The 8-Second Decision: How Patients Find You Online Before They Ever Call

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Melissa Gilkes-Smith: A patient receives a referral from their doctor. They go home, open their phone, and search your practice name. In eight seconds, eight seconds, they form an impression that will determine whether they call you, schedule with you, or quietly move on to someone else. They haven’t spoken to a single member of your team, they haven’t walked through your door, and they have already decided how they feel about you. That’s the power and the danger of initial exposure, the first pillar of the nine pillars of patient experience framework. And today we’re going to talk about how to get it right. I’m Melissa Jilk Smith. This is Touch Points Moments That Matter. Let’s get into it. Welcome back to Touch Points Moments That Matter, the podcast dedicated to the practical side of patient experience, operational excellence, and the moments that shape how patients feel about the care they receive.

Today we’re digging into the first pillar of the nine pillars of patient experience framework, initial exposure. This is the touch point that happens before a patient ever contacts your practice. It’s your website, your online reviews, your Google Business Prof, your social media presence, your referral process. Every signal a patient picks up about you before they decide whether to take the next step. And trust me, they’re picking up signals whether you’re intentional about them or not. My guest today has spent nearly four decades at the intersection of healthcare technology and marketing, helping more than 2,000 hospitals, clinics, and outpatient surgery centers not just grow, but build the kind of digital presence that earns patient trust before the relationship even begins.

He’s the founder of Ansel Lee Consulting, a healthcare technology growth partnership firm and one of the most genuinely connected professionals in the industry. Ansel, welcome to Touchpoints.

Ancil Lea: Hey, Melissa. Hey, thanks for uh for the kind introduction and thanks for having me on your show. Good to be here.

Melissa Gilkes-Smith: Absolutely. Great to have you. So before we get into the substance, I’d love for you to give our listeners a sense of who you are and what led you to this work. Nearly 40 years, 2000 plus partners. That’s not a career, that’s a body of work. Where does it start?

Ancil Lea: Oh man. I’m telling you, well, you know, it’s interesting that it’s almost been 40 years. It’s just that boggles the mind. You know, it and I was just telling someone a while ago, I said, uh, the way I got into uh technology and healthcare, I happened to to uh actually uh wrote traffic tickets at my university, and uh which was not a popular thing to do, by the way. And and and so I was writing so many tickets, they there was only one computer on campus, and the the uh um the guy over the CIO of the university said, Hey, can you the dean, I work for the Dean of Students, and they said, Can you send over a guy to or someone send over someone to do data entry? And so I’m like, Well, you know, I’ve been doing this for about three or four years, I’ll go do data entry.

So I started doing data entry and um and leveraged that into straight out of college doing medical software. Um, and there, listen, back in 1988, there were not a lot of places that had medical software, even billing software in uh clinics, hospitals, surgery centers. And so, wow, it was um it was like, you know, it was incredible. And so um, yeah, so I, you know, the the world, I mean, these are two incredibly interesting worlds of both uh technology and uh that of healthcare, because they over the last 40 years, they both have just grown exponentially and changed a lot. And so, you know, it’s just been a um it’s been a fun ride, you know, to and now we’re just uh with AI and everything else that’s gone, it’s just a very cool time to be in the space.

And um the the technology that’s available even to us consumers, you know, help connect us, drive us to our healthcare these days.

Melissa Gilkes-Smith: Mm-hmm. So here’s the premise I want to start with um, you know, uh patient experience perspective. The patient experience does not begin at check-in. It doesn’t begin at the first phone call. It begins at the moment someone hears your name. And what happens in those first few seconds of digital contact? A Google search, a website visit, a review scan, there it’s forming trust or it’s eroding it. I call it the eight-second decision. And in your work across 2,000 healthcare partners, what are you seeing in terms of how patients are actually finding practices and making those early judgments?

Ancil Lea: Well, you know, and it here in the last, oh, I guess 20 years maybe, is you know, really where we’ve seen uh you know a lot of well, let me say this. I you know, I worked a lot with um clinics, hospitals, surgery centers, um and um from a marketing perspective, and you know, the the they when I you know when I first started, most of these healthcare entities had no brand. Um you know, forget an electronic, you know, um, you know, uh uh facing anything at that point. But you know, in the in the 2000s, there’s this evolution of um of websites and um and you know, so um and and uh also the the this branding aspect and of really clinics and hospitals, they really weren’t marketing themselves and uh really weren’t, you know, considering that you know and that the patient is the consumer.

And and now you know you’ve you know you’ve got to be on you’ve got to be on your game um to uh be able, like you said, when when someone looks at your your website or gets into your media, you know, what do they feel? Do they feel is it, you know, are can they get engaged quickly? You know, do they feel, hey, they see a brand, you know, that’s on everything. Um, you know, the funny one funny story is that my mom moved, my mom and my stepdad moved from Amarillo, Texas, uh, to live here. And I’m just right outside of Little Rock. And and about 13 years ago. And so mom was trying to um, she was trying to figure out, you know, her doctors. That’s one of the reasons they moved here. And she’s like, she said, okay, son, I’m looking at this, uh, there she was looking at some Google reviews.

I was crazy, just crack me up. And so she said, look, your doctor only gets three stars, and the this other doctor gets five stars. And she said, I’m I’m thinking about going to this other doctor. So here’s my mom, who at the time, I guess, was in her late 70s, and she’s doing, she’s looking at, she’s evaluating her providers based on the the the uh research she’s doing online uh about this cardiologist. She’s looking for a cardiologist. And so, you know, then I I said, well, my cardiologist, you know, you know, I’m I didn’t even look at the the reviews. I just kind of gave her my my heartfelt you know recommendation. But, you know, and that’s we do that a lot. I mean, we we do talk to others, but uh, you know, first place you go to check somebody out is you know their their website or their or or what’s going on on their on the reviews and what others have to say about them.

And um, I know, as a matter of fact, I’ve got another story that um they got someone was referred, the primary care doctor referred uh to a friend of mine to another, to a um, that has to be an orthopedic surgeon probably. And and uh they they had such bad reviews, they they went in a different direction. And then they didn’t talk to them. They they they had the the clinic had already set a an appointment with you know this uh this orthopedic surgeon, and the reviews were so bad, they went they went and found another orthopedic surgeon through research. And you know, and I’m like, wow, that I mean that that that that was powerful to me.

Melissa Gilkes-Smith: And what you just touched on was actually three different ways that a patient hears about you, and it all came back to the Google review, that digital, you know, front. And so you said you referred your mother to a cardiologist. She went to look at the Google reviews, the Google reviews were poor, so she decided to go to another cardiologist. Then a referring provider, a provider referred a patient to a another provider to get care. And then that patient had an appointment and everything, but then looked at the Google reviews and said, Nope, I’m not gonna, you know, I’m not gonna go there because of the reviews, and then went in another direction. And so it all comes back to, you know, how you look, what is your, you know, your digital presence.

And that communicates a lot to the patient, regardless of where else they might hear about you.

Ancil Lea: And that is amazing to me, you know, that that because we do, you know, we do we we rely so much on our primary care doc and to, you know, guide us. But if if you get out there and do research on, you know, whatever specialist that, you know, that that you need to see, and and you don’t get, you know, you know, the affirmation really of this uh this physician. I mean, I think we as patients feel empowered now, I think, with this information. We can make our, you know, it’s our own decision. And even though, you know, that you know, the primary care doctors had good experience, or maybe they’re connected with the the referring physician somehow, you know, uh personally or whatever, that we as patients can now make our own decisions in regards to that.

And uh I I will tell you that my my uh one of my doctors retired recently, uh my one of my specialists, and uh it was a very important specialist to me. And I actually went into my primary care doctor and said, Hey, look, I know my doctor’s retired. I I want you to send me to this doctor. And and uh he was like, okay, what what how do you how do you spell his name, you know? And and um so you know, I was able to influence my own referral because I had the information going in of who I really wanted to see next.

Melissa Gilkes-Smith: And that’s one of the reasons why I frame initial exposure as patient experience. That’s where we need to look at it. One of the things I think that practices underutilize is are the Google reviews. These are unsolicited, patient-authored reviews. And, you know, a patient, we always get, you know, those surveys at the end of our visit. We we get the surveys, you know, from oh my gosh, there’s so many surveys that you’ve got to fill out sometimes. And but when a patient goes to leave a review, they’re not answering specific questions. What comes to mind when they leave the review is what stood about about their experience at that practice. And so now other patients are reading what stands out about that practice.

And so if it’s a negative review, that’s what’s standing out about that practice. And so this is these are little opportunities for practices to improve their patient experience, that data within those Google reviews.

Ancil Lea: Absolutely. The they’re they’re so powerful and um uh uh and you know they you need to be proactive on keeping up with those and keeping an eye on those. And uh, you know, and some of those, I I know that um I’ve had one client um which was uh an orthopedic practice uh had uh got you know it basically got a negative review. Um and turns out when you drill down into it, we’ve uh uh found out, hey, this person was seeking pain meds. And they they were just they denied this person and you know, and which is you know, which is an epidemic, by the way. And uh this person went and just blasted them on um social media. So so I get this call and so what do you do? And and so there were there are when um from the um from the practice standpoint, that’s not fair.

You know, I I I think those those reviews like that are are most unfair when you get down into the weeds of it. And there are things you can do to clean that up, by the way. So you need to pay attention. You need to pay attention to what’s going on in Google reviews, and because people, you know, people are matter of fact, I like I was just telling you before I got on here, I I spent um four hours in the dental chair yesterday, and I got a text, which was really a cool thing. I got a text from my my dentist, and they said, How was your rate us? How did we do? And so I did that. It took me straight into Google Reviews. You know, I gave them a five-star rate, even though I spent four hours in the dental chair.

I I gave them a five-star because they were so wonderful. They gave, they gave such, they were so professional, they gave such great care. And um, that was really that, you know, I was thought that was so that was so proactive of them. So, you know, being proactive and going after those, um, that’s a I thought that was pretty novel.

Melissa Gilkes-Smith: No, I agree. I think it’s helpful for practices to be proactive when seeking out um reviews, especially to be posted on Google. Because if you do have, let’s say, 10 reviews and nine of them are five-star reviews, but then you have that one review that’s a negative review because of a patient that might be drug seeking or, you know, they are not acting with good intentions, you know, when when placing that review, that one review can kill your average rating just because of the number of, you know, the limited number of reviews that you have. But if you have a thousand reviews, right, that one negative review is not going to do as much damage. Now, additionally, of course, being proactive in answering all of your reviews, regardless of it’s positive or negative, but responding to the review.

If it’s a positive review, thank you so much. I appreciate it. You know, we love to have you as a patient. But if it’s a negative review, reaching out to that patient on, you know, on that public site and asking them to give you a call. Let’s talk about this. How can we help? We want to resolve your issues. And it’s all about being proactive.

Ancil Lea: 100%. And I think that’s really the the big whether it’s you know, uh, you know, this media or any other media is engagement. And and and of course, you’re you as a clinic, you know, you’re out you’re about patient care. And you know, if you’ve got a staff member that’s been rude to one of your patients, and man, they they get you on uh online, you you want to get that, you want to backtrack on that and and check that out. So um it it’s uh that’s a powerful thing. But engagement, engaging with um, you know, that’s what you want. You want engagement from your your patients. You want um, do you want to provide it an easy way? Maybe they send you a private note. I mean, maybe they could do that off your website.

They could send a you know a message and or find the person they need to talk to because they, you know, people do want to talk to, you know, whether it’s an email or a phone call, um, you know, how to they how do they engage? Um, you know, I I look at um all these all these subscriptions I’ve got, you know, to all these technology that I use, how hard, how easy it is to engage, you know, to get help. And what you’ve got to do, especially in in healthcare, is you know make it easy for them to connect with you and to engage. So important. So important.

Melissa Gilkes-Smith: So let’s jump over to the website. Um, one of the most important things I tell healthcare leaders about their website is this stop evaluating it from the inside. Stop evaluating it as the administrator, the marketer, the provider. You need to evaluate it as a first-time patient who is anxious, busy, and trying to make a fast decision. Because basically, patients want to know six things. Can you help me? How do I schedule? What insurance do you accept? Where are you located? What should I expect? And can I trust you? And if your website makes those answers hard to find, you’ve got friction and friction costs patients. So you’ve done website strategy and web design across hundreds of healthcare clients.

What are the patterns you see in healthcare websites that are genuinely working for patients versus the ones that are working against them?

Ancil Lea: Yeah, those that’s uh and I think you covered a lot of that and just what you said. I think that that you know you you you think the organization, they build a website for them versus are are they really are they building a website for the patient, you know, for the patient? And um and it’s it it’s important because the you know your website is your front door now, you know, it’s your front door and and a and and what kind of impression do you get? You know, what kind of impression are you making on people that visit? Is it a good impression? Is it a bad impression? Um they develop this impression before they even sometimes before they even call. And like I said, most a lot of these websites are you know, are built for the organization.

You know, it looks so pretty, you know, it look it does all this stuff, it highlights how wonderful, you know, whatever. But is it really built for the patient? And is, you know, is it, you know, is it engaging and it does it provide this information that they need? Is it, you know, is it mobile friendly? I mean, pff, you know, some of them are not. And and what we all live here. I mean, we all live here on my like on my phone, you know, that we’re making these, um, we’re making our uh decisions, we’re, you know, we’re scheduling, yeah, we’re scheduling our appointments, we’re getting into the patient portal, and we’re also getting, I’m getting test results, you know, you know, text to me, and prescriptions and on and on and on.

So is it, you know, is there clarity when you get when you hit this website, is it clear, is it in plain language? And can you now uh that you know can you see it in multiple languages? All those things matter when you hit the website, the first impression.

Melissa Gilkes-Smith: What about provider bios? Because when you look at the provider bios, you see board certifications, you see fellowship training, academic publications, and the patient, of course, is just sitting there, yeah, but okay, but will you listen to me? Who are you as a person? Do you care? Right?

Ancil Lea: Right, exactly. Exactly. It’s great to see that they’re, you know, they’re uh they’ve done all, you know, where they went to school and all the their credentials, but really what do people say about you? And you know what do you have social proof? And um and that’s where people hang their hat on um and making the decision whether it’s a quote or even more powerful if it’s a you know if it’s a video that’s done talking about you know what wonderful experience they had and you know and what the the outcomes they were able to to get from you know working with this provider and the clinic and how the the you know what kind of staff do they have? Do they have a friendly staff? And you know do they care about me?

Are they just trying to run me through there? So you know you you get all that um you want to you want to hear that that social proof is so important. It’s so important.

Melissa Gilkes-Smith: And I what I one of the things I appreciate about websites um that don’t use stock photos, but they use images of their actual practice. I want to see your practice. I don’t want to see the same image that I may have seen on somebody else’s website because it’s a stock photo it makes it more of a personal connection then you have a connection to that that team that practice already 100 100% you know it it when you can have original photography yeah I I think that puts you on an another level of of connection and engagement.

Ancil Lea: Stock photos you know you can almost take a better picture with your iPhone than than going out and using stock photo stock photography. Now I think there’s a place for stock photography but you know not not when you’re trying to engage somebody I I think it looks cold. I totally agree with you I think original photography and original video is so powerful.

Melissa Gilkes-Smith: Mm-hmm so let’s jump back over to Google real quick. The Google Business profile absolutely should be on patient experience, oversight, marketing um patients who show up at the wrong address or there’s a disconnected number they arrived an hour after you closed there’s confusing conflicting information on your Google business profile.

Ancil Lea: Tell me about how important that business profile is to a practice yeah I think it’s um again it we go back to the social proof and and you know what what do others say more more importantly than what do I say that that um or my staff although it’s good to hear from staff but I think that um there is such you know there’s such weight placed on what um and and and rightly so what others think and the experience they had and the outcomes they got um it is uh it’s just uh again it’s just a powerful you uh you you’ve got to have a whole you as a practice hospital you know surgery center have got to be proactive in and around um uh everything that that’s online especially the the Google um stuff and uh any other you’ve got to be monitoring that um and um uh you know and I it’s interesting I I was um I I had three hospitals um actually Salesforce came to town and you know they wanted to uh they wanted to um you know talk to these hospitals and and it was interesting that they could you know some aggregate some of this information that’s floating around out there about you know each one of these hospitals.

And uh there’s some there’s some powerful tools out there that you can use to see what people are saying about you beyond what Google’s what’s on Google. And and um be able what I thought was a really cool thing was the word cloud um that they would come up with that would you be the most prominent thing that that that was appearing and what what people were talking about. And um I th I really and how powerful that is and you could also see the other I mean you can see the whole word cloud but but see the ones that were most uh predominant uh and what people were saying about you and your practice so I would just say you know it engage with some there’s some really great tools out there to be able to look at that stuff to look at you know what folks are and monitor what’s being said about you.

Melissa Gilkes-Smith: Absolutely the website the Google profile the referral process social media patients should never have to work hard to choose you because if they have to work hard at the beginning they’re already building a narrative about what working with you is really going to feel like so I’d like to close with what I think is one of the most important reframes in all of this and it’s the initial exposure isn’t just about visibility strategy.

Ancil Lea: It’s the first opportunity to demonstrate your culture and I want to hear your perspective on that yeah no I I think you know first impressions are important um but you know how what is your brand you know what is you know and and brand is more than a logo you know it there brand is really kind of under underappreciated in this market and and building that and and I you know you there’s so much that you pour into about or need to be pouring into about what people think when they hear your name or your clinic or hospital or surgery center there’s so much around brand um and logo’s just just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to that so you know are you being proactive in posting are you creating some really cool videos that engage andor you know tell folks who who you are and what you do each piece of this media and I and this it sounds kind of corny but I believe it to be true because I’ve seen it in my in my career and in my own life is that when I post something, I feel like it’s a brushstroke on a canvas to tell folks who we really are, who I really am.

So whatever post we’re making whether it’s whatever videos being made whatever piece of media you’re you’re painting your picture and what so are you being proactive about that or you are you letting others paint your picture that’s uh you know and you know you have got to be in control of that be in control of your be proactive be in control of your media so that when someone when before that people show up you know they know who you are and um interesting in um I I happened to be at a at a conference and and um and someone came up to me and I was just I had I was you know introducing myself and they and they said hey I’ve been following you for for four years and you don’t you don’t have to tell me who you are I know who you are and I thought that was interesting that that over a period of time you know people are following you they’re developing their their their you know who they’re developing their thoughts your brand of who you really are and before you show up walk in the door you know they have made a they’ve made a judgment about who you are and they’re like hey I like you or I oh I don’t like you you know so it it it’s uh it matters to be proactive in putting stuff out there agreed agreed so before I let you go for the practice leader who’s listening right now who knows their digital presence needs work and doesn’t know where to start what’s your one first step oh well one the the first step get some fresh eyes on your uh on your on your media and everything you’ve got out their website and get an assessment get someone to do an assessment from from an outside perspective not an inside perspective and get them to do a quick assessment and and give you a picture of where you think you really stand.

You know it’s much like going to the doctor and hey I think I’m in good shape until they put me on the treadmill and you know run me around and you know you know strap all kinds of measuring devices, electro whatever on you and uh what’s really going on. And I think the assessment much like healthcare it’s you know doing an assessment is a is a big deal and you need some outside eyes that have that has has an objective viewpoint and the and then has some experience in doing this and know and knows what they’re looking for.

Melissa Gilkes-Smith: So here’s my version of that answer as well for the practice leader that just kind of wants to take a first step they can and if they’re listening right now they can just jump into a new browser window right now go incognito so your own visit history doesn’t skew your results but Google your practice as a brand new patient would. What do you see? What’s missing? What’s wrong? What’s wonderful? Write it down and that list is your roadmap. Because here’s the truth about initial exposure patients decide how they feel about your practice before they ever walk through the door. The question is whether you’re shaping that decision or leaving it to chance. So Ansel, I’d like to thank you for bringing 40 years of wisdom and genuine care for this industry to touch points today.

I’m so glad you were here.

Ancil Lea: Well thanks Melissa hey hey great to be here and great to know you and uh so you know if I can be of any help please please reach out.

Melissa Gilkes-Smith: Thank you so much. Fansel’s contact information and resources are in the show notes and if you want to go deeper on initial exposure I’ve written a companion piece called the eight second decision how patients judge your medical practice online seven practical steps you can start implementing this week. That link is in the show notes as well. This is Touch Points Moments that matter thank you for being here and I’ll see you at the next touch point