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FON: THE BUSINESS OF INTEGRATIVE HEALTH & MEDICINE

7 Effective Website Design Attributes for Integrative Health Brands

If your website is not effectively designed and optimized to ‘immediately’ engage visitors, you may be losing more prospective patients or clients than you think. Fact: over 60% of us first research a product or service on the web and make purchasing or engagement decisions prior to ever placing our actual email or phone order. Today’s healthcare consumer is certainly no exception; she’s visiting your site as well as physician

Concierge Integrative Medicine, image of a bell at a hotel with the name of the blog in text by it.

Is Concierge Integrative Medicine a Viable Model for You?

After a year closely following the inexorable growth of concierge care in the U.S.—and advising several primary care integrative health-directed physicians and pediatricians regarding various modeling options—it’s very clear to me that its basic business principals are a terrific match for some integrative health practitioners. INSURANCE AND CMS MODELS DON’T SUPPORT INTEGRATIVE MEDICINE CONSULTS Physicians trained in integrative medicine will spend nearly 90 minutes per new patient consult (including the

Business Model for Integrative Medicine, image of blog title with magnifying glass on a small house.

The Best Clinic and Business Model for Integrative Medicine

I am often asked what’s the best clinic or business model to deliver integrative medicine. My standard reply is the quote above; it pretty much says it all. Frankly, when deciding the most appropriate, sustainable model for your specific organization, there are many important considerations. Recently, I led a workshop at the Society for Integrative Oncology (SIO) titled A Practical Look at Current Clinic and Business Models for Academic and

The Impact of ‘Escape Fire’ and What Comes Next

In his excellent post, “Revisiting Escape Fire: The War to Rescue Our Health,” integrative health publisher and thought leader John Weeks questions the impact of this highly regarded documentary as a truly effective healthcare delivery game changer, and he appeals for a harder-hitting sequel to help finish the job. But before we discuss what a sequel might cover, it’s important to consider the uneven impact the original has had since

Grow Patient Volume By Marketing Less

Perhaps the title of this post is a bit disingenuous because, more accurately, what I’m positing is that you can best grow your integrative medicine business (patient volume, product sales) by selling and marketing differently, if not exactly less. Frankly, your customers (aka patients) and prospective clients couldn’t care less about you, your ambitions and why your services or products are special. They’re focused on themselves, their own problems and

Monitor and Manage Your Online Reputation—NOW!

In today’s über-connected world with its crawling social media channels, blogs, chat rooms and physician rating websites, there’s just no good excuse for failing to monitor and manage your online reputation. That includes the auto-default excuse: I’m too busy. Slow to Build, Quick to Tarnish Left unattended, your online reputation can negatively impact the personal brand you’ve worked so long and hard to create as a caring, respected healer. Of

7 Reasons to Launch a Newsletter to Build Your Integrative Medicine Practice

You’re missing a big opportunity to grow your practice if you’re not currently publishing a newsletter and using email marketing. Here’s why: 1. Email Still Preferred Engagement Channel Despite all the hype about social media supplanting email, the truth is that 94 percent of Americans 12 years and older still regularly use email. Email remains the preferred method of communication even with the growth in social media platforms and messaging

How-to Guide: Launching Your Integrative Medicine Newsletter

My previous post provided seven key reasons why your clinic or center needs to become a publisher to better engage patients and prospective customers to grow your community. Following is a practical guide to get up and running quickly. First Choose an Email Vendor I’ve been using Campaign Monitor’s email marketing system for FON’s newsletter, but there are quite a few additional quality vendors to choose from with many offering

Free Access: Seminal Paper on Integrating Top 10 Dietary Supplements Into Cancer Care

A new paper titled Integrating Dietary Supplements Into Cancer Care, authored by the Clinical Practice Committee of the Society for Integrative Oncology, will be published in the October/November 2013 edition of SAGE’s Integrative Cancer Therapies, edited by Keith I. Block, MD. SAGE has graciously made the article available, accessible here for 30 days, starting September 1, 2013. A significant portion of cancer patients are now using dietary supplements. However, patients