Private practices and individual rheumatologists don’t have to have big marketing budgets to have big success in self-promotion and attracting new patients. In the Sunday, October 26, session Stand Out in the Crowd: Branding Your Practice for Success, 10:30–11:30 a.m. in Room W475A-B of McCormick Place, panelists will share low-cost strategies for increasing clinic visibility and building trust among patients and prospective patients.
Social media has become a vital tool for building brand awareness for everything from retailers to service providers, educators to entertainers. Still, many in the medical community have been slow to take advantage of this tool.
“We have to understand that the terms of presenting our practice to patients have changed dramatically in the last 10 years as we’ve had this evolution in social media for people to get their information,” said Diana Girnita, MD, PhD, CEO and Founder of Rheumatologist OnCall. “Most of us, as physicians, wanted to stay away for multiple reasons, such as the fear that we’ll say something that we’ll be liable for. We also thought that it was enough to have 10 diplomas behind us. We think people will look up, learn about our credentials, and that’s enough.”
But Dr. Girnita, who owns a direct specialty care practice, has learned first-hand that diplomas on the wall don’t mean anything to patients who never get inside of a clinic to see them. And even then, the physician-patient relationship overrides any good impression the credentials give.
“For those of us who are building a private practice, it is very important to connect our face to our brand and connect with patients in the way they want to connect with us,” she said.
For Dr. Girnita, YouTube has been an effective medium for connection and to share her rheumatology expertise. Other clinicians have used Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, podcasts, or other platforms to their advantage.
“When I started my YouTube journey, I thought YouTube was just for entertainment. I never thought about using YouTube to educate patients,” she said. “And then I realized it can be a valid, very valuable resource to educate patients, and that’s how my channel grew. I never danced. I never told jokes. The value of the education I provided brought me a lot of subscribers and brand recognition.”
The other featured speaker in the session, Phil Boucher, MD, Frontier Pediatric Care and PractOS, will explore how knowing your audience can elevate your marketing efforts.
“It’s important to know what the channels of communication are with patients today. How the younger generation gets their information is so much different from how we got information,” Dr. Girnita said. “As physicians, we are very comfortable sharing medical information with our patients in an office. But we have this opportunity to cross the barrier of an office, even of a country, because there are so many people who want to get information from experts like us, rather than getting information from people who just claim to be experts — and there are a lot of those on social media today.”
Drs. Girnita and Boucher will have a panel discussion following their presentations.
“These days, physicians have to learn more than medical knowledge,” Dr. Girnita said. “You have to be open and understand that our world is bigger than the medical world. And by learning about finances and marketing and video editing, you will be able to bring your practice to the next level.”
On-demand access to recorded presentations will be available to registered participants of ACR Convergence following the annual meeting through October 31, 2026.
Don’t Miss a Session
If you weren’t able to make it to a live session during ACR Convergence 2025 — or you want to revisit a session from the annual meeting — make plans to watch the replay. All registered participants receive on-demand access to scientific sessions after the meeting through October 31, 2026.