I hope that this month’s edition of the “Banding Bulletin” finds you well! I wanted to include some information regarding this year’s DDW in Chicago, mention some new and updated resources that have been made available to our Partners, and talk a little bit about our website.
DDW:
I can’t believe that a year has passed since last year’s DDW in New Orleans — but the 2011 edition is being held in Chicago from May 7 – 10. CRH will be in the Exhibition Center from Sunday, May 8th – Tuesday, May 10th from 10:00am – 4:00pm each day. We will be at Booth #2831, and will also be participating in the “Learning Center” on Sunday and Monday from 10:00am – 2:00pm. Dr. Andy Gorchynsky and I will also be at the “SIG-fest” Monday evening, and we’ll be available to address any questions you might have.
Please come by the booth and say “hello” — Andy and I will be joined by Jessica Diduch and Shaun Gerrits from Business Development, and we would love to catch up with each of our Partners and meet those of you considering the incorporation of these techniques into your practice.
TRAINING and “REFRESHER” SESSIONS:
Our training calendar remains very busy, as we are currently booking our training and refresher sessions 6 weeks in advance! Currently, we have only very limited availability until the 3rd week in June, when things lighten up a bit. We are expecting the usual “post-DDW rush” for trainings and refreshers, so please consider reserving your date now, before the increase in demand hits! Andy and I have been very pleased with the feedback received from our refresher sessions — they allow for a “Q and A” as well as an opportunity to see if we can help you to improve your technique moving forward. There is no cost for these sessions, so we’d encourage you to take full advantage of them! Please call or email me, and we will confirm something as soon as we are able.
NEW RESOURCES AVAILABLE:
We have altered a few of our patient information and support documents in order to make them more useful for our Partners — sample progress notes, sample prescription pads, etc. – all of which can be found at the “Clinical Forms” tab of our www.crhmedicalproducts.com website. We’ve also had requests for a sample “powerpoint” presentation for “lunch and learn’s” and other educational opportunities, as well as copies of the teaching slides that we utilize as a part of our training sessions. Our current Partners will be receiving an email with the link to these resources (as well as an extended video tutorial of the procedure) in the near future.
CRHSYSTEM.COM WEBSITE:
Upon hearing that CRH sends potential patients to our Partner physicians, we are often asked how this is done, so I’d like to take a few minutes to explain a bit about the program. Each of our Partners is offered a no cost profile on our website in the “find a physician” area, where participating partners are listed by their location. You have the ability to have a direct link from this page to your practice’s website as well. In order to help draw the attention of potentially interested patients, CRH also works with Google by initiating a “pay-per-click” campaign (all at CRH’s expense!) within your geographic area. When a potential patient in your area searches for information on “hemorrhoids” or one of a number of potential search words on Google, the CRH website will appear as an option at or near the top of the search. That interested patient would then be able to learn about the CRH procedure, and find you as a physician offering that treatment. We give all listings on our website a “tracking” phone number which will ring seamlessly to their office, but allows us to track how many times that number has been dialed. After sorting through short calls and duplicates, we are proud to report that CRH sends approximately 1,000 patient leads to our Partner physicians every month based on the 20,000 unique visitors our website receives. These patients typically require treatment for their hemorrhoids or other perianal issues, and most require other procedures (such as a colonoscopy) as well — allowing you to both take better care of your existing patients as well as to attract new visitors to your practice.
In addition, we have a tremendous array of marketing materials — from patient information brochures/tear-off sheets, wall charts, and sample referring physician letters, to sample radio scripts and print ads. Please take full advantage of these resources which are offered at NO COST, and if you have any questions about these, please contact Jennifer Syrnyk.
Thanks again to each one of our Partners for their interest and support! We hope to catch up with many of you in Chicago, and even more of you when we visit your practices again!
Best regards,
Mitch
Mitchel Guttenplan, MD, FACS
Medical Director
CRH Medical Corporation
T: 800.660.2153 x1022 | C: 770.363.0125 | F: 770.475.9953
