In today's consumer-driven healthcare marketplace, specialty practices must do more than just treat patients. By promoting practice expertise in the community, setting yourself apart from competitors and clearly articulating how well you meet customer needs, you can create a marketing strategy that allows your practice to reach new heights.

Healthcare organizations want engaged patients but aren’t always clear on what an engaged patient acts or sounds like. For those that have a solid grasp on what patient engagement is, a clear pathway to achieving patient engagement can still prove challenging. They find themselves asking, “is it technology driven, people driven, or process driven?” It’s really all three.

When specialty practices expand their operations, they often run into challenges as they work to capture market share, bring in new physicians and increase revenue. The most successful organizations do some upfront planning as part of their expansion strategies to anticipate and address possible hiccups. Here are three tactics to keep in mind during planning to sidestep common growing pains.

With Valentine’s Day approaching, people are starting to celebrate love and friendship. However, given the competing priorities your front office staff deals with each day, they may have trouble putting their hearts into any festivities.

This is a guest post by Tuesday Wilson from MyMedLeads. Over the course of the last decade, many physicians have developed a love-hate relationship with online reviews. On one hand, review sites like Yelp and Google have emerged as a great way for practices to be discovered by local consumers searching for their services. On the other hand, negative reviews can be a source of great anxiety and frustration for doctors. Whether you love them or hate them, the fact is online reviews influence prospective patients and have a very real impact on your business.

Never has there been a more dynamic time in healthcare, and the pace of change is extraordinary. Emerging payment models are encouraging more proactive care, demanding greater collaboration and rewarding value. In addition, rising consumerism is pushing for more service-oriented patient experiences. Given these evolving—and sometimes contradictory—dynamics, ophthalmology, dermatology and plastic surgery providers should be continuously reexamining their processes for care delivery and operations to be sure they’re keeping up.

Building relationships are key to specialty practice marketing. Communicating to a target audience that the practice values them and wants to meet their needs helps cultivate strong affiliations with patients as well as other physicians who may refer patients to the organization. Establishing and reinforcing these connections can draw individuals into the practice, preserve loyalty and increase the likelihood for positive long-term performance.

There has never been a more critical time to market a specialty practice. Increasing competition, rising patient consumerism and the need to expand shrinking margins are all factors that are pushing practices to better promote themselves. When done well, marketing efforts can drive referrals, foster loyalty and establish a positive reputation. Moreover, they can boost brand visibility, grow recognition and cultivate long-lasting patient and referral source relationships.