Marketing your private practice is among the most challenging parts of owning a business as a nurse practitioner (NP) or physician assistant/associate (PA). You build a practice to provide care in the way you do best, and marketing in 2025 can be overwhelming and uncomfortable.
“In medical school and in nurse practitioner school, nobody is taught how to run a business or a medical practice, says Annie DePasquale, MD, founder of Collaborating Docs.
But without marketing your practice, filling your appointments and growing your practice is hard. Following are some practical private practice marketing tips for 2025.
Choose a niche to market your private practice
While NPs and PAs are trained as generalists, specializing in a specific area of care helps you build your reputation for marketing purposes. “It’s how you become known among clinicians and get found on Google,” says Stephanie Gianarelli, MS, AEMP, FABORM, who built four acupuncture clinics throughout Seattle without using social media.
Gianarelli focused her practice on fertility and pregnancy soon after she opened. That helped her become known for fertility expertise among providers who serve the same patients.
Still, she says, you treat all areas of health even when you specialize. “Once patients come to you for one specialty, they’ll ask you what else you treat.”
Start with word-of-mouth marketing
Like any practice, spread the word about your private practice by beginning with friends and family. Word of mouth is still a powerful tool, even in 2025.
From there, contact other clinicians in your area to inform them about your services. You can also connect with area businesses serving your target market, such as hair salons, gyms or kids’ venues.
Gianarelli left flyers offering discounts on her services with all her neighboring businesses when she opened her first acupuncture practice.
Networking and referral marketing
After you initially share your services with other professionals in your area, you can continue to nurture relationships with other providers as you share patients. Communicating with other providers helps you become known as a helpful partner while also supporting patient care.
“Once I have a patient, I’ll make it a point to communicate with their other providers as a way of networking. Verbally connecting and getting to know other doctors, nurses, nurse practitioners and other providers is the best way to market,” says Betsy Hjelmgren, MS, RDN, CSP, LDN, owner of Feed to Succeed in the Chicago area.
Capture your local audience with a free Google page
A robust Google My Business (GMB) page is marketing 101 for any local business. However, many busy practice owners make the mistake of not investing in this free marketing tool.
Keeping your hours and days open, including holidays, updated on Google can make the difference between having a prospect pick you over your competitor. Offering convenient hours to your practice while other local practices only helps you grow if your prospects know about it.
You should also add high-quality photos and posts about your services to your GMB page.
Social media is still effective…and free
Building an audience from scratch in 2025 is harder, but social media remains a powerful tool for connecting with your community. Short, engaging videos that answer FAQs, provide health tips or offer a behind-the-scenes look at your practice can help humanize your business and build patient trust.
The key is wanting to spend time on social media because you have fun with it. Jen Wademan, OD built a big social media following from scratch to advertise her optometry practice. “Instagram reels took off, and I started having fun with it. It turned into a creative outlet that connected me with companies, opportunities and increased awareness of our practice,” she says.
Do’s and don’ts of private practice marketing
Don’t: Offer medical advice online
Dr. Wademan recommends keeping your online content general. The less specific, the better. Some clinicians add explicit language in their social media bios or in every post to indicate that the post is meant for education and not medical advice.
In direct messages, many people ask medical health questions. Dr. Wademan says she typically ignores these to avoid the liability of responding.
Do: Prioritize consistency over quantity
Consistency is far more important for your private practice marketing than quantity, especially on social media. Focus on posting quality content consistently instead of more posts over one short period and then nothing when you’re busy or burned out. Best practices to capture your local audience
Don’t: Break HIPAA laws with your marketing
Many marketing practices for a general business aren’t permitted in healthcare because you may release confidential patient information to a non-HIPAA-compliant business. For example, uploading your audience to target them or to build lookalike audiences on Google ads or social media sites is a standard marketing practice. In healthcare, it’s a HIPAA violation.
The same is true for retargeting visitors to condition-specific pages on your website. Be sure to work with vendors who understand HIPAA laws and will sign a business associate agreement (BAA) with you.
Don’t: Publicly acknowledge patient care in reviews
A typical business owner responds to reviews by thanking someone for using their services. However, this is a HIPAA violation when you publicly acknowledge that you provided medical care to the reviewer. Even though they are admitting it themselves, this is still problematic.
Instead, thank them for the review and make a general statement about how you always do your best to provide excellent care.
Do: Maximize local SEO on your website
Winning clicks with search engine optimization is challenging in 2024, but doing this locally is less challenging. Use location-specific keywords in your website content and even in your website URLs. For example, if you have a provider page, your URL should look like the following: www.practicename.com/cityname-medical-spa/providers
When marketing your private practice in 2025, your insecurity might be the most challenging part. Allison Puryear, LCSW, has a private practice and also teaches thousands of therapists how to open a successful private practice as founder of Abundance Practice Building. She regularly sees private practice owners overcome imposter syndrome to focus on marketing and fill their appointments. “The hardest thing about starting a practice is regulating your own emotions. When you’re worried you won’t be full, it’s hard to get started and show up confidently.”
Whether you’re marketing your first practice or your tenth, CM&F Group can advise you on maximizing your ability to set up your business to avoid risk in your general business practices. Chat with an expert on our website and hear back from one of our client service specialists.
