"The most successful and profitable medical patient
doctor referral system you create is both where over
60% of your new patients come from, and is fueled by
how well you express your appreciation
for a referral from any source."
I just had a silly thought. You don’t really care about getting free referrals of medical patients to your medical practice anyway... right? I say that because I suspect that you have no idea how many "patient or friend" referrals you receive per month. Who keeps track of all of your new patients and who actually referred them to you?
Because all physicians lack any business education provided by medical schools, they lack the tools of business that are necessary for highly profitable medical practice businesses. More importantly, they lack the business tools that enable physician practice management to become a pleasure rather than a boring job. Medical practice management includes medical practice business planning as well as practice marketing.
Of course the fact that over 60% of new patients that join your private medical practice are referred to you by "someone", might incite some interest in upgrading your referral procedures.
Also, I would bet that you or your office staff do not keep a list of physician referred patients, let alone the name of the person or physician who referred the patient.
Beyond that, it’s likely you don’t even acknowledge the referral by a written thank you card, phone call, email, or in person, most of the time. You have way too many important things to occupy your mind than to even say thanks. Why is that?
Why waste the physician marketing efforts to send a thank you note when you already get free referrals joining your practice each week... that is, if you even notice your new patient has been actually referred to you?
Key = In the business world, are you aware of the “lifetime value” of a referred patient to
your medical practice? It’s important.
Advice: Start tracking your referral patients intensively.
The most important reason that you should take this information seriously is because reliable studies have shown that about 60% of your new patients are referred to you from local physicians.
Local physicians refer patients to you for only three reasons...
- Because of how you and your staff treat your patients
- Because you take the time to say "thank you doctor" appropriately
- Because they trust your credibility and professional skills
Of course, you might surprise me by telling me you do all those things out of plain professional courtesy. Funny, I didn’t think that such an old but significant gesture between doctors was used anymore. To tell you the truth, I didn't experience a single professional courtesy event in the last 20 years of my medical practice career. Maybe, no one gives a damn anymore.
If that’s true, then why should any physician waste their time referring a patient to you in the first place. However, we all know that the few doctors who refer to you at all are the ones you have a particular friendship or connection with within the hospital or medical community.
After all, you usually send a Christmas present over to his or her office each year and besides, they already know you are thankful for the referral without any communication attempt because you have told them thanks so often previously... or not. Is a present given at holiday
time enough?
A verbal or written thank you is far more important than you think. Would it be a normal thing to say "thank you dear" to your wife once and then assume that she'll remember it forever without having to say it over and over. A "thank you" kept within your mind and never spoken or written is more often than not interpreted by the recipient as a disregard of a common courtesy or not giving recognition for a voluntary favor.
Every doctor has their own favorite list of doctors to refer to when the need arises. Referrals will continue until some untoward event intervenes. Does that occasionally happen? What happens when the patient referred to you has an unexpected complication or terrible result from your medical/surgical treatment? Yep, no more referrals from that doctor.
Very often the person or physician who referred the patient will no longer refer patients to you. It’s what I call the “One time syndrome.” If it happened once, it can or will happen again--at least that’s what they’re thinking. The tendency is for physicians to avoid confessing their sins (admitting they didn't know how to treat the problem) to the referral physician because it puts them in a bad light... not that you would do such a thing to a patient in the first place.
In order to rescue yourself from this unfortunate situation, whether or not it was a mistake you made, a bad judgment on your part, or the bad result of your treatment had nothing to do with your treatment at all, call it a risk of the treatment, there are several ways of mitigating the issue and continue to get referrals.
When you do all these recommendations, it's called practice marketing.
These are the effective professional ways of appeasing your medical patient complications occurring with a patient who has been referred to you...
- Humble yourself whether you caused the problem or not. Be transparent about the issue.
- Discuss the problem directly with the patient, be totally honest about your part in the process if any, as soon after the incident as possible. It should be done face to face with the patient and in front of family members if they are present.
- Call the referring physician (not other non-professionals who may have referred the patient to you) the same day as the problem occurred. Reveal what happened, explain why it may have happened in medical technical terms, and apologize for the incident happening... even if you know it wasn’t a result of your misconduct. Avoid excuses and avoid “taking the blame” for everything because that indicates your lack of confidence in yourself... physicians shouldn’t ever create that impression.
- No matter how minimal or serious the complication is, record all the details of the event in the patient's medical record, people involved or present at the time, and what was actually said during the discussions. It’s a mandatory method for defending yourself if a lawsuit happens. If you didn’t write it down, then you didn’t say it or do it, in the eyes of the jury or the court.
From an economic point of view, the 20 or 30 patients that would have been referred to you over the next 20 years would account for a loss of income for your practice of thousands of dollars. Each referral patient you fail to get amounts to thousands of dollars of income you won’t have
over the years.
Referrals to you usually are not made primarily because of your skills and talents in medical care, but because they’re a friend of yours. Obviously, most physicians are on about an even par as far as expertise goes and the only special connection you share that makes a difference is your personal friendship. Cultivate those connections.
Referrals can be risky for you. Have you ever thought about that? I was lucky to receive an intermittent number referrals from a local respected GP who had been in town for many years. He called my office and told my staff he was sending a lady over for “surgery to be done.” That was a little pushy and unusual for any physician to say to another physician--it assumes the referral physician has already made the diagnosis and treatment for you.
When I spoke with the patient, she told me she needed a hysterectomy for fibroids. She had been told that she had large fibroids and surgery was necessary even though she was, and had been,
completely asymptomatic.
After completing her exam we reviewed the situation and her options. She had a normal sized uterus and a couple fingernail or smaller sized fibroids present and confirmed by my ultrasound. When I explained my findings and that she didn’t need surgery at the present time, she was overjoyed. I’m guessing, but she probably couldn’t wait to call her primary care physician and tell him he was wrong.
The next morning in my office I spent an ugly 5 minutes on the phone with the referral doctor who used every element of profanity he could think of to tell me how outraged he was about my lack of professional integrity until I finally hung up on him. This physician I had never met, spoken to, nor referred any of my patients to, ever.
I hadn’t had time by then to get back to him about the patient, but apparently the patient had. We (the referral GP and me) never spoke again. I never got another referral from him. I’m sure he badmouthed me to everyone he met up with in the future. I had done the right thing for the patient. At least I didn’t have to compose my usual consult summary I send routinely to
referring doctors.
Ethically, he had made a diagnosis but dictated to me the proper management totally disregarding that the reasons for hysterectomy are always made by the consultant physician, not the primary
care physician.
It would have been very easy for me to compromise my professional integrity by agreeing with the GP and doing the surgery even though it was not necessary or indicated and the patient didn't want done, which in my experience is quite common in my experience. Apparently, the unnecessary surgery was a gift for me that I refused, and the GP lost out on the expected reciprocal rewards that other local physicians receiving his "unnecessary" referrals had been providing to him. It was a, “When in Rome, do…”
What should be done by every physician who gets a referral from anyone?
1. Schedule the patient to be seen within the next 24 to 48 hours after being notified of the referral. The referring physician expects it, the patient expects it, and you need to comply, unless you are told by the referral physician that there is no rush needed.
2. Have your office staff person call the patient at home as soon as you receive her information to schedule her appointment, and temper down her anxiety, especially if the patient has never
seen you previously.
3. Promptly after evaluating the patient, make time to call the referring doctor directly to discuss your findings and recommendations even if they have transferred the patient to your practice for care and follow-up.
4. Be sure to send a detailed written letter to the referring physician within the next few days to confirm what you verbally told the physician, but also for inclusion in their medical record on the patient. It confirms the billing validity and appropriate medical treatment being given
to the patient.
5. Within a week after your office treatment of the patient, and/or 6 weeks after an in-patient surgical treatment of a patient, send a thank you card with a handwritten note to the referral physician, which includes the success of your treatment and condition of the patient.
Preferably, handwrite the name and address on the envelope, apply a real stamp at a slight angle, and include a business card with it. Personalization of it creates more impact!
6. Recognition is a powerful human emotion that happens with feedback to the referring physician or another person in the form of a thank you note. It should be done with every single patient referred to you. Ask any physician about what percent of the time they receive recognition for referring a patient. You will be amazed at how low the percentage is.
7. Referrals from other non-physicians such as nurses in the hospital, a local pharmacist, your neighbor, your friend, office staff in another medical office, or your dentist should be handled with the same efficiency and respect while keeping the privacy of the patient’s medical information secure in any communications with the referring person.
8. To insure no new patient isn't missed, make sure your front desk personnel asks each new patient if they were referred, and who was it that referred them. In a busy medical office a new patient that has been referred to you may not be recognized by yourself. A note attached to the new patient's medical record or a verbal communication should be used to inform the doctor before the visit
with the patient.
In case you haven’t caught on, this sort of medical practice activity is known to be highly successful in obtaining referrals. Who do you believe a person would refer a friend or patient to—one who is slow with a thank you gesture or none at all, or one who sends thank-yous' routinely for every referral? You better believe it!
Remember, marketing your medical practice can be as easy and cheap as doing such things as this. And, it doesn’t need to be done by you, except for a personal handwritten note and signature
with instructions.
Note: Another article on this topic will provide you with a totally unbelievable resource for patient referrals that you won’t find anywhere else. And will position you far above your medical competition in your community.
----Professional Probe----
"One little mistake, what's the big deal about"
"The one huge income restricting mistake that physicians make
throughout the medical profession, is that of mistaking the idea
that physicians can or will be able to reach their absolute
maximal incomes and career potentials
without a formal business education."
Articles © 2013-2022/CGG INVESTMENTS LLC. All rights reserved. #13 3-16-22
