Admissions strategy and measurement
Know what brings people in, and where the process breaks.
Before you increase marketing spend, understand which inquiries fit your care, what happens after the first call, and which sources lead to admissions.
We research your market, prepare a focused launch plan, and connect inquiry sources to admissions where your records support it. You get a clearer basis for deciding what to fix, what to test, and where to spend next.
Research and preparation are available separately. Campaign management, media spend and ongoing support are scoped before launch.
Unknown stays unknown. Inquiries with no recorded source are counted and shown, never assigned to a channel. The latest month is provisional: later admissions update it.
Start with the decision, not the campaign.
A new center needs a launch plan. An established center needs to know why its current spending is or is not producing appropriate admissions.
Plan before the first campaign
We establish the offer, the local search opportunity, the inquiry path, reporting and launch requirements before anything runs.
Measure what you can trust
We examine the available spending and admissions records, identify missing information, and begin with the part of the journey that can be measured reliably.
What preparation includes.
- A market research brief
- Relevant searches, visible advertiser activity, competing landing pages, and the questions families need answered. Historical keyword figures help plan a test; they do not establish what your clicks will cost. An advertiser appearing in a public ad library does not prove that its campaigns work.
- A focused campaign plan
- Proposed services, geography, keyword groups, exclusions, draft ads, a landing-page outline and budget scenarios for your finance team to set. Brand searches are reported separately. Specific local searches and broader searches get distinct test budgets.
- An inquiry and reporting plan
- Agree what counts as a qualified inquiry, where the source is recorded, how repeat contacts are handled, and how inquiries connect to admissions. Missing sources and outcomes stay visible.
- Launch readiness
- Coordinate the advertising certification, account ownership, admissions routing and specialist review. Your team confirms services, insurance facts, capacity and staffed response hours.
- A referral handoff
- Where included, a program summary and contact materials help clinicians and discharge planners understand how to refer. Your team owns the professional relationships, and no one is ever paid per referral.
You receive a documented plan you can use with your existing team or a separately engaged paid-search specialist. Preparation does not automatically include campaign construction, production landing pages or ongoing management.
How a first paid-search test is set up.
Our starting rules for a pilot. Each center's plan adjusts them to its services, market and budget.
The rules around it
- Exclusions from day one.JobsNon-medical "detox" productsDrug testingServices you do not offerPayers you do not acceptFree and researchReferral partners' names
- People who are actually in the area. Geography expands on qualified inquiries and admissions, not on distance alone.
- Ads only when admissions answers live. Campaigns run during the hours calls are answered by a person.
- Search only during a pilot. No display, no automated campaign types, auto-applied recommendations off. Exact and phrase match at launch.
- Every ad claim on an approved fact sheet. No fear, guarantees, "free" or superlatives.
- No audiences built from patient data. Nothing about a patient or family goes to an ad platform.
Google requires addiction treatment advertisers to be certified before ads can run, in the US through LegitScript. We prepare the application with your documents and set up the ad account in your name. The certification decision and its fees belong to the certifier and to you.
Follow the inquiry far enough to learn something.
- SourceRecorded at the first call, as a field, not a guess.
- InquiryA person reached out, by call or form.
- QualifiedA genuine request that fits the service criteria you agreed.
- AssessmentThe clinical or admissions assessment happened.
- AdmissionThe person started care.
A qualified inquiry is not an admission. We show which steps your data supports. Where suitable financial records exist, reporting can extend to collections, matched inside your own systems. Which plans those collections come from is a separate question: payer mix, by days and by dollars.
Different breaks, different owners.
An unanswered call, a service mismatch and an unavailable bed are different problems, with different people responsible for the next action. Unresolved outcomes are kept apart from confirmed reasons someone did not admit, and a blank reason is shown as not recorded.
One channel. Three useful questions.
Compare spending with qualified inquiries, including how qualification was defined.
Review answer and follow-up information where approved records support it.
Compare acquisition costs with the ceiling your finance team sets from the economics of delivering care.
| Source | Spend | Qualified | Admissions | Media cost per admission | Next action |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Google, non-brand | $27,000 | 51 | 9 | $3,000 | Review search terms weekly |
| Google, brand | $2,100 | 28 | 6 | $350 | Reported apart; takes no credit for other channels |
| Paid social | $6,000 | 6 | 0Too few | None: $6,000, 0 admitted | Review targeting and fit before more spend |
| Referral partners | n/a | 18 | 7 | n/a | Relationships owned by your team |
| Source not recorded | n/a | 5 | 2 | n/a | Fix source capture at the first call |
Three costs, clearly defined.
Always reported apart, never blended into one flattering number.
Media cost per admission
channel media spend ÷ attributed admissionsMedia plus management
(channel media spend + its management fee) ÷ attributed admissionsBlended growth cost
agreed growth costs ÷ all admissions in the defined scopeReferrals and word of mouth cost little, so a blended figure can hide one paid channel losing money. The full guide: cost per admission without sending patient data to ad platforms.
Nine admissions is enough to report, not enough to rank keywords or set a long-term cost.
The attribution rule, period and conversion window are documented before comparisons are made. For inquiry-month reporting, later admissions update earlier months, so recent periods remain provisional.
Cost per admission says nothing about who pays for the care afterwards. That is payer mix, by days and by dollars: how to calculate payer mix.
Set the limits before spending.
Agree the pilot budget, acceptable acquisition costs, evaluation window and loss limit. Name who checks the reports and who can pause or restart campaigns.
| Signal | Default | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Source not recorded | Above 15% of inquiries | The channel figures stop meaning much |
| Live answer rate | Below 90% | Spend is buying calls nobody picks up |
| Spend with no inquiries | Any paid channel | Tracking may be broken, or the targeting is wrong |
| Media plus management cost | Above finance's ceiling | The admissions cost more than the center can afford |
A few admissions can be useful operational evidence. They are not enough to establish a reliable long-term acquisition cost or rank every keyword.
The order we follow before a controlled test.
- Facts confirmedServices, insurance, capacity and answered hours, signed off by your team.
- Inquiry path testedMade-up inquiries reach the named people.
- Measurement readySource capture and the reporting connection work end to end.
- Approvals checkedCertification, privacy review and account ownership in place.
- Controlled testInside the agreed budget, window and loss limit.
A sequence, not a status report for any client.
What has been done so far.
- PreparedLocal-market research, a competitor ads and keyword scan, and a paid-search playbook, for a new center at a five-center network.
- BuiltThe measurement engine: four stages from inquiry to admission, three costs kept apart, eight drop reasons and four review signals, with automated tests. Tested on invented data only.
- In buildFor that new center: tracking, the reporting connection and certification support, before any campaign runs. Delivery depends on the agreed scope, access and approvals. Ongoing campaign management is a separate decision.
Not claimed: a live campaign result, a measured cost per admission, or a proven reduction in advertising spend.
Ownership and patient information.
Stays with you
- Ad accounts and media budgets
- Your domain, forms and tracking setup
- Approval of forms, tracking vendors and data flows, by your privacy lead, before implementation
Never sent to ad platforms by this workflow
- Patient identifiers
- Admission records
- Audiences built from patient data
Patient-level reconciliation is designed for your approved environment. This is not legal advice.
What operators ask first.
Do you run the campaigns?
Research, preparation and measurement can be commissioned separately. If you want ongoing campaign management, we agree the specialist, responsibilities, fees and operating controls before launch. We can also work alongside your existing agency.
Do we need a new CRM?
Not necessarily. A well-maintained inquiry log can be a starting point. The useful level of attribution depends on source capture and reliable matching, not the name of the software.
What is a qualified inquiry?
A genuine request that meets the service-fit criteria agreed with your team. It is not an admission.
Can you prove our current agency is wasting money?
We can investigate the available evidence. Poor results can reflect targeting, response, service fit, capacity or incomplete tracking. We do not assign blame before examining those factors.
Can you guarantee admissions or certification?
No. We can prepare the work and report its status. Certification decisions belong to the relevant bodies, and campaign results depend on the market and your operation.
Bring the question your click report cannot answer.
Tell us how an inquiry reaches your admissions team and how you know what happened next. We will identify the first useful measurement or test.