leadership

5 Signs Your Practice’s Marketing Needs a Second Look

Most practices don’t wake up one day and realize they’re making marketing mistakes. It happens slowly. A form nobody’s filled out in a few weeks. Fewer calls than usual. A competitor’s name coming up more ...

Why Patients Might Not Be Finding Your Practice Anymore

There’s a new first stop in the patient journey, and for a lot of practices, it’s happening without them ever knowing it. Are Your Patients Even Using Google Anymore? More often, they’re not. A growing ...

Why Patient Retention Is a Marketing Problem Most Healthcare Organizations Ignore

Healthcare marketing conversations almost always center on acquisition. How do we get more new patients? How do we rank higher in local search? How do we increase appointment volume? These are the right questions. But ...

What Patients Remember That Your Staff Has Already Forgotten

I’ve walked through a lot of practices over the years. Talked to physicians, administrators, front desk staff. And I keep running into the same disconnect. The team remembers the clinical details. The patient remembers the ...

PatientX Won an Aster Award. Here’s What the Work Actually Was.

In 2025, PatientX built a coloring book. Not as a portfolio piece. Not as a campaign. As a donation. Copies of Commander Cosmo and the Mission to Save the Moon were distributed to children spending ...

Michael Winkleman Releases New Book on Patient Experience

CONNECT: The Patient’s Voice examines patient and provider interviews spanning a decade to explore how healthcare organizations can improve care. A patient once told Michael Winkleman, “I don’t remember what the doctor prescribed. I remember that ...

Why Great Care Isn’t Always Enough: The Missing Piece in Patient Trust

I’ve walked through a lot of practices over the years. Talked to a lot of physicians, administrators, front desk staff. And I keep hearing the same thing. “We deliver great care. I don’t understand why ...

After a Decade of Listening to Patients, Michael Winkleman Is Sharing What They Said — And It Should Change How Healthcare Thinks About Trust

Sioux Falls, SD — A patient once told Michael Winkleman, “I don’t remember what the doctor prescribed. I remember that she sat down, looked me in the eye, and made me feel like I wasn’t ...

Beyond the Billboard: Smarter Local Marketing for Specialty Clinics

You’re visible. Your clinic shows up in your community. Maybe you’ve run ads, sponsored events, or even invested in a billboard. But patients still aren’t choosing you. That’s the frustration many specialty clinics are facing ...

Retention Is Shaped by the Full Patient Journey, Not Just the Visit

Healthcare leaders often focus on patient acquisition when growth feels uncertain. Campaigns are optimized. Referral relationships are strengthened. Website performance is reviewed. Scheduling systems are adjusted to reduce friction. Some patients do not return. Follow-up ...

What a Real Healthcare Marketing Strategy Looks Like for Private Clinics

Many private healthcare clinics believe they have a marketing strategy because marketing activity is happening. Ads are running. Content is being published. SEO is being discussed. Social posts are going out. Yet results feel inconsistent. ...

Online Reputation Isn’t Optional: Why Reviews Drive Patient Decisions

For many healthcare organizations, online reviews are treated as a secondary task. Important, but not urgent. Something to “get to” once everything else is running smoothly. Patients don’t see it that way. Today, online reviews ...

PPC vs. SEO: Which Matters More for Healthcare Marketing?

On paper, the question seems straightforward. Should a clinic invest more in ads or in organic search as part of its healthcare marketing strategy? In practice, the question usually comes from something more familiar. Growth ...

Social Media Best Practices for Healthcare Clinics: What to Focus on in 2026

You are posting on Facebook. Maybe someone on your team updates Instagram or shares a graphic once in a while. But when you check your insights, the numbers are flat. No comments. No clicks. No ...

Your Marketing Communication: As Critical as Your Communication in the Surgery Room

Effective marketing communication is just as vital as clear communication during surgery. Focus on the following key tactics to develop marketing success in your facility and improve the way you communicate your brand to your ...

Is Your Clinic’s First Impression Holding You Back?

Patients form opinions about your clinic long before they schedule an appointment. Long before a phone call or appointment request, patients are scanning ads, skimming social posts, clicking through search results, and landing on your ...

Why Your Digital Ads Aren’t Converting

At first glance, the numbers look encouraging. Your ads are getting impressions. Clicks are coming in. Spend is steady. But when you look at what actually matters, new patient inquiries, scheduled visits, meaningful leads, it ...

Voices of Trust: How Patient Testimonials Transform Healthcare and Drive Growth

At PatientX, we believe in the power of storytelling. In healthcare, nothing resonates more deeply than a patient’s own words, shared authentically. Patient testimonials, whether written or recorded, are not just nice additions to your ...

How Creativity Became a Global Mission of Hope

At PatientX, every mission begins with purpose. Our work has always centered around helping healthcare organizations grow and connect with their communities. But this year, our mission reached far beyond marketing. We set out to ...

The New Patient Journey: How to Attract Patients Before They Need You

A few weeks ago, a friend told me about his chronic knee pain and his decision to book an appointment finally. “I kept seeing the same clinic pop up online, in articles, and on social ...

AI & AEO in Healthcare: Futureproofing Digital Visibility

A quiet shift is happening in how patients search for care. You can feel it before you can fully explain it. Traffic appears to be fine, but inquiries are down. Rankings fluctuate without a clear ...

How to Ask for Patient Reviews Without Sounding Pushy (And Stay HIPAA Safe)

How to Ask for Patient Reviews Without Sounding Pushy (And Stay HIPAA Safe)You provide excellent care. Patients are grateful. Some even say, “This was the best visit I’ve ever had.” But when you check your ...

Referral Network 2.0: Strengthening Physician and Community Partnerships

I was recently asked a question about how healthcare providers can effectively improve their referral networks in today’s rapidly changing healthcare environment. The answer, at PatientX, is Referral Network 2.0, a fresh, forward-thinking approach designed ...

Struggling with Growth? Strategies From a Fractional CMO

There’s a season in every clinic when the numbers don’t tell the whole story. You feel it first, the rhythm shifts. Ads still spend. Posts are still published. Emails are still being sent. But the ...

Brand Visibility Powerhouse: How to Build a Healthcare Brand People Recognize and Trust

You’ve launched a new website. You’re running digital ads. You’re posting on social media. But when new patients walk through your doors, they still say, “I’ve never heard of you.” If that sounds familiar, your ...

Optimizing Your Website for Patient Conversions

In today’s digital-first world, your website is often the first interaction patients have with your practice. A well-optimized website doesn’t just provide information; it actively converts visitors into patients. Studies show that 77% of patients ...

How to Optimize Your YouTube Channel for Better Patient Experience

Optimizing your healthcare-related YouTube channel is essential—especially as video becomes a key tool for patient education and digital engagement. With YouTube now a leading source for health-related content, healthcare providers, institutions, and professionals must ensure ...

New DOJ ADA Web Rule: What Healthcare Organizations Need to Know (And How to Prepare)

A major change is coming to healthcare websites. In 2025, the Department of Justice (DOJ) finalized a new web accessibility rule under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The goal is clear: make sure people ...

How ASCs Can Maximize Their Reach Using Hashtags 

As social media keeps growing, ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) are seeing increased engagement. Patients are turning to platforms like Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook to share their experiences and provide insights for others considering same-day procedures. ...

From Metrics to Momentum: Turning Marketing Results into Business Growth

A few years ago, I walked into a leadership meeting to present quarterly performance for one of our facilities. I had the deck. I had the data. I had the wins. Website traffic was up ...

Social Media Strategies for Healthcare Facilities

Building Trust and Engagement As the CEO of PatientX, I understand the ever-growing importance of digital communication in healthcare. Social media offers a powerful platform for healthcare facilities to connect with patients, build trust, and ...

AI and Automation: Revolutionizing Patient Acquisition and the Future of Healthcare

Healthcare is undergoing a digital revolution, transforming the patient journey from first contact to follow-up care. As providers look to the future, artificial intelligence (AI), chatbots, and digital assistants are not just novel technologies. They ...

5 Key Strategies to Drive Patient Acquisition Growth

Patient acquisition is crucial for the growth and sustainability of any healthcare organization. Here are five key strategies that could drive this growth: By strategically implementing these techniques, healthcare organizations can significantly increase their patient ...

Losing Rank on Google? 5 SEO Mistakes Healthcare Brands Can’t Afford to Make

Your website is live and you’ve invested in content, maybe even some ads. But search rankings are slipping, and patient inquiries are down. If you’ve been asking, “Why is my website not showing on Google?” ...

Is Your CRM Just a Database? Turn It Into a Patient Lead Engine

Many healthcare practices invest in Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems, hoping to streamline operations and improve patient communication. Yet, for many, the CRM becomes little more than a static repository of patient information. But what ...

Why Good Marketing Doesn’t Always Lead to New Patients 

You’re getting clicks. Your ad budget is solid. Your website looks great. So why aren’t patients reaching out? We talk to healthcare teams every week who are frustrated by this exact situation. They’re not struggling ...

Do You Have a Beautiful Website That’s Costing You Patients? Here’s How to Fix It 

Your site looks great. Sleek design, professional branding, and even a few compliments from colleagues. But here’s the tough truth: If patients aren’t calling, booking, or submitting forms, your “nice” website isn’t doing its job.  ...

What Does a Fractional CMO Really Do?

In today’s patient driven, hyper-competitive healthcare landscape, a great marketing strategy is critical to success. The problem is that many small and medium sized firms don’t have the resources to invest in a full time ...

Top 6 Healthcare Social Media Trends of 2025 

Social media is constantly evolving. Which means that the ways in which users interact with posts and content will change continually. To be successful, marketers need to stay aware of new and emerging trends across ...

The New Patient Journey: How To Attract Patients Before They Need You

A few weeks ago, a friend told me about his chronic knee pain and his decision to book an appointment finally. “I kept seeing the same clinic pop up online, in articles, and on social ...

ASCs and Nondiscriminatory Compliance

“Your Ambulatory Surgery Center could be under fire.” A new era of healthcare compliance has arrived, and the stakes for ASCs have never been higher. The Department of Health and Human Services has issued a ...

Is Your Hospital Website HIPAA Compliant?

The vast majority of hospital websites collect information. This might be happening even if you aren’t aware of it. As a result, ensuring your website complies with HIPAA regulations is critical. Even unintended data breaches ...

Unlocking the Potential of Voice Keyword Search in Healthcare Marketing

Welcome to the world of voice keyword search, where technology meets convenience! As a leading healthcare marketing agency, PatientX Agency is always at the forefront of innovative strategies to help healthcare providers and B2B healthcare-related ...

What You Need to Know About Analytics and HIPAA

In 2023, the FTC fined Better Help and GoodRx for failing to protect patients’ private health information under HIPAA rules. Regulators also notified 130 or so hospital systems that healthcare entities were responsible for safeguarding ...

Get the Message Out During Colon Cancer Awareness Month

Over 50,000 Americans are expected to die from colorectal cancer in 2024. This makes colon cancer the third leading cause of cancer-related death in men (and fourth in women). What makes these numbers particularly tragic ...

Top Five Things That Still Need a Human Touch in an AI World

Everyone’s talking about AI–and for good reason, especially in the healthcare marketing space. These sophisticated algorithms can help you analyze vast swaths of data, free you from many mundane tasks, and even offer 24/7 support ...

How the Third Party Payer System Increases the Cost of Healthcare

How the Third Party Payer System Increases the Cost of Healthcare The American healthcare system offers some unique challenges–both for clinics and for patients. In large part, that’s because the American medical ecosystem operates under ...

The Vital Role of Healthcare Marketing in Today’s Complex Environment

In today’s complex healthcare landscape, navigating the myriad challenges is a task that requires strategic thinking, adaptability, and resilience. With pressures such as decreasing reimbursements, increasing costs, and legislative complexities, the road ahead seems daunting. ...

Hashtags for ASCs

Most healthcare organizations have (sometimes reluctantly) come to admit that they need a social media presence. From Ambulatory Surgery Centers to neighborhood clinics, healthcare companies know that social media posts are your chance to meet ...

How to Get Started with Healthcare Social Media Marketing

Setting Up Business Pages on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn Love it or hate it, social media is a critical marketing tool for doctors, clinics, and healthcare organizations. And that can be intimidating. Left to its ...

Marketing to Support Increased Revenue for ASCs

Marketing to Support Increased Revenue for ASCs The healthcare industry has endured a significant transformation over the past few years, encountering challenge after challenge. From Covid-19 to staffing shortages to supply chain issues, increased costs, ...

How Healthcare Leaders Drive Culture and Employee Recruitment

Today’s hiring climate can be challenging for healthcare companies. Ensuring adequate staffing has become a daily concern. As a result, many companies are instituting recruitment campaigns. At the heart of many of these campaigns is ...

Struggling to Retain Talented Healthcare Workers?

It’s one thing to hire new talent. It’s another thing to get them to stay. In the wake of Covid-19 (and the way people have reacted to healthcare professionals since), retaining top talent has been ...

Tips to Motivate People to Enter The Healthcare Field

Today’s recruitment challenges can feel profound, and long term solutions will be needed in order for staffing levels to return to more sustainable levels. But that doesn’t mean medical and healthcare organizations should simply sit ...

The Role of AI in Healthcare

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been making waves across various sectors, and the healthcare and medical industries are no exception. Generative AI platforms, including advanced language models such as ChatGPT, are increasingly being used by medical ...

The Role of Social Networks in Patient Engagement

Have you ever encountered a patient who conducted their own research online and is now anxious about their diagnosis? These individuals, dubbed as “online diagnosers,” are reaching out to their social networks for advice or ...

How to Improve the Digital Patient Experience

Most physicians, providers, and practice managers are already aware of the patient experience as a concept. Distinct and different from patient satisfaction, the patient experience is a measure of how patients feel about every aspect ...

The Value of Personas

When you’re marketing, it’s important to have a target audience. This is true for inbound marketing, content marketing–or basically any other kind of marketing. You need to know who you’re marketing to in order for ...

The Dangers of Marketing in Silos

5 Ways to get your Marketing Team to Work Together   Great healthcare marketing is a team effort. Every individual brings their unique talents and abilities to bear on a challenge. And with all that ...

How Can Social Media Make Patients Happier?

As of 2021, 82% of Americans actively use some form of social media, and it is rapidly changing the healthcare industry as we know it by accelerating the shift to consumer-driven care. As a result, ...

A Beginner’s Guide to Improving Patient Experience

The patient experience is hindered by four common complaints, but it can be better. ...

The Critical Importance of Brand Guidelines

Everything your healthcare brand does sends a message. From the shape of your logo to the color of your waiting room walls to the font choice on a press release–it’s all communicating what you care ...

Marketing an ASC

Modern patients like to shop around. For Ambulatory Surgery Centers (ASC), this might feel like an intimidating new development. But the reality is that healthcare more broadly has been trending in a retail direction for ...

What We Can Learn from the Circus

One of our favorite marketing lessons comes from the circus–or, more accurately, a quote about the circus. In his book, The 1-Page Marketing Plan: Get New Customers, Make More Money, And Stand out From The ...

Healthcare Marketing Tactics That Work

You can’t market healthcare the same way you market Oreo’s.  Healthcare is a unique field. On the one hand, everything is consumer and patient driven. That’s probably why 89% of patients will perform a Google ...

How to Use Your Facebook Business Page and Run Successful Facebook Ads

Facebook has become an essential tool for healthcare businesses. That’s good news and bad news. Facebook is an incredibly effective marketing platform that is, in theory, accessible to a wide variety of businesses. But it’s ...

5 Ways to Optimize Your Website for Lead Generation

Whether you’re an ambulatory surgery center or a single physician practice, optimizing your website to generate and nurture leads means you’re more likely to welcome new patients.  You’re probably familiar with the notion of optimization ...

The Importance of Online Reputation

How many stars does your medical practice have? Three? Four? Maybe your rating is all the way up to five stars. The answer could have profound implications for the success of your healthcare business. That’s ...

SEO During This Time

Whether you’re looking for a place to eat, trying to remember the lyrics to a song, or researching medical facilities in your area, your destination is probably the same: Google. That’s why organic search rankings ...

What Your Patients Want to See on Your Medical Website

Healthcare related queries account for over 7% of organic searches on Google, accounting for over 1 billion searches a day. This means that the modern patient journey no longer begins in your waiting room–it begins ...

What Every Healthcare Marketer Needs to Know About 2021 Social Media Trends

In some ways, orchestrating a sound social media strategy is like running the rapids with a kayak: you need to respond to small scale changes in direction with one eye on the big turns downstream. ...

Agency vs Employee: How to Choose the Right Healthcare Marketing Approach

Your business is ready for a big healthcare marketing push. But that’s when you need to be careful and thoughtfully consider your options. Because for most healthcare organizations, new marketing efforts force a decision: should ...

Why Does My Business Website Need to be ADA Compliant?

You want your online presence to be as welcoming and accessible as possible. But if your website isn’t ADA compliant, you may be throwing up unintended roadblocks for users with disabilities. For example, if an ...

What Patients Are Looking for in 2021

In so many ways, 2020 has profoundly transformed how patients view and interact with healthcare. Perhaps most noticeably, COVID-19 has made patients more aware of public health and disease mitigation policies. Unfortunately, layers of misinformation ...

The Importance of Patient Experience

Patient experience has become a buzzword, and in that regard, the concept is all too easy to ignore. But the trendiness of the term belies just how essential the concept of patient experience has become ...

How Brands are Positioning Their Messages During COVID-19

The marketing industry has seen its share of disruptions over time due to events like natural disasters or financial recessions, but many of these events haven’t had such large global impact as the coronavirus. FACTORS ...

Overcoming Patient Fear and Its Effect on Communication

It is undeniable that COVID-19 has severely impacted our nation and at an alarming pace.  Some may even argue that the fear of COVID-19 affecting our nation is worse than the virus itself. Whether that ...

The PatientX Team, Now More Than Six Feet Apart

One of the many great reasons to have a career at PatientX is that we have always allowed our staff members to work from whatever location best suits their mood and makes them most productive. ...

The Transparent Advantage of Price Transparency

Billing and pricing are important aspects of the patient experience, and making pricing transparent for patients is something healthcare providers are doing to create better experiences. While wait times and quality of care often receive ...

How to Market the Growth of ASCs

Healthcare is constantly evolving, and ASCs might be the next step in that evolution. ...

Inbound Marketing and Its Measurable Effectiveness

Inbound is a marketing philosophy and strategy that is all about organically establishing relationships with potential clients or customers through sharing your expertise. Through the steps of attracting, engaging, and delighting, inbound marketing seeks to ...

Making Patients Your Greatest Brand Ambassadors

In the world of healthcare, there are many important aspects to consider, such as following regulations, hiring staff, negotiating contractual issues, handling high costs of operations, and billing effectively. However, there is another aspect of ...

Inbound Marketing: A Friendlier Approach to Business

In past years and decades, business was viewed as a ruthless, fierce world where you had to squash your enemies and conquer your clients. That isn’t the case anymore. A more gentle, friendly approach is ...

Where CAHPS Surveys Fall Short

Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) surveys are an effective tool to measure and address patient satisfaction. Even though they offer healthcare providers with insight into what they’re doing well and what needs ...

How the Third Party Payer System Increases the Cost of Healthcare

How the Third Party Payer System Increases the Cost of Healthcare The American healthcare system offers some unique challenges–both for clinics and for patients. In large part, that’s because the American medical ecosystem operates under ...

Pharmaceutical Companies and the Cost of Healthcare

In part 4 of our 5-part series where we explore what influences and drives up healthcare costs, we’ll dive into the pharmaceutical industry. If you haven’t yet, take a look at the previous two posts ...

How Defensive Medicine Increases the Cost of Healthcare

Studies have shown that up to 92% of physicians will sometimes use a treatment strategy called “defensive medicine.” The idea is that, in order to protect themselves from a possible malpractice lawsuit, a physician will ...

How Administrative Costs Increase the Cost of Healthcare

This is the second post in our 5-part series in which we attempt to shed a little light on what drives the costs of healthcare. In our first post, “Why Is Healthcare So Expensive?“, we identified ...

A Trick to Avoid Negative Duplicate Content Issues

We have all heard the phrase “Content is King”. If you are creating valuable, original content, stop reading right now and give yourself a high-five. Go ahead. I’ll wait. Now, what are you doing with ...

How to Choose Social Media Networks for Your Healthcare Facility

According to Wikipedia, there are over 200 major, active social media networks. So, what ones should you be on? How many should you be on? What the heck is Snapchat?!? You know there are a ...

Why Is Healthcare So Expensive?

When compared to other developed countries, the United States spends more money on healthcare and has a lower quality of health outcomes. Also, medical care prices increased 4% in 2016 and have been outpacing the ...

PatientX Brand Evolution Brings Focus to the Healthcare Industry

Roughly a decade ago, a company called 724 Factory was born, serving as a production company for other agencies as well as providing design and web development to a growing list of clients. As 724 ...

Facebook Ads Best Practices

As we write this post, Facebook has 1.9 Billion Monthly Active Users. According to Pew Research, 86% of Americans are internet users, and 79% of them are on Facebook. Facebook has been proven to be ...

Failing to Plan Your Medical Website SEO is Planning to Fail

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is one of the first things that should come to mind for medical marketing professionals when it comes to your medical website.  Every day you are subject to SEO through ads and ...

Wants Versus Needs for Medical Website Design

Designing your medical website is about much more than design, or in simple terms, how pleasing your site is to look at.  Sure, you might be “redesigning” your site, but web design is a broad term ...

Use Sentiment Marketing to Improve Patient Experience

Every day, hospitals and ASCs (ambulatory surgical centers) strive to improve the patient experience and get the best outcomes possible. In utilizing sentiment analysis and marketing, they access data that helps them optimize patients’ experiences ...

Why Sentiment Analysis Should Be Part of Your Marketing Strategy

Improving the patient experience is an ongoing challenge for most hospital or ambulatory surgical center (ASC) administrators, but a necessary one. A federal government survey ties faster hospital payments to higher patient satisfaction scores, which ...

Patient Experience vs Patient Satisfaction. What’s the Difference?

When was the last time you visited a healthcare provider and you were really impressed with all the elements of your visit? If the staff was friendly, the office was clean, and you were seen ...

How Healthcare Facilities Can Increase Patient Satisfaction

Improving patient satisfaction scores, such as CAHPS, is key for driving reimbursements and practice reputation. Doctors’ offices, hospitals, and other healthcare facilities with high patient satisfaction see a correlation with high CAHPS scores and redeem many ...

The Power of E-mail Campaigns

E-mail campaigns absolutely fascinate us at PatientX. They are a personal way to approach your patients. E-mail campaigns are a way to educate them using your expertise. It demonstrates what makes your practice the best ...

Protecting Your Web Collateral

For many web professionals, the biggest fear is the disappearance of a website, or a hacker has just taken your site captive. Our team at PatientX is advocating that whether you are a small business ...

How To Use Social Media Strategy In A Crisis

PatientX offers a strategy to readers of Becker’s Hospital Review on how to use social media in the event of a medical crisis. Social media is a great way to inform patients especially in a ...

What Are CAHPS Surveys?

About 6 weeks after a trip to your doctor’s office, a specialist appointment, or an unfortunate trip to the ER you receive a survey in the mail asking questions about how your service was, both ...

How Medical Professionals Engage Patients With Social Media

PatientX regularly works with medical professionals on ways to engage patients through social media and recently contributed an article, ‘5 Key Tactics to Help Engage Your Patients with Social Media’  that can be found in ...

Medical Marketing Strategy Article Published

The question rarely changes. How can I get more patients through the doors of my practice?  Today consumers are using a multitude of platforms to connect with businesses and to connect with each other. In ...