In this article + podcast we will see how to use clinical photography to grow your practice. I do a lot of photography in my practice. For people who are unaware I have a 10 year old practice in Mumbai.I have used photography quite a lot to educate my patients & leverage my practice. In this episode I will speak about how photography has become an indispensable part of my practice.I will also share some useful tips on how you can grow your practice & get more work done in less time using photography.So stay tuned till the end of this show!!
Link for contest https://linktr.ee/mayurdavda(Please note the question for the contest this week is the same as the previous one cause no one could answer it correctly. Was the question so tough? 😉
This is How you can Use clinical photography to grow your practice
During the covid period we all got rid of the paper files. But even before the pandemic, my practice had become paper FREE & we recorded patients history only on our practice management software. This software requires my front office staff to record a picture of my patient against a plain background. So if you see photography actually starts-off even before the patient enters the clinical area, for the purpose of maintaining records. At this time itself we take a consent for photography from our patients.
Podcast: Use clinical photography to grow your practice by Dr Mayur Davda
We often tend to forget that our patient is Not a doctor and might not understand what we are trying to explain to them verbally. So I always make it a point to record a close up picture of the area of chief complaint. I show the picture to my patient LIVE on a big screen so they can understand what they are actually suffering from. Like its said, A picture speaks more than a 1000 words! By making an image we save ourselves a lot of time by speaking less & showing more. It becomes very easy to educate our patients & most importantly we already have a pre operative record of the site of chief complaint even before we start the treatment.
Everyday my front office staff emails all the xray images & photographs to the respective patients and 1 copy is emailed to me too. Due to this simple arrangement I always have a copy of every case on my email. It also becomes very easy for me to ask for a second opinion from my colleagues If I need any help.
All the images sent to the patient are watermarked with my clinic logo and my website. What this does is, it lives upto my brand identity and everyone respects a good brand right?If my patients decide to go to some other doctor for a second opinion and show them the images or x rays, the other doctor can see that the patient had come to me first. If my colleagues have any question about what procedure I had done for the patient they can easy contact me through my website.
Very often I see patients from other countries and medical tourism was great just before the pandemic started. When the patients get records in the form of images, they are relieved that if something goes wrong when they are abroad, they will not have to explain a lot to their doctor over there, because all the procedures are clearly seen in operative images. This reduces any chances of misunderstanding.
I am sure everyone gives 100% efforts to their work but there is always a small chance of error right? No one is perfect. The high resolution images from our cameras coupled with the right lens gives us such good images that it becomes impossible to ignore the smallest mistake. So yes photography is a great tool for self analysis.
At any point of time during my procedures if I have a doubt I email a copy of my operative image to my colleagues to ask for their opinion so I can get the best results for my patients. So it’s a great tool to learn and share information amongst colleagues.
Apart from the clinical procedures, photography is of utmost importance when a LAB is involved. The ONLY way to achieve good results from a lab is to send them high resolution images of our case.So please do not use mobile phones if you expect good results from the lab.
Due to the advent of strict medico-legal laws clinical photography becomes vital evidence to safeguard a clinicians point of view.
Photography could be a vital evidence in forensic sciences & investigations
Clinical photography could also be instrumental in making the process of reimbursement from insurance companies & National health services smoother for the patients.
When we do a good case we would love to share it on social media. More and more patients are accepting that posting images on social media is completely fine. However I would reinforce the importance of consent before posting any image on social media. Posting a good case on social media will not only help us gain attention of our colleagues but also more patients. A lot of patients like to do their research on google and now even on instagram about the past cases done by a doctor. Ive seen so many famous dermatologists and plastic surgeons having close to 100,000 followers on instagram. They show amazing cases on their Instagram feed, instagram stores & even IGTV and reels. A lot of clinicians also show LIVE techniques on their instagram. Our patients are becoming more acceptable of the fact that sharing cases online is a very important aspect of social media marketing for doctors.
Gone are the days of downloading images from google and uploading it on the website or social media. The general population is now aware when they see downloaded images being used for marketing. We must only upload images of cases we have done ourselves. This will not only free us from forging accusations, but also give us more confidence that all the images on our website are actually done in our clinic and that the results are real. We are proud of the services we offer to our patients.
A good high resolution clinical photograph is a MUST have for getting into publications.
NO thesis or research work is compete without the help of good photography irrespective if you are a clinician or a student.
Using clinical photography as an art form is picking up fast. I would LOVE to enter into my clinic which has framed images of the best cases that I have done. Glamour photography is particularly picking up big time in dermatology, facial aesthetics and dentistry.
Our cases are the best way we can educate the next generation. Our students will learn more from our our case images. I would really appreciate if we start showcasing our success stories and even our failures with our colleagues and also our students so they can learn from our mistakes. It’s high time to accept that nobody is perfect and sometimes the least expected thing happens when we perform clinical procedures.
Now I would like to share a TOP tips
These will help you Use clinical photography to grow your practice
I always reserve 1 full day for preoperative photography for cases I feel that can get published.Patients always appreciate my efforts and think highly of me that apart from my clinical work I’m good at photography too. So yes photography does make a good impact on my image in front of my patients. I would never use a mobile phone for clinical photography, especially now a days during the pandemic because I think it can degrade my image in front of my patient. Please remember a mobile phone is one of the most contaminated thing that we touch daily and it should not even be a part of our clinical operatory.
Irrespective of whether the patients decides to go ahead with treatment in my clinic or not I always make it a point to record full arch maxillary & mandibular images. This allows me to explain to the patient that there are other issues apart from the chief complaint that need attention. The most common thing that happens in my clinic is that, when the patients sees the full arch image they see the lingual aspect of their teeth for the first time or after a long time. Most often then not, there is a lot of calculus & stains and patients do not like that. Now the patient asks me if I could do something to get rid of the stains. So if you see photography helps a lot in treatment planning, education the patient and even catering to issues other than the chief complaint. There is also better treatment acceptance and most often I’ve seen patients asking mefor treatment options rather than me trying to convince them to get additional procedures done.
My front office staff has been trained to transfer the images daily from my camera to my PC. So daily I start off with an empty memory card & in my PC you will find folders of different dates. Because my staff emails all the records to my patients daily I build a confident relationship with my patients because they can appreciate the transparency of procedures and the fact that I have noting to hide from them. This has actually increased my word of mouth referrals because the patients feel more secure.
Always invest on cameras which have inbuilt Wi-fi so that you can show images on a BIG screen to your patients and not on your camera. In this way they will be able to see the problems more clearly and treatment acceptance will be better. Use apps like Canon’s Camera connect and Nikons WMV or wireless mobile utility for cameras which have inbuilt Wi-fi or Toshiba’s Flashair for cameras which do not have Wi-fi when you use the respective Wi-fi SD memory card.
And last but not the least always shoot on RAW image quality because they are the perfect evidence considering the fact that they are non destructible files.
Hope this article and the podcast will help you use clinical photography to grow your practice.
