"When you over-deliver in response to a
physician referred patient, you are also
promoting that referral physician’s practice
as well as a continuous referral
source for your own practice."
Establishing a patient referral system that coordinates one physician's office with other potential physicians who refer their patients to you is certainly the most productive and profitable system you can create for recruiting new medical patients, increasing your medical practice business income, and increasing you public relations and reputation in your community.
Understanding that over 60% of your new patients are the result of referrals to your medical office, and which should become your major effort in marketing to establish a continuing flow of medical patients to your office for years.
To do that requires conscientious and intentional interactions with the referring medical doctor or appropriate referral person or business. The origin of referred medical patients includes your own patients, family, friends, para-medical care businesses, and other healthcare professionals, like nurses at the hospital as well as non-professional employees of hospitals.
A reasonable volume and flow of communications with the referral doctor is the most effective means of ensuring future referrals from that doctor or office staff. The contacts should be for a medical business reason most of the time... overdoing the communications exposes your purposeful intent.
It's a common professional courtesy and ethical behavior to instantly answer any phone calls from medical doctors no matter what activity you are involved with at the time, with few exceptions (like being in the middle of a special surgical procedure).
When medical doctors take the time to call you themselves, you should either take the call right then or have an reliable excuse not to. Your office staff member can explain the situation to the doctor on the phone and arrange a time for you to call them back within a very short time (within
30 minutes, preferably).
This demonstrates your top priority in your office to respect another doctor's time, especially when it involves referring you a patient. Being quick to answer such a call creates a desirable reputation in the peer community of being quick and willing to comply. This should be your habit pattern for any physician call for any reason.
Usually, the referral process is handled between the two office staff members by phone without the involvement of the medical doctors. When a medical doctor is involved, the referral is often an urgency, emergency, or a special circumstance in regards to the patient and should be handled the same day, or within 24 hours at most--maybe even in the next 30 minutes.
By enabling the referring doctor to get his or her patient to the right doctor promptly, lets her patient know that she is prepared for such urgency.
Patients quickly recognize that their medical doctor cares about their medical problem, understands the importance of prompt help being available and which medical doctor is most congenial and accommodating in the medical community whether the situation is urgent or not.
You need to be the one medical doctor in the community that is not only the most accommodating but also the one who has just made the referral medical doctor look good in her patient's eyes. Do you think that referral doctor will reciprocate in the future? You better believe it.
(Strategy: reciprocity)
There are many more strategies all physicians use at one time or another to boost their referral marketing efforts. Most all of them can be found associated with the attractive traits found in the best physicians you will want to refer your patients to yourself, such as...
Some attractive traits that referral physicians find impressive in other physicians that they prefer to refer their patients most often to, are...
- Your prompt availability (when referred for a medical problem, patients want to be seen right away out of fear regarding how serious their medical problem might be and their own doctor
did not bring up that issue.)
- Your skills at managing their patient’s medical problems, if asked to do so---the referring physician may just want you to confirm his or her diagnosis only and not treat the patient. Always confirm exactly what the referral doctor wants you to do, don't guess at it.
- Your clear advice and appropriate options for your findings and treatments presented
to the patient
- Your intentional effort to refer the patient back to their own doctor for further care, even
if it's not necessary--it tells the patient your level of integrity.
- Your reports on referral patient findings and treatment promptly sent or called back to the referring medical doctor
- Your ability to express (with the least fearful words and medical terms) the seriousness of the medical problem to the patient in a manner that is factual, understandable, and without frightening the patient beyond hope--(for example, avoid the word "cancer" and use the word "tumor", avoid the word "serious" and use the words "needs close follow up."
- Your expertise at being able to satisfy the patient at to the need for their referral, without any response that might reflect badly on the referring doctor’s ignorance or skills...
(sidebar--my experience with such an event)
An older family physician in our community that I had never met referred a patient to me. When I asked, the patient told me that she was being referred to have hysterectomy, and was very upset. After examining the patient, I found only a couple pea sized fibroids on the surface of the uterus. She had no other pathology or symptoms that warranted a hysterectomy at the present time. After explaining to her what her options were and my advice of not needing a hysterectomy, she was overwhelmed with joy.
(events that followed)
I waited to call the primary care doctor till the next morning to explain my findings and advice concerning the referral patient because her appointment was late in the day. However, the patient had her own agenda--after leaving my office she went home and called the referring doctor to chew him out about the needless referral. Needless to say, when the family doctor called me the next morning, I was verbally threatened, beaten-up, and the recipient of a list of profanity that would have made a longshoreman blush.
(comments)
First, the referral physician never called me beforehand with any explanation about the patient, nor about what he referred her for. He obviously had convinced the patient that she had no choice but a hysterectomy. How dare I tell her she didn't need a hysterectomy! I assumed that he had been referring patients for unnecessary hysterectomies to other gynecologists in the area and he ran out of referral doctors and got to me eventually.
What was well known in our city was that one of the gynecologists had been doing unnecessary vaginal hysterectomies for several years in a local hospital and widespread knowledge among the physicians on the hospital staff. The issue was never brought before the surgery committee to explain because he had donated a large amount of money when the new hospital was built, was the story I was told.
I wonder still today if that primary care doctor had had a run-in with that gynecologist and lost his referral source. I suggest that every physician today remain a bit leery about sudden new referrals to you from unknown medical doctors.
**** - Your ability to present your findings to the patient while maintaining an attitude of
potential for a successful outcome, regardless of the true severity of the medical problem
- Your personal integrity about maintaining a patient’s medical
privacy and privacy of the referral medical doctor’s blunders
- Your trait of never saying anything derogatory about any other medical professional,
even in a humorous fashion--this activity is quite frequent in the area where I practiced.
How to manage your interactions with the referring physicians that work to
your advantage...
The minimal array of communications sent doctor to doctor should include at least the following...
1. Responsibility for treatment and follow-up visits and management. Most referral medical doctors make it clear at the time of the request for their patient to be seen who is to do which part of the treatment and follow-up… them or you… or even to keep the patient forever (ex. A dermatologist refers a pregnant patient to an OBG doctor)
2. Same day phone call back to the referral medical doctor about your findings, thoughts, advice,
treatment options
3. Written communication reviewing the details of your findings, thoughts, and treatment
options… within 24 hours of consult
4. If you are to treat and follow the referred patient for that medical problem, then a follow-up written report and phone call back to the referring medical doctor about the recovery and
outcome is important.
5. If the patient was referred only for a diagnostic and advice consultation, then all treatment
will be done by the referring medical doctor.
In this case a written report of your findings, advice, and treatment options should be sent to the referral medical doctor to use as part of his or her education in case they are not fully informed of the most recent and upcoming new treatment options available.
At the same time, it is also wise to make it clear in the message that you would be happy to help them further at anytime with this patient, or even take over the care of the referred patient should her own doctor run into problems with the patients treatment… leave all options open.
Additional communications can be the elements that set you apart from, and above, what other doctors don’t, or won’t do. Remember that marketing your practice is the foundation for continuing stability of your income and referrals.
The marketing strategy here is...
Do what other physicians are not doing!
It positions you above your competition for referrals, as well as other practice interactions in the future. By going the extra mile in this situation, it impacts those who see or know what you are willing to do to deserve referrals. Your reputation is polished. Your integrity and trustworthiness
is intensified.
Your self-esteem rises because you know you are doing a better job at what you do than most others and it shows, and your peers see it.
Consider committing yourself to some additional highly profitable referral marketing strategies that seal your dominance as the doctor to send patients to in your local medical community.
1. A well timed and constructed “THANK YOU” for the referral process...
No matter how seemingly unnecessary, simple, faked, late, or ridiculous this may seem, “thank you’s” are the ultimate fuel that drives the referral engine.
Human behavior has long been shown to respond dramatically to the process of “recognition”…just ask your spouse about that. A personal verbal thank-you may be enough if it’s expressed doctor to doctor for each referred patient, not just now and then when you happen to think about it. It should never be taken for granted.
Some medical professionals prefer to add a gift item as a means of saying “thank you.” Many physicians prefer to use holiday gifts as a means to thank another doctor.
This effort is effective as long as there’s a handwritten note included explaining what you are
thanking the physician for (be very specific as to any patient name, date, and reasons).
Physicians, like all of us, forget things they do for others over time, especially when they aren’t compensated for the effort. Consequently, if a thank you is delayed, the reason for it may not be obvious and the effectiveness of it has dissipated.
Whenever someone does you a favor, it’s important that the "thank you" is delivered promptly
to the person for obtaining the full effect of gratitude. Practice busyness or forgetfulness is
never an acceptable excuse for delay or avoiding the issue.
2. Rewarding the office staff of a referral doctor, is something most
physicians disregard...
To be truthful, you may not be aware of how a referral patient gets to you. Some doctors leave it all up to their office manager or specific person to do all of his or her non-urgent referrals.
That office staff member may actually be the one who decides which doctor to refer to, all based on their personal dealings with other doctor offices and perceptions of their competence and efficiency…and whether they ever receive a thank you from that office.
Because most medical offices are very busy, lunchtimes are often messed up or disappear, leaving a great option for the “fruit of the month” kind of gift that they can snack on anytime during
work hours.
Not only is such a gift a monthly reminder to that referral office, like a repeated thank-you being said, about who sent it, but also is an investment you make to profit from many more referred patients. It’s a thoughtful gift.
3. Holiday greeting cards sent to referral physician’s offices...
Are a repetitive means of reminding them in a subtle manner of your availability for referrals. Keeping others in your focus of attention in this manner is a very clever and subtle way of nudging them into their behavior pattern of reciprocity.
When your neighbor invites you over to their home for an evening, doesn’t it create a strong feeling about paying them back in some way for such an interesting evening?
This effort of sending out holiday greetings is greatly enhanced by adding a personal handwritten message on the card. This process creates exactly the same behavior pattern and response in your patients that you send birthday cards to once a year.
A clever “one-upsmanship” tactic to keep you fresh in your patient’s minds (who also refer you patients) is to send your patient’s “half-year” birthday cards in between the annual and usual one.
Do the same for the medical doctors who refer you patients. Actually, it’s a perfect time to send a humorous card that is remembered far longer than the cheesy usual greeting cards.
One of the magnetic properties of this type of marketing (direct mail) is that it often incites a response in the recipient that would not have happened otherwise. They receive it in the mailbox, open it, feel and view the message--all is sensory additions to the impact factor.
It may also result in retaining a patient who was drifting off towards another doctor at the time, or a referral doctor who was thinking about sending a patient to another doctor instead of you. The actual cost to you for doing this is minimized by the amount of profit you will make from
the process.
There’s a profitable marketing secret in this that’s seldom recognized. The marketing fact that it costs 6 to 10 times more money to recruit a new patient than to retain an old patient, makes it a lot less expensive to work at retaining your present patients than trying to recruit new patients.
This is even more valuable when one is focusing on retaining a referral doctor who keeps on sending you patient referrals and in essence costs you nothing to obtain in the exchange.
The non-monetary cost you face is your time nurturing the referral resource. It’s the same benefit retail businesses seek who market to their list of previous buyers.
Comment about your medical practice marketing to the best physician
referral sources...
Depending on your thoughts about the kind of medical patients you prefer to have in your practice, your marketing efforts should be directed to those referral sources.
The most profitable resources for patient referrals are the medical doctors in your local city medical community within a 7 to 10 mile radius. Some doctors prefer to deal in volume of patient referrals
and some in quality of the patients referred to them.
You are quite aware that you are able to see and treat only a limited number of patients per day, per week, per month. The level of income produced in your practice from that limited number of patients is dependent on many aspects of your practice business.
Seeing referred patients that are in a low income healthcare category, rarely become loyal patients, and often encompass much more of your attention medically. A practice predominantly composed of these patients usually results in a less than adequate practice income.
If you deal in volume of referred patients, then you are forced to hire more staff who do most of the medical advice, minor treatments, and handle the majority of medical patients that are seen.
As a medical student in the early 1960s, I remember a center city OBGYN doctor associated with the med school teaching program that was known for seeing an average of 130 patients a day in
his office. That was difficult for me at the time to comprehend. It’s obvious now that he had hired several high powered OBG nurses to see most of his patients every day. Needless to say, he was quite wealthy.
His being 50 or so years ahead of his time, was remarkable. It was long before the time of medical office certified nurse midwife employees, before nurse practitioners, and before medical practice required private practice medical doctors to hire such special employees for financial survival.
If your intent is to create a medical practice primarily composed of well educated, medically informed, and well paying patients, you must focus your referral marketing efforts on the referral medical doctors who treat those patients and that send that kind of patient to you.
Those well established physicians who treat affluent patients require a higher level of your referral marketing to get their attention and to refer their patients to you.
That’s why it’s so important to begin your medical practice in a location where this is possible and where your mix with that society is possible from the start. This may not fit your ideas about the kind of practice you want, but it is the fastest way to wealth in the profession, if that is
important to you.
You can become wealthy in any medical practice setup if you know how to go about it. It’s a skill
you will never be taught in your medical education. You learn that from life experiences, your friends and mentors, and from your own intellect and intuition. Which means that the value to you
is far less than an academic business and marketing education.
If we all knew the secrets, we’d all be rich. If that was the only goal of medical practice, we’d all be free of frustrations. Most physicians seek fulfillment in helping patients fight disease, trauma, and disability. Fulfillment is something wealth doesn’t provide.
However, creating a high practice income by marketing your practice does not exclude fulfillment at the same time.
I believe that high medical practice income, when you earn it, is deserved and provides more intensity of fulfillment. That’s because you are then able to afford to learn new medical skills and knowledge. You become a better physician in the long run.
You are able to serve your patients at a higher level of expertise, and draw more referral patients because of it. If that’s not true, then I will have much to regret.
Patient referrals obtained through referral marketing efforts, some of which are described above, should be one of your primary marketing and practice building objectives in your medical career.
"One of the most important disciplines is constantly
separating what you know from what you think
you know about your market, your customers
(patients) and their preferences, and the (doctors)
that you associate with during your
medical practice career."
---Dan S. Kennedy, marketing expert
(With this author's paraphrasing to doctors)
----Professional Probe----
"Perception of this image to the eyes is very disrupting to the mind."
Like in medical practice we find symptoms that do not lead
to a diagnosis, so we are left to rely on our minds to
sort out the reality of the issue."
Articles © 2013-2022/CGG INVESTMENTS LLC. All rights reserved. #33, 3-16-22
