Hear What Fuel Medical’s Members Have to Say
Fuel Medical works with audiology and ENT practices. Although they both provide audiological services, they are quite different in how their businesses function. Ear, Nose and Throat practices often have multiple locations and larger budgets, which add to the complexity of running such a business. We know this and provide services to our members in a way that supports their practice’s individual needs.
This month, our Ask Fuel First question is: Which Fuel Medical services do ENT practices use? Listen to what our members have to say.
Why Fuel Medical?
Fuel Medical works with hundreds of ENT practices around the nation, and it’s always interesting to hear why this type of member chooses to partner with Fuel Medical. Cheryl Kinney, an audiologist at Fort HealthCare, Wisconsin, explained why she chose to work with us:
It was my decision to join Fuel because I was a single audiologist in a hospital system, and I really had no support for marketing, pricing [and] patient education. So I was looking for a partner to help me with that…I feel very supported. And what I like most about Fuel is that I get to decide what programs I want to participate in and which ones I don’t, and everything is pretty much tailored to our practice.
Chris [Widell] and Michelle [Kophs] help us with providing content for our website, advertising, newsletters [and] physician outreach. Chris is very supportive in helping us with the financial end of our practice to make sure that we are meeting our own goals. [He looks at] numbers with us on a monthly basis to make sure we’re reaching those goals with our KPIs.
C. Kinney, personal communication, June 9, 2023
Marketing and Design Services
Cheryl went on to discuss how Fuel Medical’s marketing and design services have helped her:
They’ve helped us develop some patient educational materials, which is very nice.
My ENTs are constantly asking me for my tinnitus booklet that I put together with the help of Fuel. I also have a booklet that we put together about hearing loss and amplification, which is very useful for people to take home if they want to think about what their options may be. It gives them something in writing, concrete, to take home and mull over…
Sometimes [it’s] more difficult [because] we’re with a hospital system…that has their own meeting marketing department, [and] they’re more rigid with their guidelines. So Fuel has been able to help support promoting audiology where the hospital system may have not been able to support [us] as much as [we] would like. Yes, Fuel has definitely helped support audiology in our hospital system. They’ve been very open with the marketing department at the hospital system and sharing content. There’s an open line of communication back and forth between our hospital marketing department and the Fuel marketing department. And I feel like they make a good working team.
C. Kinney, personal communication, June 9, 2023
Because Fort HealthCare has an established marketing team, Cheryl didn’t need Fuel Medical to take charge of that aspect of the business. Instead, she needed our marketing team to provide audiology-specific content to the Fort HealthCare team to fill gaps that commonly occur in large hospital systems. Cheryl also needed help building educational materials for audiologists and ENTs to use. And that’s just what we did.
Cheryl isn’t the only Fuel Medical member to use our marketing services. When Lori Larsen was promoted to Marketing Manager at South Valley Ear, Nose & Throat, she started using Fuel Medical’s marketing and design services.
Every Wednesday, I have a call with my [account] manager and the regional manager. [We talk about] anything that we have coming up, any issues that I have trouble with, questions, new ideas, whatever.
[For example], we have a brochure for the allergy department. We created a really cool anaphylaxis magnet that’s branded. So, if you want to know what your symptoms of anaphylaxis are, when you get allergy testing, they just give you a magnet to go on your fridge to watch for those signs and symptoms. And [Fuel Medical’s Design team] designed the whole thing. I threw my ideas out, and what came to proof was amazing.
Lori Larsen, Marketing Manager, South Valley Ear, Nose & Throat
Individual Career Growth
Beth Savitch, Advanced ENT & Allergy’s Director of Audiology in New Jersey, shared that her Fuel Medical regional manager, David Sweet, and Sarah Laughlin, Fuel Medical’s Director of Human Resources, helped her step into a new management role. Beth took on her new role as director just as people were returning to the office because Covid-19 quarantine mandates were being lifted.
…The first thing I did after I got the position was I contacted David [Sweet] and let him know that I was going to be the new contact person and started discussing with him what it would take for us to come back after Covid. Fuel had just put together a lot of information [and] resources that we could access on your site…
He really helped me get back to work. So we brought everybody back after two months, and [it] was pretty chaotic. Obviously, everybody knows that, and David was instrumental in helping me define my role as the manager but also [in] helping me be able to support the staff during those crazy times. And Sarah Laughlin helped me a lot, as well, with being a manager and what I needed to do to change my role since I had been there for so long…to change your role from coworker to manager can be challenging. So they, both of them, helped me a lot at the beginning.
B. Savitch, personal communication, June 9, 2023
Managing KPIs was a challenge for Beth, but with Fuel Medical’s support, she has mastered how to use them to her advantage:
…At the beginning, KPIs [were] really challenging for me because I really had nobody to show me how to gather the data that I needed…So together [with David Sweet], we decided we were going to take our three trackers that we used to use as a practice. And him [David] and Nick [Candeaux] designed one tracker for us so that we could cut down the workload. David gave me a tutorial on all the things I needed to know about the KPI, how we got to those numbers, what the benchmarks were. And then we used to go through the trackers pretty closely together. But now I do them by myself, and I just send the end result to David, and he makes sure that our numbers jive together.
…I tell people how I wouldn’t be where I am or [have] made the strides I have in my position and created a department that’s profitable and works pretty smoothly if it wasn’t for Fuel, like really David [Sweet], mainly because he was my No. 1 contact. But without Fuel, I don’t think I’d be where I [am]. I don’t think I’d be the manager I [am], and I don’t think I’d handle some staffing issues that I had in the past that were a little bit challenging. And they’ve just made me stronger at being in the position that I wanted to be in for a really long time. So I can’t—I wouldn’t want to—do my job without that relationship.
B. Savitch, personal communication, June 9, 2023
A Multitude of Services
David Kroon, with Hunterdon Otolaryngology & Allergy Associates, talked about his relationships with Fuel Medical’s employees over the last 10 years. It’s because of these relationships that he’s able to easily get the help he needs when he needs it. For example, he said this:
The most rewarding aspects of my relationship with Fuel are the personal relationships that I’ve made with David Sweet [regional manager] and Kelly [Director of Digital Services] and Jim Fedio [Director of Professional Development] and, more recently, with Stacy [account manager]. And there’s been consistency over the years, which it’s hard to think of other circumstances where I’ve really been able to maintain professional relationships for that period of time. It’s quite unusual, actually, and having that consistency, I think, has made the working relationships become even more effective and efficient over the years.
Fuel has crafted our website [Digital Services]. Fuel helps us with our online advertising [Marketing]. We’ve taken advantage of some of the HR services that Sarah [Laughlin] offers. I’ve certainly picked Jim’s [Fedio of Professional Development] brain several times about, you know, just kind of practice culture issues. And David Sweet [regional manager] is just always a resource to bounce basically any kind of question off, and then he’s usually got some idea that may be helpful.
D. Kroon, personal communication, June 9, 2023
Fuel Medical understands that relationships are the cornerstone of any business. When we get to know our members on a personal level, we’re able to understand their needs more fully. This is how we can provide the services our members need. For example, some ENT practices need our marketing and design teams to work with their teams to offer content and suggestions. Other times, our members need someone to sit down with them and explain complex processes, such as KPIs, or be a sounding board for their ideas on how to grow the audiological side of their business. And sometimes, our members need a variety of services that can be initiated through a productive conversation between friends. Whatever the need and whatever the size or specialty of the practice, Fuel Medical is here to help. Contact us by completing the form on this page to learn how we can help your practice.