Solutions for Medical Marketing

Medical marketing is an ever-expanding industry that is not only growing in importance as the digital world evolves but is also paramount for doctors and providers who simply don’t have the time to market their services and maintain their websites. With the rise of high-quality content management systems like WordPress and Squarespace, it is becoming easier than ever to build beautiful and functional websites for clients in all sorts of spaces. However, just because it is easier to build websites doesn’t mean it is easier to be a medical marketer, and if you want to stand out from the crowd, you have to make sure that your arsenal is well equipped. By having the right tools for the job, you can position yourself as a leading expert in medical marketing, which will help you win clients from your competition and grow your agency. Form Vessel is a tool that every medical marketer should have in their kit. It is easy to use, purpose built for healthcare, and has a competitive agency plan designed to support your growth.

What Is HIPAA?

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) is a federal law that was established in 1996 to protect the privacy and security of sensitive health information. It’s an important and valuable piece of legislation, but it can also be incredibly confusing and difficult to understand where it applies. Many healthcare marketing professionals have heard the term, and understand it applies to the medical industry, but not fully considered how it affects their work.

HIPAA and Medical Marketing

If you do have the opportunity to dive into HIPAA documentation, you’ll quickly learn that it is quite a curious piece of law. It tells you exactly what is required to comply with the regulations, but in very roundabout and convoluted ways. It’s easy to get lost and not fully comprehend what is required, who is affected, and how to implement solutions that work.

HIPAA and web design is one of the most confusing aspects because HIPAA doesn’t matter until it does. What does that mean? Simply put, a website itself is not bound by HIPAA. Simply having a website where patients can come to learn about your practice does not concern patient privacy on its own, however the problem arises when protected health information (PHI) gets involved.

Does This Affect All Medical Websites?

As soon as a website can collect and store PHI, it is bound by HIPAA. That is the biggest issue, especially because most doctors and providers expect that their website has some way for patients to communicate outside of a phone call (and patients expect it too). That’s where those contact form plugins come in. It provides practices with a platform where patients can communicate, whether its general health questions or requesting an appointment.

It's an important aspect of a medical website, and really the culmination of all your marketing efforts. You’ve captured the patients attention, they found their way to that amazing website you designed, and are ready to convert.

Why Does It All Matter?

At this point, it’s important to the patient that the information they put into that contact form is safe and secure, and HIPAA ensures that. However, many of the most popular form plugins are not HIPAA compliant by default. It’s important to create a compliant environment that safeguards this information, and there’s a lot that goes into that.

While it’s critical to do so, it also doesn’t have to be your obligation. A marketing agency only concern should be helping their clients grow their practice, and compliance shouldn’t get in the way of that. The best solution is to isolate the one aspect of medical web design that involves compliance, which can help your agency improve where it matters most.

Now you understand that forms on healthcare websites represent one of the biggest hidden compliance pitfalls. Closing that gap is critical to protecting your clients, their patients, and even yourself from compliance risks. Many may wonder why not just get rid of the forms entirely. If HIPAA only applies when there is a potential to collect sensitive information, then removing that potential fixes the problem quickly. This is true, but it’s not an ideal situation for one reason: conversion. The main reason that healthcare providers hire marketing agencies is to boost their conversion rates, and getting rid of online form solutions actively hinders that.

People Expect Digital Communication Options

It's simply a symptom of the rise of digital media in the modern world. Twenty-five years ago, making it easy to find a practice’s phone number was all it took. Yellow Pages, Valpak, and other physical marketing tools were so effective because they got a practice’s name and phone number in front of potential patients, and the most logical method of conversion was dialing into the office.

Of course, that medium is still alive, and many people still do it, but it’s not the only solution. Not only that, but when prospective patients end up on a provider’s website and there is no online option, it isn’t just an inconvenience, it almost feels like they are behind the curve.

Removing Friction is the Name of the Game

Even the smallest pieces of friction between discovering a practice and actually becoming a patient can lead people to look elsewhere. When conversion is the name of the game, you want to make sure that your agency is implementing as many avenues as possible to make it happen, rather than limiting that capacity. Form Vessel allows agencies to keep that conversion lane open while also instilling a sense of trust, safety, and security for both provider and patient.

By adopting Form Vessel, you can isolate the one piece of your big marketing puzzle that is mired in confusing compliance rules and regulations, and focus on accomplishing what your clients hired you for: attracting new patients!

When you’re building forms for your healthcare clients, you’re not expected to reinvent the wheel. Whether it’s a large patient intake form or a simple contact form doesn’t really matter to you. Instead, what matters is that you have a quality system that you can trust will allow your team to build anything they need to without limitation. No scrambling to find something else to fill the gaps or figuring out ways to ensure everything is compliant.

Not only do you need to be confident the solution works, but also that it is simple, quick, and repeatable. Finding these solutions allows you to reduce training overhead, prevent small errors from piling up into big problems, and ultimately turn your agency into a medical marketing powerhouse.

More Trust, Less Stress