Let's take a more in-depth look at some different ways you can generate more referrals for your practice.
Related Blog: Protecting Patient Information: How EMRs Ensure Confidentiality and Information Security
Marketing for Your Specialty
Selecting a niche for your private practice is essential to designing a successful marketing and referral strategy. Whether you are a Physical Therapist, a Chiropractor, or a Massage Therapist, your goal is to promote your specialty in the context of effectively catering to a specific patient.
To do that, you would have to create a patient persona. Similar to the buyer persona, this "person" is your ideal patient. Your marketing strategy should focus on demonstrating how well your practice can solve this ideal patient's problems.
One of the main benefits of specializing in one niche is the ability to position yourself as an expert. Healthcare providers prefer to refer their patients to an expert instead of a generalist who may or may not solve the issue. Having this clearly defined niche allows therapists to refer their patients to your practice where you can best solve their problem.
Marketing for Physicians
Physicians are highly likely to be the main source of your referrals. Your goal is to find physicians that cater to your target patients and market your practice to them intensively. The top three reasons why physicians refer patients to specialists include:
- 52.1% - seeking advice on diagnosis or treatment
- 37.8% - asking for surgical management
- 25.1% - asking the specialist to take over patient management
Your goal is to market your practice in a way that demonstrates its expertise to the physicians in the above-mentioned situations.
Personal communication is key to imprinting your practice on the physician's memory. You can do that by:
- Attending community events
- Visiting physician offices
- Having lunch with target physicians
- Giving free lectures that demonstrate your expertise
- Joining a local small business association
- Hosting open houses and inviting professionals to attend
Besides personal interactions, getting more referrals for your practice includes creating and maintaining a strong online presence.
Online Reviews
Online reviews are an excellent source of information. By monitoring what patients have to say about your practice, you don't just discover opportunities for improvement, you can find out where patients learn about you.
Today, more than 70% of patients look at online reviews before going to a healthcare provider. If they find an out-of-network specialist they prefer, they can ask the physician to refer them. By joining as many relevant online directory websites as possible, you are creating more opportunities for your patients to find your practice and leave a review. These sites can turn into a personal referral network.
Patient Expectation Surveys
Patient expectation and satisfaction surveys can help you gather valuable information about the success of your operations. They can also help you track referrals. By analyzing survey data, you can find out how to improve your practice, which healthcare providers to target for referrals, and how to increase patient satisfaction rates.
Keep your patient surveys as short, concise, and straightforward as possible. Otherwise, they could cause survey fatigue and prevent patients from submitting answers.
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