Saturday, November 1st, 2025 — 8am - 4:30pm
Patient Engagement Psychology
Evidenced Based Marketing, Sales, and Alignment
Photo Credit: WebPT Ascend Conference — Ben, while speaking on Digital Marketing for New Patient Generation.
Course Description:
Elevate your patient engagement and foster stronger plan of care adherence through the psychology of connection, sales influence, and trust-building. Additionally, build up your local reputation through bolstering your business to business networking with referral providers and community stakeholders.
This course delves into cognitive and social psychology, alongside the neurobiology of trust and alignment.
Here, you will learn how to enhance rapport, understand patient decision making psychology, and navigate expectation settings to set up both the care team and the patient experience for success.
Discover practical negotiation and sales psychology techniques to facilitate buy-in and improve communication across your entire care team, ultimately cultivating a superior patient experience rooted in trust. Gain updated, actionable strategies for navigating the online digital marketing environment to enhance visibility and attract new patients to improve patient volume and clinic revenue.
What will you gain from this course?
Enhanced Patient Engagement through Psychology and Stagecraft
Attendees will gain a solid understanding of core psychological principles, cognitive functions, and the neurobiology of trust that directly impact how patients engage with their care plans. They will learn actionable techniques to build rapport, to better understand patient decision making, and ultimately foster greater adherence to treatment.
You will also learn key aspects of physical presence in stagecraft; the science of how to curate authentic connection through body spacing, nonverbal communication, and clinical stagecrafting.
Modern Retail Marketing Strategies
Your physical clinic space MATTERS to the patient experience.
In fact, how your patient experiences your care prior to physically arriving also plays a huge roles in trust, alignment, buy-in, and compliance.
Learn how to strategically design all these critical patient touch points in order to set up your care team for success, a full and thorough completed course of care, and how to make your patients the ultimate brand ambassadors of your clinic.
Strategic Digital Marketing for Increased Patient Volume
Recognizing the importance of the online environment, attendees will learn to evaluate and develop updated digital marketing strategies. The focus will be on enhancing visibility — both brick-and-mortar and online. You will learn how to attract new patients, and ultimately benefiting both patient volume and clinic revenue. This involves understanding the psychological factors that influence online behavior and applying retail marketing concepts in a healthcare context.
Stronger Professional Network and Local Reputation
The course includes strategies for building and maintaining relationships with referral providers and community stakeholders. Attendees will learn how to bolster their business-to-business networking, enhance their local reputation, and create a supportive ecosystem that benefits their practice and the wider community. This emphasizes the understanding that a healthcare provider’s success is also tied to their connections within the professional landscape.
Who is the instructor?
Ben Fung is a Physical Therapist, Professor, Educator and Consultant with over 20 years of experience across healthcare, business operations, marketing strategy, and education.
As a physical therapist, he has served in various clinical settings across his career; including acute care hospitals, community wellness, rural home health, and telehealth. Within the rehab therapy industry space, he is known for his expertise in digital marketing, workforce intelligence, organizational behaviors, and the job market — speaking regularly at national conferences, galas, and keynotes.
Fung is also known as one of the first wave founders of rehab therapy digital media and marketing firms through his company UpDoc Media™ an UpDoc, Inc. company. Additionally, he recently finished a national spokesperson tenure of six years with the APTA Media corp. Alongside his ongoing presence at UpDoc, Fung currently serves as a professor for healthcare careers and business administration programs.
Fung received a bachelor’s degree in bioengineering and psychology at the University of California, San Diego, a master’s degree in business administration at the University of Michigan, and a doctor of physical therapy degree at Azusa Pacific University.
Hover or tap the images to explore a few of Ben’s past speaking engagements highlights.
That one time we got #SocialPT trending
Since the early 2010s, Ben Fung has been one of the go to experts in all things digital marketing in physical therapy and rehab therapy at large.
The adjacent screencap was taken when his CSM session trended on then Twitter (now X) back in 2017.
Photo Credit: Ben, while speaking at CSM on #SocialPT — the future of transforming society through digital media.
Why is this course important?
Building Trust BEFORE The Patient Arrives is Pivotal in Modern Healthcare
Studies show that medication non-adherence accounts for up to 50% of treatment failures and is linked to approximately 125,000 deaths and up to 25% of hospitalizations annually in the United States. Furthermore, recent research indicates a significant decline in public trust in physicians and hospitals, dropping from 71.5% in April 2020 to just 40.1% in January 2024. Failing to build strong patient relationships based on trust and understanding their psychological needs directly contributes to this lack of adherence and erodes the crucial patient-provider bond.
Patient Buy-In and Alignment Drives Clinical Outcomes
Patients with high trust in their healthcare providers are 2.6 times more likely to adhere to treatment plans. This significant increase highlights the crucial role of trust in translating medical advice into patient action.
Patients who find their providers easy to work with are 84% more likely to stay with them, indicating that trust is intertwined with the overall patient experience.
Stay Up To Date In A Digitally Driven Healthcare Landscape
In today’s market, nearly 90% of Americans look for health-related information online, and search engines drive three times as many visitors to hospital websites compared to other sources.
Moreover, a significant portion of mobile searchers for hospitals end up scheduling an appointment. Healthcare practices that neglect to develop effective digital marketing strategies risk being invisible to a large segment of potential patients, leading to stagnant growth while competitors with a strong online presence thrive.
Capture Opportunities for Crucial Referral Networks and Community Awareness
In today’s healthcare landscape, trust, your online presence, and making patients feel genuinely cared for aren’t just important – they’re critical for success.
Consider this: up to 50% of treatment failures are linked to non-adherence, often stemming from a lack of trust.
Meanwhile, nearly 90% of people research healthcare online, and a staggering 84% wouldn’t choose a provider with less than a four-star rating.
Finally, remember that feeling heard and cared for directly builds trust, which is foundational for positive outcomes and patient loyalty. Ignoring these interconnected elements puts you at significant risk of losing patients and falling behind.
Course Objectives:
- Identify and explain core psychological principles relevant to building trust and influencing patient engagement and adherence.
- Apply understanding of cognitive brain functions and neurochemical processes underlying trust formation to improve patient trust and therapeutic alliance decision-making.
- Apply effective communication and rapport-building techniques in patient interactions and care team collaboration.
- Analyze ethical considerations and psychological factors, including relevant retail marketing concepts, that influence patient decision-making and in-clinic experiences.
- Evaluate various online digital marketing strategies for their potential to attract and engage new patients.
- Develop strategies for building and maintaining relationships with referral providers and community stakeholders to enhance local reputation.
- Design patient communication approaches that integrate psychological insights to improve buy-in and manage expectations.
- Self-examine modern marketing and sales practices in order to improve your future footprint — with emphasis in the digital environment — through a psychologically informed lens.
Register Today!
Saturday, November 1st, 2025 — 8am - 4:30pm
Early Registration and Group Discounts Are Available!
- $200 if registered before 9/1/2025
- $250 if registering after Septembers 1st, or at the door
- $200 if registered before 9/1/2025
- $250 if registering after Septembers 1st, or at the door
- $50 OFF, if two or more registrations from the same group, facility, or clinic/company
- Making it $350 per person for a full weekend if registered from the same group, before 9/1/2025
Please use the form below to RSVP. We will email you a formal registration form shortly thereafter. Thank you!