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What Pages Should My Medical Practice Website Have?
This post picks up from our earlier self-help series for medical practices. In the previous post we talked about defining yourself, establishing an identity for your practice, and positioning yourself in the medical marketplace. Today we’ll examine the key elements of a medical practice website. We’ll briefly discuss medical website design, what to include when you approach a web designer, and other tips and tricks to build your reputation online.
The Purpose of Medical Website Design
For many practices, making changes to their medical website comes down to one of two things: managing the patients they already have or attracting new patients. There are other reasons, of course, but today we wanted to focus on these central aspects of website design and highlight the key differences between them. Let’s take a look at two different cases:
Informational Website
Your practice is established, and you have plenty of patients. Your focus is providing great Patient Experience and improving efficiency of your office.
You have advanced features from your EHR, your website mainly provides information on your practice: phone numbers, hours of operation, directions, FAQ's and so forth. You may also include some time-saving features (a tool to book appointments online, take online payments for example) that free up your front desk.
Patient Magnet Website
Your practice is new or expanding and you are looking to grow your monthly rate of new patient registrations.
Your focus is Growing your Practice.
You want to not only attract new patients but impress them so much that they recommend your practice to friends and family. Your medical practice website is geared towards maximizing traffic and conversions. Your goal is to build your reputation and grow your patient pool quickly.
We’ll break down the contents of each medical practice website type based on needs of the practice.
Tips for Web Designers: The Informational Website
Informational websites are fairly straightforward. They tell visitors who you are, what you do, and how to get in contact with you. While “static” is not the right word, informational websites will not typically change much once they are set up. They provide basic details on your practice and basic services such as a payment portal and a forms center.
Informational Websites for Medical Practices
Let’s start breaking down the content of the website based on key needs of the practice.
Home Page
General Introduction about the Practice, Main Page
Services Page
Specialty – Procedures, Treatments, Equipment
Contact Us Page
Contact Information – Phone, email, address, directions
Patient Center
Patient Resources – FAQ’s, 3rd Party Resources
Forms Center
New Patient Intake Forms, Privacy Policy, Financial Policy