In today’s episode, host Kelley Knott is joined by Kelly Montgomery. Kelly works for Providence Hospital in Mobile, Alabama. And we’re a part of a larger health care organization called Ascension Healthcare, which is the largest nonprofit in the nation. Specifically, she work for the hospital and for the Providence Medical Group.
Check out the show notes below and download the full transcript.
What is the Biggest Way to Get Buy in From your Physicians?
I would say the biggest way to get buy in from physicians is using your data. I am a huge believer in doubt. Yes. Physicians tend to be, in my experience, very analytical minded. So if you can prove to them your value, if you can say, OK, I saw this physician January the 5th and January the 8th, they sent you a patient and they’ve never sent you a patient before. I think that that immediately perk their ears and make them pay more attention to you. If you can look at numbers year over year, like, OK, well, you know, I worked with ENT Practice and you’re over here for the month of January. Their consults have increased. If that’s what you’re looking at, consults have increased, you know, 15 percent. Then I think that’s gonna make your their specialties go, huh? Maybe I need to go out and make those visits to see similar things.
How do you balance with so many different physicians in the specialties on who you want to focus on and what you need to do, even if some of them aren’t quite as supportive?
I meet with our leadership team at the beginning of every fiscal year and we establish what the main priorities are for the hospital and for the system, for the medical group. And those are the ones that, frankly, I spend the majority of my time on. My salary is based around those type of metrics, but you don’t ever want to ignore the other aspects of the hospital. One thing that’s tough to manage is that physicians, their staff, everyone, they think that they can manage your time better than you can. So you have to. My best advice to someone who’s new in this field is to be the manager of your own calendar.
I’m a firm believer. If it’s not on my calendar, it’s not going to happen because I’m not going to remember.
How do you stay organized by which specialty or provider you are marketing for in the field that day?
It’s all a huge balancing act, you know, and sometimes it changes daily. So typically I like to focus on a particular specialty because I think it’s less confusing message wise when you’re going into a practice. You don’t wanna go in and say, hey, I’m here to talk about gastroenterology, breast surgery and primary care.
How to you get plugged into the community as a physician liaison besides just visiting with referring physicians?
We participate in health fairs. We may go and provide free blood pressure checks or glucose monitoring those type things which helps enhance our primary care network. We may participate in a bridal expo, which seems like a weird thing for a physician’s office to be a part of. But I have an ENT surgeon, who also is a facial plastic specialist. So, Botox, lasers, facials, all of those things are, good selling points directly to the public. So I do bridal expos. I think the most important thing is don’t only do the things that seem conventional.
How are you using data to create success for yourself?
I firmly believe that you can not be successful in this career without data. You cannot be successful by chance you have got to have the data to back it up. Physicians, as a rule, not all of them, but a lot of them will say, you don’t have to go see Dr. John Doe because he sends me all of his patients. I can’t tell you how many times I have been able to look at claims data and say that, “he’s not because he sent half of his patients to our competing hospital.”
If you do not have access to claims data, you need to find someone who will let you have it. It’s life changing. I did my probably my first six months of a physician liaison position and we didn’t have that in place yet. And I really felt like I was just flying blind.
How do you stand out from your competitors?
I follow all of their social media presence because I think, you know, I can find out if my competitor is doing it free health screening in February or something like that. And I can see if that’s an event that we need to do. That also helps me to be proactive, like I don’t see that they have anything like that posted. Maybe this is a good idea. I mean, I meet leadership and see if this is a way to get more patients in the door. I think one of the things that I do is I try my best not to ever talk about the competitor when I’m in a referring doctor’s office. I feel like I have a limited amount of time. I would never bad mouth my competitor and say, well, we do this better than them because they do X, Y, Z.
Data is is king when it comes to physician liaison marketing. It really, really is. And it is so important to our success. And you mentioned claims, data and all the different ways we can look at data, especially with different specialties. You’re looking at different different types of data. And we need to be strategic with that.
What are ways that you connect with other physician liaisons?
I would say you definitely need to be a part of the Physician Liaison University. I would say you get when you get down to like the nitty gritty, we’re all salespeople.
Kelly Montgomery Bio
Kelly Montgomery is Physician Liaison with over 15 years in the medical field, and a proven record of increasing patient referrals from traditional and non-traditional lead sources. She holds a Bachelors in Business Management from Huntingdon College and is currently pursuing a Masters of Marketing from Johns Hopkins University. Her additional credentials include being a certified Fellow of the Association for Advancing Physician and Provider Recruitment. She also holds the designation of certified Physician Liaison from the Physician Liaison University. She is an adjunct instructor for a local college, fitness instructor and a mom.
Websites
http://www.providencehospital.org
https://healthcare.ascension.org/
https://www.facebook.com/kelly.montgomery.79
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelly-montgomery/
https://www.instagram.com/kellymontgomerysbusylife/
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Thanks for listening. Kelley Knott
