By Travis Schneider

The new year is the perfect time for independent practices to prepare their business strategy for 2023. While it’s easy to continue with the same workflows and operations year in and year out, if they aren’t delivering the right results, it’s time for a change. As you reevaluate your business strategy for 2023, keep the following tips in mind.

Set resolutions and measurable goals.

Goals are useful in helping you define the direction you want to take your business in and establishing a timeline for achieving it. In the same way you would make personal New Year’s resolutions, you should also set a few for your practice. You can start by referencing your practice’s key performance indicators (KPIs) from 2022 to see how you can improve on them in 2023.

Some KPIs that are most valuable for your practice to monitor include: 

  • Appointment volume 
  • New patient visits
  • Patient review sentiment 

These KPIs allow you to evaluate your online reputation and see what others think of your practice while also helping you to refine your success strategy. 

For instance, tracking the percentage of patients who book an appointment via phone and online scheduling will demonstrate how efficient your practice is. Improving your practice’s conversion rate could be a good resolution if it is low.

When defining your resolutions based on these KPIs, be sure to be SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and timely. The most important component of your goals is that they are measurable, allowing you to determine the impact of each resolution on your practice. Develop benchmarks and milestones to eliminate guesswork and make tracking your progress easier with regularly scheduled check-ins and ongoing monitoring every month or quarter.

Invest in your practice.

If you want to see better business results in 2023, you need to start the new year with the right technology that allows your practice to track its progress and improve its previous performance.

As of 2021, most office-based physicians (78%) use a certified EHR. The issue is that these practices still have to duplicate efforts, like coordinating appointment scheduling, collecting patient data, and managing patient billing. 

In most cases, their EHR does not integrate with the other technology they already use, meaning that many practices still use four or five fragmented solutions to run their business. As a result, they are not delivering the modern patient experience patients now expect from their healthcare providers. 

The solution? Invest in a complete operating system (COS) to overcome the setback of fragmented practice solutions. A COS will foster simplified practice management processes and streamline operations for plastic surgeons by consolidating all of your practice’s technology into one centralized location. 

Plus, with the emergence of consumerization in healthcare, investing in a COS simplifies the process of driving KPIs and improving the patient experience. Patients want convenience and ease of use when it comes to managing their health. Investing in a unified software solution would allow you to provide a smooth experience that meets their expectations.

Maximize your online presence.

When looking for a healthcare provider, 60% of patients research care online. Taking the time to improve your search engine ranking and maximizing your online presence will increase patient acquisition as you segue into 2023.

Start by auditing your practice’s website against competitors in your specialty. See which of your competitors are ranking higher than you in a simple internet search and take a close look at how those websites differ from yours. 

A critical component of boosting your practice’s search engine ranking is matching the keywords on your website with those that patients use to search for you. Using popular keywords in your website’s page titles, blog content, or image descriptions will make your practice more discoverable when prospective patients search for plastic surgery providers. 

Another critical aspect of maximizing your online presence is claiming and enhancing your practice’s business profiles across the web. When you claim and update your practice’s page on sites like Yelp, Google, and WebMD, you boost its visibility so that patients can find you more easily.

Finally, you need to make sure your website is user-friendly with an optimized layout. Analyze your website’s loading speed, navigation, and ease of use. A website with these key features will make learning about your practice and booking an appointment easy and convenient for prospective patients.

Examining your business strategy for 2023 is just the first step toward setting your practice up for a year of success. By committing to these tactics and incorporating them into your practice’s business plan, you can increase site traffic, gain more patients, and, even better, retain existing patients. While plastic surgery is a competitive specialty, leveraging powerful new technology and analytics is likely just the “facelift” your practice needs to have a happy new year.

Travis Schneider is co-founder and chief corporate development officer for Tebra, a cloud-based healthcare technology platform, where he oversees mergers and acquisitions, as well as strategic partnerships. In 2021, PatientPop, a provider of practice growth technology, merged with Kareo, a provider of cloud-based clinical and financial software. Schneider was the co-founder and co-CEO of PatientPop, where he oversaw all aspects of strategy, sales, and business development.