Marketing Success in Medicine: Insights from Dr. Emil Chynn

In this episode of the Marketing for Doctors Podcast, host Bob Miglani speaks with Dr. Bill Chynn, a renowned ophthalmologist and pioneer of LASEK surgery. Dr. Chynn shares the strategies and insights that have made him a top brand in the medical field. He reveals the key elements of his marketing success and discusses how embracing marketing has transformed his practice.

Key Insights from Dr. Bill Chynn in This Episode:

• Integrating Personal & Professional Life on Social Media
  Dr. Chynn emphasizes the power of social media as a tool for integrating both personal and professional aspects of life, and how this helps to build trust and a strong connection with patients.
• The Power of Multiple Touchpoints in Marketing
  Learn why reaching patients through multiple touchpoints is essential for long-term success, and how a well-rounded marketing approach can increase patient loyalty and acquisition.
• Embracing Marketing Wholeheartedly
  Dr. Chynn shares why doctors must embrace marketing as a core part of their practice’s success, rather than seeing it as a secondary or optional effort.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

• Building a Personal Brand in Healthcare
  How to use social media and personal branding to connect with patients and build a recognizable and trustworthy identity in the healthcare field.
• Effective Marketing Strategies for Medical Practices
  Key marketing tactics that doctors can adopt to reach new patients, retain existing ones, and grow their practices.
• The Importance of Patient Touchpoints
  Why it’s crucial to engage patients at multiple stages throughout their healthcare journey to ensure they return and refer others.

Don’t miss out on these expert marketing tips! Tune in to hear Dr. Chynn’s expert advice on growing your medical practice and building a powerful brand in the healthcare industry. Like, subscribe, and share this episode with your colleagues!

Transcript

Bob Miglani:
Hi, everyone. Welcome to the Marketing for Doctors podcast. I'm Bob Miglani, your host. On this show, we're going to talk to marketers, salespeople, digital creators, influencers, all to help you. Yes, you, the doctor. to grow your medical practice. We're going to talk marketing specifically. We're going to talk sales strategies. We're going to talk analytics. We're going to talk digital. We're going to talk social. We're going to have great guests on this program so that you get a chance to understand, learn, and apply these principles and these ideas and strategies to help you grow your practice. So let's get started. Hello, hello, hello, everyone. This is Bob Miglani. Welcome to the Marketing for Doctors podcast. We've got a terrific show today. We've got an ophthalmologist. We've got Dr. Emil Chynn, who is an amazing brand. Hi, Dr. Chynn, how are you? Hi, thanks for having me on your show. No, nice to, thank you for joining us. Dr. Chynn, tell us a little bit about who you are so the audience understands who you are. I'd love to, and then get into, we're going to get into the marketing in a second. Tell us a little bit about you.

Dr. Emil Chynn: I'm the number one LASEK surgeon in the country. That's L-A-S-E-K because I helped invent it at Harvard. This is like 20 years ago. LASEK is a safer alternative to LASIK, which is the more typical cutting procedure. And anyone who was told that they can't get LASIK, we could fix with LASEK. Typically people with thin corneas, high prescriptions, large amounts of astigmatism, farsightedness, need for reading glasses, even people with cardiconas, strabismus or cross-eyed, lazy eye, amblyopia, these kind of things we could fix with LASIK. And I actually got LASIK in this eye at Harvard about 30 years ago, and then I got LASEK in this eye about five years ago, and I'm the first doctor in New York to get LASEK. And I'm the only doctor in the world to laser themselves. So I laser myself live stream. This is like about five years ago to show the world that LASEK is so safe that you could do it yourself. So that's one of the little marketing things that we did. Very cool. How did you do it yourself? Well, I invented this procedure so that instead of cutting the flap and stuff like that, which you can't do, this is a non-cutting procedure. And then in terms of the instrumentation, I'm supposed to be like, I'm pushing it with a foot pedal and stuff like that. So I just redid it. So I'm pushing it with my hand and stuff like that. And normally the patients are sedated with Valium with the only center that has nitrous oxide and ketamine. But you know, I just did it, you know, stone cold sober because I don't want to be lasering myself high. So.

Bob Miglani: Brutal. Amazing. That's really cool. It's really cool. I love that. First of all, you walked in with, you had me with, I'm the number one doc. I mean, I love that. So first of all, bold, confident. I mean, you've got the experience, you've got the education, Columbia Medical School, Harvard and all of that.

Dr. Emil Chynn: So look, I also got my MBA from NYU and the major was management, but the minor was marketing. Okay. Yeah. So the reason I did that is because I knew that laser vision correction is really a lot about branding and marketing and the successful doctors and centers in cosmetic surgery do realize it's, it's heavily brand dependent. It's not just like, you do good work. Look, cataract surgery stuff like that, the patient's got a problem, they can't see, they need it fixed, it's not elective. And then most people have insurance, so it's called third-party payment. It really means they're not paying. So if you think about it, if you have a disease and you need it done and you're not paying, You don't need marketing, right, because of any stuff. But it's kind of different when it's elective surgery. They don't need it done. They could be glasses or contacts, and then they're paying. So by the time they're paying a few thousand dollars out of pocket, they're very conscious of what they're spending, and that's why you have to convince them to do it. And then there's the value proposition and the branding.

Bob Miglani: Right. So marketing becomes very important in private pay market, obviously. So tell us about your marketing experience. I see you're on Park Avenue. You've got to practice at Park Avenue in Manhattan. You're really out there. I see a lot of great articles on YouTube and other things. You've been on The Howard Stern Show, for example, and other things. So talk to us about your branding and marketing experience. We've established that it's important. to grow your practice revenues, obviously great patient outcomes, but also grow your business. And so talk to us now, so you're not afraid of marketing. So how do you do it then? How has your journey been? Give us some examples of your lessons learned.

Dr. Emil Chynn: Look, I think, you know, you kind of did summarize it, what these doctors out there have to do. I think you kind of first have to embrace it psychologically. If the doctor's out there saying, a priori, I don't like marketing, it's just never going to work out, right? You at least have to be agnostic about it or something like that. I remember early on, this is like 20 or 30 years ago when I started out, I'm a family of doctors. I'm actually the third generation ophthalmologist because my grandfather's a famous ophthalmologist in Chynna. And then my uncle was a famous ophthalmologist at Harvard where I trained. So I'm like third generation ophthalmologist, right? And then my parents were kind of like a little negative. My father's also a neuroradiologist at Columbia, but they're like, why do you have to do so much marketing? Why do you have to do so much advertising? Your grandfather doesn't have to do that. Even within my own parents, they kind of didn't understand that I have to do it, right? So you really have to just embrace it and just kind of own it. And the more successful people, adopters out there, Dr. Pimplebopper, I mean it sounds crazy.

Bob Miglani: Of course, I remember him on the subway ads, the subway ads in Manhattan.

Dr. Emil Chynn: Yeah, there's more advertising on the subway these days on YouTuber. YouTuber, sorry, Dr. Pimplebopper. Yeah, these days they have their own television show. But I'm just saying, you know, the successful doctors, they're at least okay with it. And the better ones, like let's say Double Popper, she just kind of runs with it and has fun with it. And because she's comfortable with it, it doesn't make the audience uncomfortable. You see what I'm saying? So my entire staff has to be comfortable with some marketing. And it's not always the case with some staff members who are kind of uncomfortable with marketing. That screws me because the patient who's like on the fence about posting on Instagram or doing a review or referring a patient. By the time Constantine's like, um, uh, yeah, um, if you don't mind, uh, if it's okay, uh, you know what I'm saying? He's doing so much of the discomfort verbally or non-verbally that they're going to basically go to no. You know what I'm saying? You get someone good, I have an intern who's a marketing, hey, we're going to do this, no problem, all the patients love it, it'll be fun. You know, you're basically greasing the wheels for them to say yes or no. Right. So it's really very staff dependent. You can't teach marketing. I've spent thousands of hours at the company. They always say salesmen or saleswomen are born not made. So either you have the personality for it or you don't. And I think a doctor who's interested in doing marketing and has a significant percentage of his practice is retail medicine, out-of-pocket, elective, you're going to have to have everyone in your office.

Bob Miglani: Yeah, they have to learn to do that. And they have to be healthy. They have to be healthy. Well, the other part of it is having confidence in the doctor to perform the procedure in a way that satisfies the patient. So if you're confident in that, then why wouldn't you?

Dr. Emil Chynn: Well, yes. Okay. But I would call that necessary but not sufficient and not logic. It's necessary but not sufficient. Constantine got lasered and Constantine's better than 2020. And Constantine referred to his brother who got lasered, who was also better than 2020. It's not like he's not confident about it. He just can't sell. It's just not him. So having him at the front, it's kind of dumb if you think about it, because I could have somebody at the front who's okay with sales and make much more money. You really have to have everybody on board. Funny story, I just got engaged and- Congratulations. Yeah, I'm doing a live seminar where we're actually live streaming me lasering her, and then also me removing a diamond from my arm that has been inside my body for 15 years. Yeah. And we're going to make it into an engagement ring and also presenting her with a $100,000 diamond necklace. Okay. Wow. Yeah. By the time you're up to that, and we did a press release and it's going to be in some popular media. But I was saying, by the time you get to that level, you got to understand I've clearly embraced marketing and I don't shy away from it. It's part of the brand.

Bob Miglani: Right. Right. So you went from accepting it and then now you're influencing it. I mean, in a way, right? You're becoming an influencer where you're completely opening up your personal life. And so a lot of doctors are like, well, I don't want to post personal life, business life as this.

Dr. Emil Chynn: Those kind of doctors are not going to be successful on today's marketing. And you know what I'm saying? Like, let's say Dr. Pimple Popper. Yeah. She's the brand. Okay. She can't be insulted. when people come up over the street and say, hey, I want to take a selfie with you. I'm sorry if I don't really know your name. I just know you as Dr. Pimple Popper. She can't be like, oh, that's a look. She has to be like, ha, ha, ha. That's great. Let's take a selfie. You know what I'm saying? Either you're embracing it and you're doing well or you're shying away from it and you're not. There really is no middle ground.

Bob Miglani: Yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent. People always ask me, you know, I wrote some books. I became, you know, a lot of social media stuff. And they're like, wow, how do I separate my… I'm like, there is no separating. No, no, no. You can't do that. You have to be in one.

Dr. Emil Chynn: You have to be aligned. Look, these days, even kids are talking about their brand. I think it's, you know, I'm your age, it sounds weird, okay? But these doctors who want to separate the personal and private lives, if that's what they want to do, they are not going to be successful on today's social media, which is marketing. And I keep to my fiancé, by the way. She wants to be an influencer because she's young, she's pretty, she's Russian, she wants to free bags, but she wants to keep a private life. And I said, look, it's one or the other. Either you're an influencer, you have no private life, or you have a private life and you're not an influencer. You can't do both.

Bob Miglani: Yeah. And I think the reason is that human beings connect to other human beings. Meaning that they connect with the guy who is saying, I'm going to take this thing out of my arm and I'm going to present it to my fiance, which is like, what? Really? You're going to do that? That's kind of cool. But also like this guy is real. People want authenticity and they see that.

Dr. Emil Chynn: It's not authentic when you try to wall off half of your life. They want the reality and I guess the transparency and all that kind of stuff. And again, by the time I'm on Billionaire Matchmaker, Howard Stern, it's not because I'm crazy. I would say a more accurate term would be unfiltered, transparent, honest, so much so that it might seem crazy, but it's really just unfiltered. It's just you.

Bob Miglani: Yeah. Yeah. You're not acting out. So tell us how you got from where you were to where you are now, Dr. Chan. What are the kind of two or three suggestions on marketing that you can give to other doctors who are saying, OK, I want to be Dr. Chan. I want to do marketing better. What are two or three things you can suggest to them that's worked for you?

Dr. Emil Chynn: It's not exactly my pathway, because I'm so old that when I started there wasn't any social media, which is mind-blowing. But I would say today, the first thing that you have to do is really just work on your Instagram account, work on both your private and personal work one, and make sure that you know, they're clear links between the two. You're really trying to get all the personal people to also follow your work account and trying to get all the work people to follow your personal account. That's what you're trying to do. And then how do you do that? Well, you kind of post these little hints. Like, in other words, on my private account, rather than live streaming this thing, I should just announce it's going to be happening and say, watch the live stream on the work account. You know what I'm saying? So somebody might know me personally, and that forces them to kind of follow me on the work side. You know what I'm saying? On the work side, All my patients are really interested. They're all kind of nosy. It's just a different world. I've had patients congratulate me on getting engaged when I never said anything to them because they're following me in my personal account, right? So then, you know, again, you have these little hints on the personal side, like, you know, maybe when my staff says to my patient, the better staff, they might be like, Oh, did you know Dr. Chynn's getting married? No. Oh, did you know his girlfriend's kind of like a part-time model? No. By the time they say that, most men and women are going to be checking out the page. You know what I'm saying? And again, this has to do with hiring the right staff. You can't hire staff and teach them that. They have to be the staff like Maria would just say that constantly and I could tell five billion times. She understands it intuitively. You're not going to say it. It's just kind of not it.

Bob Miglani: Right. So embracing it and having one place to do it. So social is the one thing you do. So that's the first big thing is social.

Dr. Emil Chynn: You have to do that. Once you do the social media and you're okay with it, everyone's on board, there are other things you could do. Obviously, the website has to be kind of like a lot of that forward. You don't want a little small hidden link to your social media. You know what I'm saying? Again, YouTube's very important because it's patient education. My staff makes the mistake of posting everything on Instagram. Instagram's okay for like little reaction shots. Right. We'll let the money show up when they sit up and they can see. And some of our patients are so bad, they can't get lazy. They can actually see for the first time. We have people crying, okay? That's good for Instagram one day. Anything longer than that, long format, you really can't do it on social media. I think that has to be YouTube. I was trying to explain it to my staff. When I'm trying to do something like I'm pretty handy, so I'm putting in a new electronic lock in my door. If I want to do that, I'm not looking at Instagram. It's just bizarre. I might look on YouTube, by the way, because a lot of times, a lot of tutorials and stuff like that are how-to things on YouTube. So you've got to understand, if it's a little quick reaction stuff, that's on Instagram. If it's educational, patient instructions, I mean, people try to do it on TikTok. I really think it should be something like YouTube. Yeah.

Bob Miglani: And also, people forget that YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world. People are searching all the time on YouTube. But even if you go to Google, and you search, it gives you YouTube responses.

Dr. Emil Chynn: Yeah, people just don't understand that YouTube is actually bigger than Instagram. They just don't understand that.

Bob Miglani: And the descriptions are super important because that's how people search, right?

Dr. Emil Chynn: Look, there's less competition on YouTube, by the way. The competition on Instagram is brutal because all the influencers are on Instagram. YouTube is almost like this backwoods thing of the internet, but it's very powerful. And you could actually pay to get up on YouTube, and I think it's better ROI than paying for these Instagram ads.

Bob Miglani: Have you seen a return on investment from your social media investment into your practice?

Dr. Emil Chynn: Yes and no. I would say it's cash positive, but I would also say that it's not as good as pay-per-click, like lat words. I really think, and I'm trying to explain this to my staff. There are steps in the decision-making process to getting Lazer, to getting anything. So by the time you're actually Googling, like, I can't get LASIK, you've been denied LASIK. I mean, you're really trying to buy, okay? And you're just stumbling across something on Instagram. It might be a great advertisement for LASIK, but you're not even in a buying step. You're more in the discovery step. So that's why I think the ROI is never going to be as good, because it's a different mentality. You're not actually searching on Instagram, you're just stumbling across it.

Bob Miglani: That's a very important point, which is a segment. I mean, you're clearly a pro because you look at this and you're like, okay, there are certain people who are searching for this. And so the content I'm going to drive them to is this. And versus somebody who's stumbling, I'm going to make them aware of this.

Dr. Emil Chynn: Yeah, that's another mistake that we make sometimes. We make the content, let's say on Instagram, not for the people who are stumbling across it, but more people are searching. It's like too much too soon, you see what I'm saying? So you kind of want to peak their interest, get them to follow you. I guess on the social media, Instagram, and then deeper into the process, once they're on the website or once they're on YouTube, then you could sell them on a thing. But you have to be very conscious of where the mindset is of the different person encountering them in a different media, and then make it forward for that mindset.

Bob Miglani: And I think one of the things that we talk about all the time, and actually if you correct me if I'm wrong, is that it requires seven touches to convert some way, some way shape or form. You've got to have surround sound. That means it's got to be an email, it's got to be a text message, a visit in the office, follow up. They'll stalk you.

Dr. Emil Chynn: No, a hundred percent. A hundred percent. I think the staff, I don't know, they just don't get it. It's many touches. Like when we try to track referrals, we pay the patients like a hundred bucks back if they refer. A lot of times when we do that, they'll actually mention, the patient, but then we go deeper in it. They were at a seminar, two patients are referring, they got an email blast. When you really think about it, it's not one touch. It's really like seven touches and they decide to do it.

Bob Miglani: Yeah. Yeah. And I think the other thing is that that means you've got to be on all these things. So talk to us now. Talk to us now about How much time do you and your team or resources, do you have somebody who does this for you or you're doing it, you're directing?

Dr. Emil Chynn: We always have someone in charge of social media. Again, we try to make it cost, but then it's not actually great because he doesn't use social media, I'm saying. Like now and I am the secretary of front desk person. It's got to be a girl. She's got to be in her 20s. And that is because if you get a girl in her 20s, she is on social media. So right now, all of my staff don't really use social media. You can't tell them to use it for the office if they're not using it for themselves. It's like teaching a pig how to fly. It has to be like, Oh, how many hours are you on Instagram a day? If it's my fiancée, it's unfortunately one to two hours, you know what I'm saying? So you need to get someone who's on it. And then for them, it's easy just to do the work stuff. It's like breaking down, you know what I'm saying? It's like they're habitually on it. They're habitually posting for their iPhone. So the work life, they'll just do it. And instead of them finding it onerous as a chore, they actually enjoy doing it, right? Some people actually enjoy doing it for me, it's more a chore. But I'm just saying, if some girls are in their 20s and she's posting every day on her private account, it's so easy to get her to post every day on the work account. It's easy, okay? If you try to get someone to do that who doesn't do it, it's just, it's like pulling teeth. It's not going to happen. Yeah.

Bob Miglani: How often do you post? Unknown columns. Sure, sure.

Dr. Emil Chynn: I don't know. I really think these days, twice a week might be not enough. I really think the better people are posting every day. Now, it doesn't have to be the same stupid thing every day. Boring, you know. I was kind of doing it badly because, again, I'm like an older guy. I don't really post myself. So I was just doing posting, posting, posting. And then my fiance's like, oh, you have to do more reels, and you have to do more stories, and you know what I'm saying. So when you get some kid who's in his 20s, it's usually a girl who's really on social media. You get them in their 20s, and they'll just do this automatically.

Bob Miglani: So is most of your marketing today that you're doing actually, is it mostly centered around social media? What's the other piece?

Dr. Emil Chynn: Yeah. Look, I have to go soon, by the way. But it's like 90% pay-per-click and 10% social media just because of the ROI. And like we said earlier, the people on Google searching a term, they're in the buying stage and the people on social media, they're just in the discovery stage or the stumbling on across, you know, so that's why I don't think it's ever going to be 50-50, at least not for me.

Bob Miglani: Got it. All right. So one last question, Dr. Chynn, before we go, I know you're busy doing surgery, doing amazing things for patients.

Dr. Emil Chynn: So what about you? You never thought about getting lasered because you're in glasses?

Bob Miglani: You know, that's not a bad idea. I'll come in for a consult. Where do you live? I live in Jersey.

Dr. Emil Chynn: Yeah, look, we have people flying in from freaking Texas, California, London, because they got denied Lasik or something like that. I love it. Consultation's free anyway. And then we'll give you a free exam and free update of your glasses. So instead of making it a special trip, you could just make it next time you need glasses. And then you can bundle it in with, I want to come to New York to see a show, go out to dinner. But we're the only center that takes medical insurance. So if you have medical insurance, we could probably get it to pay for one eye. So what kind of medical insurance do you have?

Bob Miglani: You know, I have, what do I have? Blue Cross Blue Shield. Yeah, we take Blue Crosses. Yeah, yeah. My wife is an optometrist, as you know. Oh, if you're my age. Yeah. She's practicing? She's practicing optometrists in New Jersey. In New Jersey? In New Jersey.

Dr. Emil Chynn: No, by the way, I need to talk to your wife because she can refer, right? She can refer. She gets 20%. It's like $1,000. Yeah. You guys are going to get along great together.

Bob Miglani: She so she built up her myopia business from scratch. She's huge. She's doing like myopia. Yeah, she's like the top 10. I love your practice. Yeah, yeah, she's really tough.

Dr. Emil Chynn: Yeah, she's like, this is like, like, you know, RGPs. And oh, yeah, you know, Ortho care, Iopia, Atropine, Atropine. No, that's correct. No, that's right. She's like, yeah, I think so. So you could do the myopia stuff until they had, I don't know, 18 or 19, 20, 21. That's right. And she could refer them and then we'll laser her home and give her 10, 20%. By the way, she could only use the expansions because most spaceships are going to do myopia control for their entire lives at some point.

Bob Miglani: She gets it. She totally gets it. She's just like, yeah, for college, basically. But I'm going to make you, I'm going to introduce you. Actually, we'll come and see you. Both of us will come say hello to see your practice. She's going to be in the City Act thing next week, but we'll arrange that. One last piece of advice.

Dr. Emil Chynn: Come on Thursday and watch the laser because we're going to have like all this media. I'm going to pull out the dime and it's going to be… Is it next Thursday? It's this Thursday. Oh, this Thursday. Oh, wow. 5 to 7. 5 to 7 p.m. Maybe we could change the date she goes to New York from next week to this week. Why not?

Bob Miglani: Why not? And so why is it going to live stream? Tell us about it. Where is it going to be live streamed?

Dr. Emil Chynn: No, I stream on Park Avenue, LASIK. So if you go on Instagram, if you can't, if you can't attend a person, just, you know, I guess start tuning in at like, you know, five o'clock or something like that.

Bob Miglani: Okay. Awesome. This is amazing. Dr. Chynn, thank you so much for your time. I want to be respectful of your time. Thank you so much. One last piece of advice, any advice for, for doctors who do marketing, one big thing that you say, do this now and it's going to change the rest of your life. What's one piece of advice you give them?

Dr. Emil Chynn: I would say integrate your personal life and your work life in your social media and in your brain. Don't try to separate the two. It's not going to be doable. Once you're okay with that, then you're going to be okay. But until you get okay with that, you're just never going to succeed.

Bob Miglani: Dr. Chynn was an amazing guest. He was busy as you could clearly see because he's doing work. He's doing surgery, he's doing patient consultation. One of the most important things I learned from this episode with Dr. Chynn is that you've got to be all in, all into marketing. If you're not doing marketing today and you're doing it halfway, It's not going to work. You really cannot distinguish between yourself as a human being, as a member of your community, and your practice. You've got to show that you are a multidimensional person, and having your social profile reflect that is clearly what Dr. Chynn does, and it's working. His successful practice in New York City on Park Avenue, where he has gone all in, has generated massive, massive returns for him. And it's because he's doing all of this marketing this really, really well. Anyway, hope you enjoyed this episode. This is Bob Miglotti. Until next time, have a great day.