Varicose veins are very different from other surgical disorders in that they are self-diagnosed. Patients often do not see their primary physician about this chronic condition but live with discomfort and social embarrassment. Our plastic surgery colleagues have proven for decades that referrals for self-diagnosed conditions are directly proportional to marketing efforts. It's all about name recognition.

Yes. The problem is that it is prohibitively time consuming and much more expensive to design and implement each of the necessary components of a successful marketing strategy. It also takes years to acquire the necessary business plan and implementation strategies.

The benefits are too numerous to completely illustrate in one paragraph. First and foremost, office based procedures provide patients with tremendous improvements in quality, cost and convenience when they can be performed by experienced office staff. In 2005, Medicare and private insurance companies changed reimbursement for endovenous procedures by offering an approximate 4-fold increase in reimbursement when performed in an office compared to a hospital setting. In most states, Medicare pays approximately $2200 for an office based laser procedure and the recommended evaluation and ultrasounds. Vein Centers around the country charge from $3500 to $4500 per procedure. The disposable fixed costs should be about $250 with some training on cost reduction. This is far greater than the reimbursement for a 7-hour tibial bypass and frankly very rewarding in terms of patient satisfaction and relief of symptoms. Further, the timesaving for the physician is enormous.

The key to successful marketing is name recognition. You need the patients and physicians in your community to know the name of your vein center when they consider management of any varicose vein problems. This name recognition requires four key components to advertising success: a compelling creative message, consistency, community outreach and marketing frequency.

Your vein center can simply consist of distinct signs, business cards, brochures and a vein center website, all located within your existing practice. However, it is ideal to see varicose vein patients on a separate day.

Absolutely. Whether you're a "start-up" or an established vein center, the marketing strategies are very similar. You can modify our existing templates to personalize educational and professional marketing materials to meet the needs of your practice. Templates allow you to save tremendous amounts of time and money because the designs don't have to be recreated. However, each template is modified enough so that no two sites look the same. There is no problem with 2 vein centers having similar materials when they are in separate states.