below are three specific reasons you stand to lose money if you don’t step up your game online:
1. Ease of Use
There’s a saying in sales: “Confused customers don’t buy.” If a potential patient finds your website hard to navigate, or information difficult to find, they will possibly choose another hospital that “feels” more professional.
Most patients come to a hospital’s website looking for information. Perhaps they want more info about the procedure they’re about to have or the doctor they’re going to see. Perhaps they want to know how to prepare for the appointment, or they need directions to the facility. Patients who work outside the medical field may be at an additional disadvantage because there’s a lot of language on your site they just don’t understand. Your job: Make it all easier for them.
There are a number of ways you can achieve this goal. For starters, make sure your website is well-organized and easy to navigate. All important content should be accessible from the site navigation bar, and you should also have a site search that’s easily findable – top of the page works best. Beyond that, strive to write your content to be easily understood – professional writers would tell you to write at around a fifth-grade level. This ensures your potential patients can find – and understand – what they need to know.
2. Efficiency & Cost Savings
Many patients arrive at the hospital in a state of anxiety, and it’s possible they may have forgotten important information. Did they need to bring a complete medical history? Should they have stopped consuming food and liquids at midnight the night before? Make all this information easily accessible on your website. Again, you want to make it easy to find – the best way to ensure this is to put a big button on the homepage that says something like “What to Do Before Your Appointment.” Then create a page that has clear links to all necessary paperwork and preparatory information for different procedures. This helps ensure patients are fully prepared and don’t have to come back another day because they failed to follow instructions. By having patients fill out – and possibly even submit – paperwork online ahead of time, you can also reduce the amount of time they’re there, thus reducing the load on your staff.
3. Online Billing
Many people now handle their monthly billing tasks online, and your business shouldn’t fall outside this norm – you want to make it as easy as possible for people to pay you. Create an online mechanism that allows people to submit payments without having to call the business office or mail a check – this will increase your odds of actually getting paid. And once again – make it easy to find.
While this is by no means an exhaustive list, these tips should give your hospital a head start toward maximizing profit through its website.