Take Control of Your Physician Referral Relationships
“Delivering the highest level of professionalism should be your biggest differentiator.”
-Kelley Knott
It’s clear that implementing a physician liaison marketing program for your medical practice and hospital physicians have proven to drive patient referrals and develop a strong physician referral network.
Physician Liaison marketing makes it possible for physicians and specialists to surge patient referrals, grow their local healthcare network, easily communicate and make connections with local doctors, improve patient care, increase overall practice revenue and much more!
The question isn’t WHY but, HOW to successfully implement a physician liaison marketing program?
Understanding Goals
A successful Physician liaison marketing program will meet the necessary goals:
- Build a strong physician referral network
- Expand healthcare network
- Increase patient referrals
- Increase high revenue procedures
- Increase overall practice revenue
- Familiarize specialists with local physicians
- Develop a strong line of communication with local physicians
- Deliver and promote the high level of professionalism of the practice
- Expand practice
- Provide a practice representative to address concerns and needs of local referring physicians as well as provide any needed referral and informative collateral.
Now, physician liaisons goals are not limited to this list, but it’s a great starting point.
Physician liaison goals are the objectives, ambitions, and targets that are required to measure the success of the physician liaison marketing program.
It’s crucial to clearly define the goals of your program to the physician liaison by implementing benchmarks and program objectives.
Without clearly defined benchmarks and goals, the physician liaison will struggle to prioritize their daily responsibilities and objectives. It will also create a disconnect from the practice physicians and the physician liaison. This will affect the communication and productivity of the program, leaving the physicians and physician liaison frustrated with little to no results.
Differentiating Yourself
There’s a quote from one of my college professors that I use in my physician liaison training and discussing on excelling against the competition, and that is, “ You don’t have to be the best, you just have to be better.”
This is something I use when training physician liaisons when I am talking about differentiating yourself and surpassing the competition.
The point isn’t to focus on how to be the WORLDS BEST physician liaison but to learn, understand, and evaluate how and what your competition is doing, and DO IT BETTER.
It’s easier to perfect and execute when you’ve developed a smart list of action items that will provide a BETTER service or experience then what is currently out there.
Differentiating yourself is important because it is creating a memorable impression allowing for greater success in getting back to speak with the doctor, deliver a message that will convert patients, confidently be a professional practice representative, and improve your chances of meeting your goals.
Don’t get lost in the mix, STAND OUT!
Differentiate Yourself By Delivering the Highest Level of Professionalism
- In Physician Liaison Training
- In Your Approach
- In Your Message
- In Service
Delivering the highest level of professionalism should be your biggest differentiator.
- Attract the right kind of talent
Develop a physician liaison role too good to pass up! Provide room for career growth, ongoing support, full-time position with benefits, great pay, professional physician liaison training, and on-going support and resources.
For more about hiring the right liaison read The Ultimate Guide To Hiring The Ideal Physician Liaison.
- Provide Physician Liaison Training
Stand out from the competition and ensure your success by requiring all of your physician liaisons complete the proper physician liaison training.
Physician liaison training will make sure your physician liaison understands how to build an effective strategy, gives you checks and balances to better manage and measure results, provide the needed training to speak to referring physicians confidently, and convert patients.
Physician liaison training will guarantee that your physician liaison will be prepared and trained to handle upcoming hurdles, tackle challenges, and deliver a strong message to physicians that will convert patients.
Physician liaison training will also help you organize your marketing, develop a strong strategy, help you manage, and drive results.
Differentiate yourself by giving your physician referral network a highly trained physician liaison that is a pro!
Develop A Strong Strategy
A successful physician liaison will have an organized marketing plan that includes data and research, team management, and resources that result in a strategic marketing plan.
This information is developed during the physician liaison training and is the blueprint for all physician liaison marketing initiatives.
A strong physician liaison marketing strategy will confirm that your physician liaison is working smarter not harder.
A strong strategy will also provide you with referral relationships that continue to grow and that last for years. This means you would have successfully developed physician referral relationships that generate consistent and increasing patient referrals.
A marketing strategy will help you expand your physician liaison team and strengthen your program.
After all, cupcakes don’t convert patients; it’s time to apply targeted data, research, training, and skill to your physician liaison marketing if you want to see profitable results.
Measure Results
Have you developed benchmarks and goals for your physician liaison marketing program that measure profits, patient referrals, and other marketing growth wins?
To better manage and have the marketing evolve you need to know how to measure for success and what your physician liaison needs to be reporting.
There are certain ways you need to be measuring and recording data to know the full scope of success for your program.
Understanding the necessary checkpoints of success will let you know if you’ve increased referrals, profits, and exposure. It’s also important to have this data organized, filtered, and timely.
Having the capabilities to generate the necessary reports to measure success will better your physician liaison marketing and increase profitability.
Get The Doctor Involved
Now, I know that a physician’s top priority is patient care and that marketing can fall to the wayside, BUT a HUGE KEY TO SUCCESS is to have the physician actively present in the physician liaison marketing.
I know that a physician’s time is spread thin and patients come first, but physicians who are regularly present and available, as a support to the liaison will see the biggest, quickest, and lasting results.
Have the physician view the physician liaison marketing as patient care initiative discuss the opportunity to meet with referring doctors, and address patient care objectives that can improve the process.
For example, the opportunity to speak with a referring doctor about a condition they might refer and what labs can be ordered beforehand to rule out other possibilities. That could save both providers time and allow both physicians to be fully educated on the current patient history without costly delays, back and forth 2nd party communication, and improve the patient experience.
Encourage the physicians to use the opportunity to connect and educate and not self-promote or market.
Physician liaison marketing should be about creating value and delivering the highest level of excellence for your physician referral network!
If you’re looking for more tips, tricks, how-tos, and information about physician liaison marketing or physician liaison training visit my site or join my physician liaison members email list here.
