1. TMS Center Credibility: Patients and colleagues want to know about your personal TMS experiences. It shows commitment and dedication. Citing other studies or independent case studies may lend credibility to the procedure, but nothing beats the power of data from a first-hand TMS experience. An example of how this may be presented:
“We review our data at least once per year to see how successful we have been in treating our patients. Our most recent review was this past May. We compiled our data and submitted it for review by a peer review panel to present at an international meeting. Our data was accepted and showed that of the 200 patients treated, 65% achieved remission and over 75% showed a significant response to the procedure. We are one of the few clinics in the country that have collected and analyzed our data to prove that we truly are doing our best for our patients.”
2. Distinguish Yourself: In addition to showing dedication to your patients, distinguishing yourself from outside clinical studies lends more prestige to your clinic. For an even more effective contrast between multi-center trial results and your results, consider mentioning similar points when explaining your data:
• We implemented the bio-psycho-social-model in our studies. The clinical trials did not.
• We combine TMS therapy with other treatments/medications, while the clinical trials did not.
• An important end note: when needed, always disclose that the data between the two were not a head-to-head trial.
3. Parsing the Data: You can separate your data into subgroups. This allows you to speak more directly to a patient’s clinical history or demographics and make the data more relatable. Some categories include:
- Severity at baseline
- Age
- Sex
- Lifetime number of episodes
- Primary and/or secondary diagnosis.
- The number of medications taken in a current and/or lifetime.
4. Healthcare Payer Credibility: Your data can provide compelling information to secure healthcare payer coverage. This is important as an in-network or out-of-network provider.
5. Quality Control: As an internal measure of quality, you should know how your results fair compared to other TMS centers. For example, one client may have shown a significantly lower remission rate (less than 50%) compared to a peer (68%). After a deeper review, retraining on administering TMS was implemented.
6. Competitive Difference: Patients choose centers and doctors. You should know your success and reference it with each patient. If possible, parse your data (item 3 above) so that you can present more relatable data. Keep in mind, every patient feels their situation is unique, so the closer you can get to show past experiences of success the more compelling your conversation will be.