Conversion and Follow-Up Excellence (Kade Wilcox)

Your marketing might be doing its job and you could still be losing your best patients. That’s the core tension we dig into with Kade Wilcox, founder of Convert Health, an ophthalmology lead generation and lead conversion specialist who has seen what happens after the form fill, the phone call, or the Meta ad click. When practices spend money to create demand but don’t respond fast or consistently, the real leak is not branding or ad spend. It’s follow-up, workflow, and patient engagement.

We talk about what “modern patient expectations” really mean for ophthalmology clinics trying to grow elective procedures like premium cataract and refractive lens exchange (RLE). Kade shares a simple but hard truth: patients want a seamless experience that feels like the tools they use every day, not phone tag, hold music, and repeated intake questions. We also discuss why a dedicated new patient concierge role can outperform a well-meaning team that’s forced to wear five hats.

Then we get tactical with Kade's conversion framework: speed to lead, joyful persistence, and true availability beyond 8 to 5. He shares mystery shopping insights (including how many practices never follow up at all), plus where AI in healthcare marketing can help staff move faster without replacing the human connection that high-value surgical decisions still need.

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Transcript

Welcome And Guest Setup

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Greetings and welcome to iCare Leadership Live. This is the podcast for iCare leaders who want to level up their leadership, create better cultures, and improve the financial results of their clinics. Now, let's join the show. Well, welcome to iCare Leadership Live. Today, my guest here is Cade Wilcox, and Cade is the founder of Convert Health. He's an ophthalmology guy. We're going to talk a little bit about that, but he's super well connected in the in the world. He's an expert on lead gen, lead conversion, and ophthalmology. And we're going to be talking about that today. So, Cade, thanks for joining me.

SPEAKER_01 0:43

I appreciate you having me, Mike, Mike. I'm look uh looking forward to this.

SPEAKER_00 0:47

Yeah, well, you know, I've I've followed you for a while on LinkedIn. We've been connected. Uh you interviewed me in the past. We've gotten to know each other. I've seen you at the conferences and stuff. And you've just been that guy that's present, helpful, um, sharing your knowledge. And I thought, what a what better person to have talk about this topic?

SPEAKER_01 1:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:11

So I

Cade’s Path Into Ophthalmology

SPEAKER_00 1:12

guess I always like to understand people's backgrounds and how they got into this. And you're such an expert on this topic. Um, you know, how did you get into ophthalmology? You know, you're helping practices with generating leads, converting leads, which is obviously so important. What what brought you here?

SPEAKER_01 1:30

Yeah, good question. So uh I've been an entrepreneur now for 15 years. My wife and I started our first company October 1st, 2011. I I remember sending the invoice via FreshBooks, and uh it's for $500. Uh felt like we were rich, and so that was great. But uh yeah, I just I'm an entrepreneur. I love starting new businesses and and and being helpful and bringing value wherever I can. And I would say most of my last 15 years have really been building marketing agencies, actually. Okay, and so uh have owned a couple of different marketing agencies and and uh have really enjoyed that whole journey of learning how to help small businesses and companies generate, you know, new new new clients and customers and grow revenue. And that's really translated into just you know trying to help uh elective healthcare practices. And then um I really got obsessed with um ophthalmology a couple of years ago. I had the opportunity to kind of take over a company that was plateauing and struggling and needed to pivot and change and evolve and grow. And so I was able to lead that company for a couple of years. Um, but the most fortunate thing that happened to me through that was uh uh I was able to kind of learn about ophthalmology. And um the the company had uh one ophthalmology client kind of doing a little bit of stuff for a practice in in Idaho. Um, but it was really my second client that I sold, uh, which was Slade and Baker in Houston. Um, of course, that's Dr. Stephen Slade, who's one of the most well-known ophthalmologists in the country. And of course, I didn't know that. And uh so the fortunate part about that is he and I hit it off really well. So did his practice um uh leader, Delphina and I. And then he also worked with Michael Dobkowski at Glacial. And so here are two people who have been in ophthalmology for a very long time, Dr. Slade being one of the more well-known, you know, renowned ophthalmologists, and then you know, Michael having been in ophthalmology marketing for 25 years. And so that kind of just snowballed my opportunities uh to meet people and get connected to other practices. And by the time I left that company, we were serving over 45 ophthalmology practices. Um, I was very fortunate to, you know, learn some of the best of the best, you know, Dr. Vance Thompson, Dr. Dell, Dr. Doan, Dr. Allison Early, and then met all the industry partners like Troy Cole and Michael King and Michael Dubkowski and others. And so honestly, I uh fell in love with ophthalmology, but I have to say I just feel very fortunate and lucky to have been introduced to the industry. And I still have a lot to learn and learning a lot, but man, I have fallen in love and and I'm kind of gonna just focus the next decade of my entrepreneurial journey um in ophthalmology.

SPEAKER_00 4:12

Yeah. Well, you know, you're you're pretty humble there. You said you have a lot to learn. I think ophthalmology practices have a lot to learn from you. You you've built marketing agencies. And I think when I think about healthcare in general and ophthalmology, I think marketing is probably the thing that they know the least, right? Um maybe, maybe close second is HR.

Marketing Is Not The Real Issue

SPEAKER_00 4:36

But um, you know, what is it that they don't understand about a marketing? What do they do wrong when it comes to marketing their clinics?

SPEAKER_01 4:44

Yeah, it's actually interesting. I actually think definitely there are some practices that have marketing problems, you know, what whether it's their brand or whether it's messaging and understanding what resonates and connects with the patient or where they should spend their ad dollars. Um, so certainly practices, uh, there are practices that struggle with marketing. My but my biggest observation over the last, you know, two little over two years is that most practices actually don't have marketing problems, they have a follow-up problem. And so the vast majority of practices that I've engaged with that I've worked with, they're actually really good at their marketing, or they are working with an agency who's very effective at generating new patient leads. I think where the breakdown actually happens is when marketing hands a new patient lead off to the practice, that's where things kind of start to go south. And so that's actually my biggest, my biggest observation about practice marketing is it's actually not a marketing problem in most cases. It's a follow-up and a patient engagement problem.

SPEAKER_00 5:48

And so what it what do you think that what is the core issue there with, you know, is it that they don't know what to do? They don't have good systems, all the above.

SPEAKER_01 5:57

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's actually not that they don't know what to do. I think most people understand, you know, just intuitively that the patient experience doesn't start when they walk into the practice, it actually starts when they initially start connecting with your brand and how your team is following up. And so I don't think it's ignorance, uh, honestly, that that that creates this as a problem for most practices. I think it's that they are uh, you know, just overwhelmed with all the moving parts going on in a practice. When you think of the teams of people who are typically responsible for following up with new patient leads that marketing is generating, it's usually uh folks who are already wearing five hats. They're answering phone calls from existing patients, which most practices I've engaged have an outrageously high call volume. So those people are answering phone calls. In a lot of the smaller practices, you know, the one-to-two provider single location, they're also checking patients in at the front desk. So they're taking patient calls, they're checking people in, you know, they're covering for someone who's out that day sick or on vacation or whatever. And so the problem is typically the folks responsible for following up with new patient leads, nurturing them and booking them for consults are wearing five hats. I think that the second uh biggest challenge I've seen is they just lack the kind of technology and workflow to adequately follow up, nurture, and book uh patients for consults in in a way that modern patients expect.

Why Patients Expect Amazon Level Access

SPEAKER_01 7:29

So what pay I I literally had this exam, this experience uh experience with my own dentist this morning. I don't want to throw them under the bus, but um I really tried finding a way to book online so I could compare my doctor's schedule to my own schedule and just easily find something, which is very difficult. My schedule is just as full as his. And of course, I couldn't do that. So I did the next best thing, and I requested an appointment via the website, and I was very specific on the days and the time ranges that I was looking for. And no one responded to that. Instead, I got a phone call. And of course, I get a phone call, you know, while I'm on a Zoom call. So I I miss it and I have to call back and then I'm on hold. And then I get a lady and she asks me for my name, my birthday, and all this stuff. She looks it up and she goes, Oh, can you hold one second? So I go to hold one second, I wait for about a minute, minute and a half. Another lady picks up the phone and I have to repeat myself. What's my name? What's my birthday? What am I looking for? So I looked at my phone when I was done with the call and I was on the phone for about 11 minutes. So this is the challenge that practices have across the board, whether it's it's it's a dentist or an orthodontist or a plastic surgery group or an ophthalmologist. It's that patients like me expect to experience their practice like I do Amazon and Uber and DoorDash and my Marriott app. And instead, I'm engaging a team who's wearing five different hats. They do not have the time to create the experience that I expect, and they do not have the technology that supports me being able to kind of go through the patient journey, you know, in a way that I expect. So these really are the problems that all ophthalmology practices are trying to tackle, regardless if you're a one-to-two provider practice, or you know, you're the the the biggest and the best.

SPEAKER_00 9:17

You know, it's it's so true. The um we are all so busy now. Um, you know, you, I, everyone here in the world, um, we've got so many things on our plates, you know, people working side hustles, um, having to be their own travel agent. You know, this is not the the 80s, you know. More things have been pushed on us as consumers. And so when you go to make a purchase uh and you talked about Amazon, you expect to have a seamless experience. And you that was a wonderful example right there of just how unseamless it is. And we were talking before we even got on the call about how busy, how busy we are, how busy lives are. So if there was one thing, you know, um if there was one thing that a clinic could do, is it upgrade their technology? Is it hire a dedicated conversion salesperson? What what do you think it is?

One Hire That Changes Conversions

SPEAKER_01 10:12

That's a good question. I don't think it's just one thing, unfortunately. I I think that makes it rather difficult. But if I were to say just one thing, I think having someone who's dedicated to new patients would would be a good uh a good start. I still think it's a bit incomplete. I think there's more you can do to create a better experience and you know, uh really capitalize on every new patient lead you're getting. But if you were only going to do one thing, you weren't gonna change anything else but one thing. I do think having someone whose only role and responsibility is to engage and follow up with new patient leads would get you, you know, 80% there uh, you know, compared to how most practices are are currently doing it. Mainly just because it it that focus of time and effort and energy um would go into that new patient and not being distracted and pulled across, you know, multiple multiple you know parts of the practice. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:13

Yeah, I'm actually I'm working with a client right now that is in the midst of trying to fill a role just like that. And it's interesting because even that role is wearing a couple hats because it's sort of a kind of a technician hat for these new incoming conversions, and it also has sort of a sales and marketing kind of a hat. And maybe that's just you can't separate those two things, but it's a bummer.

SPEAKER_01 11:36

I I I don't know why practices won't. I mean, I have my suspicions, and and I could be wrong. I I would love to love to hear from others, and and maybe you have an opinion on this too. But I think it's just this idea that we've convinced ourselves everyone should be able to wear multiple hats and do each of those things really, really well. And I I get the urge to do that, to maximize the investment, to fill, you know, to fill the time, to make sure you're getting the most out of that person. But when you think about the value there is, particularly in a new surgical patient, right? Like what if this is a what if this is a premium cataract, you know, lead? What if this is an RLE lead? Like you're you're looking at something that's you know quite significant in terms of value to the practice. And if you're giving them your leftovers, if the first experience that this patient that wants to spend $10,000, $15,000 with your practice, if their first experience is frustration, like mine was with my dentist, is that not worth investing in someone, both from their focus and their time and capacity, as well as supporting them with the right technology? Would it not be worth, you know, creating a premium patient experience in the sales process? You know, another thing I see all the time, I'm so fortunate to get to visit and travel and see a lot of these practices. And it really is remarkable what these practices are creating in terms of the patient experience when you walk through the door. I've been to Juliet I in Albuquerque. I mean, one of the best practices I've ever been to. Vance Thompson's practice in South Dakota, I think it's almost like a one-of-one experience, right? So these practices are doing an incredible job of the patient experience when the patient walks through the door. But I find that they tend to not think about the patient experience until then. And so if you if you take the patient experience phase one, you know, when they become a patient from your brand and your marketing, and then the patient experience phase two as you follow up, nurture, and book them for the consult, and you take it serious once they actually show up, you you really are, you know, what I would call a premium practice, but it but you got to take all those things serious. And I think it's the practices that do take that serious that are the ones that really do differentiate themselves from their competitor, create a remarkable experience, you know, for the patient, um, which then snowballs, you know, and helps you build your practice and get more referrals and you know, you know how it goes.

SPEAKER_00 14:07

Yeah.

Make The Experience Premium Before Arrival

SPEAKER_00 14:08

What do you think is the how critical is the physician's role in these in these elective procedures in making a conversion? Is it kind of just, hey, I'm just the medical expert and someone else is gonna kind of massage and explain and get you excited, or is the physician really critical there?

SPEAKER_01 14:29

Yeah, really good question. I I think they can be, but not necessarily required. I mean, I I think there's a lot of things that practice can do from the moment someone becomes a new patient lead, uh, following up with them, nurturing them, getting booked for the consult. Then I think there's a lot of practic a lot of things that practice can do with workflows and automation and technology in your internal team to, you know, nurture and educate that patient from consult to actually showing up to the consult. So I think there's a

How Much The Physician Must Sell

SPEAKER_01 14:58

lot of things that can be done by the team and supporting, you know, apparatus to that. I think where where the physician has a real unique opportunity to shine is obviously, you know, once they're sitting across from the patient. And I actually think it's pretty cool that a practice, you know, when they do this right, there is a lot they get to do to uh establish the patient relationship, establish the credibility and the, you know, the uh kind of feeling that the patient has about the practice even before they get to the physician. So they they come into the the you know the console or the initial you know interaction with the physician and they're already excited. They they they've had a great experience, they've they've talked to people who are really joyful on the phone. What I was what we always talked about with our uh patient, you know, patient concierge agents was like let them hear you smiling through the phone. Like there's just so many things you can do to create that great patient experience. So if the patient shows up engaged and excited and had a seamless experience, maybe they got some patient education, you know, before seeing the physician, um, you really can support the F, you know, the physician in that way. And so, no, I don't think the physician has to play a significant role, you know, until it's time for them to work their magic when the patient's in the in the consult seat.

SPEAKER_00 16:19

Um, you talked about technology.

Where AI Helps And Where It Hurts

SPEAKER_00 16:23

Do you see, or what do you see, the role of AI being in converting and generating opportunities?

SPEAKER_01 16:31

Yeah, my philosophy is really simple and straightforward. I think there's all kinds of ways to use AI for speed to lead, um for supporting the internal staff, to surfacing up to the call agents, uh, the patient information and and the call policy, and it's like all these little ways that AI can kind of empower the humans to do the human things. I particularly think, though, that the new patient engagement, which is what I primarily focus on, should continue to be human. I think AI, for example, voice AI, as one of many examples, has a remarkable opportunity to support existing patients, to get them information quickly, to allow them to do certain tasks very quickly, like rescheduling appointments, things like that. But I think when it comes down to a new patient that's a five to twenty thousand dollar, you know, surgical patient, um, I I think the human should continue to educate them, nurture them, uh, relate to them, serve them. And I think in terms of that, that the AI is anything the AI is used for should be to empower the human to have that human human connection. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 17:41

What, you know, you talked about um, you know, surfacing contextual information and things like that. What are, you know, if I'm in that, if I'm in that role where I'm receiving, you know, inbound opportunities, leads, you might say, for for procedures. Um, what is what are, you know, let's put me in that seat. Like coach me up, man. Help me fig. What do I need to know and think about to to convert that person and get them excited?

Speed To Lead Persistence Availability

SPEAKER_01 18:10

Yeah. Well, I would start philosophically with at the practice level, which is, you know, you want to do, you want to have like, there are three things we always talk about. Number one is speed to lead. You only have a short window of opportunity when a new patient is engaging your practice to get in touch in touch with them. So if a new patient comes into your ecosystem and you wait a day or two, you know, or several hours to follow up with that patient, you you you've already lost, you've already lost. So the first thing philosophically for a practice is speed to lead. You want to follow up with them as quick as humanly possible when they're ready to engage you. Second would be joyful persistence. Do not give up on new leads. Um we our team had mystery shopped almost a thousand practices, uh, ophthalmology practices over the last couple of years. And one of the more interesting data points that came out of that experiment was that, first of all, uh most practices, 54% of them, don't follow up with new patients at all. But the ones that do, on average, are only following up one day and 17 hours later, so not fast enough, so not the speed to lead you need. And then the second one is only following up about two times per per new patient lead. So meaning if they can't get a hold of the patient after two attempts, they quit, they give up. And so, so number one is speed to lead, you gotta follow up very fast. Number two is be more persistent, you know, follow up 10 times, not two times, uh, to make sure that you're capitalizing on every new patient opportunity. And then third is what I call availability. Like if you're only available to engage new patient leads, you know, Monday through Friday from eight to five, and you're spending dollars on marketing, you're going to be losing a lot of opportunities because the vast majority of your new patient leads are coming in after hours. So they're coming in on evenings, they're coming in on weekends. And so, philosophically, for a practice who wants to take this serious, you have to figure out how to empower and support and equip your team to do speed to lead. You need to be following up with them instantaneously with a text message. You need to be making an outbound phone call to them with a real human within five minutes. You need to joyfully pursue them. You do not need to give up after one or two attempts. You need to be following up, you know, a dozen times over 30 days. And then availability, you've got to figure out how you can extend your availability as a team so that when when someone engages a meta ad or someone engages a PPC ad, you can call them within five minutes. So we had built out our service where we could follow up with them seven days a week from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m., seven days a week. So when a lead came in, they were getting an outbound call seven days a week within five minutes.

SPEAKER_00 21:05

Wow, amazing.

The Meaning Of Joyful Persistence

SPEAKER_00 21:07

The the uh there was one word I want to click on here because um it's very unique, and that is joyful. Tell me about joyful follow-up, joyful persistence.

SPEAKER_01 21:19

Yeah, I I think this is a big deal. And I I think it's uh one of the major reasons I think if you're able to do this as a practice to dedicate one or two people, it depends on your lead volume, of course, um, but to have a dedicated team of people who are following up with new patients, when you're wearing five hats, and this is true for all of us, not just this role within the practice, but when you're wearing five hats and you're distracted and you're constantly having to shift your brain from one task to another, it's very hard to you know feel energized, to feel focused, to feel happy all the time. And so by allowing your team to really focus. Uh on the new patient experience and you know, new patients exclusively, it gets rid of all this other clutter and and and likely is going to change the energy of your team. So I think that's the first thing in terms of the joyful part is it's easier to be joyful uh when you have the time and space as an individual to focus on the thing you've been asked to do versus you know asking you to do that across five domains. So that would be the first thing. And then the second thing is is like what kind of personality and temperament and gifting and skills is the person you're hiring have for this role? It's really hard work. I think the I think the front desk, call agents, whether it's existing patients or new patients, I think it's the hardest role in the practice because uh it's overwhelming. It's it's monotonous, it's doing the same thing every day. You're dealing with people all day long. Some are very joyful, some are not very joyful, some are patient, some are not very patient. And so, so I think focus helps joyful persistence. But then, second, and obviously, you know, probably most importantly, it's finding the right person who really is passionate about this work, and not just someone who feels stuck in this role. And they're maybe excited about some of the other jobs they have, but you know, they're not they're not excited about being on the phone all day. They're not excited about you know, 10 to 15 minute phone calls every time you're talking to a new patient because they have questions, they have concerns, they want answers, things like that.

SPEAKER_00 23:29

Well, yeah, I love that. Um that that that's actually pretty good advice for anyone in a uh in a sales type of of role, right? Um so I'm gonna have to incorporate that in my in my own word there. Um well this is

Capturing Elective Revenue Right Now

SPEAKER_00 23:47

great. This is great advice. Obviously, right now, you know, converting elective procedures, uh, it could be said that it's essential to practice survival. Which is that fair to say?

SPEAKER_01 23:59

Oh, uh unequivocally. I mean, I I think uh most practices would agree that, yeah, it's tough sledding out there, whether it's reimbursements, whether it's lead volume, um, you know, whether it's it's folks having discretionary, you know, discretionary income to be able to spend on elective procedures. And so, you know, what I've advocated for is like there's never been a time, you know, more critical than now to capture every single opportunity. If you're spending two to three thousand dollars a month, you know, minimum, most of them are spending a lot more than this. If you're spending two to three thousand dollars a month trying to drive new patient leads, but you're not equally as obsessed or committed to how you're following up and maximizing every single opportunity in front of you, you are you're leaving revenue, you're leaving revenue on the table.

SPEAKER_00 24:47

Yeah. Um, well, Kade, I I'm I'm so grateful to have the opportunity to chat with you. Um, is there anything that we haven't touched on that you think would be important to share on this topic?

SPEAKER_01 25:00

No, you've asked really good questions and and uh it's been really fun. I love I love this stuff. And so thank you for you know, thank you for your questions and for letting me to you know join your podcast. I've I've really enjoyed this.

SPEAKER_00 25:12

100%. And I think anyone in ophthalmology clinic should absolutely get to know you and get to know um the expertise that you have to share. How can people get in touch with you if they want to learn more about you?

How To Connect And Closing Requests

SPEAKER_01 25:27

Yeah, I love engaging with folks on LinkedIn. So if you go to LinkedIn and just put in my name, uh K-A-D-E Wilcox, uh, you'll find me no problem. And I'm I try to be very active there. I'm looking forward to launching my own podcast in the next couple of weeks. And so we'll have all kinds of content on my on my personal page. And I'm very I take speed delete very seriously. Yes. And so if you message me, I'm I uh I I hope to respond very quickly.

SPEAKER_00 25:52

Yes, you live you live that value. I can vouch vouch for that. Um awesome, Cade. Well, thank you so much. Um best of luck with everything that you're working on, and um thanks for being a guest on the show, and thanks for everybody who's had a chance to listen. I'll put Cade's information in the show notes, and uh we'll talk to you next time on iCare Leadership Live. Well, that brings this episode of iCare Leadership Live to a conclusion. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to the show on your podcast app and share it with someone who would value the content. I promise to bring you more guests and content to help make you a better iCare clinical leader. I also invite you to subscribe to my HR newsletter for iCare leaders. You can find information about that at seasoned advice.com. Now go out there and lead with confidence.