Gathering online reviews hasn't always been a priority for healthcare providers and clinics, but in today's cyber-connected world, you can't afford to miss what patients are saying about your practice online. When it comes to medical practice or even physician online reputation management, there are ten main review sites you should be monitoring and using to collect reviews from patients.

Whether you are just starting up your practice, or you're looking to grow your practice, it's important to understand the key components that make up a successful medical practice marketing plan. Not every practice will use every marketing method. You may try some and find that they simply don't work for you, and that's fine. Here are some of the most popular yet also succesful marketing components used in medical practice marketing.

As a physician, you may feel that you don't have the time or energy to set up a Facebook or Twitter profile – let alone the time it takes to consistently manage these social media sites and others like them. However, social media marketing, when done right, can be a great way to communicate with your patients in a more personalized manner.

Someone needs to tell you: Your website matters. It matters as much as, if not more than, your actual brick and mortar office. For many, it is their first experience of your practice. It is the first impression you make on many of your patients or patients-to-be (or not to be, depending on how that impression goes…). 

Managing a busy medical practice is at times a daunting task. You need to be professional and at the top of your game, managing the financial side of the practice, diagnosing and taking care of patients, keeping the operational side of the business well-oiled, and, yes, you also have to provide superior customer service.

Ten years ago, it was easy for doctors to keep a professional distance between themselves and their patients. They could have an unlisted personal phone number, for starters, which would leave the office number as the only publicly available way to contact you. Nowadays, doctors are personally available online 24 hours a day - if they have a social media presence. Here's how physicians can adapt and manage their social media presence without hurting patient relationships or sacrificing their own privacy.