Tips for Educating Patients in the Waiting Room

What’s playing on the TV in your waiting room? Judge Judy? The news? Instead, let’s use your waiting room experience to unlock key marketing opportunities. In this blog, we’ll identify ways to use patient wait time to add educational value and increase practice revenue. 

Here’s a list of digital educational tools to support up-selling and cross-selling opportunities across your practice.  

• Product Education: If you’re launching a new product or service in your practice, use the TV or tablets in your waiting room to focus on patient education. Often, if a patient sees a new service offering in your waiting room, they’ll ask you about it! This strategy can drive patient inquiries about services rather than waiting for the consultation to occur by your staff.
  

• Promotional Offerings: Market offerings such as membership programs and limited-time specials. You can also use this opportunity to market referral programs to increase patient word of mouth.
  

• Before and After Pictures: Pictures are the best way to show patients your work and have been referred to as the resume for new patients. Use before and after pictures on TVs and browsable tablet libraries. Many of our practices are using an exciting tool to organize pictures by treatment type and demographic called HumazeMD. HumazeMD has created a more efficient browsing process for practices and their patients. 
  

• QR Codes: QR codes provide an easy way to link educational content without having to develop large amounts of printed collateral. These codes are also a great way to engage patients with your social channels, deliver special in-office coupons, and can be placed on TVs, tablets, print materials, front desk signage, door signage consultation paperwork, and business cards.
  Consider linking a QR code to a digital library of before and after photos to encourage your patients to browse photos on their phones!
  

• Waiting Room Engagement Software: Transform your in-office TV into a dynamic patient engagement platform with software solutions like FriendMedia. These automated in-practice marketing solutions allow you to add manufacturer-provided and practice advertising materials to TVs and iPads throughout your practice.