Summertime can be a hot and slow time of year for many people around the United States.  A lot of businesses slow down in the summer and the heat can make people feel tired and uncomfortable which can lead to short tempers and very little motivation in a lot of us. Being the practice manager, it is your responsibility to try to keep your practice in a light and happy state so your patients will feel relaxed and confident while visiting their doctor.  Many times in a physicians practice we do not realize  the staff’s attitude and how they interact with the patient has the biggest impact on their overall perspective of their visit.

As a medical practice manager, you are largely responsible for determining and implementing the marketing strategy for your practice.  Even if you have limited contact with patients, you have great influence over the culture of your office and the attitude of the physicians and staff.  Many physicians simply don’t take an interest in marketing strategy or realize its importance.  Your staff probably doesn’t have the knowledge to implement marketing strategy; they are also likely to get distracted from it by day-to-day tasks if no one offers regular and consistent direction.  But like it or not, patients make both conscious and unconscious assessments about your practice and make treatment decisions and recommendations to other potential patients based on those assessments.  Having accepted that you do have a large degree of control over what patients think about your practice, how do you develop a medical practice marketing strategy as a practice manager?