If you’re ready to grow your practice, you may need to make strategic changes in how you run the business side of your office. Podiatrists who are willing to put in the effort can create a practice that’s more attractive to new patients. Consider taking these steps:

Advertise Your Practice in the Right Places
Advertising may spread the word about your practice to potential patients within the community. Of course, you have to make sure you’re advertising in the right places--not every outlet is visible to patients.

Consider asking existing patients how they found your practice. With that information, you may find some new places to advertise or increase any advertising you’re already doing. Survey incoming patients to see how well your marketing efforts are doing.

Ask for Referrals
Often referrals are among the best sources for new patients. Let your current patients know you’re looking for referrals and welcome recommendations from existing patients. They can tell their friends and family about their experiences with your practice and hopefully find new patients for you.

Sometimes, patients aren’t aware that referrals are important to you. Adding a short and simple message such as, “We love referrals!” to your business cards, e-newsletter, social media or website may help you send the message and find new patients.

Partner with Other Healthcare Professionals
Another great way to get referrals is through other healthcare professionals. Consider teaming up with physical therapists or medical practitioners who may have patients suffering from foot pain and other common issues podiatry care may help with. These professionals may appreciate having a qualified professional as part of their network.

Improve Productivity
Streamlining your practice may provide you with more room in your schedule, mental bandwidth to work in and more resources to devote to each appointment. Becoming more productive can create new possibilities for your practice. Here are a few ideas:

You’re a very busy podiatric physician. With so much to do in a limited amount of time, you may only think about malpractice insurance once a year—at your renewal. You may even say to yourself, “I provide the best possible care to my patients and my records are impeccable. I’m not going to get sued, so why do I have to pay for malpractice insurance?”

You can practice the best of care, follow every protocol and keep meticulous records, but that still won’t prevent a claim being filed against you. Yes, all those measures may reduce your risk, but ultimately, it’s out of your control and in the hands of your patient. Simply put, claims are filed every day; some are legitimate and others are frivolous. You shouldn’t live in fear of being sued, but you also shouldn’t ignore the fact that it’s a real possibility.

You may believe that if you’re uninsured or “go bare,” you’re less of a target of being sued. You may even think that when your patient’s attorney finds out you don’t have malpractice insurance, he/she will drop the case because there’s less potential for substantial financial gain if the case is won. While this may happen in very rare instances, the fact is that the attorney can still go after your personal assets, livelihood and reputation.

Another factor to consider is that a malpractice claim can be filed against you after you retire. Imagine if you were traveling the world and then came home to find out that you were being sued by a patient you treated before your long-awaited retirement. Everything you worked so long and hard for and all the finances you saved to cover your expenses during retirement could be in jeopardy. However, if you had a claims-made policy while you were practicing and purchased tail coverage after the policy was terminated, but the incident happened during the time the policy was active, the policy may protect you against that claim.

As you can see, a patient can file a malpractice claim against you whether or not you carry malpractice insurance. It doesn’t matter whether you are an actively practicing podiatric physician or retired--the threat of a lawsuit is still a concern. This can seem daunting, but there’s a simple solution that can give you peace of mind–a solution that’s not only necessary, but essential to the success of your practice. It’s to continuously carry malpractice insurance while you’re actively practicing and obtain tail coverage when you retire. With malpractice insurance, you can rest assured that you have a team of professionals helping protect you and your practice should a claim arise.

Don’t let one lawsuit take away the practice, reputation and lifestyle you worked tirelessly to build. The price of a malpractice policy is minimal compared to the financial loss a lawsuit can bring. Ask yourself this question, “Can I afford to be uninsured?”

If you don’t have malpractice insurance with PICA, now is the time to obtain coverage. PICA has been the leader in providing malpractice insurance to podiatric physicians for over 40 years and is the only insurer lead by a podiatrist. Our claims specialists and defense attorneys specialize in podiatry malpractice claims. Our team of knowledgeable professionals is readily available and happy to help you. At PICA, we’re with you. Every step of the way.

Contact us today for coverage information or fill out our online form to get a no-obligation quote.