How should medical practices approach new patient acquisition in today’s market? To start, they should at least have a good handle on their metrics, says Oliver Kharraz, M.D., the founder and CEO of Zocdoc.
Kharraz recently joined an episode of Gist Healthcare Daily to discuss how Zocdoc has evolved to meet providers’ needs and his current take on the healthcare industry. He also offered insight from Zocdoc’s new whitepaper on patient acquisition.
For the last 15 years, Zocdoc has connected medical providers with patients seeking care through its online marketplace. After operating on a subscription-basis for years, it pivoted to a fee-per booking model. This has been wildly successful, Kharraz says, as it allows providers to sign up for free and simply pay the platform every time they receive a patient booking.
As Zocdoc has grown, Kharraz says he’s noticed that a lot of providers often “fly blind” when approaching their acquisition strategy. “It makes sense,” he says. “They didn’t go to medical school to become digital marketers.”
Zocdoc’s new whitepaper offers advice on how healthcare businesses, big and small, can refine their patient acquisition approach by offering the average value of a new patient over the course of a year, across specialties. The values account for how different patients behave within each specialty.
“Some patients will come in once, and will be one and done,” Kharraz says. “Some will come in a couple times, and some will come and ultimately need a procedure. You need to look at your specific patient needs and come to an average. “
Having a good sense of the value of a new patient in their first year can help businesses adjust their acquisition budgets accordingly.
“There’s a lot of value in this benchmarking because providers of all different stripes can understand where they are relative to their peers,” Kharraz says.
“Zocdoc has become a core part of the expansion playbook because the numbers just make sense,” Kharraz adds.