Hospitals Lose Thousands of High-Intent Visitors Every Month: How to Turn Your Website Into a Patient-Nurturing Engine

Hospital marketing teams feel steady pressure from the C-suite to deliver quick, measurable patient acquisition results. Appointment volume becomes the easiest way to demonstrate value. Yet many hospital website visitors are not ready to book. They arrive earlier in their decision-making process, which creates a disconnect between what leadership expects and what visitors actually need.

To explore how hospitals can close this gap, I invited Shawn Gross, founder of HospitalWebsites.com and former digital leader at Mass General and Tufts Medical Center, along with Symetris CTO Matthieu Gadrat, who recently analyzed one hundred hospital sites for our latest research. Together, we looked at how hospitals can stop losing high-intent visitors who are still evaluating their options and help guide them toward care over time.

This article brings together our most actionable insights.

Watch the full Podcast Episode on Youtube and Spotify

The Silent Loss: High-Intent Visitors Who Leave Unnoticed

Many hospital websites, in an ongoing effort to streamline the user journey to an appointment transaction, focus on the visitor who already knows their condition, has chosen a provider, and is ready to schedule care. This leaves out the much larger group of visitors who use the website to explore, compare, and understand their options.

These early-stage visitors include people who are:

• researching symptoms after a recent diagnosis
• comparing physicians across competing systems
• checking whether a service line even exists
• gathering information for a family member or caregiver journey
• reviewing treatment philosophies before speaking with a specialist

“We keep building websites for the ready-to-book visitor and forget the people who are still deciding what they need.”
- Shawn Gross, HospitalWebsites.com

In analytics dashboards, these visitors look like bounces. In reality, they are potential future patients who simply found no way to stay connected.

From my perspective, this is one of the biggest blind spots in hospital marketing.

“Hospital marketers work hard to show quick results, yet long-term growth comes from supporting people who are still processing a diagnosis or evaluating their options.”
– Brad Muncs, Symetris

The value of these visits is long term. This early interest eventually drives service line growth, strengthens future patient volume, and gives leadership a clearer understanding of long-term demand.

To convert this early interest into service line growth, the website should provide a way to return or continue learning; otherwise, that value disappears without ever showing up in a report.

Strong Foundations Are Not Enough

Hospital websites have made real progress in recent years. Many organizations now provide clearer navigation, stronger provider profiles, improved internal search, and more consistent mobile experiences. Our review of the top one hundred hospital websites highlights this evolution.

However, these strengths do not address the needs of visitors who are still comparing care options. These individuals want to understand the expertise behind your services and why your approach to care might be a better fit for them. Creating that type of experience requires a shift in how websites support early intent.

The Shift: Adding Patient Nurturing to Your Transaction Engine

Supporting visitors who are still evaluating where to seek care means helping them learn, compare, and return at their own pace. This does not require a redesign. It requires small, intentional changes that create a reason to come back.

“We need creative ways to collect a little information over time and give something of value back. That is how you keep future patients engaged.”
- Shawn Gross, HospitalWebsites.com

Helping early-stage visitors stay connected

Progressive profiling

Instead of long forms, offer small steps that feel valuable to the visitor, such as:

• following a condition to receive relevant updates
• saving a provider profile for later review
• tracking clinical research from a specific physician
• offering a “text me the app” feature that captures a mobile number in exchange for a direct download link

These actions reveal interest without creating friction.

Value-based content

People no longer rely on hospital websites for symptom definitions. They get that from Google or AI summaries. What they cannot get is a deeper understanding of how a hospital approaches care.

“Generic condition libraries do not differentiate a hospital anymore. People want insight into the care philosophy and expertise behind the service.”
- Matthieu Gadrat, Symetris

This is where storytelling around programs, outcomes, multidisciplinary teams, and innovation becomes a differentiator.

Clear communication boundaries

When someone shows interest, they should be able to receive helpful updates. At the same time, marketing content must remain clearly distinct from clinical updates or test results to avoid anxiety or confusion. This separation builds trust and protects the patient experience.

Remove the Friction That Pushes Visitors Away

Even motivated visitors can lose momentum when the experience breaks down. Common friction points include:

• booking flows that restart or lose provider context
• repetitive filter selections on mobile
• unclear pathways between website scheduling and patient portals
• emails that blur the line between clinical and general communications
• Each friction point may seem small, yet together they interrupt trust.

“Every extra step increases the chance a visitor will give up, even if they already chose your system.”
- Shawn Gross, HospitalWebsites.com

Reducing these barriers strengthens both the transactional experience and the nurturing strategy.

Where to Start: A Practical Roadmap for Any Hospital

You do not need a redesign to begin supporting future patients. Start with steps that build momentum.

Map one journey

Choose a service line and identify where early interest fades or confusion appears.

Add one simple follow or save feature

Allow visitors to follow updates to a condition page or save a provider as a “favorite”. Small features can help capture early intent.

Tighten a high-friction booking moment

Ensure provider context carries cleanly into scheduling. (ie: clicking to book an appointment from the pediatrics page should automatically pre-filter for pediatricians in the booking process)

Segment communication streams

Keep clinical updates and general updates clearly separate. (for example: use different email sender names)

Progressive profiling

Start small — get their email, then interests, then clinical context. Each visit builds the profile.
 

These steps help create a website that evolves to support visitors across multiple stages of decision-making.

Conclusion: Websites Should Grow Demand, Not Just Capture It

Hospitals work hard to convert ready-to-book visitors. The next phase of digital maturity is to support the many people who are still deciding where to go for care. They represent future patient volume, yet they often leave unnoticed because the website offers no way to stay connected.

Shawn expressed it well in our conversation: “There is real value in helping people who are not ready today but will be soon.”

Small, intentional improvements help hospitals nurture early interest and strengthen trust. Over time, these changes turn the website from a tool that not only captures demand, but also one that grows it.