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The Patient Experience Podcast
Pharma Patient Services leaders are facing a revolutionary change as patients have access to more information than ever and as they launch new therapies which are more complex than ever. There is an emerging patient confusion crisis coming as pharma goes D2P - Direct to Patient. Experts, Jason Grossman, with 25 years of c-Suite Pharma Commercial Operations, Patient Services and Marketing experience along with Bob Miglani, 23 years ex-Pfizer in Sales and Marketing, Medical Affairs, Patient Access, Patient Engagement and now CEO of Hoot bring you the latest insights and learnings to help you grow. Learn more on: GetHoot.com.
The Patient Experience Podcast
How Doctors Are Creating an Elevated Patient Experience
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Patients judge your practice before they ever meet you. The website, the ads, the social feed.
On Wednesday, August 5 at 11:30 AM EST Bob Miglani sits down with Dr. Todd Cohan on how doctors are building an elevated patient experience.
They will cover:
-Growing a specialty practice
-Where revenue is hiding in your patient base
-What is working in ads and social media
-How Doctors Are Creating an Elevated Patient Experience and more
The Patient Experience Podcast explores how pharma patient services leaders and patient-facing teams can navigate a growing patient confusion crisis as therapies become more complex and the industry moves Direct to Patient. Hosted by Jason Grossman, a 25-year pharma commercial, patient services, and marketing executive, and Bob Miglani, former Pfizer leader and CEO of Hoot, each episode delivers practical insights leaders can use and reps can apply in the field to better educate patients, build trust, and drive better outcomes.
New episodes are recorded live on Bob Miglani’s LinkedIn and published across major podcast platforms.
Follow the hosts:
Bob Miglani on LinkedIn
Jason Grossman on LinkedIn
Learn more at GetHoot.com.
Hello. Hi, Dr. Cohen. How are you? Nice to see you. Wonderful. Good morning, world. How is everybody? Everybody, I guess everybody's fine. Thank you for asking, Dr. Cohen. Dr. Cohen and everyone else on LinkedIn live today. We're live. My name is Bob McLani. I'm the founder and CEO of Hoot. And I am super, super thrilled to invite you a conversation with a doctor who's a specialist. And he specializes in a conditioned and in dry eyes disease as an eye doctor. He's going to tell you a little bit about himself. But the reason for this conversation today is that today's healthcare environment, everything has changed. And what I mean by that is patients today have so access to so much more information than ever possible on this device. You have 10,000 doctors on this device immediately on Chat GPT and Quad and so on and Google. And but what you don't have, and the key differentiator we're seeing is the patient experience. So what we want to talk about today, how are real doctors creating an elevated patient experience? And this is relevant if you're a doctor, if you're a pharmaceutical company and you're a brand manager, if you're in the hospital business, if you're in hospitals and health systems, and you want to give patients a richer, more beautiful experience, because that's what's going to differentiate you from everything else. So, so so let's get started. Dr. Cohen, Dr. Todd Cohen, Todd and I, Dr. Cohen and I have been friends for a number of years. He's been a partner of ours, a customer, he's an advisor. But I'd love for him to introduce himself to you and uh so we'll get started. Thank you, Dr. Cohen. Welcome.
SPEAKER_00Thank you, thank you. So I'm a pleasure to be here talking about the patient experience and the patient journey. These are the intangibles that set your practice apart and create a lot of dedicated consumers and have a will provide a good net promoter score. And those people refer others. So these are really good things we'll be talking about and things we top kind of overlook in a day-to-day practice. Uh, first, a few things about myself. I've been in practice for about 25 years. I'm the founder of Midwest Dry Eye Center. We've opened that like 10, 12 years ago. Um, but I also am the president and the owner and the chief medical officer for Foresight Vision. We have two locations with five providers in the northwest suburbs of Chicago. We've always prided ourselves on using the most latest diagnostic technology in a warm, friendly environment. And to that point, the warm friendly environment starts from the time that the phone is answered and when you're making an appointment, and our call agents will say, thanks for calling. Um, any other I want to see the family, have any questions? You take the basic demographics and insurance information, and then we gather their email. And in that email, what we like to do is a little email with a little blurb of a video of like what to expect upon your first visit, right? Let them know that you know our office is different. For example, we require everybody to at least do the baseline um digital retinal imaging, right? That's something that's not mandatory, a lot of practices, but it's a valuable tool. And it tells us, tells the patient ahead of time, you know, a copay what to expect, so they're not surprised, as well as like what to expect from our office, a little brief office tour and a little bit about us. So that kind of sets the stage. Um, and then once the patient, you know, hopefully they'll fill out the forms ahead of time, not all the time, but uh when they do ahead of time, it's always a time saver. And then when they come into the office, I really instruct my team to really say, like, you know, don't say hi, hey Bob, how or hey, how can we help you? You should be knowing who's coming into the office. All this staff has to do is look at the schedule and say, look, it's either Susie or Bob coming in at 10 o'clock. So do the math, right? And they want to say, and I always I read some books, um, Bob, actually, like the warmth of a greeting and your hands are up in the air. Hey, how are you? Something as trivial as your hands up in the air as a physical acknowledgement actually resonates in a part of the brain, actually, to um make people feel good, right? So, hey, how are you?
SPEAKER_01Not like oh, that's a great idea. I you know, I do that when you see people down the hallway or whatever, and you they immediately smile. It's great. I love that.
SPEAKER_00Just make sure you have all five fingers up if you need. But but actually, actually, there's something to the psychology too of an open-handedness. It's a subliminal message that you're open to conversation and you're open to welcoming. Um, you know, so that's actually interesting. So um anyway, so they'll, hey Bob, how are you? Nice to see you. Um, you know, let's check you in, things and so forth. And then they'll um also we always have like, you know, in our waiting area, um, our reception area, we always invite this the the the patients. We have a a cooler, different of different LaCroix bubbly water, flavored waters. We have our Nest Um Ness Cafe uh coffee uh things with pods, and we have little snacks and things. So those little things make a difference. One of my friends in in Madison, he actually has a menu of like Izzy drinks. I mean, it's a lot for latte, all this kind of stuff. It's a lot to do. I'm not saying you have to go overboard, but the idea is um, you know, offer something and kind of welcome into their home. Also, in something psychology, a book I read about the science of buying, is if you give something to somebody, mentally they feel quote unquote indebted to you. Yeah, whether it's like a chocolate or a drink or something, you're doing on to them, and mentally they're more apt to convert a sale at the end of the day. So those are little things, but it doesn't take time. These things don't cost money for the most part, but these are things that really set the stage and and set the uh the feeling for the patient.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, I love that. Uh, I think that's really important is this the warmth feeling. And you know, Walmart, right, has greeters, right? And now I've seen it with Lowe's or some of the other stores where there's somebody saying, you know, the other thing I've seen at the front desk a lot often is uh you can't do this all the time, obviously, or there's gotta be somebody else, but they stand up. Yeah, right? They stand up to greet them, recognizing, hey, this isn't you're a VIP here, you're an important person that we're welcoming you. And these psychological triggers, these cues are really important to do one important thing build a bond between you, the practice, and the patient. And that bond is what is the differentiator today. Because if we zoom out, Dr. Cullen, you know, the patient experience is really the only differentiator today, right? Because they can get the service that you're offering pretty much in a lot of different places, right? So talk about like why you decided to do this. Why did you decide to look at your practice and that patient experience and all the things that you're suggesting here? Why did you like why should doctors, hospitals, farm, all these these organizations are dealing with patients? Why should they do it?
SPEAKER_00Well, selfishly, my own lifestyle. I'd rather practice in a situation that's smarter. I'd rather work smarter than not harder. I'd rather get to the same result at the end of the day by seeing 20 patients versus seeing 30 patients. And the reason being is those 20 patients will spend far and above in my practice what the 30 patients would because we're not rushing people and we're giving the quality of care, right? And that transcends to my associates. It takes a lot of time, right? Because I'm only in clinic a couple days a week. But for my associates are there full time, and that translates. I always say our revenue per transaction or per patient equals the sum of uh the quality of care we're giving. So if we're giving the same level of care to all of our patients, whether it's doing this test, this test, this test, recommending dry eye treatments, recommending this or that, the revenue per patient or transaction will be the product at the end, right? So I always take my associates out to dinner twice a month, uh twice every two months, sorry, and we get on the same page because I don't care if they're seeing Dr. Lee or Dr. Cohen. I want to make sure. So those are the reasons why I set my practice up like that. Um, some of our most loyal and quote unquote best patients in terms of their annual spend, their frequency of visits, aren't the upper echelon of the 99 percentile act, you know, wealthy, but they're more the middle class. But they believe truly, they see we innovate all the time, they see there's new technology, they see our staff has rotation, there's not new faces all the time, and they see where we care genuinely about them. And that's exactly what you know transcends year after year their visits versus, you know, look do the math of a pay average optometric practice, a patient comes in every 16 to 18 months. Well, if you can shorten that to every 12 to 13 to 14 months by a recall, by reasons to come in, always touching base, sending videos, things like that. That will keep them more into your practice. And then that's the difference between two exams every three years versus three. Then you're seeing 2,000 to 3,000 eye exams per year. Do the math, it's exponentially better for you, you're in your practice and everything else. So that's why I positioned it like that.
SPEAKER_01No, I it's a great answer. You do it for the emotional reasons, you do it for the hey, I feel good running a practice that really does this high-quality innovation. Actually, Peter Drucker, uh management guru, said, you know, there's two ways to grow a business. It's innovation and marketing. That's it. And you're doing both, uh, Dr. Pillan. Talk to us. So that's in the clinic. Now, now talk to us when they're in the clinic, they're making the they they come in, um, then they sit in the exam room here. You're a specialist. You talk, I mean, obviously you have you do primary care, but you specialize in dry eye disease, as we all know. And so when they come in and you diagnose their condition, talk to us about how you talk to them about diagnosing their condition. Condition they never heard of before.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_01They came in, they're like, I just want an eye exam and glasses doc, uh, and you all of a sudden you discover that they have a condition called dry eye disease or mybony gland dysfunction. Tell us how you approach that specialty condition.
SPEAKER_00Great. So we've made it mandatory in the dry eye spectrum here. I know we're talking to all different types of physicians, but you know, screening tests in the pretesting, right? So when you know, sometimes we don't charge for these gland images, but the reason being is we want to educate the patient and show them a picture, right? You can talk till you're blue in the face, but until they actually see a picture of what their glands in this situation look like, um, that gets the buy-in. So you say, hey, um, you know, Mrs. Jones, um, you have the condition, these are what your glands look like. This is what the glands should look like. Where do you think your glands fall based upon this picture?
SPEAKER_01So you you do interaction. You you don't just tell them, you're just like, hey, let's like teach me, teach me, teach me, teach me. I teach you, teach it back to me. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Right. The most the best conversion in doctors that I've worked with happen then when the doctor listens more than they talk, right? And then they also reaffirm with the patient and get the visual clues and um things like that. So I'll say, hey, um, these are your glands. Where do you think you fall in? Oh, I'm probably here. And it's very funny because nine out of 10 times people think they're worse, right? Just by the picture, right? Which is great, right? That's what you want. So I say, okay, um, this is called my bone gland dysfunction. Um, I know you're not here for that today, but I want this is a really serious condition that I'm concerned about. So I'm taking my emotional concern and saying, I'm concerned about this, right? Just like if I was a dentist seeing a cavity, I'm concerned we want to fix this, right? So then, you know, this is this, we'll touch on that. Any questions? No, okay, great. All right, then we'll go on to the rest of the eye exam in that situation. But at the inclusion of the exam, I make a summary. When I'm doing my handoff to the technicians or the politicians up front, I'll say, okay, um, you know, we want to schedule the ocular surface exam because Mary needs to come back for that. We talked about that already. And um, let's sign her up for Hoot to send her some educational videos of what to expect and some information about my boney and gland dysfunction. And then um go ahead and help her with her optical needs as well. So the first thing that staff is doing before they even what right when they sit on the floor and start showing them these cool Gucci frames is they're scheduling that appointment so that doesn't go by the wayside. And that'll then be they'll be put in the hoot with the QR code, and then they'll start getting the information. But at the conclusion of the exam, what I like to do personally, and I know not every doctor is comfortable with this, but I give my card with my email as well as my personal cell phone. I say, look, we treat everybody like family. And when I joke, I say, well, the family members you want to keep around. You know, everyone's got crazy Uncle Fred or something, but I said, you know, everyone's got that guy, but but I said, here's my cell phone. If you have anything after hours, we treat everyone like family. You give me a call or text me if there's an ocular emergency, right? Here's my email to reach out. And I I just by nature I'm very type A, I'm very responsive right away. So um they never have to worry. But um, you know, and I touch space with patients. Like, for example, we had a patient the other day, she's gone to four different eye doctors. Um, I started for the ocular surface exam after a comprehensive exam. And, you know, I had her buy some, I'm like, okay, I need you need to buy these drops. And she's like, everything was great in the exam room. She goes to the front desk, I'm not paying for these drops. This and then she threw a whole fit. Yeah. And I'm like, okay, we can give you something else instead, or whatever. And and I emailed her and um I used ChatGPT to help me word it because I'm not the best wordsmith, but it came off with a really good tone. And I reached out to her, I said, you know, I said, I'm sorry you felt this way. I don't want her leaving with that thing that I'm just trying to sell her a snake oil. I said, This is the reason why I prescribe this, is the information behind it. Um, I already sent her all the videos as well on Lipaflow and all the dry eye treatments. So she hassled that. She goes, Thank you so much. She emailed me last night, nine o'clock at night. Thank you so much, Dr. Cohen. This is the first time a doctor's shown genuine concern for me. I'm just so skeptical because I've heard this is gonna work, this is gonna work. I've had no answers. I'm sure you're the first person that's fit me successfully in contacts um in years. And um, so she she totally understood and responded back. And I and I got her because my concern and my compassion for the patient. But if I would have let her go and she was left with that salty taste in her mouth that I was trying to sell her eye drops, that in her words, she didn't necessarily need. Obviously, I know she needs them, but she would have left and given us a bad review or never come back again. So those types of things you have to be on top of it. You cannot commoditize, you have to make sure that is a unique interaction and you show genuine concern. And um, you know, translated across the practice, across the front desk and the staff as well.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, what I'm hearing is actually let's unpack that because there's a lot there that really gems here. I think the first is you're a mind reader, you know, in the in that you when you diagnose the patient with a condition they never heard of before, you proactively say, I know you're not here for this, but here's what's happening, here's what we found. And then so that's really important to be a mind reader, experts, people who have authority, show the patient that authority and that expertise by being a mind reader and saying, Hey, you're probably wondering, like, why don't this thing, right? You say that proactively, that's really important. And then the second thing is you use visuals. Using visuals in a in a conversation with a patient reinforces it so that they remember. So if we know from all our communications work that we've done, Dr. Cohn, over the years together and and elsewhere, is that people remember 30% of what you say. Recall goes to 70% when you say and show them, and it goes to 90% when you sh when you say it and you show them and you make them feel something, right?
SPEAKER_00Feel something, so and also using analogies, also, right? Exactly. Analogies, people come in and okay, those are the piano key things you said, or that's like the car wax on my car. Those things resonate. Like I've gone to lectures before, and I really don't remember the bulk of it, but I remember how we started off with the story and how he tied it in at the end, right? So that's right, and also social proofing is something that we all need to recognize, whether you're in the foot business or the teeth business or the eye business. Social proofing saying, Bob, you're not alone. I've had a lot of experience. This this woman came in a few months ago. She came with a bag full of eye drops with your same problem, and now she can wear contacts till she they'll dance till two in the morning. You know, the social proofing shows that it gives some type of after David or evidence that you have confidence in your prescribing and your treatment plan, and others have benefited as well. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And then I would say the social proofing also goes into uh the content that you share with them. Like you reached out to her in an email, you shared some information, use the Hoot platform uh to educate them with your own videos, speaking about the conditions, speaking about what if they do nothing, uh, speaking about uh what the treatment options are, and then what to expect on the second visit. And that is sent out so that they understand it at home. And then so that's really important is to be a mind reader to understand, use visuals. And then the other thing I want to just emphasize here is that a lot of doctors ask Dr. Cohen, hey, I can't scale this. How can I like be reaching out to every single patient about the drops that you did or something like that? You know, how do I do that? Is that something how do you work it during the day? Because you're seeing patients a lot, right? All day. And then is it like the end of the day, or do you just do it right away? Like, how do you how do you just take the action in a busy schedule to focus on some of those, you know, a couple of difficult cases or difficult patients?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no, I mean, I definitely take time at the end of the day to follow up with these patients or reach out to them. Um, you know, because I'm I'm if I'm cranking through 30 patients in a day, I just you know get them out the door, do all the diagnosis, coding, billing, all that kind of stuff. And then I'll reach, you know, I'll make the referrals to the ophthalmologist, the DB, follow up with the emails and things like that, you know, at the end of the day. It's no big deal. But with the hoot platform, it's really easy. And I'm not just, you know, what's the guy from Hair Club for Men? I'm not just the the president, I'm a I'm a user or something like that. Um I know I mean we use it all the time because it really automates. And in this day and age when your staff is, you know, is is like pulled in 20 different directions all day long, um, problems putting out fires, the fact that this is an automated digital marketing platform that automates it and streamlines it is just like it's you know, it's like an AI agent at your at your hip to use.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and the thing is I I sense that like you you could have had your staff reach out to that patient, for example, but you didn't. And you didn't do it because you, first of all, you wanted to do it, but I think the underlying that, Dr. Cohen, is this notion of like effectiveness. Like, what's really gonna work? It's gonna be she wants to hear from the doctor. Right, the person she wants to trust is the one should be communicating it. Yeah, you can't just like outsource this. And I know in scale it's really hard to do, but the way you do that is the video, right? So you send a video out or something, but in this case, it was a really specialized case uh on that specific question the patient had. So doing so requires that personalization, that customization. And I think in in the commodernization world we live in today, where practices are owned by private equity or large groups, you lose that human touch. And I think patients are yearning for that because they can get services anywhere, going back to really like the core of the patient experience. So now let's talk about. So they left, they have your card, they have your phone number, patients left and gone home. When they go home, their spouse is in the kitchen, and often the spouse says, Hey, what happened to doctors today? Right? What happened? What did you do? What happened? And if I'm a I'm a guy, you know, as a as a as a as a man, I go home, I'm like, nothing, everything's fine. You know, you know, it's like, or a doctor wants me to go, home wants me to go back, right? Yeah, and my wife, my wonderful wife, says, Well, why? What happened? Well, I got this thing, he told me I got this, you know, dry eye disease and stuff. She goes, Well, what's that? And so it's you know, I'm gonna have to repeat what you said often in the conversation, and that's I think a problem, it's a gap. You can influence them and create a beautiful patient experience in the clinic, but how do you create a patient experience at home? And I think that's the one big question, Dr. Kelly. A lot of people ask is hey, how do I reach and teach patients in the kitchen? What do you say to that? How do you do that?
SPEAKER_00I mean, you know, I I'll often have times, especially if it's as big expense, more so, Bob, than the more so with the myopia management, right? Where the kids were the contacts at night, the orthokeratology. Yes. Because it's it's like it's like the kind of a spend of an orthodontics type of financial commitment, less than orthodontics, but regardless. Um, so they often run it by their their spouse, um, who you know, usually typically, you know, the mom usually brings the kids in for the eye exam, the dad's at home or whatever. But so they have to have them make a financial. I I always say, look, here's my email, um, here's the studies, um, ask me if you have any questions, and we can always discuss it if you want to. There's different options we have, especially now myopium management. There's more than just one option. Um, so um plus the videos.
SPEAKER_01I mean, I think the videos are the other part where you reach about 100%. Yeah, right. It's sort of like they they, you know, patients when they go home, they need something to show. Yes. So for as a proof point. Yes. And typically, I don't know if you've seen this, but brochures are left in the back of the car often or they leave the office or the front desk. I remember when you know my wife, Dr. Shavali, asked me to make a brochure for her for myopia management. I, oh, it's beautiful, Mistraprint. You know, it's great. And then I would see it in the trash bin in the waiting room. I'm like, oh my God, I did all this work and it's not there. So I think that's where the videos come in for uh, you know, your edge, your face, your educational sequence to your patients at home so they can pick up their phone and say, you know, honey, what happened to the doctor today? Oh, doctor told me I have this, you know, this is the problem I have, right? And so it's it's and then this is the treatment. Now, when they come back in, Dr. Cohen, talk to us about how what you do when they come back in. How do you elevate the patient experience when they come back in for a evaluation or a specialty consult? Talk to us about that.
SPEAKER_00Okay. So we walk on them up again by the name and waving and things like that, and then the staff takes them right back. Um, you know, and then they um our technicians are really, really uh proficient at educating them about what we're doing during the evaluation, right? So this test is doing looking at this, this test is looking at this, this thing is this and this. So they're really, really good. And then when they come back and bring them in the exam room with me, we use WhatsApp for inter-office messaging. We have our own WhatsApp. So then I can see that, you know, in which is uh another key feature as well. So that way we know, like our pretesters or our technicians are trained to elicit conversation, right? I may not know, Bobby, you haven't worn contacts in 50 years, but all of a sudden you mentioned to the technician that you want to try contacts because you got your daughter's wedding coming up in a month, right? I would have never maybe forgotten to ask that or known that or delved into that, or you may have forgotten, you know, as we're catching up on life and you may have forgot to mention. So those things help trigger the doctors to ask those questions and help serve the patient better, right? And so um, you know, I don't know that you work on six computer screens. So we set the seed and set the plant, plant the seeds early. So we we do that in the pretesting, um, and even for follow-ups, too, right? They kind of try to nip it in the bud. So if they say they're a follow-up and you know, it's all Mrs. Jones is feeling great, or Mrs. Jones only little notice a little bit of improvement. So the doctor has that already in the exam room before you walk in. Hey, I heard things are going well. This is typically so you can already know and illicit um responses in your mind before they walk in your exam room, which is really actually. So then they they educate them, they come in the exam room, and then I show them like all the tests we did thoroughly, the reason behind it, um, some more videos, and we talk about like different treatment modalities. Um, what was the old school, now what's the new school, and then um say that you know everything is good, we're ready to go ahead with treatment. I said, Do you understand that, Bob? Do you have any questions? Um, is this sound like a plan that you you work with? Yes. If you can get the verbal yes, then you know mentally they've flipped the switch, right? Yeah, there's several different types of patients, and I've been looking at this, these different kinds of monikers, like the the passive delayer, the person who always questions, the long-term researcher. So you have to have no know the patient type and how you're dealing with it, and then follow up with them. So if someone's a passive delay, like, oh, you know, okay, whatever, but I know I need it, but all right, okay. So let's just send you home an agree to some warm compresses, eyelid hygiene, things like that. Let's see you back in a month to follow up with you and see how you're doing. And invariably they don't do it, and then it's time for you to integrate more of your in-office treatments. But so working with that and sending them home with information, but I'll then do the handoff and say, okay, everything's good with you. Do you understand? Do you need the IPL or you need this treatment? Yes, yes, okay, great. All right, so now Susie from our office can come in, they're gonna take you in our dry eye suite. We have really nice dry eye suites, so they get a preview of where they're gonna have their treatments. And in those rooms, there's a Amazon Alexa that typically plays classical music or punk rock if you want. Um, you know, there's uh a candle with nice soothing, like a wax candle melt that has like this ocean smell, whatever. And then we have like a big uh panoramic picture of an ocean there, and they do the treatments, and our aesthetician does those. So they're in that room, so then they know, and the staff will take care of it. We call it a patient education coordinator. They'll take the handoff from me, talk about all the pricing, talk about the contraindications, talk about you know what to do before and afterwards, and then they'll sign them up for treatment that day, and then I'll see them back like accordingly after their treatment. So that's kind of what's done in our office, and patients um you know have our contact information, any questions arise, as well as the staff gives them their card with their email too, um, because invariably they may have forgotten something beforehand.
SPEAKER_01So yeah, yeah, I love that. I want to unpack one important point here is that when they walk in, you're gathering intelligence from your staff. So the staff is actively listening and paying attention to the patients. Correct. Did you ever watch this series, uh uh Dr. Cohen, called The Bear? It's actually about a restaurant. Yeah, of course, of course. Great series on Hulu.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And I'm just watching one of the seasons, I think the last season.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Uh and you know, in the restaurant. So if you don't know, it's about a restaurant uh and it's a group of people working in a restaurant, some family, from not. It's really crazy, very chaotic. And it's called the Bear, their name of the restaurant. And the whole one of the pieces I remember is this, you know, the the front, the front person, the manager in the front uses these hand signals, right? And as when a patient's coming in, oh, they're celebrating a birthday. And so they're using a hand signal to tell somebody, hey, this couple is having a sharing of birthday. And so when they sit down, somebody responds immediately, happy birthday. I hear you're here for a birthday celebration, you're turning, you know, 18 or whatever. Uh, and so the notion of utilizing intelligence from your staff on a WhatsApp to say, hey, Dr. Cohen, be aware, you know, she's got this problem or she's thinking about this, she asked about that, these are signals. Right? Pick up signals really well if you listen, but you've got to listen and you've got to inquire. So training your staff on listening and inquiring and allowing the patient to speak, not just sit there, but allowing them to speak and say something, communicate gives us these ideas about what's going on so that the doctor can better serve them.
SPEAKER_00And and I can't, and I there's been a lot of bombs, landmines that we have diffused, Bob, over all the years because of this process. For example, right? Hey, um, you know, patient comes in for their follow-up. Oh, I spent $3,000 and I don't feel any difference in my eyes and this and this. Well, they're giving it to the staff. The staff knows how to combat that or answer that. Okay, no problem. Like, this is what some of our patients experience. Dr. Cohen will be happy to talk to you about that. I know that this lady is a hothead, for example, coming in. So, first thing I do, hey, Susie, you know, your experience is like we've had that several times. Dry eyes disease, we can't fix it with a magic bullet. This is a long process. Are you still taking your antidepressants? Yeah, I take five a day. Okay, well, that's contributing to your dry. Do you still work on a computer? Yeah. So then you kind of diffuse it. That way a patient isn't PO'd at you that they spent the money and not seeing the results. But then I also know in my mind, I am showing you my objective results. Hey, Bob, look, let's take a picture of your lids. Look at them before. Oh, yeah, it does look better. Right. You may not feel better, but it's looking better. So we're showing clinical signs of improvement. So those are ways to diffuse it, keep the patient happy. The last thing that's going to happen is that patient's going to go tell their whole neighborhood that what a waste of money that they didn't get anything out. But if they understand it all, you can diffuse it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I love that. Um, I think that's really important is to be headed at the curve. So let's talk about as we wrap up in the next five minutes, Dr. Cohen, let's talk about um the results. Sure. What are the results have you seen with elevating the patient experience, listening really well, being proactive, reaching out to the patients, both in the clinic and at home, with your educational content and videos, answering, you know, writing emails. What's the results been like for growing your specialty care practice?
SPEAKER_00Well, I've always looked at my practice as three pillars, right? Our primary care, our myopia or near side management program, as well as the dry eye. Those two pillars every single year grow regardless of the economy. Okay. Regardless, those are non-commodized things, cash-pay services, those continue to grow and propel our practice forward every single year. I mean, both of our practices have, you know, hundreds of 4.9 or 4.9 Google reviews. Those things help with SEO, which helps other patients find you. Um, and so everything kind of resonates. Um, we've had long-term staff is happy. Staff doesn't leave for a dollar an hour. They leave if they're not being valued and listened to. And our staff always has input in our monthly meetings about patient interactions, ideas they have. So it's a whole big circle of life in your practice that resonates in terms of your practice and financial success as a result of the care you're delivering.
SPEAKER_01That's beautiful. So, last, just I guess, uh, you know, thank you so much for joining us, Dr. Cody. This has been great. Just give us three quick tips for a doctor who is a wants to do specialty care, is really, really focused, or multiple, you know, multiple location practice, a hospital, anyone who is interested in delivering great patient care. What are three tips you have just based on your experience over the last two decades?
SPEAKER_00Humanize the experience, right? Make sure you're not just a number, but a person, right? So if any of us have stayed at nice hotels, think about what that hotel has given you in terms of a service experience. Now, it's not going to be repeatable every single day, every single hour, but if you shoot for 100 and you end up with 90, you're in good shape, right? So um humanize the experience, number one. Number two, create a relationship between you as the provider and the patient, okay? Not as a uh on to the next patient, number two. Humanize, you know, make sure you're showing your genuine concern and care. Ask them about their family, ask them about like make little notes in the chart. Hey, um, you know, la I have a weird memory that I remember weird stuff. But like if you're not as good of a memory, say, hey, you make a note, Bob's got a daughter at this university or something. So remember to ask that next year because those little details will the patient doesn't know what's in the chart, but make those little details so that they they they know um you know that that you care a lot and you remember things. Like, how'd you remember that? Uh and then the third thing is making sure your staff's on board, right? The hardest thing to do is to make sure that your vision, uh, no pun intended, is um is is it's carried out throughout the whole process. Whether it's the you know, the patients have there's a this, you know, as they say, there's one first impression. Um, I think there's two first impressions. Um sometimes of a bad phone, you're able to um save it when they come back in the office too. But um, you know, they're make sure that experience is handled in a certain way. Make sure when the patients walk in, you're not like on the phone and and and waving at them. Make sure you're actually physically open-handed waving, walking in them, and remember things like that too. So those types of things create um dedication and and uh to the practice, and um, we'll keep them coming back, hopefully.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I love that. I love this. It's terrific. Thank you so much, Dr. Cohen. I love humanize, build a relationship, and get the staff on board three great tips.
SPEAKER_00The doctor can be as great as you can be. And if this, if if Susie up front's having a bad day because she had a flat tire to work that morning and the patient senses that not good. We have to remember too that especially in eye care, unless they're coming in every three or four months for dry, most patients are in your office twice a year. Once a year for sure, maybe twice a year. That's not a lot of time, right? So you got to make sure those couple times of interactions are meaningful um both emotionally and um to the patient that remembers it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and it's and what you're saying is that you must have those touches, you know, here in the clinic and have several quality humanized touches as well as at home, because that those touches, each touch is valuable. And what that touch is doing is earning trust. What we found is that trust is the number one reason patients sign up and convert for specialty treatment. And the way you're doing it, Dr. Cohen, is a masterclass in this. This is terrific. I've been really appreciate the conversation. I hope the audience here on LinkedIn and elsewhere found your tips, gems really valuable as much as I did. So I want to thank you all very much for your time. And also thank you, Dr. Cohen, for for your masterclass here on conversion and creating a beautiful patient experience. Thank you very much for your time, Dr. Cohen.
SPEAKER_00My pleasure as always. Thank you. Have a great day. Take care.
SPEAKER_01Bye, everybody. Have a good day. Open hand, open hand.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01All right, let's. We're off. I think we're off. Well hold on, yeah. Hold on one second. And