Marketing Tips for Doctors

TMS235-The-Angry-Patient

Key Takeaway Quote:

“Your goal is not to win the argument. Your goal is to understand the experience. Because you can be technically correct and still completely lose the patient.” – Dr. Barbara Hales

Connect with Barbara Hales: 

TRANSCRIPT

Dr. Barbara Hales 0:06

Your patient is furious, and unfortunately, they have Wi-Fi. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Marketing Tips for Doctors. In our first episode, we talked about trust and the transparency paradox. We challenged the old belief that when something goes wrong, saying less always protects the physician. Then we tackled one of the hardest questions a patient can ask: “Doctor, was this your fault? And we talked about what physicians can actually say when they don’t yet have all the answers. Today we’re taking the next step because sometimes the patient isn’t calmly asking questions. Sometimes they’re angry, really, really angry. They’re angry about the bill. They’re angry because they waited an hour and 15 minutes to see you. They’re angry because nobody returned their call. They’re angry because you didn’t send their prescription to the pharmacy. They’re angry because they think you didn’t listen to them, or they’re angry because the outcome wasn’t what they expected, and now they’re standing at your front desk saying those words everyone in the office dreads. I’m going to leave you a terrible review. What happens next may determine whether you lose a patient, receive a one-star review, damage your reputation, or actually strengthen the relationship. So grab your coffee because today we’re talking about the angry patient, and I’m going to give you actual words to use. First, stop trying to win. Here’s the first thing I want you to remember: your goal is not to win the argument. I know sometimes the patient is wrong, completely wrong. They arrived 25 minutes late, and they’re furious because they had to wait. They didn’t follow the instructions you gave them. The office called three times, and they didn’t return the calls. The charge they’re screaming about is clearly explained in the paperwork they signed. You have facts. You have documentation. You may even have witnesses. And every cell in your body wants to say, actually, be careful, because you can win the argument and still lose the patient. And now that patient has a smartphone, being technically correct does not necessarily repair an emotional experience. Before you correct the facts, you need to understand what the patient believes happened. The waiting room. Let’s imagine a patient named Susan. Susan has a 10 o’clock appointment. At 11 o5′ she’s still sitting in the waiting room. Nobody has told her why. She finally walks up to the receptionist and says, “This is ridiculous. My time matters too. The receptionist answers, “The doctor had an emergency. We’re doing the best we can now. Is that true? Probably. Is it helpful? Not particularly, because what Susan hears is, “Your inconvenience doesn’t matter because we have a good excuse. Then the receptionist makes it worse. Would you like to reschedule? Oh boy, Susan has already rearranged her morning, driven to the office, and waited more than an hour. Now we’re suggesting she do it all again. Imagine instead that someone had gone into the waiting room 30 minutes earlier and said, “Dr. Smith had an emergency this morning, and we’re running behind. I’m really sorry we didn’t tell you sooner. Right now, we’re estimating another 30-minute wait. I can give you some options if that doesn’t work for you. Same delay, same doctor, same emergency, completely different experience. What changed? Not the problem, the communication. Sometimes you cannot fix what’s making the patient angry, but you can fix how they’re experiencing it. Don’t say “calm down. Here’s a phrase I’d like to banish from every medical office. You need to calm down. Has that sentence ever calmed anyone down? Imagine your spouse saying it to you during an argument. How’s that going to work out? Probably not well. “ Calm down” communicates that your emotional reaction is the problem. Instead, try. I can see that you’re upset. Tell me what happened. Then stop talking. This is harder than it sounds. Doctors are problem solvers. While the patient is speaking, our brains are already generating solutions. But an angry person who doesn’t feel heard usually doesn’t get less angry because you interrupted them with a solution. Let them finish. You may discover that what they’re actually angry about isn’t what you assumed. Story number two: The $300 bill. Let’s meet Robert. Robert receives a $300 bill he wasn’t expecting. He calls the practice, furious. I was told insurance covered this. The staff member responds, “You need to call your insurance company. That’s your deductible.

Dr. Barbara Hales 6:43

That may be factually correct, but Robert doesn’t hear. Here’s an explanation. He hears, not our problem. So he asks for the office manager. Now he’s angrier. By the time the office manager gets on the phone, Robert says this practice is a scam. Here’s where things can go badly very quickly. The office manager can defend the practice. We are absolutely not a scam. Or she can say, I can hear how frustrating it was to receive a bill you weren’t expecting. Let’s look at what happened together. Notice something important. She didn’t say the bill was wrong. She didn’t promise to waive it. She did not blame the insurance company. She acknowledged the problem and offered to investigate it. Then she can say, “Let me pull up your account so I can explain exactly where this charge came from. Now we’re moving from confrontation to problem-solving, and that phrase, “Let’s look at this together, is incredibly powerful. Suddenly, it’s no longer patient versus practice. It’s patient and practice versus problem. That’s where you want to be. The five-step reset. So let’s make this practical. When an angry patient is in front of you, remember five steps: one, listen. Don’t interrupt unless there’s a safety issue. Let the patient tell you what happened. Two, acknowledge. You don’t have to agree with every accusation. You can say, “I understand why that would be frustrating, or “I can see why you’re upset. Three, clarify. Ask what concerns you most right now. That question is gold, because the answer may surprise you. Four, respond now and only now. Explain what you know. Keep it simple. No defensive speech. No 10-minute explanation of office policy. Five. Follow through. If you say you’ll call tomorrow, call tomorrow. If you say someone will investigate. Make sure somebody investigates, because nothing reignites anger faster than a broken promise. But what if the patient is wrong? Now we’re getting to the fun part. What if the patient is absolutely, positively wrong? Let’s say a patient tells you Nobody ever told me I needed this follow-up test. You look at the chart; it’s documented. You discussed it. Your nurse discussed it. The portal message was sent. The patient even replied to. Message; your temptation is to say, ” Actually, we told you three times, technically correct, terrible opening. Try this instead. I can see there was a disconnect somewhere because you didn’t leave understanding that the follow-up was necessary. Let’s go through what happened and make sure we’re clear about what you need now. Does that mean you’re accepting blame? No. It means you’re prioritizing the patient’s care over proving you’re right. You can review the documentation afterward, but first solve the problem that’s in front of you. Story number three: the patient who felt dismissed. Now let’s talk about something even more personal. A patient we’ll call Diane comes in with fatigue, headaches, and difficulty sleeping. The physician evaluates her, orders appropriate tests, and finds nothing alarming. He tells her everything looks fine. He thinks he’s giving her good news. Diane hears There’s nothing wrong with you. She leaves furious. Later, she writes, “The doctor didn’t listen to me and dismissed all my symptoms. Now, imagine the physician reading that review. His immediate reaction might be, “That’s completely unfair. I spent 30 minutes with her. I ordered tests, and he may be right, but remember something: intent and experience are not always the same thing. He meant to reassure her; she felt dismissed. What if he had said The good news is that the testing we’ve done so far has not shown anything dangerous, but I know you’re still having these symptoms, and I don’t want you to think I’m dismissing them. Let’s talk about what we do next. Same test results, different experience. Sometimes the sentence you add at the end changes everything. When the patient says, “I’m going to sue you, now let’s tackle the sentence that makes everyone’s stomach drop. I’m going to sue you. This is not the moment to say, “Go ahead, please don’t say that. It’s also not the time to debate the merits of a potential lawsuit. Once a patient threatens legal action, follow your organization’s policies and notify the appropriate risk management or malpractice professionals. But in the moment, you can still remain calm. You might say, “I can hear how upset you are.

Dr. Barbara Hales 13:05

I want to make sure your concerns are taken seriously, and I’ll make sure the appropriate people are aware of them. Don’t argue. Don’t threaten. Don’t promise outcomes, and don’t suddenly become a robot. Professional doesn’t have to mean cold. And then there’s the online review. Now we arrive at the Wi-Fi. The patient says, “Everyone is going to hear about this. Here’s what I don’t want you to do. Don’t say If you post something false, we’ll respond. Don’t say you can’t write that, and please don’t start negotiating for five stars while the person is still furious. Your objective is to address the underlying complaint because many negative reviews begin long before somebody opens Google. They begin with the feeling nobody listened to me. If you can address that feeling before the patient leaves your office, you may prevent the conflict from escalating, not because you’re manipulating them into avoiding a bad review, but because you’re actually resolving the problem. That’s reputation management at its best. What if the review is already online? Now suppose you’re too late. You wake up Monday morning, and there it is: one star, and it’s long, very long. Your name is mentioned seven times. Your staff is furious, and you desperately want to respond. That’s not what happened. Don’t, at least not immediately, because there’s another person. Reading that exchange, actually, there may be hundreds of them. Your future patients-they’re not only judging the angry reviewer; they’re judging you. Because healthcare information is protected, your public response also has privacy considerations. You cannot simply publish details from someone’s medical record to prove that you are right. So your public response needs to remain professional and protect patient privacy. Something along the lines of, “We’re sorry to hear that you are unhappy with your experience. We take concerns seriously and would welcome the opportunity to speak with you directly. Please contact our office so we can discuss this further. Simple, professional. No diagnosis, no treatment details, no argument. Then take the conversation offline. Remember, your response isn’t only for the person who wrote the review; it’s for every prospective patient who reads it later. They’re asking themselves, “How does this doctor behave when somebody is unhappy? Show them when anger crosses the line now. I want to make something very clear: empathy does not mean tolerating abuse. A patient can be angry, complain, or disagree with you, but threatening, discriminatory, abusive, or dangerous behavior is different. Your staff deserves a safe workplace, so there is absolutely a point where you may need to say, “I want to help resolve this, but I can’t continue the conversation while you’re speaking to my staff that way. If we could speak respectfully, I’m happy to continue. That’s not being uncaring. That’s having boundaries. And if there’s a genuine safety threat, follow your office safety procedures. You can have empathy and boundaries at the same time. The three sentences I want your staff to know. If I were training a medical office tomorrow, I’d want every staff member to know these three sentences. Tell me what happened. I can understand why you’re frustrated. Let’s see what we can do next. Notice what isn’t there. You’re wrong. That’s our policy. There’s nothing I can do. You need to call your insurance company. You’ll have to speak to someone else. Those phrases shut conversations down. The three phrases I gave you open conversations up, and sometimes that’s all you need to lower the temperature enough to solve the actual problem. Now here’s where this all comes back to marketing tips for doctors. Doctors often think reputation management means getting more five-star reviews. Respond to Google reviews. Improve your website. Post on social media. Yes, those things matter. But real reputation management happens before the review is ever written. It happens at the front desk; it happens on the telephone. It happens when you’re running an hour behind. It happens when there’s a billing problem. It happens when a patient feels ignored, and it happens when something goes wrong. Every one of those moments gives your practice an opportunity- not an opportunity to manipulate the patient, but an opportunity to show them who you are, because your brand isn’t what your website says about you.

Dr. Barbara Hales 19:12

Your brand is what patients say about you after they’ve experienced you, and sometimes the patient who was initially the angriest becomes the patient who tells everyone there was a problem, but you should have seen how they handled it. That’s powerful. Not because everything went perfectly, because it didn’t. Trust was tested, and the practice responded. One last thing. So the next time an angry patient is standing in front of you, remember: don’t try to win. Try to understand. Listen before you explain. Acknowledging emotion without agreeing to something that isn’t true doesn’t work. Find out what the patient actually wants resolved. Explain what happens next, and if you promise to follow up, follow up, because sometimes the difference between a furious patient and a loyal patient isn’t whether something went wrong. It’s what happened after it went wrong. And yes, sometimes that difference happens within a few minutes of them getting home. Sit down with their phone and discover they have Wi-Fi. That is the time you can make a difference. Now we’ve spent three episodes talking about what happens when trust is tested, but there’s another question we haven’t addressed: Can you build that trust before anything ever goes wrong? Absolutely, and that’s what we’ll talk about next, because the strongest physician-patient relationships don’t begin in crisis; they’re built long before one happens. If you’ve been enjoying this series, subscribe to Marketing Tips for Doctors and share this episode with another physician or practice manager. Remember your one tweak from greatness.

In this episode, we cover:

Key Takeaway Quote:

“Patients don’t expect perfection. They expect honesty. Sometimes the most trust-building thing you can say is, ‘I don’t know yet, but I’ll come back when we do.’” – Dr. Barbara Hales

Connect with Barbara Hales: 

TRANSCRIPT

Dr. Barbara Hales 0:02

Doctor, was it your fault? Your patient looks you directly in the eye and asks, “Doctor, was this your fault? What do you say? You have about three seconds before the silence starts saying something for you. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Marketing Tips for Doctors. In our last episode, we talked about something I called the transparency paradox-the idea that when something goes wrong, physicians may become quiet and guarded, because we’re afraid that talking will increase our liability. But to the patient, that same silence can feel like we’re hiding something. So today, we’re going one step further because it’s easy for me to tell you: communicate with your patient, be transparent, show empathy. But when you’re actually standing in front of an upset patient or frightened family member, those aren’t the words you need. You need to know what I actually say. Today, we’ll walk through five of the most difficult conversations a physician can have after something goes wrong. I’ll show you what you may be tempted to say, why it can cause problems, and what you might say instead. And before we begin, an important reminder: this is about communication, not legal advice. Every adverse event’s circumstances are different. State laws differ, and your hospital malpractice carrier or risk management team may have specific procedures you need to follow, so use this episode to think differently about communication, not as a substitute for the policies and professional advice that apply to your particular situation. Now grab your coffee because we’re starting with the question no physician wants to hear: Doctor, was this your fault? Imagine that you’ve just finished explaining to a patient that something unexpected happened during her procedure. She looks at you and asks, “Was this your fault? Your first instinct may be to defend yourself. No, this is a known complication. Or maybe you go in the opposite direction. Yes, I made a mistake. But what if you don’t know yet? That’s the key. Don’t answer a question you don’t yet have the facts to answer. You don’t have to become evasive, and you don’t have to speculate. You can say, “I understand why you’re asking me that right now. I don’t know exactly why this happened. We’re reviewing what occurred, and I don’t want to give you an answer that may turn out to be wrong. As soon as we know more, we’ll talk about it. That’s honest. You didn’t run from the question. You didn’t blame someone else, and you didn’t conclude before you had the facts. There is tremendous power in being able to say, “I don’t know yet. Doctors aren’t always comfortable saying that. We’re supposed to have answers. Patients come to us because we have answers. But when you genuinely don’t know something. Pretending otherwise doesn’t make you look more competent. It makes you less trustworthy when the facts eventually come out. The important word is yet. I don’t know can sound like a dead end. I don’t know yet, but we’re finding out tells the patient, “I’m still here. Conversation number two: something definitely went wrong. Now, let’s change the situation. This time, you know an error occurred. Perhaps the wrong medication was administered. Maybe a test result wasn’t followed up. Maybe something broke down somewhere in the system. Again, there’s a temptation to become clinical. An adverse medication event occurred. That may be technically accurate, but imagine. As the patient hearing it, I know an adverse medication event didn’t happen to a spreadsheet. It happened to me. This is where medicine sometimes hides behind language. We use terms like unexpected outcome, adverse event, communication failure. Those phrases may be long in reports, but you’re not talking to a report. You’re talking to a person. So use human language. Something happened that shouldn’t have, and I’m sorry you’ve had to go through this. Then tell the patient what you know, not what you assume, not what you heard in the hallway, not what you think is responsible. What you know, and then tell them what happens next. We are reviewing exactly how this occurred. We’re addressing the immediate problem. We’ll keep you informed as we learn more. That last sentence matters because one of the worst things you can do is have one compassionate conversation and then disappear. Trust isn’t rebuilt in one meeting.

Dr. Barbara Hales 6:20

Sometimes it’s rebuilt in the second meeting and the third. Let’s imagine a physician will call Dr. Miller. One of his patients has a significant complication. Dr. Miller has an excellent conversation with the family. He sits down. He listens. He expresses concern. He promises that the hospital will investigate and that he’ll come back when he knows more. The family feels reassured. Three days go by, nothing. Five days, nothing. The family starts calling. They’re transferred from one department to another. Nobody seems to know anything. Now think about what happened. Dr. Miller’s original conversation was actually good, but his failure to follow through changed its meaning. What originally sounded like “I’m going to find out what happened” now sounds like “I told you that so you’d stop asking questions. That’s why one of the most important things you can say after something goes wrong is also one of the simplest. I’ll come back, but only say it if you’re actually going to come back. Conversation number three: the patient is angry. Now things get harder. The patient isn’t calmly asking questions. He’s furious. You people almost killed me. This hospital is incompetent. You don’t care what happens to me. Every instinct in you wants to correct him. We did not almost kill you. That’s not what happened. You’d unders. You don’t understand the medical situation, and perhaps technically you’re right, but right now being right isn’t necessarily going to help you, because underneath anger there is often something else: fear, loss of control, pain, a feeling that nobody is listening. So before you correct the facts, acknowledge the emotion. You might say, “I can see how angry and frightened you are, and I understand why you want answers. Notice what you did not say. You didn’t agree that the hospital was incompetent. You didn’t accept blame for something you didn’t do. You acknowledged the patient’s experience. There is a big difference between saying you’re right, we almost killed you, and saying I can understand why you’re frightened and angry. One is the conclusion about what happened. The other is empathy. Physicians sometimes avoid empathy because we’re afraid the patient will interpret it as an admission. But empathy isn’t a confession. It’s recognition that another human being is having a difficult experience, and sometimes that’s the first thing a person needs before they’re capable of hearing anything else you have to say. There’s one sentence that is almost guaranteed to make an angry patient angrier. You need to calm down. Has telling an angry person to calm down ever actually made them calm down? Probably not. It usually communicates that your reaction is the problem. Instead, try. I can see that you’re upset. Tell me what concerns you most right now, and then listen. Don’t start constructing your defense while they’re still speaking. Don’t interrupt after the first inaccurate statement. Let them tell you what they’re actually worried about. You may discover that the thing you’re preparing to defend isn’t even the thing they’re most upset about. Conversation number four: Why didn’t anyone tell me? This one is painful because sometimes the patient’s complaint isn’t primarily about the medical outcome; it’s about communication. Why didn’t anyone tell me? Why did I have to find this in my medical record? Why did three different people give me three different answers? Why did nobody call me? This is where defensiveness can creep in very quickly. I thought the nurse told you. The office called twice. The result was available in the portal. Stop. Maybe all of those things are true, but before explaining the system, recognize what the patient experienced. I can understand why finding out that way would be upsetting. You should have had a clear explanation of what was happening. Then explain what you know, and if there was a communication breakdown, acknowledge it. Patients don’t expect every medical outcome to be perfect. Medicine is not perfect. Human bodies are not perfect. Technology is not perfect. Doctors are not perfect, but patients have every reason to expect us to communicate with them honestly, and this is where the conversation starts moving beyond malpractice, because poor communication damages something much bigger: trust. Conversation number five: When an apology is appropriate, now we come to the words doctors have traditionally been afraid to say. I’m sorry. As we discussed in the last episode, apology laws vary from state to state.

Dr. Barbara Hales 12:53

Some may protect certain expressions of sympathy while not protecting admissions of fault. Your organization’s procedures and your individual circumstances matter. So I’m not giving you a legal formula. I’m talking about human communication. If someone has experienced suffering, you can acknowledge suffering. I’m sorry you’ve had to go through this. If an investigation has established what happened, then the appropriate disclosure process may involve a more specific apology and explanation, and that’s where working with your institution or risk management team becomes important. But don’t make the mistake of thinking that because you need to choose your words thoughtfully, you need to stop behaving like a human being. There’s a difference between being careful and being cold. Now let’s put it together. Imagine you’re walking into a patient’s room after an unexpected event; you know something happened. You don’t know yet exactly what. Here’s what a thoughtful conversation might sound like, Mrs. Green. I want to talk with you about what happened earlier today. There was an unexpected problem with your medication. Right now, our priority is making sure you’re all right, and we’re monitoring you closely. I’m sorry you’ve had to experience this. We’re reviewing exactly what happened. I don’t have all of those answers yet, and I don’t want to speculate or give you information that might turn out to be wrong. As we learn more, we’ll share that information with you. What questions do you have for me right now? Notice how ordinary those words are: no corporate language, no. No medical jargon, no elaborate speech. You acknowledge, you empathize, you explain, you admit what you don’t know, you explain what happens next, and you invite questions. That’s communication. But what if they ask the question again? Fine, doctor. But I asked you a question. Was this your fault? Now we’re right back where we started, and this is where many physicians panic. You don’t have to look at the patient. Don’t look at the floor. Don’t start shuffling papers and say, “I understand why you want an answer to that. I would want an answer too. Right now, we don’t know enough for me to tell you exactly why this happened. I don’t want to guess. When we know more, we’ll discuss it with you. That’s not avoiding the question. It’s refusing to pretend you know something you don’t. But here’s the other side: if the investigation eventually determines that an error occurred, transparency means the conversation should not simply disappear. You come back because the promise wasn’t. I’ll talk to you until this becomes uncomfortable. The promise was we’ll tell you what we learn.

The second victim, we don’t talk about. There’s another reason these conversations are so difficult. The physician may be suffering too. When something goes wrong with one of our patients, we don’t simply clock out and forget about it. We replay it. What did I miss? Could I have prevented this? Should I have ordered another test? Should I have noticed something earlier, and then we have to walk into the next room and see the next patient? That emotional burden can make us withdraw from the very patient we need to communicate with, not because we don’t care. Sometimes because we care so much that we don’t know what to say. That’s why having a framework helps. When your emotions are telling you to retreat, the framework reminds you: acknowledge, empathize, explain. Don’t speculate. Follow up. You don’t need the perfect speech. You need to stay present. Five phrases to remember. So, if you ever find yourself standing outside that patient’s room, wondering what you’re going to say, remember these five phrases. I’m sorry you’re going through this. Here’s what we know right now. I don’t know yet. We’re looking into what happened, and perhaps the most important. I’ll come back when we know more. Then come back. Those aren’t magic words. They don’t guarantee that a patient won’t become angry. They don’t guarantee that somebody won’t sue, and they don’t replace appropriate lethal or risk management guidance. They’re simply ways to communicate like one human being talking to another during an extraordinarily difficult moment.

Dr. Barbara Hales 19:09

Why does this matter to your practice? You might still be wondering why spending two episodes of marketing tips for doctors talking about what happens when medical care goes wrong matters, because your reputation isn’t built by your website; it’s not built by your logo; it’s not built by your Facebook page.

Those things communicate your reputation. They don’t create it. Your reputation is created in moments. The moment you return the frightened patient’s phone call, the moment you sit instead of standing at the door, the moment you listen instead of becoming defensive, and yes, the moment something goes wrong and your patient watches to see what you do next. Patients don’t expect physicians to control everything that can happen, but they do remember how we made them feel when they were frightened and vulnerable, and that memory may last much longer than anything you put on your website. One last question. Let’s return to where we started. Your patient looks you in the eye and asks, “Doctor, was this your fault? You don’t need to panic. You don’t need to run. You don’t need to speculate. You can say, “I understand why you’re asking. I don’t know yet. We’re going to find out, and I’ll talk with you when we know more. And then you do something incredibly important. You keep your word, because trust isn’t created by having all the answers. Sometimes trust is created by being honest enough to say you don’t have them yet. Now, there’s one situation we haven’t really tackled today. What happens when the patient is not simply asking questions? What happens when they’re furious? They’re raising their voice. They’re threatening to leave your practice. They’re threatening a terrible online review. Maybe they’re even saying, “I’m going to sue you. What do you say then? That’s what we’re going to talk about in our next episode, the angry patient, because one badly handled conversation can turn frustration into a broken relationship. But handled correctly, it may become an opportunity to rebuild trust. So make sure you subscribe to Marketing Tips for Doctors so you don’t miss it. And if you know another physician who’s ever wondered What on earth am I supposed to say when something goes wrong, send them this episode because every week we’re talking about practical ways to build stronger practices, stronger patient relationships, and greater trust, and remember, you’re one tweak away from greatness.

In this episode, Barbara discusses:

Key Takeaways:

“Silence after something goes wrong often increases mistrust, while honest, empathetic communication (“I’m sorry,” “I don’t know yet,” “We’re investigating,” “I’ll come back”) can build trust rather than automatically increasing legal risk”

Connect with Barbara Hales: 

TRANSCRIPTION:(246)

Dr. Barbara Hales 0:00:31

The most dangerous word in medicine, sorry, the word that can make a physician cringe. Sorry, not because doctors don’t care. Quite the opposite.

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Marketing Tips for Doctors. Most physicians went into medicine because we care deeply about our patients, but somewhere during our training, many of us absorbed another lesson: When something goes wrong, be very careful what you say. Don’t speculate. Don’t admit anything. And whatever you do, don’t say something that could sound like you’re admitting fault, because you might get sued. But what if that isn’t the whole story?

Dr. Barbara Hales 02:00

What if the instinct to protect ourselves by becoming quiet, distant, and guarded can sometimes accomplish exactly the opposite? What if silence makes an already frightened or angry patient wonder, “What aren’t they telling me? That’s what we’re talking about today. I call it the transparency paradox. And grab your coffee because this one might make you rethink something doctors have been hearing for decades. When something goes wrong, let’s imagine a patient named Mary. Mary goes into the hospital for what she believes will be a relatively straightforward procedure. Unfortunately, she develops a serious complication. Her family is frightened. They have questions. What happened? Was this expected? Did somebody make a mistake? Is Mary going to be all right? And perhaps most importantly, why isn’t anyone talking to us?

The physician is frightened too. Maybe he doesn’t yet know exactly what happened. Maybe risk management has become involved. Maybe he’s terrified that one poorly chosen sentence will become Exhibit A in a malpractice lawsuit. So he keeps the conversation brief. He sticks to clinical facts. He avoids discussing what might have happened, and he certainly doesn’t apologize. From his perspective, he’s protecting himself. But let’s look at that interaction from Mary’s perspective. Something happened to me. Nobody will explain it. Everyone suddenly seems guarded. My doctor barely looks me in the eye. Maybe they’re hiding something, and now we have something that didn’t necessarily exist before: suspicion. That is the paradox. The physician’s silence was intended to decrease legal risk, but emotionally, that same silence may increase mistrust.

Dr. Barbara Hales 05:00

The myth. There’s a persistent myth in medicine that goes something like this: Never say you’re sorry because apologizing is admitting liability, and like many myths, there’s a tiny bit piece of truth buried inside something much more complicated. There is an enormous difference between saying “I’m very sorry this happened to you, and making a definitive statement about negligence before the facts have even been investigated. That’s why I’m not suggesting that doctors become their own attorneys. I’m not an attorney, and this episode is not legal advice. The laws governing apologies and their admissibility vary from state to state, and your hospital practice insurer and risk management team may have specific procedures you need to follow.

Dr. Barbara Hales 07:00

But here’s what I do want physicians to understand. Passion and transparency are not synonymous with recklessness, and we now have organized approaches to adverse events that are built around that distinction. One of the most important is called candor, C-A-N-D-O-R. That stands for Communication and Optimal Resolution. It was developed by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Instead of the old-fashioned approach, sometimes described as deny and defend, Candor emphasizes timely communication, investigation, disclosure, empathy, apology when appropriate, learning from the event, and fair resolution.

Think about how different those two philosophies feel to a patient. One says, “Protect the institution. Say as little as possible. Wait for the lawyers. The other says something happened. We’re going to find out what happened. We’re going to communicate with you. We’re going to take care of you, and we’re going to learn from this. That’s a very different experience.

Dr. Barbara Hales 09:00

Now let’s imagine another physician. We’ll call her Dr. Thompson. A medication error occurs. The wrong dose reaches her patient. Thankfully, the patient recovers. Dr. Thompson is devastated. She walks into the room and immediately says, “This was completely my fault. I made a terrible mistake. There was no excuse for it. Now, emotionally, we understand why she said it. She feels terrible, but there’s another problem here. At this point, nobody has completed the investigation. Maybe the electronic ordering system displayed the wrong dose. Maybe the pharmacy verification failed. Maybe there were two medications with nearly identical names. Maybe five different safeguards failed, or maybe Dr. Thompson really did make an error. We don’t know yet, and that’s an important distinction.

Transparency does not mean guessing. It does not mean assigning blame before the facts are known, and it does not mean making promises you may not be able to keep. In fact, one of the principals in formal disclosure programs is very simple: tell patients what you know, don’t speculate about what you don’t know.

Dr. Barbara Hales 11:00:

Imagine how much better this might sound, mr. Jones. Something happened with your medication today that we did not expect, and I’m very sorry that you’ve had to go through this. Right now, our priority is taking care of you. We’re also investigating exactly what happened. I don’t want to speculate or give you information that may turn out to be wrong, but I promise that we’ll keep you informed as we learn more. Notice what’s missing: running away, defensiveness, blaming somebody else, and speculation. But notice what’s also there: humanity.

What patients actually want. When patients have been harmed, we sometimes assume their first thought is, “How much money can I get? But that is an extraordinarily cynical way of looking at people. Patients and families often want answers. What happened? Why did it happen? What are you going to do about it? And perhaps most importantly, could this happen to somebody else? Think about that last question. A patient who has just experienced something terrible may still be thinking about the next patient. They don’t want another family sitting where they’re sitting. That tells us something important. Sometimes resolution is not only about money. It’s about acknowledgement. It’s about answers. It’s about accountability, and it’s about knowing that something will change because of what happened.

Dr. Barbara Hales 13:00

Here is the University of Michigan experience. This isn’t just a feel-good theory. One of the most frequently discussed examples came from the University. University of Michigan Health System. They developed an approach that moved away from automatically fighting every claim. When care was appropriate, they defended it. But when their investigation found that inappropriate care caused harm, they disclosed what happened and sought resolution, including compensation when appropriate. Researchers subsequently examined what happened to malpractice claims and costs, and here’s why that matters. The nightmare scenario many physicians imagine is if we start admitting that things went wrong, everybody will sue us. But that wasn’t what happened. The experience helped challenge the assumption that openness automatically creates more liability, and later research involving communication and resolution programs at other hospitals has also provided reason for optimism.

That doesn’t mean apologize and nobody will sue you. Please don’t leave this episode telling people Dr. Hale said that. That’s not what the evidence says. It means something much more interesting, transparency when it is part of a thoughtful system of communication, investigation, apology, and resolution, does not appear to create the inevitable legal disaster physicians have traditionally feared, and in some settings, liability outcomes have actually improved.

Dr. Barbara Hales 15:00

Now let’s meet our third physician, Dr. Rodriguez. Performs surgery on a patient we’ll call Robert. Robert experiences an unexpected injury. This time, instead of disappearing, Doctor Rodriguez sits down with Robert and his wife. Not standing at the door, not checking his phone, not speaking in medical jargon. He sits down. He looks at them, and he says, “Something happened during your surgery, that we need to investigate. I’m sorry that you’re going through this right now. My priority is taking care of you. We’re going to review exactly what happened, and as we learn more, we’ll share that information with you. Then he does something equally important. He comes back because disclosure is not one conversation. As more information becomes available, Robert and his wife are updated. Eventually, the investigation identifies an error. Dr. Rodriguez and the organization explain it. They apologize. They explain what should have happened, and then they explain what they’re changing so that another patient is less likely to experience the same thing.

Now, does that guarantee Robert won’t sue? Absolutely not. But compare Robert’s experience with Mary’s. Mary experienced silence. Robert experienced communication. Mary wondered what people were hiding. Robert knew an investigation was underway. Mary’s trust Deteriorated. Robert was treated like a partner who deserved answers. That difference matters.

Dr. Barbara Hales 17:00

Here’s the real transparency paradox: Doctors sometimes think if I reveal less, I’m safer. Patients may think if you’re revealing less, there must be something you’re hiding. That’s the paradox, and there’s another side to it. Transparency does not mean telling patients everything you think might have happened. It means being honest about what you know, honest about what you don’t know and committed to finding the answers-that’s a very different thing. You can say, “I don’t know yet. Those may actually be four of the most trustworthy words in medicine, provided you followed them with, “But I’m going to find out what about apology laws. Now we have to talk about something called apology laws. Many states have enacted laws that provide some protection for certain statements physicians make after adverse events, but. And this is a big but; they’re not all the same. Some laws may protect expressions of sympathy, such as “I’m sorry you’re going through this. That doesn’t necessarily mean they protect a statement such as “I made the mistake that caused this.

The specifics vary by jurisdiction, so please don’t listen to this podcast and decide that tomorrow you’re going to create your own disclosure policy. Know your state’s law, know your organization’s policy, know what your malpractice carrier recommends and involve risk management when appropriate, but don’t confuse being legally thoughtful with being emotionally absent. Those are two very different things.

Dr. Barbara Hales 19:00

What should a physician actually say? So let’s make this practical. Something unexpected has happened. You’re standing outside the patient’s room. Your stomach is in knots. What do you do? First, take care of the patient’s immediate medical needs. Obviously, then get the appropriate people involved according to your organization’s procedures. But when you speak with the patient, remember four things. Number one, acknowledge what happened. Don’t make the patient drag information out of you. Two, express empathy. I’m sorry you’re going through this. Human beings need to hear that another human being recognizes their suffering. Number three, don’t speculate. If you don’t know why something happened, say so. I don’t know yet is better than giving an explanation that turns out to be wrong, or tell them what happens next. We’re investigating this. We’ll keep you informed. Here’s what we’re doing for you now, and then do what you said you were going to do, because transparency without follow through is not transparency; it’s public relations.

Dr. Barbara Hales 20:00

So you may ask, why does this belong on a marketing podcast? You may be wondering, Barbara, this is marketing tips for doctors. Why are we talking about medical errors and malpractice, because marketing is not just advertising. Marketing is reputation. Marketing is relationships. Marketing is what your patients say about you when you’re not in the room, and above all, marketing is trust. Your reputation is not built only when everything goes beautifully. Sometimes your reputation is built during the worst moments of a patient’s experience. Any doctor can appear caring when the treatment works perfectly and the patient is delighted. The real test of a relationship comes when something has not gone according to plan. Do you disappear? Do you become defensive? Do you blame the nurse, the hospital, the pharmacy, or the computer? Or do you sit down, look your patient in the eye and say, “I’m here. I’m sorry this happened. Here’s what we know. Here’s what we don’t know yet, and here’s what we’re going to do next. That patient may never forget that conversation.

Dr. Barbara Hales 21:00

And doctors are human too. There’s another person in this story whom we haven’t talked much about: the physician. When something goes wrong, doctors can be devastated. We replay the case in our heads. What did I miss? What could I have done differently? Was this my fault? We may lose sleep. We may question our competence, and at the same time, we’re expected to walk into the next patient’s room and function as though nothing happened. That’s one reason I think silence can be so damaging on both sides. The patient is isolated, and the doctor is isolated. Interestingly, programs such as Candor don’t focus only on the patient and family. They also recognize the importance of supporting the clinicians and staff involved in adverse events, because you can believe in accountability and still have comparative. For the people involved, those aren’t opposites.

So, does saying sorry prevent lawsuits? Here’s my answer: not necessarily. And anyone who promises you that it does is oversimplifying a very complicated issue, some patients will sue regardless of how compassionate the doctor is. Some events involve serious negligence. Some injuries are catastrophic. Some families will need compensation, and sometimes litigation will be unavoidable, but that’s not the question we should be asking. The better question is, does treating an injured patient with honesty, empathy, communication, and respect automatically increase our legal risk? The evidence from well-designed communication and resolution programs tells us that the answer is not the simple yes that generations of physicians have feared, and that matters because fear has shaped the way medicine communicates after something goes wrong. Maybe it’s time we questioned that fear.

The one thing I want you to remember, if you remember nothing else from today’s episode, remember this: sometimes the words doctors are most afraid to say are the very words patients most need to hear. I’m sorry. I don’t know yet. We’re investigating. I’ll come back. We’ll tell you what we learned, and we’ll work to make sure this does not happen again. Those are not necessarily words of weakness. They can be words of integrity, and in medicine, integrity is one of the most powerful forms of trust we have. So the next time somebody tells you never apologize, you’ll get sued. Remember the transparency paradox. Sometimes what feels like protection can create distance, and what feels like vulnerability can begin rebuilding trust. If today’s episode made you rethink something you’ve been taught about medicine, share it with another physician, because every week on Marketing Tips for Doctors, we talk about practical ways to build stronger practices, stronger relationships, and greater trust with the patients we serve, but that leaves us with a very important question: If silence is not the answer, what exactly should you say when something goes wrong. That’s what we’re going to tackle in the next episode, including the words I would use and the words I would never use. So make sure you’re subscribed because you don’t want to miss that conversation. Till next time.

0:23:20 Narrator: Thanks for listening to Marketing Tips for Doctors. If you like the podcast, please subscribe, rate, and review. Press the subscribe button so you never miss an episode, and tell your friends about the show. Join us on marketingtipsfordoctors.com for replays and more resources to help grow your practice, strengthen your brand, and dominate your field. Remember, you are one tweet from greatness.

In this episode, Barbara discusses:

Key Takeaways:

“AI’s real power in medicine isn’t replacing physicians—it’s reclaiming the invisible hours lost to documentation and administration so doctors can be fully present with their patients and in their own lives again.”

Connect with Barbara Hales: 

TRANSCRIPTION (245)

Chapter 1 — Why Physicians Need Their Time Back

Dr. Barbara Hales 00:04

Hello, everyone. Welcome back to Marketing Tips for Doctors.

When was the last time you finished seeing your last patient, and you were actually finished for the day? Not finished seeing patients… finished. No charts waiting for you. No patient portal messages. No paperwork you promised yourself you’d finished after dinner. No laptop sitting on the kitchen counter staring at you while your family is doing something without you.

If you’re laughing right now, I understand because for many physicians, the workday doesn’t end when the office closes; it just changes location. You go home, have dinner, maybe spend some time with your family, and then out comes the laptop, and somewhere along the way, something happened to medicine. We became doctors because we wanted to take care of people. We did not go to medical school because we had a burning desire to become world-class data entry specialists. We didn’t dream about answering portal messages. We didn’t fantasize about prior authorizations, and I’m fairly certain that when you wrote your medical school application essay, you didn’t say, “My lifelong ambition is to spend more evenings completing documentation, yet here we are, and that is why I want to talk about artificial intelligence today. Not because AI is fashionable, not because everybody is talking about ChatGPT, and certainly not because I think technology should replace physicians. Quite the opposite.

I think we need to ask a completely different question: Can technology give physicians enough time back that we can actually be physicians again? Apparently, doctors are beginning to think the answer may be yes. According to the American Medical Association’s 2026 Physician Survey on Augmented Intelligence, 81% of physicians now report using AI professionally. That’s more than double the percentage in 2023. Think about that. In only a few years, AI went from something many doctors viewed with suspicion to something being used in medical practices every day, and here’s another number that really caught my attention: 70% of physicians surveyed by the AMA said they see AI as a tool that can automate tasks contributing to work-related burnout.

So today, I’m going to show you seven practical ways physicians can use AI to get some of their time back. But before we get to those seven, I want to talk about what we’re really trying to solve, because the problem is not technology. The problem is time. The invisible second shift. Picture a physician we’ll call Dr. Sarah. Sarah has a busy primary care practice. Her last patient leaves at 515. She gets home around Her husband has dinner waiting. Her daughter sits at the table, telling everyone about something that happened at school. Sarah is listening, sort of, because part of her brain is thinking about the unfinished charts. She knows there are 11 of them, so she eats dinner. She asks her daughter a few questions. She helps clear the table. And then she says the sentence that physician families know all too well.

I just have to finish a few charts. She opens the laptop. 8 o’clock becomes nine. Nine becomes 10. Her daughter goes to bed. Sarah finally closes the computer at 1037, and here’s the sad part: nothing particularly unusual happened that day. There wasn’t an emergency. Nobody crashed. There wasn’t a complicated admission. It was simply Tuesday. That story is a composite, but I’ll bet many physicians listening recognize themselves in it. This is what I call the invisible second shift of medicine, and this is precisely where I believe physicians should begin thinking about AI, not with robots, not with futuristic diagnostic machines. Start with what I do every day that doesn’t actually require me to be a physician, because that is where your time is hiding.

Let’s begin with the obvious one: documentation. AI-powered ambient scribes can listen to the physician-patient conversation with appropriate systems, safeguards, and consent procedures, and generate a draft clinical note. You review it, you correct it, you approve it. The physician remains responsible, but you’re no longer starting with a blank page. And this isn’t just theoretical. In one medical group study involving 79 providers and more than 25,000 AI-generated notes across 23 specialties, high users of an ambient AI scribe had a 21% decrease in time spent on notes per day.

Chapter 2 — AI for Documentation, Inbox, and Patient Education

Dr. Barbara Hales  07:26

Even more interesting to me was what happened after work. Before the pilot, about 32% of participating providers reported spending eight or more hours per week documenting outside clinic hours during AI use, which dropped to about 8%. Think about it: 32% to 8%. That’s not just an efficiency statistic. That’s dinner. That’s exercise. That’s reading a book. That’s going to your child’s soccer game. That’s sitting on the couch and doing absolutely nothing and not feeling guilty about it-that is life.

Imagine Sarah again. Only now her practice introduces a properly vetted ambient AI documentation system. At first, she’s skeptical. She checks every note carefully, and she should, but gradually something changes. Instead of writing the entire note after the visit, she reviews and corrects a draft. One evening, she gets home. She puts her purse down. She walks into the kitchen, and her daughter looks at her and says, “Mom, where’s your computer? Sarah says, “In my bag. Her daughter looks confused. “Aren’t you going to take it out? And Sarah says, “Nope, I’m done. Now that’s an illustrative story, but that is the outcome we’re talking about. We’re not trying to make physicians type faster. We’re trying to make it possible for physicians to stop typing. Next, the inbox. Ah, yes, the inbox-the place where a message that begins with “Quick question, doctor, occasionally contains 14 questions, three attachments, and a medical History going back to 1987.

AI can help draft responses to routine patient communications. Notice the word I used: draft, not diagnose, not independently prescribe, not send medical advice without physician review. Draft. You provide the judgment. AI provides the first pass. The 2026 AMA survey found physicians are already using AI to generate draft responses to patient portal messages; think about the difference between writing 20 responses from scratch and reviewing 20 reasonable drafts. Even saving two or three minutes per message adds up, and there’s another benefit: AI can help you turn a rushed answer into a clear, patient-friendly explanation. You still decide what is medically appropriate, but AI can help you communicate it more efficiently.

AI use number three: patient education. Here’s an area I think is enormously underused. How many times have you explained the same thing? What does pre-diabetes mean? Why do I need this medication? What should I expect after this procedure? What does this lab result mean? Why do I need to come back in six months? You explain it Monday, then Tuesday, then Wednesday, and Thursday morning. You’re explaining it again. What if you created a physician-approved library of patient education materials? AI can help you take your explanation and turn it into a one-page handout, a frequently asked questions sheet, a patient-friendly email, a short video script, or instructions written at a more accessible reading level. You review it for accuracy. Then you have something reusable. This is where AI becomes more than a time-saving tool; it becomes a way to multiply a physician’s knowledge without multiplying their hours.

Doctor using AI versus doctors who aren’t. Now let’s compare two physicians. Same specialty, same number of physicians, same number of patients, same clinical ability. Doctor A is not using AI. Every note begins from scratch. Every patient handout is created manually, or the staff searches for one. Every portal response is typed individually. Every complicated article takes 20 minutes to read before Doctor A determines whether it matters. Every piece of administrative work begins with a blank page; Doctor B uses AI selectively, and I want to emphasize selectively. AI drafts the note. Doctor B reviews it. AI drafts the portal response. Doctor B corrects and approves it. AI turns the doctor’s explanation into patient education. Doctor B verifies it. AI summarizes a long research article. Doctor B goes to the source before making a clinical decision. Doctor B is not surrendering a medical judgment. Doctor B is eliminating unnecessary friction. That distinction matters because the physician who uses AI appropriately isn’t necessarily practicing medicine faster; they’re spending less time on everything surrounding medicine, and the difference compounds. 10 minutes here, 15. Minutes there, 20 minutes somewhere else. Pretty soon, we’re not talking about minutes anymore. We’re talking about hours. AI used number four, keeping up with medical literature. Here’s another struggle physicians know very well: the literature never stops. Studies, guidelines, drug updates, safety alerts, consensus statements, journal articles. Nobody can read everything.

Chapter 3 — AI as a Research Assistant, Not a Doctor

Dr. Barbara Hales 15:40

The AMA’s 2026 survey actually found that summarizing medical research and standards of care was the most commonly reported physician use of AI among the specific use cases measured. That tells us something important. Doctors aren’t only looking for help with paperwork; they’re using AI to help manage information overload. Suppose there are six recent papers on a subject relevant to your specialty.

Instead of reading every word of every paper, AI can help you identify the research questions, study size, primary outcomes, where the findings agreed, and where they conflicted. What limitations should you pay attention to? Then, and this is critical, you go back to the original evidence when the information will affect patient care. AI becomes the map. It does not become the destination, and that brings us to something every physician listening needs to hear. AI is an assistant, not the doctor. AI can be wrong; it can misunderstand context. It can omit information. It can confidently produce something that sounds wonderful and is completely incorrect. And physicians know something that technology does not possess: clinical judgment.

We know the difference between the textbook patient and the human being sitting in front of us. We notice hesitation. We notice fear. We notice when someone says, “I’m fine, while everything about them tells us they’re not fine. Medicine is not simply information. Medicine is interpretation. Medicine is judgment. Medicine is trust. So the goal is not how much medicine can I turn over to AI. The better question is, how much non-physician work can I take away from the physician? That is a very different conversation. In part two, I’m going to show you three more ways to use AI, including one that can help you create weeks of marketing content from something you’re already doing every single day, and I’ll tell you another story. This one is about a doctor who realizes the greatest thing AI gave him wasn’t efficiency. It was something much more valuable. It gave him back a Saturday.

So here are seven ways doctors can use AI to get their time back. What would you do with the hours AI gave back? At the end of part one, I told you about a doctor who got something unexpected from AI-a Saturday. Let me explain. The Saturday morning that came back, we’ll call him Dr. Michael again. This is a composite story based on the kinds of workflow problems physicians experience. Michael owns a small specialty practice, and every Saturday morning he has a routine: coffee, laptop, kitchen table. He tells some. He tells himself he’ll work for an hour. It’s almost never an hour. Charts to finish, letters to dictate, patient messages, administrative correspondence, and things he didn’t get to during the week. His wife has learned not to ask when he’ll be finished. One Saturday, after his practice has begun using AI to help with documentation and routine administrative drafting, Michael wakes up. He makes coffee. He walks toward the kitchen table, and there’s no laptop sitting there. He had finished his work Friday. His wife says, “Do you want to go get breakfast? And for the first time in longer than he can remember, he does not say, “Maybe later. He says, “Sure. Now you could look at that and say, “AI saved him three hours. I don’t think that’s what happened. AI gave him back Saturday morning with his wife.

We have to stop measuring physician efficiency only in minutes. We need to start measuring it in life. AI used number five insurance correspondence and administrative drafting. Now let’s talk about one of everyone’s favorite subjects: insurance. I can practically hear you groaning. Prior authorizations, appeal letters, medical necessity letters, supporting documentation, repetitive administrative correspondence. This is precisely the kind of structured, repetitive work where AI can assist. A physician or staff member can provide the relevant, privacy-safe information in an approved system and have AI help draft a first version. Then someone qualified reviews it. This isn’t about fabricating an argument. It isn’t about inserting facts that aren’t in the chart.

Chapter 4 — Administrative Work, Practice Operations, and Content

Dr. Barbara Hales 22:44

It is about organizing legitimate clinical information into the format needed for the task, and this matters because physicians did not train for all those years so that their most limited resource, their time, could be consumed fighting with forums; AI may not make the insurance company say yes. Wouldn’t that be nice? But it may reduce the amount of physician time required to ask the question.

AI use number six: practical operations. Here’s one physicians often overlook: AI doesn’t have to touch clinical medicine to be useful. Look around your practice. How many repetitive processes exist? Staff training, frequently asked questions, office policies, meeting summaries, job descriptions, phone scripts, patient reminders, internal checklists, responses to online reviews, ideas for improving scheduling, drafting standard operating procedures. You don’t need a medical AI system to ask, “Help me turn this messy process into a checklist.

You don’t need AI making clinical decisions to say,

“Here are the five questions patients ask my receptionist every day. Help me draft clear answers. And here’s one I particularly like. At the end of your staff meeting, take your approved, non-sensitive meeting notes and ask AI to organize them into: what did we decide? Who is responsible? What’s the deadline? What needs follow-up? Suddenly, a meeting produces action instead of another meeting. Now we’re talking. AI use number seven. Mark. And patient communication. This one is particularly close to my heart. Doctors tell me, Barbara, I know I should create content. I just don’t have time, and I understand. But here’s what I want you to realize: you are already creating content all day long; you’re just not capturing it. Every patient question is potential educational content. Think about today: how many questions did patients ask you? Should I be worried about this? Is this hereditary? When should I get screened? Is there anything I can do to prevent this? What’s the difference between these two treatments?

Those questions can become a short video, a blog post, a patient email, a special media post, a podcast topic, or an FAQ on your website-you provide the expertise. AI helps you repurpose it. For example, you might say, “Patients ask me this question constantly. Here is the explanation I usually give them. Then dictate your explanation and ask AI. Turn this into a 62nd video script written in my conversational style. Then give me three possible titles. Then turn the same information into a patient email. Then create five short social posts from it.  That is where AI can become an extraordinary multiplier for a small medical practice, not because AI becomes the physician’s voice, but because it helps the physician’s real voice travel further.

Here’s a story.

The patient who finally felt heard. Let me give you one last story. We’ll call the physician Dr. Patel. Dr. Patel has always been the kind of doctor who looks directly at patients when they are speaking. At least she used to be. Then came increasingly complicated documentation requirements, and gradually she found herself doing what so many physicians do: patient talking, doctor typing, patient talking, doctor clicking, patient asking something important, doctor saying, “Give me one second. While finishing a field on the screen, then her practice begins using an ambient documentation tool. She’s still responsible for the note. She still reviews it, but during the encounter, something changes. She turns away from the computer. She looks at her patient, an older woman who has been seeing her for years, and suddenly stops in the middle of the conversation.

Doctor Patel asks, “Is there something wrong? The patient smiles and says, “No, I was just thinking how nice it is to see your face again. That story is illustrative, but think about what it represents. We keep talking about AI as though technology will make medicine less human. Used badly, perhaps it could, but what if we use it to do exactly the opposite? What if technology handles more of the machinery of medicine, so physicians have more time for the humanity of medicine? That’s the opportunity that interests me. Now let’s turn to our two physicians, Doctor A and Doctor B. Remember, they started in essentially the same place, same specialty, same patient volume, same clinical competence. Doctor A continues doing everything manually. Doctor B gradually delegates appropriate repetitive work to carefully selected AI tools, not clinical judgment work.

Chapter 5 — Reclaiming Time, Using AI Safely, and Staying Human

Dr. Barbara Hales 29:57

Doctor B saves a few minutes. Documenting, a few minutes on correspondence, a few minutes researching, a few minutes creating patient materials, a few minutes handling administrative tasks. Let’s be conservative and imagine that adds up to only 30 minutes a day, five days a week. That’s two and a half hours, over roughly 48 working weeks. That’s 120 hours a year. Think of that-a 120 hours, three full 40-hour work weeks, and that’s from saving only 30 minutes per day.

If the physician saves an hour, now we’re talking about approximately 240 hours, six work weeks. So ask yourself: What would you do with six weeks of your life? Would you see more patients? Would you leave the office earlier? Would you exercise? Would you finally take the vacation you’ve postponed? Would you have dinner with your family without your laptop? Would you sit with a patient for an extra three minutes instead of watching the clock? Would you grow your practice? Would you create another revenue stream? Would you simply sleep? There isn’t a correct answer. The point is, you get to decide.

Start small. If you are listening to this and thinking, Barbara, this sounds great, but I don’t even know where to begin. Don’t begin with seven things. Begin with one. Tomorrow, notice the task that makes you say, “I can’t believe I’m wasting my time doing this again. Write it down. That’s your candidate. Then ask, “Could AI draft this? Could AI summarize this? Could AI organize this? Could AI turn this into a template? Could AI help my staff do this without involving me every single time?

You don’t need to transform your entire practice this month. Choose one repetitive task. Get comfortable. Measure whether it actually saves time. Then choose another. That’s how change becomes sustainable. A word about safety. Because we’re physicians, I need to emphasize something very important: convenience does not outrank confidentiality. Don’t copy protected patient information into a public consumer AI tool. Your practice needs to evaluate privacy, security, HIPAA requirements, vendor agreements, accuracy, workflow integration, and appropriate human oversight, and every clinically relevant AI-generated output needs appropriate professional review.

AI can generate extraordinarily convincing errors. So remember this: delegate the task, never delegate the judgment. That sentence may be the most important thing I say in this entire episode. If today’s episode made you look at your workday differently, do two things. First, choose one task this week that AI might be able to take partially off your plate. Don’t try to revolutionize your entire practice. Just reclaim 10 minutes, and second, subscribe to Marketing Tips for Doctors and share this episode with another physician who is still taking the laptop home every night, because every week on Marketing Tips for Doctors we talk about practical ways to build a stronger, more profitable medical practice without sacrificing the reason you became a physician in the first place. And remember, you’re one tweak away from greatness.

AI won’t solve everything that’s wrong with medicine. It won’t eliminate insurance headaches. It won’t fix reimbursement overnight. It won’t replace the judgment that comes from years of training and experience. And I don’t want it to. What I want AI to replace is something very different: the unnecessary hour at the computer, the repetitive letter, the blank page, the administrative task that followed you home, the Saturday morning you were supposed to spend with someone you love, because perhaps the most exciting promise of artificial intelligence in medicine is not artificial intelligence at all.

Perhaps it’s giving physicians the time to be More human, and if technology can help us do that, then I think it’s worth paying attention to. I’m Dr. Barbara Hales. Thank you for joining me on Marketing Tips for Doctors.

Til next time.

In this episode, Barbara discusses:

Key Takeaways:

TRANSCRIPT (244)

Introduction: The Next Five Video Marketing Mistakes

Dr. Barbara Hales 0:02

Mistake #6: Forgetting That Many People Never Hear a Word You Say

Mistake number six: forgetting that many people never hear a word you say. This may be the most overlooked mistake in video marketing. Many people watch videos with the sound turned off. Think about your own habits. You’re sitting in a waiting room. You’re standing in line at the grocery store. You’re waiting to board an airplane. You don’t want to disturb the people around you, so you scroll silently. Now imagine a physician appears on your screen. They are obviously talking, but there are no captions, no headline, no text. Nothing tells you why you should stop. What happens? You keep scrolling, not because the doctor wasn’t knowledgeable, not because the information was not valuable. You simply had no idea what the video was about. Now imagine that same video begins with large text that says, “Three signs your blood pressure may be too high, or, “The biggest mistake patients make after knee replacement. Suddenly, you know exactly why you should stay. Captions don’t simply help people hear you; they help people understand you before they ever turn the sound on. Think of on-screen text as the title on the cover of a book. Without the title, many people never bother opening the book.

Mistake #7: Trying to Teach Everything in One Video

Mistake number seven: trying to teach everything in one video. Here’s another mistake I see all the time. Doctors try to explain everything. We want patients to understand the whole picture. That’s wonderful inside the exam room. It’s not wonderful in a 92nd video. I remember working with a physician who wanted to make a video about high blood pressure. He covered how blood pressure works, every medication, diet, exercise, complications, kidney disease, stroke, heart attacks, everything. It was an outstanding lecture. It was also far too much for one video. Now imagine a different approach. One video answers one question: Does high blood pressure have symptoms? Another asks: Why do I need medication if I feel fine? Another: Three foods that quietly raise blood pressure. Instead of one overwhelming lecture, you’ve created an entire video library. Patients can watch exactly what they need, and every video becomes another opportunity for someone to discover you.

Mistake #8: Thinking You Need Expensive Equipment

Mistake number eight: thinking you need expensive equipment. Let me save you some money. You probably don’t need another camera. You probably don’t need another microphone. You probably don’t need another light. You definitely don’t need to wait until everything is perfect. The smartphone in your pocket can produce remarkable videos today. Better equipment will help eventually, but better communication will help far more. People forgive average video quality; they rarely forgive boring content. Focus on helping people. The technology can improve later.

Mistake #9: Quitting Before the Results Show Up

Mistake number nine: quitting before the results show up. Here’s one of the biggest reasons physicians fail with video: they stop. They record three videos, maybe five. They don’t go viral. They don’t receive hundreds of comments, so they conclude video marketing doesn’t work. Imagine planting a tree. Would you dig it up after one week to see if the roots were growing? Of course not. Trust grows exactly the same way. One helpful video, then another, then another. Months later, patients begin saying, “I’ve been watching your videos. Those are some of the most rewarding words you’ll ever hear, because by then the relationship has already begun.

Mistake #10: Never Telling People What to Do Next

Mistake number 10: never telling people what to do next. You’ve educated someone. You’ve answered their question. They’ve watched until the end. Now what? Too many physicians simply stop talking. Don’t make people guess. Invite them. If you’d like more practical medical advice, subscribe. To learn more, visit my website. If this helped you, share it with someone you care about. If you’re looking for a physician, schedule an appointment. Every good conversation has a next step. Your videos should too.

Lesson: Focus on Communication, Not Technology

Here’s something I learned recently. I spent far too much time trying to make a better editor. Then I realized that’s not my job. My job is to communicate.

Dr. Barbara Hales 7:47

This Week’s Challenge: Record One Helpful Video

This week’s challenge: Record one video, answer one patient question, and keep it under two minutes. Don’t aim for perfection. Aim for helpful. Press, publish. Then next week, do it again.

The Real Purpose of Video Marketing

Video marketing isn’t really about cameras. It isn’t about software. It isn’t about algorithms. It’s about becoming the physician people already know and trust before they ever walk through your door.

Closing: Communicate With Purpose

Thank you so much for spending part of your day with me. If you enjoyed today’s episode, I’d really appreciate it if you’d subscribe to Marketing Tips for doctors. Every week, I share practical strategies to help physicians attract better patients, build stronger practices, and enjoy medicine again. Until next time, keep communicating with purpose, because every question you answered today may change someone’s tomorrow.

In this episode, Barbara discusses: 

Key Takeaways: 

“Video works for physicians not because it’s perfectly produced, but because it quickly, simply, and visually answers the patient’s real questions in a way that feels personal, trustworthy, and focused on them.” 

Connect with Barbara Hales: 

TRANSCRIPTION (243)

Chapter 1: Why Video Matters for Physicians 

[0:00:02 – Dr. Barbara Hales] Welcome to another episode of Marketing Tips for Doctors. I’m your host, Dr. Barbara Hales. Today we are going to be discussing something that has become one of the most powerful marketing tools available to physicians: Video, but ask yourself why your medical videos aren’t working. Today, we’ll discuss the first five mistakes most physicians make. 

[0:00:38 – Dr. Barbara Hales] Before you think, I don’t have professional cameras. I don’t know how to edit. I don’t have enough time, or I hate seeing myself on camera. I want to tell you a little story, because over the last few weeks, I’ve been learning something completely new, not medicine, not practice management, not marketing strategy. I’ve been learning how to create short-form videos, and let me tell you, it has been humbling. I honestly thought the difficult part would be coming up with ideas. It wasn’t. The difficult part was editing. One afternoon, I spent hours trying to edit what should have been a very simple product video. Hours. I watched tutorials. I clicked the wrong buttons. 

[0:01:45 – Dr. Barbara Hales] I undid things I had just done. At one point, I honestly wondered if I was ever going to finish. Then I had a realization: I don’t need to become a professional video editor. I don’t need to look like it was made by a professional. I need to become a better communicator. 

[0:02:14 – Dr. Barbara Hales] Those are two completely different skills. Technology can help me edit. Only I can communicate with authenticity, and I realize something else. If I felt overwhelmed, imagine how many positions feel exactly the same way. So, if you’ve been putting off video because it seems complicated. This episode is for you. Why now? Let’s start with a simple question: Why should physicians even bother making videos? Because that’s where your future patients are. Years ago, people searched Google. Today, they search Google, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, even LinkedIn. 

[0:03:15 – Dr. Barbara Hales] Patients don’t just want information anymore; they want connection. They want to know what kind of doctor you are. Will you explain things clearly? Will you listen? Will you make them feel comfortable? Video answers all of those questions before they ever schedule an appointment. Here’s another reason: you already have an unlimited supply of content. Every single day, patients ask you questions-questions you’ve answered hundreds of times, questions that seem routine to you-but those same questions are brand new to someone hearing the answer for the first time. 

[0:04:06 – Dr. Barbara Hales] Should I worry about this symptom? Why do I need this medication? How long will recovery take? Can I exercise after surgery? What’s normal? What isn’t? Those aren’t just questions. Those are videos. Seasonal illnesses, flu season, travel medicine, heat exhaustion, spring allergies, sports physicals, Heart Month, Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Diabetes Awareness Month. The ideas are endless, which brings me to what I think may be the most important sentence in today’s episode. Every question you answer in the exam room today. Is probably being typed into Google, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok by hundreds, if not 1000s, of people tonight. Then think about it. 

[0:05:16 – Dr. Barbara Hales] Those questions, the ones that have become second nature to you, they’re exactly what people are searching for. They’re looking for answers. They’re looking for reassurance, and perhaps most importantly, they’re looking for someone they can trust. 

Chapter 2: Mistake 1 – Waiting for Perfection 

[0:05:35 – Dr. Barbara Hales] If you’re the physician consistently providing those answers, you’re not just creating videos; you are building relationships before the first appointment ever happens. Now, let’s talk about the first five mistakes I see physicians make with video marketing. Mistake one: waiting for perfection. Let’s start with the biggest mistake of all: waiting until everything is perfect. I understand why physicians do this. 

[0:06:15 – Dr. Barbara Hales] We’ve trained to strive for precision. In medicine, details matter, accuracy matters, getting it right matters. So naturally, we carry the same mindset into marketing. We think, I’ll record a video after I buy a better camera. I’ll start once my office is renovated. I’ll wait until I learn how to edit. I’ll do it when I lose a few pounds. I’ll do it when I feel more comfortable on camera. 

[0:06:52 – Dr. Barbara Hales] Can I tell you something? Your future patients aren’t waiting for perfection. They’re waiting for someone who can answer their questions. Patients don’t expect Hollywood. They expect honesty. They expect clarity. They expect someone who feels genuine. Ironically, sometimes the videos that perform the best are the ones that feel the least polished. Why? Because they feel real. People connect with people, not perfection. 

[0:07:37 – Dr. Barbara Hales] If you keep waiting until every detail is perfect, you’ll still be waiting a year from now. Instead, record one helpful video, learn from it. Record another. Your first video isn’t supposed to be your best video. It’s simply supposed to be your first. Mistake two: talking like you’re giving a medical lecture. Once physicians finally press record, many make the same mistake. They forget who they’re talking to. You aren’t speaking to your colleagues. You’re speaking to Patients; patients don’t want to feel like they’re sitting through grand rounds. They want someone who can explain complicated information in a way that’s reassuring and easy to understand. 

Chapter 3: Mistakes 2 & 3 – Overly Technical and Too Slow to the Point 

[0:08:36 – Dr. Barbara Hales] One of my favorite communication tests is this: Could a high school student understand what you’re saying? If the answer is yes, you’re probably communicating well. Simple doesn’t mean you’re dumbing things down. Simple means you’re making knowledge accessible, and that’s one of the greatest gifts a physician can offer. Mistake three: taking too long to get to the point. You know this is something that we’ve all done at one point or another. 

[0:09:12 – Dr. Barbara Hales] Now let’s talk about attention. Years ago, people would patiently watch an introduction. Not anymore. Today you’re competing with 1000s of videos. If your opening doesn’t answer one question, why should I keep watching? People simply scroll instead of beginning with “Hello everyone, I’m Dr. Smith. 

[0:09:40 – Dr. Barbara Hales] Try beginning with three reasons your blood pressure medication may not be enough, or the biggest mistake I see after knee replacement surgery, or if you wake up with headaches every morning, don’t ignore the. Lead with the problem. Curiosity is one of the most powerful marketing tools you’ll ever use. Mistake number four: making the video about you instead of the patient. 

Chapter 4: Mistake 4 – Making the Video About You, Not the Patient 

[0:10:20 – Dr. Barbara Hales] Here’s another trap physicians fall into. They spend the first minute talking about themselves, where they trained, how many years they practiced, their credentials. Now, don’t misunderstand me. Credentials matter, but not in the first 30 seconds. Patients are thinking about one thing: themselves, their symptoms, their concerns, their questions. Meet them where they are, instead of saying, “I’ve been practicing medicine for 25 years. Try saying, “Here’s something every patient should know before. See the difference. The first sentence is about you. 

[0:11:13 – Dr. Barbara Hales] The second sentence is about them, and that’s where trust begins. Let me tell you something I’ve observed over the years. I’ve worked with physicians who had nearly identical credentials, excellent schools, board certifications, years of experience. Yet one physician always seemed to have a waiting room full of new patients, while another struggled. 

[0:11:44 – Dr. Barbara Hales] Why? Because patients don’t choose the doctor with the longest resume; they choose the doctor they feel they already know. Video creates familiarity. It lets patients experience your personality, your communication style, your compassion before they ever walk into your office. By the time they arrive for that first appointment, it doesn’t feel like they’re meeting a stranger. It feels like they’re meeting someone they’ve already come to trust-that’s the real power of video. It isn’t views. It isn’t likes. It isn’t algorithms. It’s trust. 

Chapter 5: Mistake 5 – Not Using Visuals and Overcomplicating Production 

[0:12:34 – Dr. Barbara Hales] Now, let’s talk about something I learned myself over the last few weeks. Video isn’t just about talking; it’s about showing. As physicians, we’re comfortable explaining things, but sometimes a simple visual explains more than a five-minute conversation. If you’re talking about knee pain, show a model of the knee. If you’re discussing skin cancer, show videos or diagrams when appropriate. If you’re explaining how to use an inhaler, you guessed it. Demonstrate it. 

[0:13:18 – Dr. Barbara Hales] People remember what they see, not just what they hear. I’ll give you a personal example. Recently, I was creating a short product video. The first version, honestly, it wasn’t very good. I simply filmed the product and started talking. It looked flat, so I stopped and asked myself, “How can I tell the story before I even say a word? The product happened to contain coconut, lime, and verbena. Instead of just placing the bottle on a table, I got a coconut. 

[0:14:01 – Dr. Barbara Hales] I cut it in half so you could see the inside. I placed fresh limes around the bottle. I put the bottle on a large natural rack, and I positioned everything beside a small palm tree. Suddenly, the video had a completely different feeling. Before I ever opened my mouth, the viewer already understood the product’s tropical theme. That experience reminded me of something we sometimes forget: video is visual. Every image should reinforce your message. 

[0:14:45 – Dr. Barbara Hales] Now, here’s the funny part. I actually drove around my neighborhood looking for the perfect little palm tree. After all that searching, I came home, walked into my backyard, and realized I. I already had the perfect palm tree growing there. 

[0:15:03 – Dr. Barbara Hales] Sometimes marketing is like that. We spend so much time looking for complicated solutions that we overlook the resources we already have. The same thing happens in medicine. Physicians often think they need expensive cameras, a professional studio, or a production company. 

[0:15:26 – Dr. Barbara Hales] Most of the time, what they already have is enough. One of these: a smartphone, good lighting, knowledge that helps people, and the willingness to press record-that’s where great video marketing begins. Not with expensive equipment, but with thoughtful communication. 

[0:15:51 – Dr. Barbara Hales] So today we’ve covered the first five mistakes that keep physicians from creating videos that connect with patients. Next week, we’re going to explore five more mistakes that can quietly destroy even a great video. We’ll talk about captions, why many viewers never hear a word you say, how to keep people from scrolling away, and the simple changes that can dramatically increase engagement. I think you’ll be surprised by how much difference those small details can make. So for this week, I’d like you to find one video you’d like to make and put it in the comments below. Okay, see you next week. 

In this episode, Barbara and Neil discussed the following:

Key Takeaways: 

“Facebook and Instagram and Google, TikTok, LinkedIn ads, all the ad platforms they learn really really quickly, and where the the best leads are, and if you spend $20 per day for five to seven days, you’ll have really good data as to which audiences are working well, which ads are working well, which ones are not, and you can start to make adjustments from there.” – Neil Shoney

Connect with Neil Shoney: 

Connect with Barbara Hales:  

TRANSCRIPT (242)

Chapter 1: Introducing Neil Shoney and the Promise of Scalable Ads 

0:00 | Dr. Barbara Hales 

[0:00:01] Dr. Barbara Hales: Welcome to another episode of Marketing Tips for Doctors. I’m your host, Dr. Barbara Hales, and today we have with us a very interesting character by the name of Neil Shoney.

Neil is an ad strategist and go-to expert for service-based businesses that want a simple, proven, scalable Facebook ad system that consistently brings in premium clients. With 13 years of running ads and over 3,000 service providers helped, Neil is known for turning complicated advertising into clear, repeatable frameworks that work across different service industries. Because, unlike almost everywhere else you turn, Neil does not believe in a one-size-fits-all approach. After managing high-spend campaigns in the UK and US, Neil shifted into coaching full-time and created a library of 36 proprietary frameworks, including his 25-5 method, that helps service providers install a functioning, profitable ad system in days, not months, that they can turn on or off like a tap, whenever they want new leads. His clients span over 62 niches, with 21 of those niches hitting six-figure months through ads. Welcome to the show, Neil. 

[0:01:44] Neil Shoney: Thanks much for having me, Barbara. Appreciate you. 

[0:01:47] Dr. Barbara Hales: Could you explain the 255 method? 

Chapter 2: The 255 Method—Two Campaigns, Five Audiences, Five Ads 

1:51 | Neil Shoney 

[0:01:51] Neil Shoney: Sure. The 255 method is at the heart of it, just a testing method for running advertising. So the majority of the time when a practice runs advertising through Facebook and Instagram or any other ad platform for that matter, they typically run what I call a one-one-one method. That is one campaign going to one audience with one ad, and there’ll definitely be people listening right now who are just like nodding along with bigger eyes, going, “That is exactly what I’m doing right now. I see it all the time, and what you have in that situation is you’ve basically taken your best guess at every single step of creating that campaign. So you’ve written the ad copy, and you’ve hoped that it’s going to be great.

You’ve chosen your image or your video, and you hope that it’s going to be great. You’ve chosen your audience, and you hope that it’s going to be the right one. But with the Shony 255 method, we do it this way: first, we run two campaigns rather than one. First of all, you’ve already doubled your chance of finding a winner because not both of them have to be winners. You can find a winner and a loser, and then put all your eggs into one winning basket. Those two campaigns that we split out-one is for warm, and one is for cold. That’s people who know who you are and people who don’t know who you are. That’s the first step that a lot of practices get wrong. They only target people who have never heard of them before, who may not even be in the market, and yet you could put a very small amount of ad spend behind people who have already visited your social media pages, your website, etc., and simply get back in front of those people and have really, really high conversion rates.

The first step there is two campaigns rather than one. The second step of the 255 method is where the first five comes in, and that’s five audiences rather than one. And so, quite simply, instead of, you know, saying people interested in this one thing and taking your best guess, you get the great opportunity to choose five different interests that somebody might have, or five different demographic targeting tools that we can choose from, and you don’t have to be right 100% of the time. You actually only need to be right once out of the five. Now, when we set this up, we hope that all five are fantastic. That’s great for scale. But if four of them are, you know, they just don’t work. That’s absolutely fine. We can turn off those audiences. We found our winner, and we can push all the budget towards the winner. And then the final step of the 255 method is the final five: having five ads rather than just one. And there are two reasons for this.

Number one is it’s also great to find winners and losers inside your ads, and you know the things that don’t work. You can turn them off. People never have to see them ever again, and you can push all the budget towards the winners. But there’s a second reason as well, and you’ve probably experienced this yourself, Barbara, and so will so many people who are listening right now. Is that you show any level of interest in something that you see via an ad? You might not even click through to the website, but if you stop scrolling, you hit the see more button, you read it, or you watch the video, and then you start seeing the ad over and over and over again. That’s Facebook basically saying this person is interested in this, but they didn’t take the action that the advertiser wanted them to take, which is to click through, request a callback, book an appointment, whatever it may be. Now, if you set up your ads the way that 98% of people do, a 111 campaign, then Facebook’s only option is to show the same ad to the same person over and over and over again, but if you have five ads, they’ll show them ad number two, then ad number three, then ad number four, and it helps to re-engage people and get more people to take action. 

[0:05:53] Neil Shoney: So it’s a testing method to find winners and losers, and rather than just, you know, throwing something against the wall, and it’s either going to stick or it’s not. It gives you a much higher probability of running a successful campaign. Mathematically, there are 50 variations there, so there’s 50 chances to find a winning variation, and it allows for a lot of scalability because if you have multiple audiences that become successful and multiple ads that are successful, then there’s a lot of opportunity to increase the spend on the front end to get much more out the other side. 

[0:06:27] Dr. Barbara Hales: What a great idea! So, do the clients get charged by Facebook for someone clicking on View More, or only if they click through? 

Chapter 3: How Facebook Bills and Neil’s Origin Story with Ads 

6:45 | Neil Shoney 

[0:06:45] Neil Shoney: Actually, with Facebook and Instagram, the way that it works is you’re charged per 1000 views, so it’s not charged based upon clicks and not clicks and things like that. As Google says, they are cost per click, and you know you’re charged whenever somebody clicks on the ad; technically, Google is still doing cost per 1000 views. They’re just choosing to send the billing notification once somebody has clicked. So it’s smart marketing on their side because they get to say You only pay if somebody clicks. People are going to click, so you’re going to pay anyway. But with Facebook, they have a cost per 1000 views, which is different for everybody. It depends on the ad, how many people you’re targeting, and who’s inside those audiences. But technically, you know, you set a daily budget, so it could be $10 a day, it could be $100 a day, it could be $1,000 a day, depend upon the size of the business, and you’re going to most likely spend what you set as a budget, as long as there’s a big enough audience there for Facebook to target. 

[0:07:47] Dr. Barbara Hales: How did you get into this originally? 

[0:07:50] Neil Shoney: Well, I actually 1314 years ago, something like that. I started Scotland’s biggest ever health and fitness exhibition, and I came straight out of university. I’d studied sport and exercise science. I always knew I was going to be entrepreneurial, and I just thought everybody would buy into my idea: a huge event at Scotland’s biggest venue, with a break-even of about 4,000 tickets needing to be sold for the weekend. I just thought that everybody would hear about it and think it would be incredible, and I ended up signing my life away with no money in the bank, hundreds of 1000s of pounds, or hundreds of 1000s of dollars, I should say, of contracts to be able to put on this massive show. And about five months into advertising, we’d sold around, you know, 50 tickets at $12.50 

[0:08:48] Dr. Barbara Hales: That’s pretty scary. 

[0:08:50] Neil Shoney: Yeah, it was pretty scary. We were about four and a half months out from the show itself, and everybody was knocking their doors down for outstanding invoices and different things, and to be honest, going to Facebook ads was like a last roll of the dice. I’d already done everything that everybody does in the marketing space when they’re bootstrapping, which is posting lots on social media, cold outreach, finding email addresses on Google, sending emails to personal trainers and all sorts. No matter how hard I worked, nothing was clicking. And when I ran Facebook ads, I ended up doing something very similar to the Shony 255 method. And I think it was just a bit of luck that I went down that route of being like, “Oh, I can test out different audiences.

I can test out different ads. That’s how that feels safer. So I just did that. That was the way that I set them up in the first place, and I ended up spending. I think it was around, you know, like $50 or something in the first few days, and I had returned somewhere in the region of I think it was 150 Or $250 something like that, in sales, and it was just this like penny drop moment where I was like, “Wow, I can track how much money I put into this thing, how much money comes out the other side, and if I know how much I need to put in to get something out, something specific out the other side, I can basically choose how many tickets I want to sell, as long as I have the cash flow, of course, to be able to reinvest into the ads, and that’s what we did. And we ended up not just selling, you know, more tickets, but we ended up almost hitting our target for tickets sold four and a half months later. The show was a big success. We ended up scaling it over the next four years, and then selling it to the country’s biggest event organizers. And we never ran TV ads, billboards, or radio advertising, as all of these big exhibitions do. We just ran Facebook ads, and that was it. So I never planned to teach anybody Facebook ads. I just tried to use it to save myself from a terrible situation. 

[0:11:05] Dr. Barbara Hales: Well, what a great story that was. Thank 

[0:11:09] Neil Shoney: you. 

Chapter 4: Google vs. Meta Ads and Leveraging Instagram Targeting 

11:09 | Dr. Barbara Hales 

[0:11:09] Dr. Barbara Hales: When it comes to physicians, is it better for doctors to use Google Ads, Meta Ads, or both? 

[0:11:18] Neil Shoney: I would always lean into Google first if you’re doing cold prospecting. People who don’t know who you are, because of course people are going to go to Google or AI now as well. But Google’s still the frontrunner by a long shot. People are going to go to Google to find the providers that are close to them for the specific problems that they have, and so albeit that Google Ads cost significantly more to get in front of 1000 people, it’s so high intent that if it’s set up correctly, then you end up getting a very high percentage of people who click on your ads going all the way through to creating a booking with Facebook, the the next best step, or Facebook and Instagram, we should probably talk about them collectively because it’s the same ad platform. The best thing you can do if you’re on a low budget and you’re sort of just starting out with advertising for your practice is use it first and foremost for remarketing, so you can take your Facebook pixel and drop it onto your website.

You can also create audiences of anybody that visits your Facebook or Instagram page, which some people may do before deciding to book with you as well. And we can create these audiences of people that already know who you are, and we can advertise to those people. And so, if you wanted to make the best use of your ad dollars, it would be Google first. It would be Facebook remarketing second, and then I would use Facebook and Instagram more broadly for cold traffic as your third step. So that would be once you already feel that you’ve already significantly scaled the first two; that’s where you go to find more customers at scale. 

[0:13:12] Dr. Barbara Hales: When someone advertises on Facebook, does it automatically go to Instagram as well, or do you have to request that? No, 

[0:13:20] Neil Shoney: No, automatically. You would actually have to uncheck some boxes to stop it happening. 

[0:13:26] Dr. Barbara Hales: Why would you want to? 

[0:13:27] Neil Shoney: No, you wouldn’t. 

[0:13:31] Dr. Barbara Hales: And people on Instagram would see the ads even if they don’t follow you. 

[0:13:36] Neil Shoney: Yes, absolutely. So anybody who is within your targeting can see your ads, so you can target people based upon, of course, age, gender, location. Which, of course, location is going to be very important for local practices. But you can also do some targeting based around certain things like their interests, and you know some things as well, like you can target people based upon not just whether they’re a parent or not. You can target them based upon how old their kids are. Like Facebook has a lot of data, and it feels accurate, and there’s a lot that you can do with the targeting tools. 

Chapter 5: Budgets, Metrics, and Warm vs. Cold Campaign Strategy 

14:19 | Dr. Barbara Hales 

[0:14:19] Dr. Barbara Hales: Well, that’s a great idea. When a physician is considering ads, let’s say it’s a new practice, or he is providing a new service or a product that he didn’t have before, what do you advise them to spend on a daily basis for their budget? 

[0:14:39] Neil Shoney: So I actually suggest that everybody starts at just around $20 per day with any campaign, and that may sound to some people like, oh, it’s just plain small. The reason I say $20 per day is because Facebook, Instagram, Google-they learn so quickly. If you’ve ever been told by an agency the reason.

The reason that you’re not getting results is that you’ve not spent enough, or because Facebook and Instagram take a really long time to learn. It’s actually their calling card: they don’t know how to get you results. Facebook and Instagram and Google, TikTok, LinkedIn ads, all the ad platforms they learn really really quickly, and where the the best leads are, and if you spend $20 per day for five to seven days, you’ll have really good data as to which audiences are working well, which ads are working well, which ones are not, and you can start to make adjustments from there. As soon as you have a positive ROI, that is the point at which we start the scaling process. So we don’t go with the mindset of your budget for the month is you know $2,000 So let’s figure out how much we need to spend per day to spend $2,000 The target’s not to spend $2,000 The target’s to find winners that bring in more revenue than you spend, and then you can start to scale towards spending $2,000 and that that’s the safest way to do 

[0:16:08] Dr. Barbara Hales: it. How can you differentiate between not getting responses because people aren’t interested in you versus it just not being a good ad that needs to be changed? 

[0:16:19] Neil Shoney: Yeah, well, there’s a couple of things. There, there’s a million different stats on the Facebook Ads dashboard, but there’s one that most people don’t even know exists. But it’s actually almost the tell-all of whether the ad is resonating with people or if it’s a landing page issue, like getting people to take action when they actually get to your website, and that is link click-through rate. So there are two.

There’s one that’s just click-through rate, and there’s one that’s link click-through rate. That one is what percentage of the people who see your ads actually click the button to go to your website, right? So it’s not, you know, hitting the like button, commenting, or seeing more. That’s click-through rate. Link click-through rate, however, is people actually clicking to leave Facebook after they’ve read your ad. Now, if it’s over 1%, we typically say there’s nothing wrong with the ads. The ads are doing their job. It’s getting people to stop scrolling, to read, and to leave Facebook. If you’re not getting inquiries on the next page, we then focus on the page and how do we get more people to take action there? If, on the other hand, you’ve got an ad that is, you know, 0.5%, then we’re quite far off where we need to be in terms of the link click-through rate. Then that’s when I would look at the advert itself and say, how do we get more people’s attention? How do we get more people to take action from the ad? 

[0:17:53] Dr. Barbara Hales: Are ads best for cold prospecting or remarketing to people who hit my website? If both, how can this be maximized for the biggest ROIs? 

[0:18:07] Neil Shoney: Well, both of them have their place in terms of what we would want anybody to be running. You know, like one month after working with us, for instance, we would want everybody to be running both, because there’s your warm campaign, your remarketing, which is fantastic for a small spend and a high ROI. That’s amazing, but there’s only so many people in there, so there’s only so far you can scale with that. And once you’ve kind of maximized that side of things, if you want to grow faster and acquire clients faster, you have to go out into the cold market. You have to go out and find more customers that may be out there. So, in terms of what’s more important, I suppose to start off, if you’re not advertising at all right now, I would say the warm side of things, the remarketing. But if you’re really serious about scaling, then both of them are very important to make scale happen as quickly as possible. 

Chapter 6: Small Budgets, Getting Help, and Choosing the Right Ads Expert 

19:12 | Dr. Barbara Hales 

[0:19:12] Dr. Barbara Hales: What would you say to someone who says to you, you know, I don’t really have a budget, you know, so I haven’t been advertising, and you know, is it worth it? You know, is it definitely going to work, or am I just going to be throwing money in the air? 

[0:19:28] Neil Shoney: Well, a couple of things. The first thing is, you don’t have to start off with a high budget, like I was saying. You can start at a small budget. You can see what happens with the ads. Just like my story with the events business 14 years ago: if it hadn’t worked, if I hadn’t sold tickets in that first week or a week or two weeks, I wouldn’t have continued spending money on it. But because I spent a small amount of money and made significantly more back, it gave me the opportunity to scale into that thing. The second thing is don’t go into it without some sort of guidance. And I don’t even mean that you need to work with somebody like me. Like you can go onto YouTube. Like you can go onto YouTube and at least get some tips and direction around how to do certain things, like for instance, some people right now will be going.

How do I set up warm retargeting? How do I set up these warm audiences? I’ve literally got a YouTube video inside the ads dashboard where I set them all up. So, like you, you don’t have to go into this completely blindly, even if you don’t want to invest in, you know, courses and agencies and things like that. So do some research. Don’t just throw something against the wall and then determine that it doesn’t work. There are things that need to happen to make advertising successful, but a lot of it’s out there on YouTube. 

[0:20:56] Dr. Barbara Hales: As a doctor, if I was looking for somebody to just do it, I didn’t want to get involved. I just want them to do it. How? What criteria do I use to pick the right one? How do I recognize who is you know going to do it for me versus someone who you know read a course last weekend and doesn’t really keep doing? 

[0:21:18] Neil Shoney: Well, track records are really a really big thing. How long have they been doing it? It’s a massive one. So I mean, we have just an absolute crazy amount of testimonial videos, and if anybody ever goes through, like, my Instagram or whatever, every few days it’s another testimonial video or something that a client sent us or whatever it may be, and we’ve done that for like 10 years here, just like churning it out. So when you go on our landing pages, it’s sometimes like 120 videos that are on that page. So, like, what type of results have they got for clients is number one, but the second one is how long have they been doing this for? And the reason why that’s so important is Facebook and Instagram are changing all the time, and so if they only had the ability to be able to run advertising successfully in a pocket of time, when they had a system that worked with the Facebook algorithm today, for instance, as soon as Facebook announces two months from now that they’ve changed the algorithm, are they going to be savvy enough to be able to do the appropriate testing to figure out how to continue having their clients win in the new environment? So time in the game is also as important as the results that they’ve been getting most recently. 

[0:22:37] Dr. Barbara Hales: It does seem so unfair, though, that you know, like if we catch your game, you’re going to change it. 

Chapter 7: Regaining Targeting Control, Video Tips, and How to Reach Neil 

22:41 | Neil Shoney 

[0:22:41] Neil Shoney: Yeah, they do it all the time, and they’ll always tell you that it’s because they want to help you. They don’t. They want to find plenty of ways to get you to spend more money. So that’s what the most recent algorithm update was all about. It was, hey, you don’t need to think about targeting anymore. Just let us choose the targeting, and we’ll find the right people for you, and that’s going to really help you get results. It hasn’t played out like that at all. What it turns out is that Facebook has lots of inventory for people you’re not trying to get in front of, and now they have permission from you to spend all of your ad dollars on those inverted commas, low-quality leads, if you will. So there are ways that you can take back control of your ads. There’s a button. This is probably one of the best tips I can give anybody on this podcast, by the way, because a lot of you are running localized businesses. So there are two big reasons. 

[0:23:42] Dr. Barbara Hales: Okay, because the next question I have for you, so you could put it in there, is for someone that is, you know, has heard you and said, okay, you’ve convinced me. I’m going to dip my toe in the waters. What are two helpful tips that you could give to our listeners that they could implement right away? 

[0:24:04] Neil Shoney: So this is the biggest one for anybody that runs a localized business in general, which is when you’re setting up your adverts, and you get to the second step. There are only three steps: campaign, ad set, and, for ease of understanding, that’s your audience who is going to get to see your ad. And then there’s a third step, which is setting up the ad itself. That’s the thing people are going to see. That middle step, right now, it looks like there’s not too much that you can do there. You set a minimum age. You don’t set too much targeting in terms of locations; you can technically set a locational target in there, but it feels like you are being relatively pinpoint about who is going to get to see your ads. But you’re not.

What is actually happening there is you are giving face. A suggestion, and that is very dangerous for a local business, because when you say I specifically work with women between the ages of 30-five and 50-five in this 10-mile radius, they can show 20% of your your ads to men, and they can show another 20% of your ads to 18-year-olds and 70-two year olds, and they can also show your ads outside of that 10-mile radius. But there’s one button at the bottom of the page that you’ll see, which says “Further limit the reach of my ads.

The wording is almost comical because it’s like, how much do they not want you to hit that button, right? So that they just can spend your ad dollars however they wish, right? But if you click on that button, it gives you the ability to go into everything I just said there: gender, location, age, and uncheck a box that says “use as a suggestion. When you do that, you take back pinpoint control over who can see your ads, and for local businesses, you might even find that it raises your cost per lead. Right, that’s not a bad thing, because what is the point in having low-cost leads if there are a bunch of people who can never work with you, who can never walk through your doors? So it’s not always that it’s more expensive. I’m just saying that technically it could happen, but I would rather have great leads, great quality, my target demographic, than a whole bunch of leads that would never buy from me. So that’s really important. The second thing is for these types of businesses, video is really powerful, and it doesn’t even need to be, you know, really high-quality video with transitions and a filming crew. I mean, it can just quite simply be a little bit of B-roll of, you know, somebody in the practice, which can obviously be set up. It’s not like you have to start recording your sessions, but just having that type of B-roll catches people’s attention. There is a great place for images inside your five ads, but videos work really, really well for localized businesses and service-based businesses. 

[0:27:21] Dr. Barbara Hales: Well, those are really both great bits of advice. The next question I have is for someone that wants to take a course from you or get advice from you. How can they reach you? 

[0:27:34] Neil Shoney: Well, there are a couple of ways. The first way is to quite simply go to Instagram and go to Neil Shoney Ads. So it looks like “Neil’s Honey Ads,” unfortunately, the way it sounds. But it’s Neil Shoni ads, all one word. And you can get loads of tips there and different things via the link in my bio. There’s a five-minute video that walks you through our whole system and how we work with clients. Or you could just send me a message there directly, or you can email me at [email protected] or [email protected] if you want to sign up that way, and yeah, we can have a quick conversation from there. 

[0:28:17] Dr. Barbara Hales: Well, thank you so much for being on the show. I really found this, you know, very educational. I’ve learned a lot. I feel like I know more, and I’m sure other listeners feel that same way. Thank you so much. 

[0:28:31] Neil Shoney: Appreciate you. Thank you, Barbara. 

[0:28:33] Dr. Barbara Hales: This has been another episode of Marketing Tips for Doctors with your host, Dr. Barbara Hales. Till next time. 

In this episode, Barbara discusses: 

Key Takeaways: 

“Whenever you hear an extraordinary claim, don’t rush to an extraordinary conclusion. Take a breath, look at the evidence, and let’s think this through together.” 

Connect with Barbara Hales: 

TRANSCRIPTION (247)

 Is This Really a Miracle Cure? Framing the Question 

0:00 | Dr. Barbara Hales 

Grab your coffee or tea, or whatever keeps you going today. I have mine. I’m Dr. Barbara Hales. And welcome to Marketing Tips for Doctors, the podcast where we help physicians build stronger practices, attract better patients, and enjoy medicine again.

Today, we’re asking a question that has physicians and patients asking, Is this really a miracle cure? This has been on my mind lately. You know, a few weeks ago someone asked me about a product and wanted to know what I thought. They asked me, Barbara, is this a miracle cure? Now I know I could have answered their question. Instead, I asked them one of my own. I said, ” Let’s think this through together, because I realized something. The important question wasn’t whether I liked the product. The important question was, how do we decide? How do we separate excitement from evidence? How do we decide whether something is truly a breakthrough or simply a really good marketing campaign? Now, before we go any further, let me make something very clear.

This episode isn’t about criticizing any particular product; it isn’t about criticizing supplements, medications, or innovation. Quite the opposite. I love innovation. If someone discovers something that genuinely helps my patients live longer, healthier lives. I’m going to be the first one celebrating. Woo hoo! Medicine has always moved forward because someone was willing to ask “what if.” Thank goodness they did. Otherwise, we’d still be practicing medicine the way it was practiced 100 years ago, but medicine has also advanced because someone asked another question. How do we know? To me, those are two of the most important questions in medicine: what if, and how do we know now? If you’re anything like me, you’ve probably noticed that every few months there’s another headline, another breakthrough, another product, another celebrity endorsement, another video that promises to change everything we thought we knew. Sometimes they’re fascinating, sometimes they’re exciting, and every once in a while, they’re absolutely right. But here’s where my brain goes: not Is it true? Not yet. The first thing I ask myself is, how do we know it’s true? There’s a difference, you know. Patients ask us questions every single day; that’s what they’ve always done. Years ago, they came into the office carrying newspaper clippings. Then it was magazine articles. Then they started bringing pages they printed from the internet. Now they come in talking about something they watched on YouTube or social media; the technology has changed. People haven’t. They’re still looking for hope. They’re still looking for answers, and honestly, I don’t fault them one bit. If someone I loved was sick, I’d be looking too. Wouldn’t you? 

 Respecting Patients’ Effort and Preparing for Conversations 

3:30 | Dr. Barbara Hales 

One of the things I’ve always told my patients is this: if there’s something you really want to discuss, send it to me about two weeks before your appointment. Put a little Post-it note on it that says I would like to talk about this along with the date and time of your appointment. Do you know why? Because I want to respect the f. Are made if they took the time to read something or watch something. The least I can do is take the time to look at it before they come in.

Our office appointments are busy enough as they are, trying to review an article, evaluate the evidence, answer questions, and still take care of everything else during a 15- or 20-minute visit. That’s not fair to the patient, and it’s certainly not fair to the topic. I’d rather be prepared. Then, when they come into the office, we can have a meaningful conversation. I’ve found that patients really appreciate that, and honestly, I think they deserve that. Now, let me ask you something. Have you ever had a patient ask you about a product and quietly thought to yourself, I’ve never even heard of this? I think every physician has, and you know what, that’s okay. Somewhere along the way, I think we started believing that physicians were supposed to know everything, every medication, every supplement, every new device, every AI tool, every study, every impossible headline. Medicine changes too quickly. 1000s of studies are published every year. New products come onto the market constantly. No one can know all of it, and I actually think saying that’s an interesting question. 

 “I Don’t Know Yet” and the Power of Good Questions 

06:50 | Dr. Barbara Hales 

Let me investigate it and get back to you builds more trust, not less. Patients don’t expect me to know everything; they expect me to care enough to find the right answer for them. There’s a big difference. So, if someone asks me, Barbara, is this a miracle cure? My answer is I don’t know yet, but I know exactly where I’d begin, and that’s what I’d like to share with you today, not because I have all the answers, I certainly don’t, but because over the years I’ve realized my brain tends to ask the same questions every time I hear an extraordinary medical claim, I never sat down and made a checklist. It’s just where my brain goes. Maybe some of those questions will become part of the way you think, too.

So, grab another sip of coffee and let’s think this through together. Where does my mind go first? Well, probably not where you think. The first thing I ask myself isn’t, ‘Does it work? The first thing I ask myself is, ‘What’s the actual claim? Now that may sound almost too simple, but you’d be surprised how often we skip over that part. We hear words like breakthrough, scientifically proven, clinically tested, doctor-recommended, and before we know it, we’ve become excited without ever stopping to ask, wait a minute, what are they saying? Are they saying it supports healthy blood pressure, improves circulation, helps maintain healthy arteries, or are they claiming it prevents disease? Those are very different statements. Words matter.

As physicians, we know that. Then my mind goes somewhere else. I ask myself, does that make biological sense? Notice, I’m not asking whether it’s true, not yet. I’m simply asking whether there’s a reasonable explanation for why it might work. Sometimes there is; sometimes there isn’t; and sometimes the answer is that we just don’t know yet. I’m perfectly comfortable with that answer. Medicine has always been a journey of learning. There are things we believe today that we’ll probably look at differently 10 years from now, and there are ideas that were dismissed years ago that eventually became accepted because the evidence caught up. Yeah, that’s one of the things I love about medicine. We’re allowed to change our minds when the evidence changes. 

 Studying the Actual Product and Asking, “Compared to What?” 

10:00 | Dr. Barbara Hales 

Now, here’s where I think we sometimes get into trouble. We fall in love with an idea before we fall in love with the evidence. Have you ever done that? I have. You read something; it sounds logical, sounds exciting. You start thinking about all the patients it could help, then six months later, a year later, more studies come out, and suddenly the picture isn’t nearly as clear as you thought it was. If you’re anything like me, you’ve lived through that more than once. It certainly taught me something. It taught me not to become emotionally attached to a headline. It taught me to become attached to the process. Now, here’s another question that always pops into my head. Has this product actually been studied? Notice, I did not say that one of the ingredients has been studied. Those aren’t the same thing.

Let’s say a product contains five different ingredients; maybe one of those ingredients has strong research backing. Wonderful, but that doesn’t automatically tell me what happens when all five are combined. Dosages matter, formulations matter, interactions matter. That’s why I always want to know: has the actual product been evaluated? Then I ask, compared to what? Compared to doing nothing? Compared to a placebo? Compared to another treatment? Compared to lifestyle changes, because saying something works without telling me what it’s being compared to really doesn’t tell me very much at all. Now, if you’re anything like me, you’re probably thinking, Barbara, this sounds like a lot of work. Sometimes it is, but here’s the interesting thing. After you’ve practiced medicine for a while, you don’t consciously go through this list. It just becomes the way you think. At least that’s what happened to me. I don’t sit down with a checklist. My brain simply starts asking questions. 

 Who’s Talking, Humility in Medicine, and Not Skipping the Process 

13:15 | Dr. Barbara Hales 

Here’s another one, and I think it’s an important one. Who’s talking now? Don’t misunderstand me. Credentials matter, experience matters, expertise matters. If someone has spent 30 years studying a particular field, I’m going to listen very carefully, but I don’t stop there, because even brilliant people can disagree. We’ve all seen it. That’s not a weakness in medicine; that’s one of its strengths. Ideas are challenged, evidence is questioned, and studies are repeated. That’s how we get closer to the truth. You know, one of the things I enjoy most about practicing medicine is that it keeps us humble.

Every physician has been wrong, every physician has changed their mind, every physician has looked back and said, if I knew then what I know now, that’s not failure, that’s growth and honesty, not exactly what I hope my patients want from me, not someone who pretends to know everything, but someone who’s willing to keep learning. So, by this point, you may be wondering, Barbara, are you against supplements? No, not at all. Some supplements have strong evidence supporting them.

Some medications have excellent evidence. Some lifestyle interventions have strong evidence, and others simply need more research. I’m not against new ideas. I’m against skipping the process; there’s a big difference, and maybe that’s the biggest point I’d like to make today. I don’t want physicians to become cynical. I don’t want patients to become cynical either. Curiosity is a wonderful thing. Hope is a wonderful thing. Innovation is a wonderful thing. I never want to lose those. What I do want is to slow down just enough to ask a few really good questions, because in my experience, good questions usually lead to good decisions. 

 Stories, Ethical Marketing, and Slowing Down Urgent Claims 

17:30 | Dr. Barbara Hales 

Speaking of questions, there are a few things that immediately make me slow down, not because I think something is wrong, but because I think it’s worth looking a little more closely. Let’s talk about those. What are the things that make me slow down? I don’t call them warning signs; I don’t even call them red flags; I simply think of them as little reminders to ask one more question. The first one is this: whenever I hear an extraordinary claim, I expect extraordinary evidence. Now, that doesn’t mean I dismiss it, not at all. It simply means that if someone tells me one product can solve half a dozen unrelated problems. My curiosity goes up, not down.

The bigger the promise, the more carefully I want to look at the evidence behind it. Here’s another thing I’ve noticed: whenever someone says doctors don’t want you to know this, I always smile. I’ve spent my entire career around physicians. I’ve worked with 1000s of them. I’ve never met one who got up in the morning and thought, how can I keep my patients from getting better today? That’s just not who doctors are. Most physicians I know spend their careers looking for better treatments, better outcomes, better ways to help people. If something truly works, believe me, doctors want to know about it. Now, here’s another thought. Stories, stories are powerful. You’ve heard several from me before. Stories help us remember, stories help us connect, stories remind us that medicine is about people, not just statistics, but stories have limits. One person’s experience, even a wonderful experience, doesn’t necessarily tell us what will happen for everyone else. It tells us what happened to one person; that’s important, but it’s different from asking what happens when hundreds or 1000s of people try something. That’s where good research becomes so valuable.

Stories and science are not enemies; they simply answer different questions. You know this. This reminds me of something that happened repeatedly in my practice. Patients would come into the office and say, Dr. Hales, I read this article, or I saw this on television, or today I watched this video online, and I loved that. I really did. It told me they cared about their health. They were trying to learn, they were asking questions, they were engaging. I never wanted to discourage that, but I also knew we couldn’t do justice to a complicated topic in the last three minutes of an office visit, so I started telling my patients something I would say, if there’s something you’d really like us to discuss, send it to me two weeks before your appointment, put a little post-it note on it that says I’d like to talk about this, along with the date and time of your appointment, that gave me time to read it, time to look at the references, time to ask my own questions. Then, when the patient came in, we were both prepared. Instead of giving them a quick opinion, I could give them a thoughtful one, and, you know what, patients appreciated knowing I was taking their question seriously. Can I share something else with you?

Over the years, I’ve had physicians tell me, Barbara, I don’t market my practice because I don’t think. Marketing is unethical. I always smile. Then I ask them a question. So, let me see if I understand this correctly. You are willing to tell people what you do and what your products and services are, but you’re going to keep your office location a secret, which usually gets a laugh. Then I continue, or maybe you’ll tell everyone where your office is, but you’re going to keep what you do a secret, of course. Not marketing isn’t the problem. Bad marketing is the problem to me. Marketing is simply telling people who you help, what you do, and where they can find you. That’s all. Now, how you do it, that’s where ethics comes in. Ethical marketing tells the truth; it doesn’t exaggerate, it doesn’t promise what it cannot deliver, and it certainly doesn’t try to replace evidence with emotion. That’s true, whether you’re talking about a medical practice or a medical product. Now, here’s something else I think about. Have you ever noticed how often advertisements try to make us feel like we have to decide immediately, limited time, only a few left? Act now. Whenever someone tries to rush my decision, I intentionally slow it down because very few good medical decisions get worse after you’ve had time to think; if anything, they usually improve. Now, don’t misunderstand me, I’m not suggesting that every exciting claim is wrong; far from it, some of today’s standard treatments were once considered radical ideas. Medicine advances because people are willing to challenge conventional thinking. We need people asking new questions. We need researchers exploring new possibilities. What we don’t need is to stop asking questions once the marketing begins. 

Staying Curious, Staying Humble, and Choosing Thoughtful Answers 

21:30 | Dr. Barbara Hales 

If you’re anything like me, you’ve probably noticed something else. Patients today have access to more medical information than ever before; that’s a wonderful thing, but they also have access to more misinformation than ever before. Sometimes those two are mixed so well it’s hard to tell where one ends and the other begins. That’s why I believe physicians have become even more important, not because we’re the only source of information- we’re not- but because we’ve been trained to evaluate information. Those are two very different things, and that’s really what this conversation has been about, not whether one product is good or another product is bad. It’s about developing the habit of asking good questions before making important decisions, because when we do that, we’re serving our patients, ourselves, and our profession, you know.

When I first started thinking about this episode, I thought it would be about one product. It isn’t. It really isn’t. It’s about something much bigger. It’s about how we think, and maybe that’s one of the most important things we can do as physicians, not just collecting information, but evaluating it. I’ve often said that medicine is both an art and a science. Science gives us evidence; art teaches us how to apply that evidence to the person sitting in front of us. Neither one works very well without the other. If there’s one thing I’d love for you to remember from today’s conversation, it’s this: you don’t have to know everything. None of us does. The longer I’ve practiced medicine, the more comfortable I’ve become saying That’s an interesting question. Let me look into it. Let’s see what the evidence actually says. Years ago, I might have felt pressure to have an immediate answer.

Today, I think patients deserve something better than an immediate answer. They deserve a thoughtful answer. Sometimes that takes a little time, and I think that’s okay. You know, one of the things I’ve always loved about medicine is that it keeps us humble. Every physician has been surprised, every physician has had to change an opinion, every physician has learned something they did not know before. That’s not a weakness; that’s one of the greatest strengths of our profession. Science keeps moving, and if we’re in good positions, we move with it. So, the next time someone asks you, Doctor, what do you think about this, I hope you’ll remember today’s conversation, not because I expect you to have the same opinion I do; I don’t. In fact, I hope you continue to ask your own questions, read your own studies, and think things through for yourself. That’s exactly what a good physician does. And if you’re a patient watching today, I’d like to leave you with one thought: keep asking questions, bring articles to your doctor, tell them about the videos you’ve watched, and share what you’ve learned. Those conversations are valuable. Just remember, medicine is rarely as simple as a 32nd commercial or a 62nd social media video.

The best decisions usually come from a conversation, not a headline. You know, I think that’s why I enjoy doing this podcast so much: it gives us a chance to have conversations we rarely have time for during a busy office day, no interruptions, no waiting room full of patients, just two colleagues or maybe a physician and a patient thinking something through together, and honestly, I wish we had more opportunities to do that. If today’s conversation made you stop and think, if it gave you a different way to evaluate the next exciting medical claim that comes across your desk, or your computer screen or your phone, then I hope you’ll join me again next week, because every week here on Marketing Tips for Doctors we have conversations about medicine, marketing, communication, practice growth, and the challenges physicians face every single day.

My goal is always the same: to help physicians attract better patients, build stronger practices, and enjoy medicine again. If that’s the kind of future you want, I’d love to have you as part of this community, so please take a moment to subscribe, not just because it helps the channel, but because every week we’ll continue having conversations that can make a real difference in your practice, and maybe even remind you why you chose medicine in the first place, and if you will know if you know another physician who would enjoy today’s discussion, please share it with them. I have a feeling it’ll start some interesting conversations, and if you’re a member of the community, you could drop us a note or a comment as to what topics you would like to cover next.

Until next time, keep asking good questions, stay curious, stay humble, and whenever you hear an extraordinary claim, don’t rush to an extraordinary conclusion. Take a breath, look at the evidence, and let’s think this through together. I’ll see you next week. This has been Dr. Barbara Hales with Marketing Tips for Doctors. 

In this episode, Barbara and David discuss: 

Key Takeaways: 

“Culture is everything, and communicating that culture and building it with and for your employees is really critical.” 

Connect with David Mastovich: 

Connect with Barbara Hales:  

TRANSCRIPTION (246)

Chapter 1: Introduction & Guest Overview 

Narrator [0:00:02]: Paul, welcome to the Marketing Tips for Doctors podcast, where you’ll discover the secrets to attracting more patients ready to schedule their first appointments to grow your practice without spending hours and hours away from your practice or home. Hear how to boost your online presence, develop a strong rapport with each patient to increase patient compliance, and add value while growing revenue. Now, here’s your host, Dr. Barbara Hales, America’s leading medical strategist. 

Dr. Barbara Hales [0:00:32]: Welcome to another episode of Marketing Tips for Doctors. I’m your host, Dr. Barbara Hales, and today we have a really special guest with us, by the name of David Mastovich. Dave is the CEO and founder of Mass Solutions, and you will find the contact information and more about the company in the show notes. He is a consultant who drives growth in revenue, recruiting, retention, and results. He is the author of No Bullshit Marketing, a number one bestseller, and host of the long-running No Bullshit Marketing show, Easy to Remember. He turns data, behavior, and patterns into practical actions and stories leaders can use to transform their organizations. Earlier in his career at UPMC, Dave’s marketing leadership helped grow the system’s revenue from under 1 billion to 10 billion. Today, he brings that same mix of cognitive science and real-world execution to help organizations strengthen culture, increase enterprise value, and accelerate performance. Welcome to the show, Dave. 

David Mastovich [0:01:57]: Thanks for having me, Barbara. I’m really excited to be here. 

Dr. Barbara Hales [0:01:59]: Tell us about the six target markets that matter to physician practices. 

Chapter 2: Six Target Markets & Culture / Retention 

David Mastovich [0:02:05]: Thanks. Great question. It comes down to the fact that we often don’t realize the various target markets out there, so some of the ones I tell you about will be neglected. They’re neglected right now, and they’ll become obvious and say, “Whoa, I have been neglecting them. But first and foremost, it’s actually current patients, and I think that’s sometimes neglected a little bit, because you have an opportunity to talk to them more than you currently do, and then they become marketers for you. So, I think the first audience is tied to your current patients, the second is the one that everybody knows and targets the most, and that is trying to find new patients, and so that’s the one that everyone will relate to. But then there’s a group called Your Current Employees, and I think we don’t talk to them enough about how they can become a part of the marketing team, and how the culture that kept them is something they should talk about. And then potential employees, because we’re in a field with a lot of turnover and retention issues, and we’re also going through a lot of growth. So, the third and fourth are current and prospective employees, and there needs to be the same rigor in marketing and communication to current and prospective employees as there is for new patients. And then the fifth and sixth are referral sources, so current referral sources and potential referral sources, so all six of those are intertwined, and they make sense, but what ends up happening is we neglect one or two, or we blend them into one, and we just say we’re trying to talk to referral sources, and we don’t break down the art and science of it, and say, okay, here’s our current referral sources, and here’s what they look like, and here’s how many referrals they give, here’s how many they could give. So we try to get them to give more, but then who are the look-alikes that are similar to them that we’re not getting anything from? So that’s how the fifth and sixth ones come into play. So those are the six right-fit target markets for physician practice. 

Dr. Barbara Hales [0:03:53]: Where so many practices say that once they train people to work as staff members, the next thing they know, the staff have up and quit. Do you have a special secret to retain them? 

David Mastovich [0:04:07]: There’s no magic wand. I wish I did, but I will say that culture is everything, and communicating that culture and building it with and for your employees is really critical. So, where we’ve seen success at companies as large as UPMC, with the 10 billion and now like 20 billion in revenue, all the way down to a physician practice of two physicians and a mid-level practitioner. We’ve gone all the way, everything in between, and we’ve talked about how important it is to convey your cultural story. Why do employees come to work for you? Why do they stay? How long do they stay? What do they love about you, and talk about that to patients, even because patients need to hear that, and current and potential patients need to hear that? Current and potential employees need to hear that, talk about them, and give them positive feedback. All of those things matter, and some of those sound like common sense, but you’d be surprised how often we aren’t. When talking about our employees and our culture to current and potential patients, we also aren’t giving that positive feedback as much because we get so busy, and we don’t tie that back to the culture and say, “You’re living the culture in this way.” I think that’s what I mean by the feedback. The feedback needs to say, ” Hey, here’s a core behavior of the company. We have core values, but we also need to define the core behaviors that show that value in action, and then when it happens, we have to say to that employee, ” You know, our core value is customer service. We have multiple ways to say there are behaviors, and one is going above and beyond by doing whatever it takes to get the patient comfortable. You did that yesterday, Suzanne, when you did x. That’s how you make sure you’re talking to your employees about the culture and making the culture about them. It’s built by and for them. 

Dr. Barbara Hales [0:05:48]: Do you create a handbook that you give to them when they first start under your employment? 

David Mastovich [0:05:54]: Yes, yes, I think a lot of it comes down to we have an entire system around the retention and recruitment, and it does involve continually having input from the employees on what they see as the core behaviors that show the core value, and then over time you continually update that core handbook, cultural handbook that you have, and you call it a cultural handbook, as opposed to employee handbook. Use your terminology; play to your strengths. If you say we’re all about culture here, and the culture is this, then here are the three or four core values, examples of those core values in action, and core behaviors for each one in our handbook. In addition to the, oh, you have to do this, and we’re off on Thursday, you know, all that stuff that’s in the legalese is what people tend to remember to give, but when you talk about it from a culture standpoint, that’s when you make the most difference, 

Dr. Barbara Hales [0:06:42]: That’s great. And also, I noticed that when a person has been working a while, asking them what they recommend to improve what they’re doing and valuing their opinion, as opposed to just giving you, you know, a statement about what they should be doing. I think that they appreciate that you respect them when you value their opinion and your own. 

Chapter 3: Employee Feedback, Surveys & Referrals 

David Mastovich [0:07:14]: Oh, there are two parts that as well, Barbara. So, the first is that they absolutely value you asking for their opinion. The second part of that first part is that you’ll actually hear things you can change and improve, but there’s a second way to do it as well. I recommend that you, everybody, do a quick snapshot survey every year when you talk to your employees, some patients, and some referral sources, using an outside source. It doesn’t have to be a big huge budget buster, but what it does is when you’re talking to an employee from the outside and saying, hey, your employer thought enough of you to have us talk to you, that also elevates you, and then they give their little more frank, both positive, they’re a little more direct on the positive, a little more direct on the constructive feedback with an outside party, so then when you can gather that back together, and even if you only have five employees, 10 employees, you’ll get that feedback, and you can hear ideas of how to improve, but they also appreciate that you talk to them. Then that same survey of patients gets you testimonials, and referral sources get you feedback on why they refer and why they don’t. They don’t say it exactly that way, but if you have a good interviewer and you have a good firm, that’s what our team has been trained on. Each of our team members has been trained to conduct those surveys because we do that for all of our clients across the country, and that’s a way to really get that touch-point in for employees as well. 

Dr. Barbara Hales [0:08:29]: You don’t find that some of the employees are hesitant, to be honest, for fear of it affecting their employment. 

David Mastovich [0:08:36]: Well, at a really small organization with two or three employees, it’s, it’s going to be a little more challenging, because they know that there’s less chance of anonymity, so with those, we often do it in sometimes in a group setting, and we try to make it less punitive, like as if they’re being less negative, but you can still get that done once you get beyond talking to two or three people, so if you’re a company that has 2530 employees, you can send an all employee survey out, and then we do the interviews as well, and they know that it’s the feedback is then coming multiple ways, the completely anonymous employee survey, and then the qualitative feedback, they know that we’re telling them, hey, we’re not going to say that Suzanne said that statement, and Barbara said this statement, and Dave said that statement, we’re going to come back and say some trends, we’re going to, because what you’ll, what you’ll find, we’ve seen three to four items get mentioned three or four times, and when you’re doing a qualitative survey, that means those are the ones to bring up, and so we can bring those up and combine it with the quantitative piece of the all employee survey that had maybe 10 questions, key is keep it really short, keep it to eight to 10 questions on the email survey, and three or four open-ended questions when you’re talking to them. Then they get the sense they can tell that this is not something you’re going to run and say so and so said this, because you’re saying, like, what’s one thing you’d change, what’s one thing that makes you want to work here. Those kinds of open-ended questions can make a huge difference. 

Dr. Barbara Hales [0:09:57]: Absolutely, how would you encourage? Urge them to be referral sources, 

David Mastovich [0:10:02]: well, with the with the employees, that there’s multiple things that they can do, they can talk to patients about the positive culture of the organization of the practice, so that’s something we want to get them to feel more comfortable talking about the culture, talk about the core values and the behaviors that exemplify those second thing is we want to get them to where they’re positive enough that they feel look when we go to our Fourth of July get-together here in a little bit, or when it’s around Labor Day, or whatever holiday, we’re going to talk about what we do for a living. It’s almost impossible after we get through the small talk, we end up inevitably saying something, so what do you do, or how’s work? We’d like them to maybe give a positive example, and the more you coach them on that, the more you support them. You get them then talking about you that way, so they’re talking to patients more because we’ve encouraged them to do that. They’re talking about us more in their private lives. We encourage them to do that, and when they get a referral from someone, the follow-up to them and the thank-you for that referral can help that person refer again. If they have someone call with a question, that could be a potential referral source. How they handle that can increase referrals. All of that takes communication from us as leaders, and we can’t just say it once. Saying it once helps a little, but you’ve got to say it repeatedly. You’ve got to recognize when someone does it well and include it in your employee email newsletter. You might put a sign in the break room about it. These are all different ways to get the message out again and again, so employees know they really drive the company’s growth and will be recognized when they exhibit that behavior. 

Dr. Barbara Hales [0:11:36]: And I would assume that that stands the same way for having them speak to patients about ratings and reviews. 

David Mastovich [0:11:46]: Yes, absolutely, absolutely. And I think that we have to be really patient because we have to look at ourselves. How often do we do reviews? And I’ll give you a personal example. So, whenever you go, and this is my second book, and you, you learned from doing the first one, and there’s a big gap between it, so the world has changed so much since the first two, and I had some experts that I brought on board to help me with, and they said you need to really talk to your employees, your referral sources, or centers of influence, your clients, your friends, your family, and get them to do reviews. Well, I have to tell you, the average person hasn’t really given a review, and they don’t even know how. My parents didn’t know how to shoot. My brother, my brother’s gonna kill me for saying this. He didn’t use Amazon. I’m like, what? So he didn’t. You can’t just go on to Amazon and give a review. They think it’s fake, then. So he had to get a gift card from Amazon and buy the book, even though I’m his brother and he didn’t know how to do any of that. So we actually built a little PDF that we sent to our clients and everybody on our email newsletter. And I tell this story because we expect reviews to come in so easily when we don’t review much ourselves. We don’t give ratings much ourselves, so we have to be patient and realize that that’s just not a normal train of thought for the average person; they can love your practice and never do that, and it’s nothing malicious. So, there’s a way to coach it. An example I would give is, look what I did with my book. We ended up hitting 100 reviews before the first anniversary, and I will tell you, my book publisher said, I told him I have a goal of getting 100 reviews. He said, he said, yeah, right, Davis. I tell you what, I’ll give you a kicker if you get that. Well, he had to pay that kicker, but the reality is that people don’t get that many, and we got to 100 like three days before the book’s anniversary in one year. So that’s the example I would give you: we went out and talked to everybody we knew, and we didn’t just do one phone call, one email, or one conversation, but we didn’t bag either. We had one official email that went out with a little how-to, and we talked to people when we had the chance. Anybody who talked to me the week before the book, the day before the book, a week after the book, a month after, when I was on a Zoom call, I’d bring it up. These are the things that people listening to your podcast can do. Do they have something that explains how to do a review, and they’re thinking, what again? Go to my brother’s example, my parents’ example. One of my best clients said, ‘Dave, I’ve never given a review. Now, the fact that he told me that took vulnerability, because it’s kind of.. we’re all a little embarrassed when we haven’t done something like that. So I said to him, ‘Don’t worry about it, you’re going to be getting this PDF, and Courtney sent it out to everybody, so if you’re thinking you want more reviews, do something like that. 

Dr. Barbara Hales [0:14:25]: Okay, so with the next book that you’re going to put out, would you consider having a QR code in there that takes them right to a page where they could then give their opinions? 

David Mastovich [0:14:39]: Absolutely, absolutely, I think that’s good. QR codes are working way more. It’s funny, they’ve gone through this cycle 20 years ago when they came out, and we would push them for clients. The clients thought we were crazy; they didn’t do much. Then they did nothing for a while. Then, 10 years ago, they seemed to come back, only to be an afterthought again. And then the last three or four years, they’re now really common, and we had a client that they had a. Graduation for their career and technical school, and we had QR codes all around saying to go to this QR code, and you can drop your pictures there, because everybody’s taking pictures of themselves with their kids, and, and so we use that, and we had a tremendous response. So, yes, QR codes are really valuable, and I think that practices could do that as well. 

Chapter 4: Storytelling, AI & Referral Source Growth System 

Dr. Barbara Hales [0:15:21]: Yes. What do you mean when you say science and math drive the creative art in storytelling? You know, storytelling is just so important these days, but you know, obviously, there has to be some analytics involved. So, could you explain that? 

David Mastovich [0:15:38]: I’ll explain it, particularly for your audience, the healthcare audience, and specifically physician practices, so the art is driven by the science and math. When you do some level of systematic gathering of insights, I gave you examples of qualitative and quantitative research you can do without breaking the bank or the budget. Both of those bring you more science. The math is in taking the time to study your referral sources and patterns, because then you have some math behind it. And the Pareto principle is true: 80% of the outputs come from 20% of the inputs. If you go look at your closet and mine, the 20% of that closet is what we wear 80% of the time, if you look at our meals that we eat, 20% of the stuff in our kitchen is what we eat 80% of the time. It is human nature. So, 80% of your referrals will come from 20% of your referral sources. So, if you haven’t done that math and looked at that for real, your gut instincts are going to be right on for many of them, but you’re gonna be some, you know, that one’s in our top 20, and this one isn’t. So you start looking at that, and you now have the math from that, and the science from the systematic gathering of insights of qualitative and quantitative research. And now your story is being built by and for your patients, referral sources, and employees, because you ask them for their insights, you listen, and then you use your math to see who they are, and you build the story by them, for them, and with them. So now your story is that much more powerful, and that can be done in any industry, but in healthcare, it is particularly important, because healthcare is all about meaning. We place meaning with our healthcare, meaning behind hospice, meaning behind home health, meaning behind assisted living and senior living, meaning behind an oral surgeon, meaning behind what our family doc means to us, and that means the story has to be built with, by, and for the target audience through the science and the math. 

Dr. Barbara Hales [0:17:38]: Okay, so because of the experiences that we have with patients as physicians, obviously, we can give stories from the experiences we have, but to you, do you recommend that stories are built by the patients themselves in the stories they relate to their experiences? 

David Mastovich [0:17:55]: I think it’s fantastic when you have a combination, so each physician practice has people that are incredibly happy with them. My family doctor just left UPMC. She knew I was part of UPMC and part of building it, and she would lament some of the things she didn’t like. And I said to her, it’s still a great system, it’s one of the first integrated financial health care delivery systems in the world that has the financing arm, the provider arm, the insurance arm, the doctor arm, and the health hospital arm, but it’s big now. And so she left, and I went with her. I followed her because I’ve been with her for 15 years and have a personal relationship. You talk about meaning, meaning is this person, what she’s done to help my health, that’s what we have. So when she goes to this new place, she would be wise to ask me to do a testimonial. I’m gonna see if she does. If she doesn’t, I’ll offer at some point, but I want to wait, see if she does. So, there are people like me with her at each practice, listening to us right now. So, at the very least, they should be able to get 358 of these testimonials on their own without much trouble. Just go out and ask the person, will say they’re going to do it, and then they won’t necessarily do it. You then come back and say, ‘Hey, I typed this up next time there. And I typed this up, would this be okay? And you put in from… they’ll probably say yes. Then you say to them, ‘Hey, I’d like to get you on Zoom. Can we just call you on Zoom? Can we do a Zoom call? And you just edit it right in Zoom yourself. And now you have a video testimony to put on your website. Look, would I like you to do better quality? That’s sure, I use Riverside FM, which is a tool for your audience that takes away the bubble and Zoom and makes it look much better as far as your crisp quality of video, but my point is I want to get people out there listening to get started. So now you’ve got no matter what, you’ve got a testimony you can put on a brochure, you can put it on your website, you can put it on the monitor in your waiting room, you can have testimonials or scroll on that, and you start to get them to do some on video, but you build your library of testimonies. The first three or four are layups, to use a basketball term, because they’re people like me with my doctor who love the practice, but over time you start asking more and more people when they say something like. Boy, I hate going to the dentist, but you make it so okay. That’s saying someone telling you they’ll do a testimonial, and when they say no, who cares? Someone just doesn’t want to have their name out there, doesn’t want to be, but most people will say sure. So now you’ve got testimonials from real patients telling your story for you, and you should use your waiting room to share that, and you ought to put it on your website. You ought to get the video that’s on your website. You may send that an email newsletter with that video in the email newsletter. You have three little stories in your email newsletter, which comes out every two months, because you’re busy, you don’t even get to it. Okay, do it every two months, preferably every month, but every two months, and you get three stories in an email newsletter, and one of them is a video testimonial every time from a different person. That’s the way you have your patients telling your story for you. 

Dr. Barbara Hales [0:20:48]: Do you recommend that most medical and dental practices have e-newsletters? 

David Mastovich [0:20:55]: Yes, I do. I think there’s a couple of things that people might think are old technology, but they’re still relevant as a hub for you, the first is your website still has to be relevant, still has to be updated, still has to be real, because of the search aspect, but also because we still use it, we still, as humans, use it, even though we’re going to Facebook or whatever, we still use websites. Second thing is, a blog is still important for this reason: I’m not claiming that the dentist’s patients are running to read her blog or his. What I am claiming is that you will now be the thought leader, frame that message, and then use it in other ways. Sending that link out helps with SEO. You have all kinds of ways to use it. I’m not expecting people to run to your blog, but it’s a blog that can be sent via email, can be part of an email newsletter, helps with SEO, and shouldn’t be that difficult for you. You are an expert in your practice. You are an expert in your practice. It doesn’t have to be 1000 words; it can be 300 words. In fact, less is better. So, I think a website and a blog are still relevant today as hubs of activity where people can go to, but it also helps with SEO. So, yes, I think that those are two things that each practice should be doing. 

Dr. Barbara Hales [0:22:04]: What is your opinion about AI taking over that role? 

David Mastovich [0:22:08]: So I think that right now we’re going through what I call the AI sameness of content, and I’m being nice. I have friends who call it AI slot, and here’s what’s happened: we’re not using in the way we can, because we, I think, most people get nervous about writing, the vast majority of humans, and so they get that’s why there’s a term called writer’s block, but most people get nervous about writing, so they think, well, I’ll enter into Chat GPT and it’ll give me what to write, that’s what creates what we call AI sameness of content, if you go to LinkedIn every morning, not every morning, but most mornings, I do this just for fun. I go on my phone, pull up my LinkedIn feed, and I scroll with my thumb. I stop and take a screenshot, and after about 45 seconds, I can have four screenshots of the same opening sentence, each from different people in different industries, and there are a couple of tells that something’s AI. If it says not only is Barbara a great podcast host, she’s great at motocross. You know that phrase, “we don’t talk like that”? That phrase is in there. Another one is the em dash; you see the two-line em dash in between two thoughts that weren’t used much at all. Now with AI, you see it all over the place. Another is that it says not only are you this or that, but it also says that when you set out to do your business, you didn’t want to do blah, but you ended up doing blah. Those are all tales of AI, because the person who doesn’t like to write didn’t realize that the way to leverage ChatGPT, Claude, or any of the others is to get out of writer’s block and say, “I’d like to write a blog for my dental practice.” I’d like to do a blog for my neurosurgery practice. I want to talk about what’s happening in the field. Here’s my take on it. My voice is, I tend to be very direct, and I bring this up, and then you pop that in, and it comes back and gives you about six 800 words of of crap, it’s not really crap, but what it is, is there’s enough slop in it that we know it wasn’t written by a human, but it still got you closer. If you then take that and come back to it, and you say, well, my voice would be this, I talk more like this, and here’s an example of a success, and please don’t use em dashes, and please don’t use a paragraph like this, and copy and paste it. Then the second version gets you even closer, and then you take that second version. You go, now what would I really say in paragraph two? And you just change that. So now this blog that you were nervous about writing takes about 20 minutes and didn’t stress you out, but instead we’re making it take five, and then it’s an AI slop. So that’s one tiny example of a blog post, but the same thing is happening for your LinkedIn post. It’s happening for people trying to write their website copy, people doing email blasts and email newsletters, and people writing video scripts. It’s because we’re not doing the three parts. The first is priming your voice, telling them who you are. Telling them stuff about you, whatever personal stuff, what you like, what your tastes are, what your tendencies are, writers you like, things like that. The second is putting, putting in your thoughts for that particular piece of content. The third is editing it. Most people don’t prime it well, and hardly anyone edits it well, which is why we have AI sameness in storytelling. 

Dr. Barbara Hales [0:25:19]: Gosh, I do speak like that. I’m really in trouble now. 

David Mastovich [0:25:24]: If you speak like that, people will know, and then you’re okay. Yeah, okay. The people who know you will know. I have a certain style, and people will tell me, Dave, I can tell anything that you’ve written. Like, if I write something for… so when I have to write for a client, I actually prime it in that client’s voice. I describe that client, whatever, but I end up still doing the editing myself. But if you, if that’s your style, then that’s what you do, that’s how you write. But that key thing you just said was, I said, that’s how I write, that’s how I talk. Those are the things most people don’t do. Write as you talk. Who says nonetheless? Not many people say so. If you do good, not many people say; nonetheless, you open a sentence up with nonetheless, and you don’t use that. This will have a deleterious impact. Who says “deleterious” is a nice long word and everything? I don’t know many people who say that. So, if you put that in there, someone’s going to go, “Oh, that doesn’t sound like Joanne, that doesn’t sound like Rob, and so write as you talk, and then it’s easier for you. 

Dr. Barbara Hales [0:26:22]: Well, I think that in itself is good advice. Tell me, could you speak about your referral-source growth marketing system and how it works? 

David Mastovich [0:26:33]: Sure, it’s really a growth accelerator, and involves most of what we’ve talked about today. It involves first ensuring we’re not neglecting any of those six right-fit target markets for healthcare companies, healthcare organizations, and physician practices across the board. The second is using science and math to drive any of your storytelling, that is, making sure that you’ve gone out and done the qualitative research, and then this part, analyzing that referral data, because until you do that, analyzing that referral data, you really don’t have the full system. I know people who will go and hire liaisons, I know people who are staffing companies of liaisons, and that’s important. I’m glad there are people who do that, but if you haven’t done the other part, if you haven’t done the systematic gathering of insights, studied the data yourself, if you haven’t built the story with the target audiences, because that liaison has to have a story, they have to have the story that really will resonate emotionally and factually. So, the system is to go through all of those. It’s a five-step part, which the first part is systematically gathering insights, the second is mapping out, based on the math, science, and math, what the target markets are. Then the third is activating the story and the repetitive system of having someone tell that story, whether it’s a liaison or another employee. And then the fourth is continually doing that and tracking it and testing, tracking, and tweaking what’s working and what’s not, because anything we do in life doesn’t work 90% of the time. And so the same thing of your referral source marketing, so you have to tweak and track and test that, and that’s what the whole system is, as each of those steps in it, and most people do a couple things, some do nothing, they actually do nothing, and they think the quality of their care is going to matter, and sadly that’s not the case for any of us in any field, the quality of my marketing. Hey, if this were all judged solely on the quality of the storytelling, the science, and the system, we’d be a heck of a lot bigger at Mass Solutions. So, you still have to go and tell that story, but you have to do it systematically. Others do the liaison thing, they have a liaison going out talking to referral sources, that’s good, but not if you haven’t done all this other stuff, and not if you haven’t used things like predictive index to see what drives the communication of your liaison team, not if you haven’t given them the stories and tested them on the stories, not if you haven’t gathered the testimonials, not if you don’t track the referral sources on an ongoing basis to see the outcomes that the liaisons are getting you, so it’s more than just getting liaisons, it’s more than just doing a story, it’s a whole system. 

Dr. Barbara Hales [0:29:05]: What social media platforms are for no-bullshit marketing? 

David Mastovich [0:29:11]: Well, the main one for me is LinkedIn, and my team makes fun of me because I’ve been a big LinkedIn user for 15 years, and they’ve made sure that we still have a presence on other social media outlets, like Instagram, Facebook, to a degree, Twitter, not as much. And the reason I haven’t put into all four of those the full level of activity is because you’re not going to be an expert at 10 things in your career, and you’re not going to be great at five social media platforms, so you need to pick one or two that you’re going to really focus on, then another two that you’re going to focus on to some degree. So, because a lot of my business comes from entrepreneurs, CEOs, owners, and the like, LinkedIn is important. However, there are many, many doctor practices that we’re not going to get from LinkedIn, so we’ve got to make sure we have other ways. To market to them and to reach them and communicate to them, so I would say that it depends on what your target markets are like within those six, what their makeup is, and what you want to convey. So, for me, I personally use LinkedIn a lot, for me and for Mass Solutions, but we also have posts on Instagram and Facebook to a degree. You also have to be realistic about it. While we are passionate about what we do, and we’re excited, and we have a cool little no bullshit marketing thing, and we have our no bullshit button, that bullshit. So we have that for what we give to clients, so we’re still not going to be something you’re thumbing through regularly to see what you know what you and I are doing, Barbara. That’s not going to happen as much as when you’re watching, you’re looking at stuff on social media about other things, about different products, movie stars, celebrities, things of that nature. 

Dr. Barbara Hales [0:30:47]: Do you sell that button? 

David Mastovich [0:30:48]: No, I haven’t. We’ve thought about doing that. We probably should. What I do for the button is that new clients get buttons for the people on the team that brought us in and are working with us on a regular basis. Funny story behind that is with the podcast, one of the team members came up to me one day and just said, “Hey, give me for the test today, you know, you’re testing the audio, just give me a.. that’s bullshit. I go, “That’s bullshit. About a week or so later, this was on my desk, so they did it without telling me. I said, “That’s that’s cool, and it is a.. it is a proud.. as a crowd favorite, people like that a lot. 

Dr. Barbara Hales [0:31:22]: When I was speaking to you prior to the show today, you mentioned that there is another book by you that is in progress. What is that going to be about? 

David Mastovich [0:31:31]: Well, my first book was Get Where You Want to Go through Marketing, Selling, and Storytelling, and that was in 2011 when storytelling was still not considered a good thing. Storytelling was like, oh, you’re kind of bs, and so forth. So we’re ahead of the curve there. The most recent one is no bullshit marketing, and as a, there’s a large focus on healthcare. The one I’m in progress right now is looking at the family business aspect, because we’re at a time when the very high percentage – it’s about, I think, it’s between 60 and 67% I don’t know the exact stat of businesses are turning generationally right now within the next three to five years, and so I want to be able to help with recruiting, retention, and revenue results for those kind of family owned businesses, and that family owned business could be a physician practice, it could be a dental practice, it could be anything that’s family owned. It could be a physical therapy company, so it is in healthcare. I don’t want people to think that that’s not just outside of healthcare, but the reason it’s so passionate to me is my dad had a family business, he’s my hero, and my mom and dad are my heroes. I got to see them yesterday, and so I’ve always had a soft spot for family owned business, and I have one myself, but these businesses that are generationally going on and are big enough that they’re handing it down in these next three to five years, they really need to be able to convey that cultural storytelling and the market storytelling, and if they aren’t going to do that with the science, math, and driving the creative art, they’re going to have problems, so I’m looking at any type of multi-generational business out there, many in healthcare and some not, and that’s what the book’s going to be about. 

Chapter 5: Family Business, Offer & Episode Close 

Dr. Barbara Hales [0:33:08]: There are a lot of family-owned businesses, or businesses that are passed on, that have a tremendous amount of friction between siblings that are in there, you know. Is there something that you do to get rid of that tension? 

David Mastovich [0:33:24]: Well, it’s about clarity, and that’s what we want to bring to the situation, is clarity about what you want to keep of the existing culture. So, let’s say there’s a 70 year old dad that owns this, that’s still in the top spot, and his 45 year old daughter has been there for a while, and she’s been in the number two spot, and everybody kind of knows she’s going to be the number one, and there’s some friction there because he doesn’t want to walk away completely yet, and she doesn’t want the shadow there. So we have to get clarity on what they both want, convey that to each other, and then have the new generation decide what we are keeping from the culture. You don’t throw the entire culture out, you don’t even throw 70% of it, I don’t throw 50% about you, probably just tweak the culture 20 to 30% So, let’s, let’s, what’s the two thirds that’s going to stay and make sure that story remains intact, and what’s that new third going to be for that new leader, so they have some pride in ownership of the culture, and then you have to infuse that culture through current and potential employees again and again and again, and then convey that to the market. 

Dr. Barbara Hales [0:34:30]: Very often, with these family businesses, there is friction when it comes to disbursement of funds, and like, how much each person you know can get, like, where the money is being spent, you know, which is not always something that they agree upon. How do you get them to not only see that there is a problem, but also how to resolve it? 

David Mastovich [0:34:56]: Well, we see it as a mass solution as one key part of. Our team, and we’re the part that’s finding out what the market is thinking, and the market is those six target markets. We’re finding out what those six target markets are thinking and feeling, coming back to convey that, and building plans around it. But we’re only one part of the team. We know that there’s going to be a wealth manager, financial planner part of that team, and we know there’s going to be a CPA firm part of that team, we know there’s going to be a top legal person part of that team, and what we do that’s a little different is we love talking about that, because we’ve had clients in all three of those spaces, so we have had multiple CPA firms, multiple wealth management firms, and multiple law firms, and so we kind of know that space and we look at it as a positive to make it a team, whereas I think a lot of times when someone’s doing mainly the storytelling and not all the other business solutions that we’re doing in the strategy, they don’t even realize who the law firm is, or who the CPA firm is, or the wealth management team is, and so then it’s they’re just an afterthought, so then your, your digital agency is an afterthought. Oh yeah, when we get the story done, we tell them, whereas what we’re trying to do is say, no, no, this is a key team that you got these four external forces along with your internal leadership team. 

Dr. Barbara Hales [0:36:13]: Well, what I’d like to throw out to the audience listening is that if this happens to pertain to you, if you are part of a family or a legacy where it’s being passed down, and I’m sure you’ve got stories. Then what I’d like, before the book is finished, is to know, write your story out, and submit it to Dave, and maybe it’ll wind up in his book. 

David Mastovich [0:36:38]: Yes, for sure, that’d be great. That’d be amazing, 

Dr. Barbara Hales [0:36:40]: So you know, let me say this again. If you missed that, write your story, good or bad, don’t have to put your name on it if you don’t want to, and send it to Dave, and you know your company, and, and if you put your name, you know, and and it winds up in the book, you know that’s going to be great exposure for you. So write out your story, submit it to Dave, and you know it may be in his next book, 

David Mastovich [0:37:05]: and to be, to be completely transparent to them, so they know if you email me this stuff, I’ll reach back out and we’ll talk, and you can say, I want it to be anonymous, or no, I don’t mind, like, I want, you know, that’s the way we tackle that, so it’d be good to just hear that and learn that, and it’s Dave at Mass Solutions dot biz dot biz, and even, even if a listener wants one of my other two books, just tell me which one you would like, and because they listen to your show, I’ll give them a signed copy. 

Dr. Barbara Hales [0:37:31]: Okay, so also before the show started, Dave told me that he was going to offer, you know, something great for all of you listeners, but not only listeners, you have to actually engage and submit a request. So, could you repeat what you offered them again? 

David Mastovich [0:37:51]: Sure. If any of your listeners would like either of my two books, No Bush Marketing, or Get Where You Want to Go Through Marketing, Selling and Storytelling, email me at David Mass Solutions dot biz. Mention which book, and mention that you listen to the show, and I will sign it and send it to you. 

Dr. Barbara Hales [0:38:05]: Well, thank you so much. This has been a great episode, and I’m sure everybody learned a tremendous amount. You know, thank you for being on the show with us. 

David Mastovich [0:38:15]: Hey, thanks for having me, and I really enjoyed 

Dr. Barbara Hales [0:38:17]: it. Okay, well, that’s the end of the show. Thank you for watching Marketing Tips for doctors with your host, Dr. Barbara Hales. Until next time, 

Narrator [0:38:29]: Thanks for listening to Marketing Tips for Doctors. If you like the podcast, please subscribe, rate, and review. Press the subscribe button so you never miss an episode, and tell your friends about the show. Join us on Marketing Tips for doctors.com for replays and more resources to help grow your practice, strengthen your brand, and dominate your field. Remember, your one tweet from greatness, you. 

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TRANSCRIPT (245)

Welcome & Sharing Value as a Follow-Up 

Dr. Barbara Hales 0:02 

Hi, welcome to another episode of Marketing Tips for Doctors. I’m your host, Dr. Barbara Hales, and this is part two of We’ve Met. Now, what becomes a valuable source of information when it comes to following up and being top of mind for the people that you’ve met? Here’s another simple way to stay connected without feeling awkward or intrusive. Whenever you come across an interesting article, a new study, an industry trend, or a breaking news story that relates to someone’s interests or professions? Send it to them. A brief note is all it takes. I saw this article and thought of our conversation at the conference. Given your interest in concierge medicine, I thought you might find it interesting, and this breaking healthcare story reminds me of our discussion a few months ago. You don’t need a reason beyond that. In fact, these small touchpoints are often more meaningful than formal networking follow-ups because they demonstrate that you were paying attention. They show that you remember who the person is, what matters to them, and what challenges they’re facing over time. People begin to associate you with useful information, thoughtful insights, and genuine interests. You become more than a name on a business card or a connection on LinkedIn; you become a trusted resource, and every time you provide value without asking for anything in return, you are making another deposit into that relationship bank account. I particularly like this section because it gives listeners a practical action step. Most people think networking means checking in. The smartest networkers do something different. They share a value that keeps them visible, memorable, and helpful all at once. 

Become a Connector 

Several years ago, I met two professionals at different times, both of whom were talented, both of whom were smart, and both of whom were trying to solve similar challenges. One day I realized they needed to know each other, so I sent a simple email, John, I’d like you to meet Susan. Susan, I’d like you to meet John. I think the two of you would enjoy connecting. That was it. No commission, no hidden agenda, no benefit to me. Months later, one of them called. That introduction had evolved into a collaboration that eventually created opportunities for both of them. What struck me wasn’t the business outcome; it was the reminder that one of the most valuable things we can do is to become a connector. You don’t have to be the smartest person in the room. Sometimes your greatest value is simply helping the right people find one another. The lesson people remember is the person who opened the door, who becomes a connector. One of the fastest ways to build a powerful network is to stop asking what I can get and start asking who I can help. When you introduce people to opportunities, resources, and relationships. Something remarkable happens. You become memorable, you become trusted, you become valuable. The people who are most respected in. Professional circles are often not the ones who are the most successful people. They’re the most helpful people. 

The Long-Term Value of Being Helpful 

A physician once reached out after hearing one of my presentations. We spoke briefly, nothing formal, no consulting agreement, no major discussion, just a conversation. A year passed, then one day I received an email. He had referred someone to me. When I thanked him, he said something I’ll never forget. Barbara, you took the time to help me when you did not have to. I never forgot that. Think about that. The referral didn’t come from a sales funnel; it didn’t come from advertising; it came from a relationship, and relationships often operate on a timeline we can’t predict. The lesson is never to underestimate the long-term value of being helpful today. 

Don’t Let Opportunities Die in the Networking Graveyard 

I want you to imagine a giant cemetery, not for people, but for opportunities every day. Opportunities die because nobody follows up: potential partnerships, friendships, referrals, speaking engagements, job offers, and collaborations. They all disappear because one person assumes that if they’re interested, the other will contact them, who assumes exactly the same thing, and the opportunity quietly vanishes, not because anyone said no, but because nobody said anything. I’ve often wondered how many life-changing opportunities have been lost because two good people simply fail to send one email, one text, one LinkedIn message, one follow-up note. Don’t let your opportunities die in the networking graveyard. At one conference, I met two individuals on the same day. Both handed me their cards. 

Follow-Through Beats Talent 

Dr. Barbara Hales 7:46 

The first person followed up the next morning. He thanked me for the conversation, mentioned something we had discussed, shared an article he thought I’d enjoy, no sales pitch, no pressure, just value. The second person never followed up at all. A year later, I remembered the first person immediately. I couldn’t even remember the second person’s name, the difference was not talent, the difference wasn’t intelligence, the difference wasn’t credentials, the difference was follow through. The lesson is that relationships don’t grow from introductions; they grow from intentionality. 

Networking Is for Introverts Too 

Many people believe networking belongs to extroverts. I disagree. Some of the best networkers I’ve ever met were introverts. Why? Because they listen, they ask thoughtful questions, they remember details, they make people feel heard. Networking isn’t about working the room; it’s about working the relationship. You don’t need to meet 50 people; you need to genuinely connect with a few. In fact, I’d rather have five meaningful professional relationships than 500 superficial contacts. 

A LinkedIn Connection Is Not a Relationship 

Let me gently challenge something. A LinkedIn connection is not a relationship; it’s simply a digital handshake. Many people believe networking happened because they clicked connect. It didn’t. The relationship starts afterward. Did you send a message? Did you connect? At the conversation, did you provide value? Did you learn something about the person? Did you stay in touch? Technology can facilitate relationships; it cannot replace them. 

Staying Connected Through Shared Value 

Here’s another simple way to stay connected without feeling awkward or intrusive whenever you come across an interesting article, a new study, an industry trend, or a breaking news story that relates to someone’s interest or profession: send it to them. A brief note is all it takes. I saw this article and thought of our conversation, or given your interest in healthcare marketing, I thought you’d find this interesting, or this breaking story reminded me of a discussion we had a few months ago. These small touchpoints demonstrate something powerful: they show that you were listening, that you remember, and that the relationship matters. Over time, people begin to associate you with useful information, thoughtful insights, and genuine value, and every time you provide value without asking anything in return, you are making another deposit into that relationship bank account. 

Networking Ends — Relationships Begin 

I want to leave you with this. The most valuable relationships in my life rarely began with a grand strategy. They began with a conversation, a moment of kindness, a willingness to listen, a thoughtful follow-up, a simple act of generosity. Years later, those small moments often became referrals, friendships, collaborations, speaking opportunities, and professional growth. So the next time you leave a conference, a networking event, a medical meeting, a podcast interview, or even a chance encounter with someone interesting. Don’t ask what I can get from this person. Ask what I can contribute to this relationship, because networking ends when the event is over. Relationships begin when the follow-up starts, and that’s the answer to today’s question. We’ve met now, what? Now you build something meaningful. 

Your 24-Hour Challenge 

Before we finish today, I’d like to give you a simple challenge. Within the next 24 hours, think of three people you’ve met in the last year, maybe someone you met at a conference, maybe someone you connected with on LinkedIn, maybe a former colleague, a physician you admire, a podcast guest, or someone you had a meaningful conversation with but never followed up. Pick three names, then send a message, not a sales pitch, not a request, not a favor, just a genuine note. Tell them you enjoyed meeting them, share an article that reminded you of them, congratulate them on something they’ve accomplished, or simply ask how they’re doing. That’s it. Three messages, three deposits into your relationship bank account. You never know which conversation may lead to a friendship, a referral, a collaboration, a speaking opportunity, a new patient, a new client, or an opportunity that changes the direction of your career. Remember, networking does not create opportunities, relationship creates opportunities, so it’s not networking, but relationships that create opportunities, and every meaningful relationship starts with a simple follow-up. If today’s episode resonated with you, I’d love to hear about it. 

Closing Remarks 

Dr. Barbara Hales 14:59 

Send me a message in the comments and tell me about the most valuable professional relationship you’ve built and how it began. You may discover, as I have, that some of the most important opportunities in life started with a conversation that almost never happened. Thank you for joining me today on Marketing Tips for Doctors. I’m your host, Dr. Barbara Hales. Until next time, keep building trust, keep building relationships, and keep making a difference. Until next time.