Physician Outreach | Health Care Management Consulting Firm

Posts Tagged ‘physician outreach’

The ABCs of Referral Development

Thursday, September 17th, 2009

Whether you are a new physician, starting a new practice or a seasoned provider looking to augment your patient base, developing and sustaining relationships is an art form that can only help you. Just like any relationship, you have to spend time and effort and there is no quick formula.

So where should you start?

The Hospital

Seems like it would be a “no-brainer” for the call center and marketing department at your affiliated hospitals to be disseminating your information but this is sometimes an overlooked area. Think about that call center operator and imagine how much more enthusiasm they might provide a newcomer to the area if they have actually met you – the physician? Taking the time to introduce yourself to call center personnel and the individuals in the marketing departments helps them put a real face on their work and also lets them know you respect and appreciate the work that they do. Along these same lines, make sure that the individual charged with the hospital’s website has your information. Ask them if they engage in any social media platforms like Twitter and find out what kind of information they like to have from medical staff members. And, of course, make sure that the public relations teams has a good sense of your services and find out if they have a speakers’ bureau they promote to local organizations. Can you and your service be one of the topic areas of interest?

Practice Partners or Former Colleague

If you are taking over a practice for a retiring physician, make sure there is a hand off between the former provider and you. Letters mailed to all existing patients about the practice changes help prevent leakage and provide you with a solid and respected introduction into the community. This communication process also works well if you are joining a practice. Your new colleagues can send a letter to their existing patients about the new provider/new specialty.

The Medical Community

Go beyond simply providing an announcement to the members of the medical community and get personal. Face to face introductions make a huge impression. Take the time to arrange introductions. Consider who will be most likely to refer to you and get out to meet those individuals on their turf – their offices. You can also introduce yourself to office personnel for in most cases, they will handle the mechanics of the referral and it helps them to really know who you are.

Ask the medical staff leadership to introduce you or call or drop by on your own. And of course, make sure you do send out those announcements to all potential referrers and to any non-physician referring sources as well. To reinforce your presence, send out the announcements first and follow-up with the face to face contact. And then, send out a letter to those contacts thanking them for their time and reiterate the services you offer. This in an ideal time to include a rolodex card with your contact information. In a short period of time, you provide three “touch” points and demonstrate your communication abilities.

Outreach Tasks

You have covered the basics – hospital promotion centers and the medical community. But don’t stop there! In order to develop relationships, you have to be out in front of people. Help them get to know you by some of the following actions:

· Offer an Open House in your new office for referral sources.

· Offer an Open House with a health twist for the community – free screening or healthy check-list.

· Participate in CME lectures.

· Partner with a fitness center or health spa and provide a service screening.

The Real Basics – Don’t Overlook

Once you start getting referrals from providers, make sure you are worthy. Worthy? This goes beyond provide good care for these patients. You need to make sure you provide easy and convenient access for your referral sources. If they need to talk to you, make it easy for them to do so. Instruct your office staff to be warm, friendly and HELPFUL. One unpleasant conversation with you or a staff member can turn a referral source into a non-source and they won’t come back.

Close the loop once the patient has been seen. This is an easy quid pro quo (this for that) that must be done. If a referring provider sends you a patient, be sure to call them/email them/fax them and tell them what happened with THEIR patient. Make sure they are the first to hear the news. Make them feel like a partner in the care and tending of THEIR patient.

Tags: physician marketing, physician outreach, physician referrals, referral development, relationship building, relationship development
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Who Are Your Connectors?

Tuesday, September 8th, 2009

Who is spreading your idea? Seth Godin asked this question in a recent blog post. Seth makes the point that in order for ideas to spread, there has to be conveyances for that spreading.

Too often in healthcare, especially with medical practices, the conveyance is advertising. It is in fact, the most tradition form of promotion and therefore is the first one that people think of when they want to promote their idea or new service. More recently, the concept of viral marketing has taken some attention and the hope and desire that you can gain great awareness via people spreading your good news is attractive to many because it seems so cost effective.

We almost always encourage our clients to limit the expensive advertising efforts in exchange for testing other methods. Of course, if you are a physician, developing your referral channels takes relationship marketing to a new level. But let’s save that for another blog entry.

If you want to reach out to potential patients, one method (not THE method for we recommend trying a variety of endeavors to build your practice base) is the reach out to those “connectors” in your targeted community. Who are the people in a position of referring to your practice to a wide variety of potential consumers? The answer to this question varies on the type of medical practice or service you are providing.

Think about where your patients might come from? If you are a pediatrician, new patients might come from new families in the area. You might reach out to these families via newcomer groups or human resource departments at larger employers. If you offering sports medicine services, the local gyms and fitness centers might provide good connection bases. If you are an endocrinologist and want to build your diabetic treatment options, podiatrists often see many early stage diabetics.

Once you identify the possible connectors, you need to take some action. You want to reach out to these connectors and make sure they know about you and your service. You want them to feel good about recommending you, so you need to spend extra time to explain why your service is worthy of their attention. You might want to offer an open house/info session during a coffee break. Make sure you offer the coffee and snacks. Or you might do something that works with them but also demonstrates how your services are aligned. For example, a new pediatrician might coordinate with the local high school to provide sports physicals late in the summer before teams and their health forms need to be completed. Or a gynecologist might want to work with a women’s fitness center to offer an info session on menopause and exercise. The goal is to bring more people to the connector and to demonstrate your service in the process.

The focus, as Seth Godin relates, is to “find, court and delight the people” – the connectors — who are most likely to spread the good word about you and your service. Once you determine who those people are likely to be, it is then up to you to woo them and help them see the value and spirit of collaboration!

Tags: healthcare marketing, physician marketiing, physician outreach, practice development
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Posts Tagged ‘physician outreach’

The ABCs of Referral Development

Who Are Your Connectors?

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