There’s a tension we see often in physician office marketing in private equity-backed healthcare organizations: the network thinks nationally, while the physician thinks locally.
From the perspective of an MSO, growth means looking across the entire organization. There are multiple practices, markets, operational priorities, standardized processes, and performance goals to consider, all while keeping marketing aligned with the broader growth thesis.
If you’re the physician who was just acquired, your reality can look very different.
Your market may be the five miles surrounding your practice. You have a lot going on, thinking about your schedule, patient mix, referrals, and more.
You may not be thinking about what is happening across the rest of the network, and you shouldn’t necessarily have to.
Both perspectives are right. The challenge is making them work together.
This is especially important in healthcare because the physician is the product.
We begin by understanding the market around the practice: Who are we trying to reach? What does the competitive landscape look like? What insurance and reimbursement dynamics matter? What is the practice’s position in the market? And perhaps most importantly, what does the business actually need from marketing right now?
Then we look at the physicians themselves.
One physician may have an established referral network that consistently drives new patients. Another may have built a strong social presence that creates awareness beyond traditional referral channels. Another may be introducing a new procedure or have a clinical specialty that gives the practice an opportunity to differentiate.
Even within the same organization, the marketing strategy shouldn’t assume every physician or location is the same.
But local doesn’t mean disconnected from the network.
One of the biggest advantages of being part of an MSO is the ability to bring those local insights together and turn them into a broader view of performance. At the network level, leadership needs to understand what is working across locations, where budget is being deployed, how efficiently campaigns are operating, and how marketing performance is contributing to the organization’s larger growth objectives.
The key is knowing what should be standardized and what shouldn’t.
Compliance, reporting, budget processes, campaign management, and measurement can often benefit from centralized systems and shared infrastructure. But the strategy and execution need enough flexibility to reflect the reality of each market and physician.
Centralized intelligence. Localized execution.
That’s the balance.
A physician should be able to say, “I’m part of a larger organization, and they understand what makes this practice successful in this market.”
At the same time, the MSO should be able to say, “We understand what is happening across the network, where our investment is working, and how marketing is contributing to our growth thesis.”
You shouldn’t have to choose between the two.
The best healthcare marketing connects the local physician reality to the national growth strategy.
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