At a typical practice, 70% of hearing aid fittings are patients who have not previously purchased from the fitting practice. Most are first time purchasers or another provider’s established user hoping for better care or fit.
That leaves 30% of monthly purchases by established patients, usually at least 36 months past the original fitting. We call these patients “Eligible” patients. Diving deeper, we look at the ratio of eligible patients in each annual bucket of patients (36-48 mos., 48-60 mos., etc.) to the number of units sold in each bucket.
What have we discovered? Providers with 30% sales to established patients are selling hearing aids to less than 5% of the eligible patients in their database per year.
Why so low? QM2 data suggests that over 40% of patients are somewhat satisfied with their outcomes but identify issues or concerns with their care or technology. Changes in health status impact ability to communicate and users learn that there are hearing aid features and function they hoped would work better. Even the most satisfied patients identify issues unresolved by their provider. Audiologists are busy, and a high percentage of patients do not attend annual rechecks. One-way communications like product mailers, birthday greetings and newsletters do not engage patients on their specific, correctable issues, and patients show a hesitancy to call for all sorts of reasons.
VPM fixes these issues, automatically engages patients throughout the year, opening a two-way channel to address technical issues, health concerns, and to identify solutions.