Web Site Check-ups Does your site make the grade?

by David Orenstein freelance writer

A practice’s Web site is an opportunity. It can enhance service to patients, bring in new patients, and reduce the amount of time that staff spends on the phone answering basic questions. A good Web site can make a practice healthier.

With this in mind, I performed a “check-up” on 25 sites belonging to DCMS member practices. Overall results were fair, but they could be better. Many sites I visited could improve with just a little more content and a new feature or two. Especially if a practice is paying hundreds or even thousands of dollars for a site, it should make the most of its opportunity.

My methodology was simple: On each site I looked for content and features that met 16 criteria. For 14 criteria, such as “medical advice” and “operating hours,” I added a point if the content or feature were present. For two criteria—“broken links” and “unnecessary multimedia”—I deducted a point. The range of possible scores was, therefore, –2 to 14. As it turns out, the actual range of the 25 scores was 1 to 13, with an average of 7. Is that good or bad? Both. All the practices in the middle of the pack were doing good jobs that they easily could do better.

Top 5 DCMS sites	Score
www.kramermd.com	13
www.drpollock.com	10
www.texasmedicine.com	10
www.urologyinstitute.com	9
www.vanduyneobgyn.com	9

Most practices recognize that the Web provides an opportunity to market to new patients. Every site provided the most basic information: an address and phone number. From there, all but two practices gave patients at least a brief bio of its physicians, 20 offered maps or directions to the office, and 17 gave a description of the practice’s services. Of the 22 non-cosmetic surgery practices, 12 listed their insurance plan participation.

To inform new and established patients alike, 20 sites offered medical advice, and 16 offered links to health news and information. To serve patients, 15 offered some kind of interactivity, such as the ability to join a mailing list or to print out forms to complete before an office visit. A majority of sites (14) also provided an e-mail address for patients to use as an alternative to calling during office hours.

Sites in the top half are doing a lot of good. The best sites, however, do more. Only eight sites, for example, put helpful billing information on the site, such as whether credit cards are accepted. Only six posted the hours the practice does business. A major omission on all but three sites was an explicit privacy policy. If a site gives a patient the ability to send an e-mail in which she will mention a medical condition, it behooves the practice to assure the patient of her privacy.

Of course adding text is easy compared to adding interactive features. That said, only three practices included an option that lets patients request appointments via the Web. This can be a great convenience for some patients. Less convenient, but potentially lucrative, is the option that lets patients securely pay for and receive an online consultation. Only one adventurous site offered that.

Ultimately, the Web can offer many benefits to physicians practices, including increased patient service, cost savings, marketing, and even revenue that can come from providing interactive communications. Within reason, the more you provide, the more you can take advantage of these opportunities.

David Orenstein is a technology and business writer in Silicon Valley. If you are interested in learning more about a technology topic in Computing Care, e-mail him at davealli@earthlink.net.