Establishing a healthcare practice is, by no means, an easy endeavor. However, maintaining and growing your practice is a lot harder.
In spite of your best efforts to provide the highest-quality care, patients come and go. This means you constantly need to generate new business in order to keep pace.
How Vital Are Referrals Compared to Other Patient Sources?
There are plenty of ways to market your practice, but obtaining referrals from other physicians is one of the most efficient and cost-effective methods of acquiring new patients. Other marketing services have a broad reach but are less efficient and may not target the right patient for your specific specialty and services. Some of these other patient sources include:
- Advertising via television, radio, newspapers, magazines, email campaigns, and/or social media
- Publishing blogs with content about your practice or information about medical conditions and treatments
- Hosting educational webinars about your specialty that display your medical expertise
- Using direct mail to share news about your practice and to offer discounts
- Issuing press releases about news related to your practice
- Sponsoring a health-related event
It is best to take the time to develop professional relationships with other physicians and to ask them to think of you when they are giving a referral to a patient for further care. If you don’t do this, you may be putting your practice at risk of losing more patients than it gains and retains.
Positive word-of-mouth from existing patients is certainly a valuable asset. However, having other doctors refer their patients to your practice lends great credibility, and is an easier and more effective way to replenish your patient base, increase your revenue, and thus expand your business.
Proof That It Works
Consider the “Pareto Principle,” which is also called the 80/20 rule. It’s an economic formula that forecasts with a high degree of mathematical accuracy that about 80% of your referred patients (results) will be from 20% of your realm of referring practices (effort).
Bottom line: If yours is a specialty healthcare practice, you cannot afford to underestimate the importance of a referral management system as part of its overall marketing strategy. Without this vital component, your practice will not only be unable to grow – it could easily go out of business.
Benefits of a Physician-to-Physician Referral Management System
A referral management system can help doctors to significantly improve and streamline communication among each other – primary care physicians, specialists, and other healthcare providers – while also keeping track of patient referrals throughout the care process.
Other benefits include:
- A significant reduction in referral leakage
- Faster appointment scheduling for referred patients, who will be given priority
- Higher patient satisfaction thanks to being referred to the “right” doctor (you!)
- Timely care and improved completion rates
The only problem is that creating and managing an effective referral system can be a difficult challenge for the average healthcare practice – But there is help.
Who Can Help Me Grow My Medical Practice?
Fortunately, Doctor Referral Institute can help you grow your practice with a steady flow of new patients who need to see you. Our experienced team of referral development specialists provide a face-to-face representation of your practice to potential referring physicians and medical practices.
We have a proven system that not only focuses on finding new patients but also on condition-specific cases – so you attract the cases you want to address. What’s more, Doctor Referral Institute tailors our services to your specific practice and its particular needs and offerings. We even provide reporting and analytics to keep you up-to-date every step of the way.
To learn more about Doctor Referral Institute’s comprehensive services for developing referrals for your practice, call us today at (888) 703-9167 or fill out our online form to request a free evaluation. We look forward to helping you attract more and more new patients!