Clinics In

 The Spotlight

(The Spotlight will return next month.)

Page

Rehab Net News Update

alternative by following these four steps: 1) Research; 2) Prepare; 3) Communicate; and 4) Follow-up.

 

1) Research

The first step involves doing a little research to find out exactly what the referring doctors expect from your office.  You can do this through sending a survey to your referring doctors for feedback or by sending a staff member to conduct interviews with your referring doctors.  The interviews can be done over the phone or in person.  Face to face is obviously the best way to go.

2) Prepare

Next prepare your staff to provide the services and communications that the referring offices want from you.  Some helpful tools include Patient Satisfaction Surveys, tracking referrals, physician correspondence review and customer service reviews.

3) Communicate

Many practitioners seem to believe that just being prepared to receive referrals should be enough, but proactive practices know that they must also continually communicated with referring practices to keep referrals flowing.  Some of the tools that are helpful in communicating with referral offices are personal contact and education courses.  Encourage your physical therapists to meet with the referring doctors periodically.  Assign a member of your staff to call on the physicians and their staff.  Many clinics are hiring marketing personnel to assist in maintaining contact.

4)     Follow up

The key to building long-term referral relationships is to maintain positive contact with referring offices.  Some of the ways this can be done include distributing a referrer newsletter, providing customized referrer handouts to your referring physicians and regularly thank the offices that refer to you for their business. 

Customized referrer handouts are simple patient education sheets that your practice provides on the most commonly referred conditions.  You then put the referring doctor’s name and address on the sheet along with you practices name and address.

 

The Business of Referrals

 

The key to real success in referrals is to build requesting referrals right into your daily business operations process.  Asking for referrals occasionally will get you only limited referrals.  You can get many more valuable referrals by doing it regularly.

Look beyond your normal customers.  Find partners in getting referrals.  Be creative.  Here are a few ideas:

¨ Make calls solely for the purpose of seeking referrals.

¨ Go to conferences of physicians and exchange business cards.

¨ Talk to people who talk to people, like reception staff, secretaries, hairdressers, etc.

¨ Get back to people after the visit to say thank you and to ask for referrals.

 

SEVEN TIPS

1. Set a target: Set a clear goal with a time line—for example, a 10% increase in referral business over the next 10 weeks.

2. Timing: Give your referring doctors and patients time to experience your service before asking for a referral.

3. Top 20: Not all physicians are referral candidates.  Find the top 20% that are ecstatic about your business and ask them for referrals.  Make sure their patient network is the type of client you want.

4. Give and You’ll Receive:  Give your patients extra service and follow-up support before asking for referrals.  When you give willingly to your patients, referrers will return the favor.

5. Type of Customer: Inform your referring doctors of the type of patients you can help.  Provide a clear picture of the patient demographics for your practice.

6. Rewards Program:  Provide rewards to your referring doctors on a regular basis.

7. Thank-You:  Create a basic thank-you letter that can be personalized and sent to each referral you receive.

 

BUILDING REFERRALS

 

How do you build referrals?  The simple answer involves becoming the referring physician’s best