Thousands of healthcare providers trust PatientPop to manage each step of practice growth, from the moment patients find them online to post-visit feedback. Today, we hear from customer Marian Keen, PA-C, of Cleveland Family Health.
Cleveland Family Health is a family and aesthetics practice in Garner, NC. In this video, PatientPop representative Norm Schrager asks Keen about her experiences and successes with PatientPop. In particular, the pair discuss the practice’s use of Cynosure lasers. Cynosure, a Hologic company, is a PatientPop exclusive partner.
Watch the video for conversation highlights, or see more of their conversation in the below transcript.
Norm Schrager: We’re joined today by Marian Keen, PA-C, at Cleveland family health in North Carolina. Marian, thank you for joining us today.
Marian Keen, PA-C: Thanks for having me.
Schrager: Cleveland Family Health offers family services, well visits, sick visits, vaccinations, and pediatrics, but you also have an aesthetics business. Was that part of the practice when you first opened or is it something that evolved with time?
Keen: It’s something that evolves with time. We’ve been in this building for about three years. We bought an existing family practice, and then we decided a year and a half ago to start getting into it. So we really started with Botox and fillers, microneedling chemical peels, and then just advanced it from there.
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Schrager: And your practice, we know that you’ve relied on on Cynosure products for some of your services. We know that you have just purchased something recently [from Cynosure]. How did you come to the conclusion to buy a second system for aesthetic services?
Keen: When we started with the spa stuff, we added each thing very meticulously, making sure that it would fit our patients’ needs. And so then we did TempSure for skin tightening.
We decided to add Icon because it really closed out our needs for the spa. It’s a device that has everything we need. So we’re able to do IPL photofacials, skin resurfacing, scarring, and laser hair removal. Between the two machines and our injectable procedures, there’s really nothing that we’re missing.
Schrager: How did you come to see PatientPop as an assistance for attracting patients, not only to the family practice but also to the aesthetics center?
Keen: I had not heard of PatientPop until we met with Cynosure. I actually did our [former] website myself. We didn’t know we weren’t meeting certain parameters that Google requires for a strong, searchable website.
So we were really excited when we got to understand what PatientPop brought to the table. We launched pretty quickly, and then we were up and running with our brand new website in three weeks. And of course they designed it exactly to what I wanted. Now when people search for us, we’re at the top of the list.
Schrager: And was that the primary goal? Especially buying TempSure, you want it to be found more often online. Were there other goals that you are looking to achieve when you began with PatientPop?
Keen: It was multifactorial for us because we have a family practice and we’re in a really close-knit community. Making our presence known and really branding us as the Cleveland community’s main healthcare provider is really, really important. Just letting people know that we were out there. So there was that component.
Then there was the ease of scheduling. People can just pop on our a website and get the next available appointment.
Then we needed to drive patients to our aesthetic services. So [PatientPop] is able to… I guess match when people search for skin tightening or if they’re searching for laser hair removal. Because of the way PatientPop is designed, we were able to be at the top of the list when patients Google us.
Schrager: And were there other business gaps that you were looking to to fill before PatientPop? How were you accomplishing some of the things that the practice wanted to achieve before you started with us?
Keen: Really, we were explaining it the best we could with what little information we had. That was probably our biggest thing for two and a half years. It was just hoping that people would say, “Hey, you need to go see my PA, because I love her.” It’s just not enough in this day and age. Everybody gets on Google, and they’re looking for the best restaurant to go to you, they’re looking for the nail salon to get to. So why not make us the best medical practice to get to?
Check out: How the internet changed the way new patients find a physician
Schrager: And what kind of results do you think you you’ve seen at this stage?
Keen: The biggest thing that we have noticed are reviews. Before, the only time we would get a review would be from somebody who had something really negative to say. It would be if they were dissatisfied.
We probably only had like 18 reviews before we joined PatientPop, and they were on Google alone. We’re now at 86, and we’ve only been with you guys four months. Our rating just skyrocketed.
How to: Make an exceptional first impression online
Schrager: I see that you have, on average, a four-and-a-half out of five and over 115 reviews. So great job by all.
PatientPop integrates with your EHR, athenahealth. How’s it working out for your front desk?
Keen: It’s been really easy. We’ve not had any issues whatsoever, and it’s nice that the schedules integrate.
We went back and forth about whether we wanted it to send us a notification that a patient was requesting an appointment, or whether we wanted to have the full schedule integrated. We decided that we were going to do full integration, even if that meant you see 30 patients on the schedule — we were hoping for that really. So we took a leap of faith and said we’re going to see if patients scheduling their own appointments works well. And it has; we’ve not had any issues.
Schrager: That’s great to hear. You started to mention about the practice’s presence in the community. You guys are located in a suburb of Raleigh, NC. It’s a well-educated area where people can certainly be picky about their choices. What role do you feel Cleveland Family plays in your community?
Keen: We just want people to feel like they’re part of our family and that they know we are on their side and we’re their biggest cheerleader for all their needs. We treat the whole body, from the inside to the outside, we try to hold patients accountable, and we really just help them understand what’s going on inside and outside.
They love to feel like they’re part of us, you know? They know about my kids, I know about their kids, and so we provide the type of a clinic that you don’t typically get anymore.
[Nowadays], there’s a lot of training around getting patients in and out. Sometimes it’s seeing multiple different providers, never knowing who you’re going to see. We don’t want to grow beyond our means. We want patients — no matter if it’s 2,000 or 5,000 patients — to always feel like they are one of us.
Schrager: What kind of role has PatientPop played in your practice being able to thrive?
Keen: PatientPop did a beautiful job at making sure that our goals and our mission and what we stand for is truly represented online. New patients can see what’s available in this office. It’s a true reflection of what we have, and how we’re speaking of community.
Schrager: In what area of practice growth or business performance have you guys seen the greatest improvement since joining PatientPop?
Keen: I would say family practice, but we’ve had people find us for aesthetics as well. Patients have come from 30, 40 minutes from here because they found us and that we were offering TempSure. But we did see a huge increase in new family practice patients. That’s going to continue to increase over the next few months.
Schrager: Is the practice considering purchasing another laser product from Cynosure?
Keen: Right now, I want to make sure I don’t take too much away from family practice patients. I really want to balance those two things out. We just want to make sure that we’re even keeled.
Schrager: How do you see PatientPop contributing to what you want to achieve in the future?
Keen: PatientPop is really getting our name out there and branding us and letting people know we’re here: We’re here for you, your family, your friends. We’re able to take everything and anything that you bring to us. We do healthcare from a 0 to 100, and we’re able to treat all issues in between.
I think the biggest thing for us is that the Cleveland community knows we’re here now. Patients didn’t before, and that’s a big thing for us.
Schrager: We wish you continued good luck and are proud to be a playing a small part in it.
Keen: I think it’s a big part. PatientPop makes a huge difference. Having a website that’s user-friendly, that’s meeting all of the parameters the internet needs that I had no idea existed…
And the ease of scheduling! Patients are able to just go online and schedule an appointment at their leisure. With our new website, they can do that. Even if they leave the hospital at 10 at night, they can schedule that 8:30 appointment the next morning. They don’t have to worry about getting through on the phone. So that’s really been great.
Read: 5 reasons healthcare practices should offer online scheduling
Schrager: That’s great, Marian. So happy to hear that. Thank you for joining us today. It’s been a pleasure speaking with you.
Marian: Thanks for having me.
