How Can You Stand Out From Your Competition?


As a healthcare provider, you are not just in the healthcare field, but you are also in healthcare marketing and sales.

You are competing with many other providers for potential patients.

So, with all that competition, how do you stand out?

This is how you stand out:

                        You must work harder, market better, and spend more than your competitors.


That sounds difficult, doesn’t it?

But, do you want to be the market leader or not?

Do you want to crush your competition?

Then, remember, anything worth having is worth the effort to obtain it.

How then do you compete? How do you differentiate yourself?

In many non-healthcare businesses, they compete on price.

Since you as a healthcare provider most likely receive payments through third parties, you don’t have control over your prices.

So, you have to compete on other factors.

What else is there?

There are several other options. They include:

1. Expertise

2. Service

3. Location

4. Ancillary services

5. Staff


That is not an exhaustive list, but honestly, most providers have never even broken it down like this. So, you are already ahead of most others.

We will discuss each of these items separately.


Expertise –

Are you a generalist or a subspecialist?

If you are a subspecialist, what is your subspecialty field? For example, a General Surgeon may subspecialize in Colorectal surgery. Or an Orthopaedist may subspecialize in Spine surgery. Or a Radiologist may subspecialize in Interventional Radiology.

If you subspecialize, you already stand out from your competitors who are generalists.

If you are a generalist, you often still have expertise in some sub-branch of your general field. What diagnoses do you preferentially love to treat? Then, you have expertise in that area. You can stand out with that expertise.

Your expertise is one way to stand out.

But, a word of caution: don’t try to advertise your expertise by detailing all your training. Frankly, patients don’t understand the difference between a fellowship and a residency. And they get confused by all the letters some doctors want to put behind their names.

Let your expertise show in your educational material.

When you post a video on YouTube and can explain a disease process in easily understandable words, and when you can detail how people with that problem feel and what they experience, the patients who can relate to your description will easily perceive your expertise without you having to tell them. And they will flock to see you because they can tell you understand them.

You need written material and video material for patients to consume. Take the time to produce them.

When potential patients see your educational material, they come to view you as an expert and an authority on the subject.

What you want is for them to eventually see you as THE expert and THE authority in your area!

Patients want to see the expert and the authority.

Through the quality of your educational material, you will easily stand out from your competition.

And you should market that expertise in disguised, non-bragging, ways.


Service –

Another way to stand out is with your service.

Have you conducted an audit of your clinic process from the patient’s point of view? From beginning to end?

How easy is it to get an appointment with you? How nice are your appointment schedulers?

Can patients schedule online? Do you have night or weekend hours?

How long did they have to wait to get an appointment? Did they receive any pre-appointment paperwork? Perhaps paperwork about what to expect at your office? Or other educational information? Or paperwork that can be filled out ahead of time in order to save them time at the appointment?

Once at the appointment, how long did they have to wait in the waiting room before seeing you?

How accommodating was the waiting room? Is there a sub-waiting room?

How do your exam rooms make patients feel? How private was the experience?

How was the check-out process? What was the follow-up plan?

Software companies and app producers spend millions of dollars on the user experience.

What is the user experience like at your office? Have you meticulously evaluated it?

Do you check it every few months? Are you as efficient as you can possibly be?

If you do check it and revise it as needed, you will likely stand out over your competitors.

And you should market your superior service through various non-bragging ways.


Location –

If you are starting a new practice, you have some control over where you choose to place your office. Choose wisely.

If you joined an existing group, you can’t control the location, but hopefully, someone before you did and chose a very convenient location.

What is different and better about your location compared to your competitors? Easier access from the road? Better parking? More handicapped parking spots? Next door to the hospital? Next door to a pharmacy? In a part of town with less traffic? Great restaurants nearby?

Determine what is different about your location compared to your competitors. Detail why it is better.

Then market your location for what makes it better!

In your marketing, detail how your location will benefit the patients.


Ancillary services –

Does your practice have ancillary services?

A pharmacy? A brace shop?

An Ambulatory Surgery Center?

An Imaging Center?

A Med Spa?

A nutritional supplements retail store?

A treatment center for injections? Red light therapy? Shockwave or ultrasound treatments?

A coffee shop in your clinic?

If you don’t have any ancillary services, you should consider adding some. They provide additional streams of revenue which are important in these days of decreasing reimbursements.

But, more importantly, they offer differentiation from your competition!

And you should market them.

In fact, the closer you can get to a one stop shop, the more marketing potential you have.

The best marketing is that which details how the patient’s life is made better by whatever it is you are marketing.

The more convenience you can offer your patients, the better they will like you.

And you will stand out even more from your competitors!


Staff –

How much training do you provide for your staff?

Most providers do some initial on-the-job training just so the staff understand their job duties.

But what about customer service training? Friendliness training? Interpersonal skills?

When you hire employees, are you just happy to find a warm body to fill a vacancy?

Or are you picky and patient? Do you leave a vacancy unfilled until you can fill it with a well-qualified candidate?

Too many providers just take what they can get. But usually, what you can get easily and quickly is not the crème of the crop.

Isn’t your business valuable enough to wait for the right people?

Hiring the right people takes time, but it’s very much worth it.

It also usually costs extra to get good employees. These days, employees have lots of options. So, raise your pay and your expectations. Be patient and you will be rewarded.

And good employees stay longer. Therefore, in the long run, they cost you less, despite the higher wage.

That is because there is a high cost to frequent turnover. When you hire good people who stay, it saves you long term.

Set high expectations for your staff. Treat them well. Appreciate them. Reward them. Make sure you tell them frequently how important they are and how you couldn’t do your good work without their good work. Develop a close-knit community atmosphere in your office.

Take the time to get to know your employees. Know their names. Know their spouse’s name or their significant other’s name. Learn what their interests are outside of work. Learn how many kids they have. Learn what activities the kids are in. Plan social events once or twice a year for your staff. An outdoor barbeque or a holiday dinner, for example. Have them bring their families.

And provide frequent training seminars on the best customer service strategies today. Incentivize your employees to provide great service. Whether it is phone etiquette, patient education, follow-up training, etc. Make sure your service is stellar.

Your patients will notice. And they will stay with you because of it.

And you should market how your staff will make your patient’s life better.

And your staff’s great service will make you stand out from your competitors!

This all sounds like a lot of work, doesn’t it?

Just remember, in order for you to stand out from your competitors, you must work harder, market better, and spend more than they do.

Is it worth it to you?

Some years ago, Tim Tebow made a statement that resonated with me and is appropriate here. At the time, I was not a fan of his. Since then, I have come to respect him more. I don’t know if this statement was original with him, but he was the one I heard it from. He said:

                           “Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.”


We know you are a talented healthcare provider.

But, are you a hard worker?

If you are not a hard worker, one of your hard-working, even marginally talented competitors will hurt your practice.

But, if you do choose to work hard, you likely can’t be beaten, even by a more talented competitor across town.

So, we have discussed some of what goes into working harder as well as some ways you can market better.

In the July issue of the Healthcare Marketing Secrets Journal, we detail more aspects of marketing better and also discuss how to spend more than your competition.
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​Here is the link:
https://www.healthcareprovidermarketing.com/healthcare-marketing-secrets