Reception Room Videos –Why & How

Patients are ready to see the doctor the moment they come into the reception room. But rarely is the doctor ready to see them. Besides providing the basics of a comfortable chair, somewhat current magazines, and perhaps a coffee bar, you should be taking advantage of your captive market by turning this unproductive waiting time into a positive learning experience for your patients.

The reception room wait offers an excellent opportunity to educate patients about you, your practice, and the services you provide. You can do this with posters, banner stands, and brochures, but 85% of the population are visual learners who can absorb and retain much more information from videos verses print.

I have visited hundreds of practices in my 30+ years of being in the patient education business. I cringe when I see CNN or Fox News playing in a reception room. Let them watch the news at home…besides most of the news these days is bad and depressing. You want your patients to be happy and excited about being in your practice.

In 1986, John Carboy, MD, delivered a marketing presentation at the Royal Hawaiian Eye Meeting describing how he shows cataract, glaucoma, and Radial Keratotomy videos in his reception room and reported that it often prompted patients to ask about something they learned while waiting. Since that time, PEC has created reception room video reels for hundreds of ophthalmologists who have also discovered that educating patients in the reception room can positively impact their bottom line.

I am sure you understand that patients don’t like surprises. When a patient comes in for a cataract consultation, spends an hour or more waiting and being worked up, they can be pretty exhausted by the time they see the doctor. At the moment they are finally told that they have a cataract, the last thing they want to hear is that they have to make some difficult and costly decisions about how they want to see for the rest of their life. If the patient has not been pre-educated about “Advances in Cataract Care” before they hear about your “Advanced” options, they will be unpleasantly surprised.  When forced in these situations to make a decision, their knee jerk reaction is to pick the one they understand the most at that time…the one that costs them the least.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. Reception rooms are ideal for playing videos about ophthalmic topics. Videos can still be played on DVDs, but today it is much easier to create and save playlists for playback via a computer, iPad or with Apple TV. By having the ability to create and save playlists, you can show the playlist of programs you want to show on specific days and intersperse the educational videos with video vignettes on LASIK or Advances in Cataract Care that encourage them to ask questions about your specific premium services.

The bottom line is the more and sooner you educate patients about your services, the less likely they will be surprised when they learn about your premium options and the more likely they will choose to upgrade their vision.

PEC specializes in providing patient education video programs and promotional video vignettes that are designed specifically for reception rooms.  If you are considering (and you should) making better use of the time your patients wait, please give us a call.