Virtual Care and Patient Advocacy: Enhancing Experience and Healthcare Growth

Virtual care enhances experience for chronically ill patients and plays a vital role in modern medicine. Patient advocate Grace Cordovano speaks about how telehealth and virtual care have improved outcomes and made it easier for chronically ill patients to live fuller, more satisfying lives.

Understanding Patient Advocacy

Patient Advocacy is a widely-known term in general medical environments. Advocacy means taking a patient-centered approach and making sure patients have the information and support they need to make complex medical decisions. Patient Advocates help patients communicate with their health care providers, so they get the information they need to make decisions about their healthcare. Instead of just trying to get the patient to accept a case, the patient advocate takes a patient-based approach, helping them make the best decision for themselves.

The Role of Virtual Patient Advocates (VPA)

Based on the original idea of patient advocacy, Virtual Patient Advocates (or VPAs) let the patient communicate their needs and help them understand the various treatment options. This process involves asking good questions, making a plan with the patient, and helping them make a decision about their health. They help the patient come into treatment with the right expectations and as much information as possible before a consultation with a dental professional.

The Difference Between a Traditional and Virtual Advocate

The difference between a traditional patient advocate and a Virtual Patient Advocate mostly has to do with geography. While both inform and help patients, a Virtual Advocate doesn’t need to be physically present at the hospital, clinic, or dental practice. This widens the playing field and enables practices to connect with high-quality advocates all over the nation instead of ones within driving distance.

How VPAs Help Practices Grow

Virtual Patient Advocates lead to growth for dental implant practices by increasing the phone answering rate and consultation scheduling rate through their hands-on, patient-focused approach. Dr. TJ Dorsey sought to increase the value of his busy DSO practice location and discovered how challenging it is to implement an implant-specific marketing campaign. He learned that having his own team manage the leads is inefficient and costly, leading to burnout.

Driven's team of dedicated VPAs worked as additional team members of the practice, handling all of the lead follow-up. They took time to pre-educate, pre-sell, and financially pre-qualify, before handing the patient off to the office for a consult appointment. This allows the clinical team to focus their efforts on continuing to deliver a great patient experience instead of chasing unresponsive leads.

Financial Impact and Performance Data

The implementation of a VPA program can lead to significant financial success and practice valuation increases. Below is the performance summary based on the VPA implant marketing program implementation:

• Second Month Production: $80,400 of implant production in the second full month of going live.
• Average Monthly Production: $30,000 in consistent monthly production.
• Estimated Value Added: $589,759 increase in valuation estimate.
• Industry Multiplier Applied: 5.5 (for a single location).
• Assumed Net Profit: 30% from campaign production.

Benefits for High-Value Procedures

Virtual Patient Advocates are an innovative approach for high-value procedures like dental implants. They pre-educate, pre-qualify, and pre-screen patients to ensure treatment is right for them. This includes making sure they have a plan for paying for the procedure and the right expectations going into a consult. In this way, they perform dental implant lead qualification as well as lead follow-up, ensuring more implant patients feel comfortable and confident about moving forward with treatment.