In those bygone days before the rise of the internet and online search engines, people often cracked open phonebooks (remember those?) and turned to the Yellow Pages whenever they needed to find a local business or service (including healthcare). These days, however, very few people use phonebooks anymore (at least, not for locating businesses or finding phone numbers). I would challenge you to find just one person under the age of 20 who remembers ever seeing a phonebook in real life, but that’d just be a monumental waste of your time.

When you're running any sort of medical practice, regardless of specialty, it's important to focus on the human element of the business. When you spend time thinking about effective patient scheduling techniques, maintaining accurate electronic medical records and optimizing billing processes, it can be far too easy to view your practice as a business first. The truth, though, is that being professionally successful in the medical field is contingent, at least partially, upon maintaining excellent communication in all aspects of your practice. Even if you feel that you've cracked the code, you may want to take a look at these tips for improving communication within your practice:

More than ever, it's incredibly important for medical professionals to do everything they can to maintain patient satisfaction. Studies show that physicians who engage in direct eye contact with patients are perceived as more empathetic and well-liked. This can be facilitated with mobile tools. Nextech's EHR solution works on both a PC and an iPad, allowing you to choose the best device for patient interaction. With the iPad app, you can keep direct eye contact in the exam room and even stay connected to your patients and your practice wherever you go.

With the EHR Incentive program and other initiatives to make health care more engaging, the patient portal is more important than ever. However, as revealed at the 2015 Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society conference, portal technology has largely fallen short when it comes to fostering engagement.

Between upkeeping accurate electronic medical records, establishing and maintaining reliable revenue streams and continually developing your staff professionally, there's a lot to consider when you're running a medical practice. With all of these tasks requiring high-level attention on a daily basis, it can be hard to find the time to ensure that you're doing everything you can to build your practice's brand and client awareness. Luckily, living in the digital age means this process now requires less effort than ever before. Taking note of and implementing a few key tips and methods into your practice can help you build a meaningful online brand that can expand your client base and revenue streams while also bettering your reputation. Take a look at these helpful ideas when it comes to marketing:

Things have changed a lot since that epic and historic moment, all those years ago, when Al Gore invented the internet (and yet, oddly enough, his name isn’t mentioned once in the history of the internet). Just kidding… About Al Gore, not about things changing. They have changed. A lot… Especially when it comes to how we use the internet. And I’m not just referring to the shocking number of people who ended up using it primarily just to look at pictures of cats. Originally, searching the internet required a desktop computer with a dialup modem that would scream at the user until a connection was established (remember that sound?). These days, we have Wi-Fi that allows us to access the internet from various devices—desktops, laptops, tablets, smartphones, and even our cars.

Today we'll be discussing strategies for bringing patients back to your practice.

Transcript Hello, and welcome to the Nextech blog! Today we will be speaking about how to improve and increase use of your patient portal. First and foremost, Medical Practice Insider reports that you'll need to make sure that your patients are aware of the patient portal and how to use it. While they may not know the ins and outs of electronic medical records, you should take some time out of their next visit to introduce them to the concept and field any initial questions. Physicians could spend a couple of extra minutes with patients to educate them on benefits of a patient portal and answer their questions. It might also be helpful to have a portal kiosk on site where they can set up their account while they wait.