Interview with Dr. Elizabeth Brassine, Owner, Hearing Services of McKinney

Topic: The Internet as a Referral Source for Your Practice

Paul Dybala: Hello everybody. This is Dr. Paul Dybala with Audiology Online, and today we're talking with Dr. Elizabeth Brassine of Hearing Services of McKinney. We wanted to talk to her today a little bit about how she uses her website as a part of her practice. Liz, I do want to say thanks so much for taking some time to talk to me today.

Liz Brassine: Not a problem.

Dybala: Just to start off, could you give us a little bit of your professional background as an audiologist?

Brassine: Sure. I actually got interested in Audiology in high school and worked in a private practice in the Chicago area during high school and all through college. I went to Northwestern for my master's degree and earned my Au.D. through the A.T. Still University, Arizona School of Health Sciences. I first worked in private practice right out of school and then spent many years working for Phonak. Specifically, my most recent role at Phonak was being the manager of the training department, which obviously meant managing a team of trainers, building up the department, training other hearing professionals on product software, how to fit, how to troubleshoot, and all those kinds of fun things. I left Phonak in 2006.

Dybala: Well, that sounds like a great experience. I assume that background has been very useful in a private practice?

Brassine: Extremely. And after 10 years of getting on an airplane every week, [laughter] I kind of decided, "I'm a little bit tired of the travel." And really, I guess in the back of my mind I always thought at some point in time I'd be going the route of private practice - but this time, my own practice. So, I took a couple months to search out a site, and do all the lovely preliminary work, which was a lot-

Dybala: Right.

Brassine: And then I opened up Hearing Services of McKinney in March of 2006. It's really hard to believe that I'm a month away from a year anniversary. Time has flown by.

Dybala: Tell us a little bit about Hearing Services of McKinney, and how your practice is set up physically. I know you're in a medical building versus a retail spot.

Brassine: Right. I obviously did things a little differently. Some people said, "Wow, you're going into a medical building!" I didn't set out necessarily saying I had to do that. I mean, I looked at retail spots and all the various opportunities, and this was a new medical building going up in McKinney (The McKinney Medical Arts Center), with some of the primary physicians from the community going into the building also. So, I figured it was a good opportunity. I'm kind of surrounded by the types of medical practices you would think see older people - a podiatrist, a neurologist, a cardiologist. There's a cancer center in the building, there's an imaging center, physical therapists. So, it's kind of a nice, well-rounded building. When I was initially looking for space, there really wasn't a great retail option that would have been available relatively quickly. So that's when I thought, "Well, if I'm not going to have the signage and the advantage that retail obviously brings, then maybe going into a brand new medical building with some nice referral sources was sort of the next best option." And so far it's gone well.

I am definitely seeing new patients, and not just from direct referrals, but from people who come in the building, see the signage and say, "Oh, hearing aids here." We've actually had a fair amount of walk-in traffic, just from people who were here at another office, saw the sign, came in, and made an appointment. So it's been a good thing.


Front view of McKinney Medical Arts Center

Dybala: Expanding on the topic of referrals, this is a great lead in for what we are talking about today, how the internet can be used as a marketing tool.

Brassine: Absolutely, the internet and my website have been a referral source for me as well.

Dybala: The data I have seen regarding internet use and healthcare in general provides an interest backdrop to what you are experiencing with your practice Liz. According to surveys from the PEW Internet and American Life Project (www.pewinternet.org) approximately 55% of individuals who are age 55 and over are on the Internet, and that number is expanding. Also, one of the primary activities that persons across all age groups perform online is looking for health related information.

Audiology Online recently researched how often people are searching for the keywords "hearing aids" in the search engines. Right now, we're estimating somewhere around two million searches occur per year just on those keywords alone.

All of that said, I'm just curious about how you're using the internet and your practice. What prompted you to even get a website to start with?



Hearing Services of McKinney website (www.hearinmckinney.com).

Brassine: It's an interesting question. As far as what prompted me to get a website for my practice, it was really a matter of, "Why wouldn't I?" I didn't even think not to do it. As you mentioned, with current statistics there are a lot of people on the Internet. I've had patients walk in, and you look at them, going, "There's no way that they know anything about a computer or the Internet," and to everyone's surprise, they know more than you would think!

I knew Audiology Online provided website hosting and development, so it just seemed like a natural thing to do. And, to give you guys a plug, it's a really nice way to do it, and it's easy. Sure, I have to provide content, but you guys keep it up-to-date with news and information. So I do not have to constantly think about creating something to put on the site. That's been a big advantage.

Dybala: How do you use your website as a part of your marketing materials, as far as printed materials that you send out?

Brassine: It's really simple. Every printed piece of material that goes out of this office has my website address, whether it's business cards, practice brochures, ads that I've done in the paper, or other direct mail pieces. I always include the website on anything I send out or anytime I list my physical address or phone number.

Dybala: How has your website been working as a referral source?

Brassine: Obviously, as most private practitioners would do, I track every referral source. It's critical to look at how we're getting people in the door, to analyze if it is cost-effective,. I'm sitting here looking right now at my statistics from Sycle (www.sycle.net), and "online / my website" is my number two referral source at this point in time. That's pretty incredible.

Dybala: Phenomenal. What's number one?

Brassine: Well, I looked at a recent chunk of time, so maybe if I reviewed the entire time span of the practice, the results would be a little bit different. I've offered some community seminars for which there was a direct mail piece that resembles a formal invitation. That's probably been number one, followed by online and the original direct mail piece that I did when I was opening my practice.

Dybala: Can you give me some more specifics on how the referrals are coming via your website.

Brassine: Well, if a person sees my web address they could pull it up directly at www.hearinmckinney.com, but I also have some other online referral sources. As an example, since I used Audiology Online as my web hosting service, as you know, I get referrals from your consumer website, Healthy Hearing (www.healthyhearing.com). That is nice because Healthy Hearing gets a lot of hearing aid related traffic from the search engines such as Google (www.google.com) and Yahoo (www.yahoo.com). I am also listed via the Yellow Pages and that includes a referral link online (www.yellowpages.com) as well.

But I guess it doesn't really matter and this is why I lumped that "online" into a little bit more of a generic category. The referral sources that I mention above all funnel people down to my website at some point. When they look at the website this is typically the point at which they make a decision to call or email my office.

Here is an important thing to remember: even if I didn't get the referral from my website, by the time the patient has made the appointment and come into the office, they've visited my website. They're checking it out. I do that, too, when I see a new physician. I do as much advance research as possible, and that's what I'm finding these patients are doing. It's seniors, it's baby boomers, it's all ages.

Dybala: That's a really good point. I advise practice owners that they need to think of their website as a virtual front office. By the time they get to your physical office, technically it's the second visit. You need to think about what message your website is giving as it may be one of the first impressions that a patient gets. Liz, what was the message that you wanted to convey when you were setting up your website?

Brassine: Even before I thought about the website, my overall goal was that I needed to have a consistent message with everything else that I put out there.

Dybala: Great point!

Brassine: A lot of the material overlaps with what you would find in my practice brochure, which is another critical part of a practice, particularly when you're a start-up. I didn't buy a practice. I didn't go in with some physicians. I started with nada, I mean from ground zero. And so, to me it was important to have a consistent, unified message and that is simply to convey a professional image of me and my practice.

If you visit my website at www.hearinmckinney.com, you'll see that there's a picture of the building and also of my office. I also included some information about my experience on the manufacturing side of things and my professional degrees and credentials. I felt that it was important to focus on these areas, as it conveys the professional image that I want and it helps set me and my practice apart from others.

This is the idea behind the unified message, if you walk in the front door of my office or visit my website, both should convey that same professional image.

Dybala: What is your vision of where you want to take your website in the future?

Brassine: One little thing that I'd like to do for my website is to have all my patient intake forms online. Just something to make it easier for patients - they can fill out the paperwork ahead of time. Of course it's not going to be for all patients, but I need to get some more specific hearing aid information on there, and maybe offer some patient testimonials and such.

Dybala: I think the online office forms are a great idea. If someone calls for an appointment, you have your front office person ask, "Do you have access to the Internet?" If they say yes, you can say, "Well, if you visit our website we'll save you some time. Print out the forms, fill them out and bring them in." It's a great opportunity for them to go to your website, get educated about you, your practice, what you do. There are multiple benefits for you and your patients. I think that's a tremendous idea.

Brassine: I also wanted to mention that I have a "Contact Us" section. I certainly have gotten people who have contacted me via that avenue and I've responded. I think it's important to check for e-mail addresses when patients fill out the intake form. It's another way to get word out whether it's a patient newsletter you distribute via e-mail, or whether you send out special offers.

Dybala: I agree. When all of your patients are hearing impaired, they may or may not hear that well on the phone. E-mail may be a better way to send out reminders.

Brassine: Right. I have some deaf patients who are definitely more visual, and would benefit from using that medium.

I think the other thing that people may or may not realize with respect to the website, is that in the scheme of things, it's not very expensive. Hosting it through Audiology Online is really reasonable. I don't know that a lot of people are aware that they can often get their website through a co-op opportunity with their primary hearing aid vendor, and it costs next to nothing. It turns out to be a win-win for everyone.

Dybala: Correct. I think our website program is a steal even at full price. Even if a customer only gets one referral a year and that referral purchases a binaural set of hearing aids, the program has just paid for itself. I have spoken with some of our customers and they mention getting referrals on a regular basis from their website so we know the process is working.

Well, I appreciate your time today Liz, and I just realized that maybe I should have been more formal for this interview and called you Dr. Brassine.

Brassine: [laughter] It's all good. You have known me as "Liz" a lot longer!

Dybala: [laughter] If anyone wants to see Hearing Services of McKinney's website, the address is www.hearinmckinney.com. You'll be able to see Dr. Brassine's practice, and read about her goals and services. If any of the readers are interested in finding out more information about how Audiology Online can help you host and manage your website visit our Website Services page (www.audiologyonline.com/our_company/website_services.asp)
Liz, again, thanks for spending some time with us today.

Brassine: My pleasure. Thank you.