Choose the agency that can show you what each booked first appointment cost. For an insurance-based practice, a good partner builds campaigns around the services and plans you take, checks insurance before your team calls back, answers every inquiry within minutes, keeps client information away from ad platforms and paces spend to your open capacity.
Many of the practice owners I talk to have tried an agency before. When it didn't work, they usually couldn't tell what the money bought. These are the seven questions I'd ask before signing with anyone, including us.
Can they show you what a booked client costs?
Clicks and impressions are easy to report and tell you little. What matters is how many people booked a first appointment and what each one cost. Ask to see a real weekly report from a current client, with the number of inquiries, the number of booked intakes or admissions and the ad spend behind them.
A weekly report that ties ad spend to inquiries and booked first appointments, and says where each number came from.
A report full of clicks, impressions and map taps, with no count of booked appointments.
Do they build around the insurance you take?
Most people looking for a therapist or psychiatrist want one who takes their plan. Ads that name the plans you accept, and pages that ask about insurance early, bring in people your team can actually see. Ads that skip insurance tend to fill your inbox with people you'll have to turn away.
Campaigns and pages built around your payer contracts, with a screener that checks insurance before it asks for a phone number.
One campaign for everything, pointed at your homepage.
What happens in the first five minutes after someone reaches out?
Someone looking for care often contacts more than one practice, and in my experience many book with whoever answers first. Ask what happens to a call at 8pm on a Saturday, and to a form filled out while your whole team is in session.
Calls are answered around the clock, people can book on the spot based on your team's availability and anything urgent goes straight to a person.
Inquiries land in a shared inbox and wait for someone to call back.
How do they keep client information private?
Once a form asks about symptoms or conditions and collects a name or phone number, HIPAA applies. Every tool that stores or handles that information should be covered by a business associate agreement (BAA). Google doesn't offer a BAA for Google Analytics, so it shouldn't run on pages that ask about conditions.
A clear list of the tools that touch inquiry data, each one under a signed BAA, and no client information sent to Google, Meta or any other ad platform.
“We're HIPAA compliant,” with no list of tools and no BAA to show you.
Will they pace new clients to your capacity?
More inquiries than your team can serve means a growing waitlist and wasted ad spend. A good partner raises spend as you add clinicians or beds and pulls back when you're full.
Spend set from your open hours or beds, with a plan for what happens when you fill up.
A pitch built on how many inquiries they'll send you, whether or not you can see them.
Who owns the ad account, the tracking and the data?
If you part ways, you should keep your Google Ads account, its history and your tracking. When an agency runs your ads inside its own account, that history can leave with them, and the next team starts from zero.
The ad account is in your name from day one, and you can log in and see everything in it.
You can't log in to your own ad account.
How are they paid, and what are you locked into?
Most agencies charge a monthly management fee on top of ad spend. Ask whether ad spend goes straight to Google or through them, how long the minimum term is and what it costs to leave.
Be careful with pricing per inquiry, per patient or per admission. In healthcare, paying a marketer based on how many patients it sends you can raise anti-kickback concerns, especially for addiction treatment, so talk to your attorney before you sign anything priced that way.
A flat fee you can see up front, ad spend paid straight to Google and terms that let you leave.
A long minimum term, or a fee that grows with every patient or admission.