We frequently see a consistent pattern with the challenges many healthcare providers and payers face which prevents them from implementing a first-class Find a Doctor (FAD) digital experience.
These typically fall into the below groups:
- Displaying lengthy bulleted lists of information that are not essential to the decision-making process which results in difficult to read doctor profiles
- Failing to convey the information in a conversational, personal style/tone that simplifies the information the user and can instead have an ‘academic’ feel
- Missing opportunities from a user experience standpoint to serve information that users need to make a decision or take action upon
- Lack of best practices for search engine optimization being followed and implemented so it is difficult to find a doctor’s profile when searching outside of a flagship website or app
- Gaps in data that result in inconsistent information for doctor profiles being displayed resulting in frustration for the user
Some of these may sound familiar with what you are experiencing on your organization’s website. Over the next few blog posts, I will be sharing tips to overcome these challenges to offer an enhanced FAD search tool experience that supports and increases conversion.
A Vision for a Successful FAD Solution
Before we dig into the best practices for the FAD search tool, we should have a shared understanding of what a successful solution looks like. For a healthcare organization and the users of the tool, it should:
- Be easily found on Search Engine Results Page, through marketing efforts, and on the flagship website and mobile app
- Offer an intuitively simple interface for finding a relevant doctor, including to enter search criteria and ability to refine results
- Make it easy to schedule an appointment with
- A number to call as well as click-to-call if on a mobile device
- Electronic scheduling
- Provide data with insights on
- Who/how many going to call/called or scheduled an appointment
- Where dropouts to the conversion flow are occurring
The FAD solution should encompass not just the experience but also measurement aspects too so you can monitor its effectiveness. By connecting to an actual completed appointment, all this leads to an optimized experience and full attribution.
Now we have established the importance of FAD search tool in the digital experience, level-set on the common challenges being faced, as well as what a successful Find a Doctor search tool offers, the next posts will explore various aspects of the FAD search tool digital experience to share best practices for your organization to adopt.
Please lookout for the upcoming posts and I would love to hear your feedback on any particular areas you would like me to cover on this topic.
