Referral Development | Health Care Management Consulting Firm

Posts Tagged ‘referral development’

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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As a Specialist, Who Is Your Customer?

Friday, April 10th, 2009

Health care is a unique industry for many reasons. One interesting element in health care is just who is the customer? The answer to that question resides in the actual perspective. For most primary care physicians, the customer is the patient. But then, moving down the referral chain, things get a little tricky. For the specialist and the hospital, the customer is the referring physician and the patient.

Specialists do have the dual customer responsibility but in most cases, the patient will return to the primary care physician to resume their long-term relationship. While many primary care physicians report that they jointly decide with the patient where to refer patients, the bulk of referrals still remain the responsibility of the primary care physician. Because patients are both accustomed to the advice of their primary physician and his/her knowledge of the medical community, their main concerns are how long before they can obtain an appointment and will the specialist take their insurance?

In terms of outreach and practice growth, knowing how the referral process works between patient and primary care physician informs us that the specialist should be paying very careful attention to the primary care physician as the customer. In our work in network and referral development, we repeatedly hear from primary care physicians that the things they care most about when referring is access and communication.

Access and communication sound simple enough but in practice they are apparently difficult. Often primary care physicians will indicate that if they did not receive appropriate feedback, they will drop the specialist from their referral list. One area that causes significant frustration is when a secondary referral occurs without discussion with the primary care physician. Physicians refer to those who send the patients back, don’t refer the patient elsewhere and communicate promptly and directly with the referring physician.

Developing a relationship with your referral sources takes time. If you practice in a personal community hospital environment, it is easier to get to know your referral sources through less formal connections. With more hospitalist programs, however, those informal interactions are less likely to occur in the hospital. Efforts have to be more systematized in an academic medical center to understand the needs and expectations of the referring physician.

Consider keeping a database contact list of your referral and potential referral sources. Specifically ask them about their expectations and communication preferences. Note the names of their office manager/practice assistant who typically will be charged with facilitating the referral. If you provide more customer service to your referral sources, they will continue to refer patients to you and they will share their positive results with their primary care colleagues.

Your customer is always your patient but the way to more patients is through the referring physician.

Tags: customer service, physician customer, referral development, relationship development
Posted in practice development | 1 Comment »

Posts Tagged ‘referral development’

The ABCs of Referral Development

As a Specialist, Who Is Your Customer?

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