Should doctors use social media ?

Should physicians use social media for professional purposes ?   That is a huge question that most health care professionals are going to have to answer.   The first thing they need to determine is the objective for using social media.  Is it to keep in contact with current patients or is it to market their practice to new potential patients ?

Using social media to stay in contact with current patients

This is a challenge for most health care professionals.  First and foremost if they are going to use social media to stay in contact with current patients who is going to reimburse for their time.  If a patient comes into the office at least the physician can bill for her/his time.   Then there is the issue of potential mistakes.  Let’s say for example that a patient is reporting he has a sore throat and the physician tells him to go to the drug store and get some OTC products but in reality the patient has a much more serious health problem including swollen glands and gets worse.  Who is liable if the patient needs emergency care or dies ?  You can bet the lawyers would be salivating over this one.

Using social media as a practice marketing tool

For some practices this makes a lot of sense but it is going to require both time and a level of knowledge about marketing to people online.  What does the physician say and  how does he market the practice ?  More importantly who is going to spend the time to build and update the social media page ?

A balanced approach

Perhaps the best approach is a balanced approach.   As a start physicians could:

• Have a practice website that lists the speciality of the physician as well as why patients should chose this physician as their health care professional.

• Have some type of CRM program targeted at wellness of current and potential patients.  Right now people are spending too much time trying to cut through the clutter of all the health information and a newsletter, for example, might go far if it’s done with patients in mind.

• Use social media as part of an overall marketing program not just one tactic.  Remember that social media is NOT private and a lot of patients might be reluctant to go on social media to talk about their medical problems.

• Offer, on a practice website, an integrated appointment planner where patients can chose the date and time for their next appointment without having to call the office.  They would then receive email reminders the day before the appointment.

• Finally physicians should be working with insurers to probe their future plans for online consultations with patients and ask about reimbursement.  If both the insurer and patient save money, for example, by making a request to renew an Rx online instead of coming into the office than why not explore this option.  The key is going to include disclaimer language that limits physician liability.

As a new breed of information enabled physicians start to develop their own practices there is an opportunity for the drug industry to work with physicians to get health information into the hands of patients.   Could we, for example, see a newsletter from your doctor talking about a new class of drugs to fight high blood pressure sponsored by a drug company ?  It the physician believes in the drug and the information is good why not ?  The key issue is going to be whether a drug company can develop good content that is trustworthy and doesn’t overly sell consumers & patients.

We’re entering a new world of marketing and HCP’s are going to have to learn marketing fundamentals if they want to market their practices.  I could see in the future a drug practice actually hiring a marketing person to help market their practice ( I have been asked to help one practice market online here in Ca) and help them navigate the choices of how much to invest and what to do.   With every new challenge comes opportunity but is the drug industry ready to embrace that opportunity or sit back and wait ?