The Snapscale Show

Privacy First Digital Marketing: The Hidden Risk in Healthcare Growth

• Mike Yablonowitz

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0:00 | 33:09

Healthcare marketing is evolving, but many practices still struggle with rising costs, low conversion rates, and unclear ROI from their marketing efforts.

In this episode, Michael Yablonowitz and Nathan Bush sit down with Tucker Worster to explore how healthcare organizations can improve marketing performance by aligning strategy with operations, setting realistic expectations, and addressing internal bottlenecks that impact lead conversion.

The discussion also covers the role of AI in marketing, shifting expectations around paid ads, and why lead generation alone isn’t enough without strong follow-up systems and internal processes.

About Snapscale
At Snapscale, we help healthcare practices scale their operations with HIPAA-compliant virtual assistants trained specifically for healthcare workflows.

Learn more:
https://www.snapscale.com

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In this episode, you’ll learn:
• Why marketing results depend on operations as much as strategy
• Common reasons healthcare marketing fails to convert
• The gap between lead generation and revenue
• How budget and expectations impact performance
• Why follow-up and call handling are critical to growth
• How healthcare practices can improve conversion rates

Connect with Tucker Worster
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tuckerworster/

Chapters
00:00 - Introduction
02:10 - Why Healthcare Marketing Is Getting Expensive
06:50 - The Real Problem: Leads vs Conversions
13:20 - Where Operations Break the Funnel
20:10 - Follow-Up, AI & Ad Performance Shifts
28:40 - Key Takeaways & Growth Strategy

#HealthcareMarketing
#MedicalPracticeGrowth
#HealthcareOperations

Introduction

SPEAKER_00

Most healthcare leaders think they're overwhelmed because they simply have too much work. But what we're seeing across practices is something entirely different. Marketing is changing rapidly. AI is reshaping patient acquisition. Privacy regulations are tightening. And when systems inside organizations aren't clear, everything rolls back to leadership. Today we're unpacking why.

SPEAKER_01

Welcome to the Snap Scale Show, hosted by Mike Jablanovitz and Nathan Bush. In every episode, we explore the real challenges and breakthroughs happening in modern healthcare operations. From navigating compliance to virtual staffing and emerging technology. You will hear real stories from clinics, learn from healthcare leaders, and uncover practical strategies that help you run a smoother, more efficient practice. Without losing focus on what matters most. So you can get back to doing what you love. And visit snapscale.com to learn more. Let's simplify healthcare operations together. This is the Snap Scale show.

Why Healthcare Marketing Is Getting Expensive

SPEAKER_00

Welcome back to our show. Today we're talking about something that nearly every healthcare practice owner and manager is feeling right now. The growing pressure around patient acquisition, marketing complexity, and the rapid changes happening in digital strategy. Many leaders assume their their overwhelm comes from simply having too much on their plate. But what we're seeing across practices is that the pressure is coming from something totally different. AI is reshaping how patients find providers, digital marketing is evolving quickly, and privacy regulations are tightening. When systems and ownership inside the organization are not clearly defined, that uncertainty bowls back to the leader. That's when growth starts to feel chaotic instead of strategic. I'm excited about today's discussion. Joining us today is Tucker Worster. He's a chief hearing officer at Onspire Health Marketing. Tucker brings more than two decades experience in the hearing industry, where he has led clinical operations, scaled marketing organizations, and helped hundreds of independent practice owners grow their visibility and their patient acquisition. Before joining OnSpire, Tucker founded Hereworks, which earned three consecutive 5,000 rankings before being acquired in 2024. Today we're going to talk about the marketing shifts, AI adoption, and why a privacy-first approach to digital strategy may actually reduce leadership overwhelm instead of increasing it. Nathan, I'm going to hand it back over to you to kick us off, my man.

SPEAKER_03

Thanks, Mike. Totally appreciate it. And Tucker, thanks for joining us on the show today. Yeah. Tucker, Mike and I were talking a little bit before the show, and we had just were bouncing different ideas and questions because you're really an expert when it comes to marketing, marketing, and patient privacy and where AI kind of integrates in all of this process. And one of the questions that came to mind is where do you see leaders real quick in the in the in the spaces that you work? Tell us a little bit about the spaces you work, why you work in those spaces, and then where you see leaders having this disconnect uh with the changes that are going on.

SPEAKER_02

So I I have 25 years in elective health care, 20 of which have been adhering in the last couple. Meaning like OBG, YN, pediatrics, urology, behavioral health, et cetera. But my my you know kind of bread and butter is still with the audiology, hearing aid space. Um the big thing right now is AI and just HIPAA compliance are the two the two driving factors where what we're seeing, regardless of the vertical, is it's becoming harder and harder for both the practitioner, owner, office manager, whoever is in charge to stay on top of the ever-changing landscape when it comes to both of these two things.

SPEAKER_03

So when it comes to privacy, we titled this episode Privacy Uh First Digital Marketing, because HIPAA compliance is something that's near and dear to SnapScale. We care about private health information. We have entire systems and programs and consultants and the whole nine yards that have helped ensure that we have a HIPAA compliant organization. How important is privacy in marketing? And what do you see are some of the mistakes that people are making right now, Tucker, when it comes to marketing in their business?

The Real Problem: Leads vs Conversions

SPEAKER_02

I look, I mean, compliance is critical. Um, and I'm saying this as someone who used to own clinics. Um, I'm also saying this as someone who's married to a malpractice insurance underwriter. So I mean, I know in today's environment, it's you know, it feels like as we go on as a society, certainly in the United States, it is a litigious society. I mean, that it is what it is. And those that provide care, you know, are typically higher profile targets. Um, for you know, so what that means is you as an owner of a practice in which you built to take care of people, you need the peace of mind that however you're acquiring patients, however you're communicating with patients, you're doing it in which you're not exposing yourself and your patients to any type of you know lawsuit. Um, you know, obviously that that comes with a financial burden, even going, you know, and I have I've had clients, had nothing to do with us. I've had clients go through, and even though they overcame a suit, you can imagine for a single practitioner office just going through that process. First of all, it's expensive, it's time consuming, and it's incredibly stressful. Um, and that that's assuming that you come out okay. If you don't come out okay, I mean, it literally can put you out of business, obviously, it can cost you a ton of money. And then what happens, as you could also imagine, is word gets out. Uh, hey, Dr. So-and-so is going through uh you know a HIPAA-related lawsuit. So just the um the reputation aspect in the community of going through something like that can really be devastating. Again, even assuming that you still come out okay. So there are a lot of things in which as an owner are stressors. And I'm again, I'm saying this as someone who's been around for a long time and someone who did it for a while. And just knowing whoever you're using as a partner, whether you know, whether it's on spy or snapscale or whoever it is, doesn't matter what function, it's critical to know that okay, uh, what they're doing with my patients is completely covered, and I don't need to worry about it because the the flip side of that is it can be devastating to a business.

SPEAKER_03

You know, a lot of people try to do marketing on their own, Tucker. They they at least start there, right? They're trying to do something or put something together, they have a marketing campaign or plan. What are some mistakes, common mistakes, if somebody's trying to do marketing on their own that you can see that they could instantly end up making with a privacy issue?

SPEAKER_02

Uh, just you know, the the communication. Um, first of all, how how they're how they're communicating to their either whether it's patients or prospects, how they're acquiring the prospect, the prospective patients, um, the different vehicles, you know, for example, in healthcare, um, use using a pixel, okay, which pixels were a big deal a few years ago. And um, you know, for for the audience, a pixel is basically placing something on a site and it allows you to track exactly who's coming to said site, and then it, you know, it pulls that information together, and then said person can then use that information to go try to um get their business. So using a pixel is okay in like let's say if you're selling cars, it's not okay if you're a dentist or an audiologist or a plastic surgeon or something, can't do it. So there are you know how you the wording used in a Google ad, okay, there's specific language you have to use. Um, so this isn't necessarily you know a privacy thing, but just you need it. This is a mistake, though, if you don't align yourself with someone who is up to date with the latest in either you know privacy uh language, uh the latest in Google and and meta requirements, you you just set yourself up for um pain down the road.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, pain is something that I have become all too familiar with when I'm talking with different clinics because I see it and hear it. I hear the pain of marketing and their lead flow is inconsistent, or they don't they don't even know how to get to a point where they could even predict if they were gonna you know start bringing new patients in from their marketing. A lot of companies that I've talked to have sometimes become hopeless or given up even on marketing, and they just try to live off of the referrals from like a local doc if they can get the doc to give them a referral or some type of grassroots event that they might be able to go to once a year or whatever. What do you what kind of advice do you have for that owner that's been frustrated with their marketing and doesn't know what to do?

Where Operations Break the Funnel

SPEAKER_02

I mean, look, first off, referrals are great if you can get them. Um the issue with anything that's organic is you you just never know what happens if that stops, right? Um you know, we we have a really a longtime client in uh Richmond, Virginia, who for years and years half of their patient volume came from hospital, still does. But the conversation we had was like, look, if they they have staff turnover, or if they have a you know, they they come somebody comes in that to run the hospital and all of a sudden they hire an ENT department and and those leads go somewhere else, like what are you going to do? So that that in itself, referrals are great, but I always try to tell our clients, like, hey, look, if that went away, where would you be? Right. Um, so what I would to answer your question, what I would do uh first off, marketing itself with healthcare clinics, and I I'm gonna speak specifically for hearing that those in the hearing aid space, it tends to be one of either your trusting of the process or you're not. And typically what you just described is going you know, you know, going to be somebody who maybe they gave a few campaigns a shot, or they they tried to do some marketing for a few months and they didn't love it, and all of a sudden that turned into doesn't work, or it doesn't work for me, or it doesn't work in my geography, or you know, I've done this for so long, and therefore I'm just gonna I'm not gonna deviate from what I've done. So, you know, you know from your background, like 10 years ago, mailers and open houses, and like that that was the kind of the standard. Digital wasn't a big deal back then. I mean, fast forward to today, forget about the the mailers versus digital. I mean, now we're talking about answer engines and AI and how to show up in Claude and ChatGPT and Gemini and you know, driving in the car, showing up in Alexa, and I mean it's like and this stuff is happening like overnight. So it's if you're a provider, owner of any type of healthcare clinic, regardless of size, you know, yes, finding a marketing partner who you feel uh you know you have a good feel with, but you got you gotta trust what they're trying to do, and you have to trust that they know what they're doing and give them enough runway to let them do their job. Is that's the advice I would I would give.

SPEAKER_03

So, Tucker, I'm gonna ask some personal questions about marketing since I have an expert here uh that would even help snapscale. So I'm gonna jump into just some things because you said something that sparked something in me uh about AI and the transition that things are happening inside of healthcare. And so I'm sure the audience has the same question. Like, is it really possible to start showing up in AI searches and AI information? It and if so, like, is there a strategy behind that?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I mean, I just did a webinar uh about six weeks ago on this. It so in 2023, about 1% of all searches were done through an answer engine. This year it's gonna be about 25%, and by the end of the decade, it's gonna be about 60%. So our patients are just looking in different places than they were before, and so what that means, and and not only that, answer engine optimization is built differently than search engine optimization. So the rules for Google were always you know, add words and and pay-per-click and showing up at the top, and which is which is also important, that's not going away, but answer engine it pulls the how it pulls the listings and the schema is a little bit different. It goes more on authenticity and expertise and um you know descriptive feelings and things and reviews. So it it actually, the new, I guess the new wave, if you want to call it, of AI being a much bigger part of being found or searchability, that actually levels the playing field a little bit versus hey, I'm a big retail clinic or big retail dentist's office or miracle ear beltone, and I can just buy my way to the top because I just have the resources to do it. AI is going to pull, like, okay, who is the best and most authentic and the biggest expert in said market versus who can just pay the most and use the most keywords and have the best marketing firm? So it is very different. And yes, we are seeing results already of by making some tweaks and adding you know answers, for example, um having uh social guides using you know things to be pulled in in Reddit and other things. Um, I've already helped answers, you know, our clinics show up.

SPEAKER_03

Interesting. Yeah, I mean, this is a fascinating topic is AI steps in and starts to take over. There's just a an overwhelmed feel, I think, that a lot of people have about AI because it does a lot of different things. It's you know, my wife calls it a word calculator, but it does so much more than that, right? And and it's helping businesses now market. I I heard that there's gonna be ads that are coming to like ChatGPT and different stuff like that in the near future. Yeah, there's regulations and laws and stuff that are being passed right now, as we're speaking, uh when it comes to AI and ethics in AI and the morality of how we're gonna use these systems. And I find it to be you don't have to go that direction, though, in your marketing, if you're if you have any concerns about it at all, you can start with some more basic things. Tucker, what's the first thing if you're looking at somebody's you know, marketing for the hearing business or dental practice or uh ophthalmology clinic, whatever, what is the first thing you're gonna look at from a partner that will kind of tell you where they're at in their marketing and what would be the first kind of fixes that you typically see in some of these businesses as they're growing?

Follow-Up, AI & Ad Performance Shifts

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, honestly, the the the first thing I look at is you know, how long have you been? Most of them are actually business questions, not necessarily marketing questions. Like, how long have you been here? You know, how long meaning like how long have you been open? How long have you been in said in said market? Um, what what business, what marketing tactics have you done? How long have you done them? Um, how much do you typically spend? You know, one one universal truth, certainly in hearing, but uh, you know, we found it in basically all the markets that we serve, is most owners or you know, practice managers do not allocate enough budget towards marketing and they just kind of leave it alone. Um, in hearing, we typically find the average is between three to five percent. It really should probably be at like 15%. And so um oftentimes we can come in and we'll make some subtle tweaks. You know, their SEO may need some adjusting, or they don't, you know, we just talk about AI, they don't make they may not have any kind of AI stuff going at all. But oftentimes it's been they were promised, hey, if you invest X, you'll get Y. And the reality is that was a salesperson just telling them something to close the deal, where the reality is to get to that Y, they probably needed like three times the budget to get there. And so oftentimes when we are bringing over somebody from a competitor, it's more of an expectation realignment where it's like, hey, no marketing company is perfect, but if you're setting unrealistic expectations, you know, as a as a firm to a practice owner, even if that budget in which you close them on is working well, if you promise something else, it does not matter. So oftentimes it's and this goes back to when we owned Hureworks and we worked with typically our clinic spent five to ten thousand dollars a year. So they were kind of at the top, uh, very different than kind of what we see now with Onspire. They were they were healthier practices than most, but even still, it was like, look, if you're going to work with us, this is what we are going to do based on the budget in which we're suggesting. And not everybody's okay with that. And so that was yeah, again, from a client service standpoint, going back to your example of frustration with clinics. Oftentimes it's not necessarily just the marketing, it's the is the serve, are the services giving a good return, but also are the services giving the return that the practice signed up for? So there was there are a lot of checkboxes that you have to do right to be successful, as if you're on my shoes. But the biggest one is just level setting expectations and making sure we're meeting set expectations. Because as an owner, that's where I would get upset. It was like, hey, look, if you would have told me that I needed to spend 3x what I'm spending to get the 10 new patients I needed, I may have been okay with that. But you didn't tell me that. You told me I could spend$2,000 and get 10,000 and get 10 patients. I really need to spend six. Why didn't you just tell me I needed to spend six? So that that's one thing I think across the board is when you know we do a lot of of paid ad spend, which again, a lot of marketing agencies and healthcare, they're typically website, SEO. Uh, they may do some kind of review management, they may tweak uh Google business profiles, etc. They're not getting into the foundational things and the paid ads and AI and even do a little bit of print. The paid stuff is where you can really either make or break a relationship with a client because that that is the variable expense which really turns up or down the dial. And it typically is the most emotional. You're not If you're going to get fired for poor SEO, that is going to happen over a number of months. You can have a bad pay-per-click month and get fired. You know, or you could have a great pay-per-click month and they love you. So that's the part where, again, setting expectations and then having a team carry out set expectations, that really can set a marketing relationship either apart or break.

SPEAKER_03

That's one of the things, Tucker, you just brought up a very good point. And what great point you're making today. We're talking with Tucker, and he's with OnSpire guys. And Onspire Marketing works in a variety of different healthcare practices, helping them grow their marketing. And Tucker just made a great point. I hope if you're watching on home or you're watching in the replay, I hope you understand what Tucker just said. Oftentimes you think that you spent the$2,000, that that's enough in order to hit your goal. And what Tucker's saying is maybe if you just spend three times that, you would actually hit the goal that you were seeking. You would make more revenue, not less revenue for investing just a little bit more in your marketing. Here's the challenge that I have found that a lot of organizations leak Tucker is that they may have hit their lead generation goal, but they might not be hitting their revenue goal. And there's a disconnect there. They hit the number of leads that the campaign was supposed to do, but there's a leak that ends up happening, a revenue leak. And that's because either A, nobody answered the phone calls when they came in, or nobody called the leads back that were generated. Have you seen clinics that have invested significant amounts of money but then weren't able to follow up with the leads?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, it's it's one of the weirder and most it's an odd situation to be in as a as a marketer when you do your job well, and the perception from the client is that you're not. And then as the marketer, when you go to submit reports to the client or you meet with them once a month, and you have to sit down and say, Hey, look, the person answering the phone who in some smaller clinics, as you know, is is oftentimes somebody who either knows the owner really well, is potentially related to the owner, and it's like, hey, look, you know, for example, you know, before work, nobody answers the phone. At lunch, nobody answers the phone. Or, you know, we we had one clinic in California, unfortunately, who the the husband was the the dispenser, uh, the wife was the PCC. They only answered their phone 46% of the time. And the conversation was like, hey, you missed. We generated like 120 calls. So if you would answer the phone more, you would have blown out your goals. It it's not it's not a lead gen problem. It's just you have to be able to convert the leads in which said company is is generating for you. So I it is it is a problem, it is an ever never-ending problem that we see is we can only do so much to get the patients to call or to fill out the forms, etc. But if a clinic cannot convert the leads in which they're investing in, it's a major problem that is really it completely undermines everything that we or any other marketing firm has done.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, Tucker, and I I can hear a lot of people in the audience just in my mind right now thinking, well, that's you know, staff scale right now, they can just step in and make those phone calls for us. And that that's a possibility. We can find people that will help them make those outbound phone calls, and we do that for a number of different clinics. But what we can also do is free up your staff's time. We're sitting on hold for 20 minutes, 30 minutes with the insurance company, while your PC, who's an expert at making those outbound calls, then can go ahead and make those outbound phone calls for you as well and make sure that those appointments are getting scheduled and stuff like that. So when you're working with different partners, guys, the it's very important that you sit down and you you you talk through your entire situation. If you have people on your team who are qualified, who are good at doing certain aspects in their marketing, but you you need somebody else to help you with SEO, or you need somebody to help you with this AI aspect. You got to talk to the marketing partner about that. Tucker, has there ever been opportunities where you've worked with a clinic? Because I see this all the time. And so, has there ever been opportunities where you've worked with a clinic where maybe you don't do the whole package of what's recommended because their team can do part of it, but you guys do a heavy lift on the things that their team can't get to?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, absolutely. And I I think across the board, especially in healthcare, there are, you know, practice owners are, you know, the you have to earn their trust over time anyway. And so they they may have, you know, somebody in the office maybe doing social media, for example, especially with aesthetics. Like they may have uh, you know, a 21-year-old nurse who likes to do Instagram and do the before and after pictures and do all that stuff. Um, but you know, they they have a hole with obviously site development or SEO or AEO, uh reputation management, etc. So that yeah, there are plenty of times where you know you go into a situation and they may even have another marketing provider that does the website stuff, but maybe they don't do the paid ads. And um, so yeah, it's very common for us to come in and do part of the pie, but not the whole pie.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. I mean, marketing chaos really becomes leadership chaos then at that point. Like if you if the leadership is not strong in the clinic, then it can create all kinds of challenges. What are some strategic approaches that somebody could take right now today to start to set themselves up in a way to be able to work with a good partner like Onspire?

Key Takeaways & Growth Strategy

SPEAKER_02

I mean, look, I'm a big fan of consolidation. You know, it's um even, and I'm not saying that do you know by using a full service provider by Onspire is more expensive. Um I'm not saying that. To me, it's just being the leader of a clinic, a lot of it is just keeping things as simple as possible and as organized as possible. So one contact, one bill to pay, um, you know, everything under one umbrella. To me, it's just it's one as opposed to having three different providers, uh marketing providers, and paying three different bills and having three different monthly conversations, and and having it's just those are are things you can just, it's a time saver. It's it's efficient. Um and as a clinic owner, the easier I made things for myself and my team, the better I was able to handle my patients, the more organized I was, the happier the staff was. So to me, I just if you can, the easier you can make things for your team and the more clear everything is, the better off you are running the clinic.

SPEAKER_03

Absolutely, absolutely. And then I'll finish up with kind of one final thought that I've been having as we've been talking about this. As we've been talking about the intersection of privacy and AI, and talking about the intersection of team, right? So people, process, platforms, and uh and people's priorities here. It really has come to shape me that at the end of the day, it comes down to the leadership of the leader at the clinic and the team they put together. You've been a leader, you've ran your own business, now you're with OnSpire. You've had team members that you worked with, remote team members that you've worked with in the past. What do you think is one thing, Tucker, that clinics could do that you've done in the past that helps build your team in a way that they want to achieve these goals together?

SPEAKER_02

I look, I've just always been a very transparent leader, still am. And by the way, here works, we were 100% remote. So we we didn't have an office. Um you know, it with remote employees, I think it's pretty critical to get, you know, you want to be able to see everybody, you know, on Zoom or whatever you're using, you know, at least once a week, you know, or certainly as much as possible. I the best thing, in my opinion, again, being simple, being transparent, letting everybody know what the expectations are, holding everybody accountable to those, set expectations. Um, when things are good, you talk about it. When things are not so good, you talk about it. And so there are no surprises. Everybody knows where they stand individually, everybody knows where they stand as as far as the business is going. Um and so whether you're, you know, whether you have people in the office, whether you have people remotely, whether you're hybrid and you have both, just the the better you do with that, I think just everybody knows where they stand. And typically what I have found in my in my career is the better someone knows where they stand, the higher the morale is, and the less they guess.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. And morale is important, not just with our own teams, but working with partners, working with vendors, working with people that are important to our organization. We want to make sure that we have good, strong, healthy relationships, they be transparent, they work on a privacy-first um aspect, and that we protect the patient at all costs. So this has been a great discussion, Tucker. And I could talk to you for hours and hours because I'm fascinated by the level of depth and intelligence that you have when it comes to marketing and growing practices, uh, but we don't have all that time. So how if somebody wanted to have a longer conversation with you or have a deeper conversation with you about this, what's the best way for them to get a hold of you and to follow up on this conversation that we're having?

SPEAKER_02

I mean, the easiest way is to email. Um, my email is t w or s t- at onspired uhm.com. Um, or my cell phone is real real easy, 832 523 0042.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, Tucker. Well, thank you very much for being a part of our program and show. And uh, as always, we're very grateful that you took the time out of your day to have this conversation with us, but also our audience.

SPEAKER_02

Sure. Thanks. Enjoyed it.

SPEAKER_03

Thank you, Tucker.