Hypergrowth in healthcare: How marketing teams can thrive

As healthcare companies experience rapid growth, they encounter both exciting opportunities and unique challenges — especially independent practices working to scale operations and marketing effectively. While hypergrowth offers the potential for increased revenue and market expansion, smaller practices must navigate limited resources, new technologies, and patient demands.

This article uncovers the strategies, tools, and tactics that help marketing teams thrive during hypergrowth, drawing on insights from a Tebra survey of 260 healthcare marketers working in rapidly expanding companies.

Hypergrowth is a phase of rapid expansion when a business experiences a compound annual growth rate of 40% or greater. In this section, we'll explore how healthcare businesses in this critical phase scale their marketing efforts to keep up.

On average, hypergrowth healthcare businesses saw a 49% increase in revenue over the past year. As a result, 62% increased their marketing budgets, with an average increase of 18%.

The most popular tools driving their strategies were Google ads (51%), followed by Facebook (44%), LinkedIn (38%), and Instagram (31%) ads. Out-of-home advertising (OOH), which includes billboards, transit ads, and other physical media placements, also played a key role, with 19% of healthcare businesses allocating most of their budget to it this year.

Social media emerged as a major growth driver, with 55% of hypergrowth healthcare businesses reporting that their social media strategy fueled rapid growth over the past year. Influencer marketing, in particular, was credited by 1 in 6 hypergrowth companies as a key factor in their expansion. This tactic involves partnering with individuals who have a large social media following to promote services or products.

Practices that leverage digital tools like electronic health records (EHR) can streamline patient management, freeing up valuable time and resources for marketing. An all-in-one EHR software solution also supports managing a practice's "digital front door" by offering features like SEO-optimized websites with online scheduling, automated patient surveys, and reputation management features. With these capabilities, smaller practices can gather positive online reviews and stay competitive, even during periods of rapid growth.

As healthcare companies continue to grow rapidly, they face new challenges and identify emerging priorities to stay competitive. In this section, we explore the key obstacles businesses are encountering and where they see the most opportunity for growth in the coming year.

As hypergrowth healthcare companies look ahead, adapting to new technologies remains a challenge. For independent practices with limited staff, integrating AI tools while maintaining personalized patient care can place additional demands on providers and staff. We determined that small healthcare businesses have faced the most difficulty with AI adoption as 47% reported challenges.

While 37% of hypergrowth practices have struggled to keep up with AI, 36% identified AI integration as their top growth priority for 2025. Micro-sized healthcare businesses showed the most interest in AI growth, with 43% planning to focus on it moving forward. According to another recent Tebra survey, independent practices are most interested in using AI for charting notes, improving patient acquisition and retention, and achieving operational efficiency.

Beyond AI, content marketing is another key area for growth. Micro (35%) and small healthcare businesses (33%) expressed the highest interest in expanding their content marketing efforts to fuel continued growth.

Although evolving technologies like AI present challenges, tools such as EHR and EMR systems can provide a solid foundation for improving efficiency. By automating patient records and administrative tasks, smaller healthcare businesses can redirect more time and resources toward growth strategies like content marketing and patient engagement.

As healthcare companies grow rapidly, managing the workload and maintaining effective team collaboration becomes increasingly challenging. This section explores how hypergrowth impacts employees' well-being and the hurdles businesses face when trying to collaborate across departments.

As hypergrowth healthcare businesses expand, the increased workload is taking a toll on employees. More than 2 in 5 workers (42%) reported feeling burned out due to the higher demands, while 27% admitted that the heavier workload has led to more mistakes on the job.

Collaboration across departments also presents challenges, with varying levels of bureaucracy affecting team efficiency. Here's how workers rated their experiences when collaborating:

To improve efficiency and reduce the strain of increased workloads, 73% of marketing teams in hypergrowth healthcare businesses have adopted automation tools into their workflow, streamlining processes and enhancing collaboration.

For smaller practices, the combination of EHR and EMR systems, along with other automation tools, can reduce workloads and enhance collaboration. By leveraging these technologies, small healthcare practices can better manage the challenges of growth without sacrificing patient care or staff well-being.

As healthcare companies grow quickly, even small, independent practices can benefit by embracing innovation and focusing on key priorities. Implementing tools like all-in-one EHR software, payment and billing solutions, and patient experience platforms can streamline care, improve operational efficiency, and make it easier to boost and manage growth. Staying adaptable and investing in integrated solutions — alongside efforts to leverage AI, expand content marketing, and improve team collaboration — positions practices for both immediate success and long-term growth in a constantly changing industry.

For this campaign, Tebra surveyed 260 marketers working at healthcare businesses experiencing hypergrowth to understand how they scale their marketing strategies during rapid expansion. The company sizes represented in the survey were:

The term healthcare businesses refers to healthcare companies or practices. Tebra collected data in September 2024.

Tebra, headquartered in Southern California, empowers independent healthcare practices with cutting-edge AI and automation to drive growth, streamline care, and boost efficiency. Our all-in-one EHR and billing platform delivers everything you need to attract and engage your patients, including online scheduling, reputation management, and digital communications. 

Inspired by "vertebrae," our name embodies our mission to be the backbone of healthcare success. With over 165,000 providers and 190 million patient records, Tebra is redefining healthcare through innovation and a commitment to customer success. We’re not just optimizing operations — we're ensuring independent practices thrive.

Feel free to share these insights on healthcare marketing strategies for noncommercial purposes; just be sure to credit this article as the source.