by Natesha Mullings, www.dentalholiday.co.uk 
The founder and director of the Piestany Dental Clinic, Slovakia was the speaker at the annual European medical tourism conference last week. During his time in Venice Italy, the Venice Declaration on Medical Travel was signed. He met and spoke with many other infuential and medical tourism providers, and also helped to teach them the benefits of using the internet to bulid trust with patients and potential patients.
He feels that so much of today’s medical tourism marketing is poisoned. Twitter and facebook statuses simply claim links to providers of dental treatment abroad, rather than a conversation with a real person. People don’t like to give out their telephone numbers as they are afraid of being called constantly by pressurizing clinics abroad, and once they give their email address, they seem to get many promotional emails that don’t help them in any way. Daniel even spoke of a patient that he met who had been receiving promotional emails from a dental clinic in Budapest, even 3 years after he had chosen to have the dental treatment done in Slovakia! It’s his goal to bring back a level of trust into medical tourism marketing and communication with clinics.
In today’s world it is very important to develop a bond and have a trustworthy relationship with patients. With the fact that there are so many ways to make our work faster and hassle free (technology), sometimes we focus mainly on how many clients we can have daily, and of course the money we can make from it. Thus, we simply forget the most important thing, trust. Potential patients are often short on trust, they are also skeptical and well informed. Though it’s easier than ever to reach patients, it’s less likely that they’ll listen. Today, the most valuable online currency isn’t the Euro, but trust itself.
People want service providers who they can have a conversation (rapport) with, talk about their problems and how it can be rendered regardless of the means of communication at hand. For example, a patient, wants to be able to communicate with his or dentist about the issue he or she is having with a tooth, and he or she expects the dentist to be able to not only respond stating what neds to be done, but also, explain how it can be done and in a way, let the patient feels relaxed and very informed. Also, patients like personal treatment, so they feel as if they are the ony one that matters. This is an ideal way to develop trust with your patients and potential patients.
There’s no question that the Internet has changed the way we run our medical businesses especially when it comes to marketing. At the same time, social networks and personal connections have far more influence on patients than marketing messages ever will – unless the clinic knows how to harness them. In an online world defined by its transparency, becoming a trusted source on the Internet is no easy task, but once you’ve established your reputation, you can build influence, share it, and reap the benefits of it for your clinic. When you’ve reached that level of trust, your words can carry more power and more weight than any PR firm or big corporate marketing department.
At the seminar, Daniel explained how it is possible to tap into the powers of the networks and build a clinics influence, reputation, and profits.
Medical tourism is a growing trend even during the recession period of last year and more and more people are seeking medical treatment abroad. However today, it is becoming more about trustworthy service and quality rather than the price or cost of the medical treatment itself.
