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A Reminder To Small-Medium Size Players Seeking Google Love
May 24, 2006
Early in my career, I spent several years managing a 5 physician family practice in a small Missouri town.
Perhaps the most embarrassing moment of my life happened inside the walls of that clinic. That was the day I thought I was interviewing a gal for a receptionist position when actually she was there for a pap smear. You see, my office was occupied and I had to use one of the physician exam rooms for what I thought was going to be an interview. It was her first visit to the clinic and she thought I was the doctor. Talk about mistaken identities. You should have seen the look on her face when she asked if she should sit on the exam table and I said, “No, that chair over in the corner will be just fine.�
Rural health clinics (RHCs) are formed in Missouri and other states in order to get quality health care into medically underserved rural areas. Physicians can actually get a better reimbursement rate from Medicare, Medicaid, etc. by choosing to practice in a rural setting. The official designation as an RHC comes from the Department of Health and there are rigid guidelines to achieving this determination including an exhaustive “site visit� inspection.
I remember the preparation for this inspection was excruciatingly detailed and went on for months! One of the things I remember is that all 16 of our exam rooms had to meet 3 or 4 pages of criteria … everything had to be exactly per the requirements if we were to pass the inspection and be awarded the RHC designation. I even recall someone saying that if one room didn’t contain a particular Policies & Procedures manual, the entire clinic would fail the inspection….just that one little thing!
This small piece of my past recently came to mind while talking to a client this week. This is a client that if you put their site into a large aquarium with other sites in their industry, they would be a small to medium size fish in an aquarium with lots of very small plankton, a few sharks, and one giant sperm wale.
Google was giving some “special treatment� to the sperm whale (imagine that) and our client wanted to also be considered for this Google Love. Google has made some positive comments to them, but has yet to officially consider them alongside their competitor.
Our client is smart. Before I even had a chance to ask them, they had already started to double and triple check their site, making sure all their ducks are in a nice, uniform row. They know that if Google does consider them, they need to be prepared right now.
Google isn’t as strict as the rural health clinic above, however, it’s incredibly wise to make sure your site isn’t in the black or even gray when it comes to Google’s inspection.
Just a reminder to all you small or medium size fish, check your site using Google’s “No No� list routinely -- especially if you want to be considered along with the bigger fish in your industry.
see all posts by Doug Ausbury
posted by Doug Ausbury at May 24, 2006 01:16 AM
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