The Archive
Field Notes7 min readJanuary 15, 2026

Field Notes: 90 Days Inside a Chicago Medical Practice Rebuild

A documented account of rebuilding the marketing and operations infrastructure for a multi-specialty medical practice in Chicago — from intake to close, from ads to automation.

The intake process was the bottleneck — not the ads. Fixing it increased consultation bookings 68% in 90 days.

Front desk teams trained on GHL outperform those who aren't by 2.4x on follow-up rate.

Day one. A multi-specialty medical practice in Chicago's Gold Coast. Running Google Ads for 14 months, spending $12,000/month, averaging 19 booked consultations per month.

The owner's question: "Why aren't we growing?"


The Audit

We tracked 30 days of inbound inquiries across every channel — web form, phone, DM, Google Business Profile.

Of 214 inbound inquiries:

  • 71 received a response within 24 hours
  • 143 were never contacted

The ads were working. The intake infrastructure was broken.

The practice wasn't losing to competitors. It was losing to its own response gap. $12,000/month in ads was generating leads that were disappearing into a void.

The Rebuild — Weeks 1–4

We deployed GoHighLevel with a new intake pipeline. Configured missed-call text-back, web form instant response, and a 5-touch qualification sequence over 72 hours.

Integrated with the practice's existing scheduling system. Trained the front desk team on pipeline management and follow-up protocols. No new ad spend. No new campaigns.


Weeks 5–12

Layered in database reactivation for 8 months of cold leads — contacts who had inquired and been ignored. Configured review generation post-appointment. Built monthly performance reporting for the owner.

Still no changes to ad spend.


Day 90 Results

  • +68% booked consultations — same ad spend
  • 91% of inbound inquiries now receive a response within 5 minutes
  • 40% fewer administrative interruptions to the front desk team

The owner's comment: "It feels like a different business."

It is a different business. The ads didn't change. The infrastructure did. That's the entire lesson.
Topics
Chicago medical marketingmedical practice marketing automationChicago marketing agencyGoHighLevel medicalmedical practice lead generation