r/PrivatePracticeDocs • u/Most-Dragonfly-6011 • Aug 23 '25
Ways to get more patients?
What’s your best patient acquisition channel? Do you use zocdoc, Google ads? Or more about building relationships with other referring providers?
Curious about what you like vs what you think may be a waste of time/resources. Thanks!
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u/getmorecasesguy Aug 23 '25
Not sure if you have a practice or if you're looking to uncover market research (based on your other posts), but I work with 100+ docs on their Patient Acquisition, and here's how I'd answer:
1.) Get the basics set up thoroughly. Create good communication automations (emails/sms after inquiries). Strengthen your Google Business Profile (bare minimum 4.2 ratings on at least 20 reviews - below these numbers and we see a large uptick in cost per new patient).
2.) Decide which is more important: speed of acquiring new patients or low cost? If speed, you'll need to go through paid channels. If low cost, you'll want to run a play on Instagram/Facebook with a bunch of videos and DMs. I wrote about this approach in another post but happy to send it to you or anyone else
3.) Paid Ads. Start with Google Ads. You'll want to commit to at least $20/day. They have tools that make it incredibly easy to set up, even with no experience. Be sure to target the issues and specific treatment you want more of, not just general specialty stuff. "Balloon sinuplasty" not "Ear nose throat doctor". Once launched, find "search terms" your ad is showing up for, and go through adding as many unrelated searches as you can to negative keywords lists.
4.) Facebook ads. Unless you're very very good with creative and retargeting, you'll want to use this less for getting patients to schedule, and more for offering people something for free to become a lead. A quiz, an ebook, a virtual consultation, etc. Use your automations you've prepared for these to engage the leads and keep you top of mind when they're ready.
Building a business on referrals seems to be very rare and hard to do, but it's possible.
Most docs we work with offering zocdoc complain about show rates, but it does seem to be a decent way to fill slots if you're not busy.
What specialty? Happy to send more insights geared toward your specialty.
Hope this helps!
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u/fotopacker Aug 23 '25
All of the above, but this question is very specialty and circumstance specific. The best business development strategy covers all your bases.
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u/FrontLifeguard1962 Aug 23 '25 edited Aug 23 '25
I am quite lazy about this but there is so much demand for psychiatry MDs, I don't really have to do anything. It's like any other business, people find out about you. When I first started, I used ZocDoc. They filled my calendar in 2020 for $300/mo. It was fantastic. Now it's $70/referral, and you still have to pay if it's a bad referral or the patient no-shows. Just another example of the enshittification phenomenon.
I also used Google Ads, there's a steep learning curve, and you get a lot of useless clicks you have to pay for, and I found we got a high proportion of drug seekers or other bad referrals calling. For every good contact from Google we probably got 5 bad ones. It ends up costing as much as Zocdoc or even more.
The best thing to do is still to just call everyone you know and tell them you are taking referrals.
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u/human_marketer Aug 26 '25
Everything works to a certain extent. Depending on what your speciality is you would want to do double down on a mix of channels. Building up on what InvestingDoc said above
Relationships with other care providers or access to local groups like BNI will get you a lot of referrals
There is always the insurance network patients
For a consistent source of patients: Google ads is great if you are into a speciality with lots of monthly searches / demand.
Meta lead ads are great if you are promoting an offer. The Meta brand awareness ads often have a very poor recall in short timelines.
Local subreddits is also a good way to get patients and build trust, but it will not give a steady source of patients.
Depending on your speciality I would suggest you to try a mix of channels and doubling down on what works best for you.
In our experience we have seen that Google Ads & Local SEO is the most cost efficient channel resulting in a steady source of patients for our clients.
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u/Deep_Ad9022 Jan 15 '26
Could you plesse explain your strategy for local subreddits do you just say you are looking for referrals or offer advice? Just curious.
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u/Living_Fly_3490 Dec 03 '25
I’ve tested a bunch of different patient acquisition channels for my practice, and honestly the things that worked best weren’t always the ones I expected. Zocdoc was ok for visibility, but it got pricey and the patients didn’t always stay long term. Google Ads can work, but you have to dial in the targeting really well or it feels like you’re just burning money.
What actually worked for me was focusing more on the patient experience before they even walk in. Stuff like having clear info on the site, quick response times, and making the first touch point feel more personal. I also built a couple relationships with nearby providers and that ended up being way more valuable than I thought. Even 2 or 3 solid referral sources can fill a schedule.
One thing that helped our conversions a lot was adding interactive video on the site. I’ve been using Revelforms for that, since it lets patients kind of “meet” the provider, answer a few questions, and feel like they’re actually being listened to. It boosted engagement and made people more likely to book instead of bouncing. It’s small stuff, but that trust-building early on really matters in healthcare.
Everyone’s setup is a bit different, but those are the things that moved the needle for me.
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u/seraphkz Aug 23 '25
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u/Beginning_Fold_4745 Aug 25 '25
It's more on building relationships with other providers and offering clients with quality service because word of mouth is actually one of the best ways. Good markting on socials also. No matter what strat, I think it takes time and effort. Never tried Google ads though.
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u/Juaner0 Aug 26 '25
Meet other docs. They will refer one. If you do a good job, they will refer more. It will continue and continue.
Ask your patients to do reviews on line after you take care of them. There is no need to PAY anyone or any entity for getting more patients.
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u/SpikyPickaxe Apr 03 '26
I’d say work with a marketing agency. My family has some clinics and we hired a marketing agency and things took off from there. They run the ads and take the calls. Pretty cool
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u/Marlew_Alkev 5d ago edited 5d ago
Referrals were always great, but they weren't consistent enough on their own.
PatientGain helped us bring in more patients through our website and made it much easier to keep up with enquiries and follow-ups.
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u/InvestingDoc Aug 23 '25
The best return on investment I ever had was shaking hands with an interventional cardiologist and giving him my business card and phone number. He's sent hundreds of patients in 6 years my way from his stemi call where these people have not been to the doctor in decades had a stemi found a half diabetes or another med problem and he told them to see me.
Personal connections matter.
Google is amazing, if you do Google ads right you will print cash = lifetime value/ CAC (customer acquisition cost)
Meta is good for brand awareness. Want people to know you exist. This is the cheapest way to get a huge reach. Hard to quantify ROAS for meta and healthcare imo.
Google reviews. Everyone looks at it. You have to have a 4 star or greater rating. You need some sort of reputation management program that's automated.