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3 Tips to Maximize Physician Referrals

Date : February 15, 2010 9:59 AM

Author : Mindy Pillow

What makes your agency stand out? Imagine the options from which hospitals and physicians have to choose when they are ready to refer a patient to a home health agency. A competitive marketplace is precisely why your agency must handle every referral opportunity with care, work diligently to differentiate itself from the competition, and build profitable relationships with referral sources to keep a steady influx of patients on the agency roster.

This week, think about your current marketing strategy. Can you identify the things that affect the physician most when referring patients?

Amount of time it takes to make the referral Ease of sending the referral Level of confidence the physician has in the agency that it can provide excellent care for each patient and deliver positive outcomes

Make sure you target each of these items when you market to physicians. In addition to providing excellent care for your patients, consider the following tips your agency can use to maximize physician referrals and grow your business:

Tip #1: Get the Right Person for the Right Task Make sure you have the right person doing the right task for his or her skills and training. You can start this assessment by asking yourself the following straightforward questions:

Who are the people answering the phone calls? What are their skill levels? Are there staff members you could relocate to different, possibly more appropriate tasks? Could you take staff members with fewer skills and relocate them into skilled positions by supplementing their skill set with additional training?

Tip #2: Strengthen Your First Impression Never underestimate the power of the first impression you have with a referring physician. Your receptionist or customer service representative can be a powerful marketer for your agency. Make sure you have an enthusiastic, friendly and outgoing person with exceptional phone presence on the other end of the line when the physician contacts your agency. Help your staff become engaged in their jobs by providing brief and regular customer service training to increase the quality and frequency of physician referrals. Train them to quickly identify the specific questions they need to ask in order to demonstrate proficiency with each type of audience, such as

Physicians Caregivers/family members/patients Other referring clinicians

Tip #3: Let the Web Work for You Physicians are busy people. Make it convenient for the physician to send you a referral and limit requests for patient information as much as possible. Utilize technology to make the referral process easy for the physician. The most efficient option is to select a software solution that enables physicians to send referrals electronically in real-time.

Let us know how these tips work for your agency. What other ideas do have for improving the service you provide at your agency? What are your success stories?

Home Health Referral Marketing to Physicians in 5 Easy Steps (Part 1)

Date : February 22, 2010 2:39 PM

Author : Mindy Pillow

When you market to physicians, everything depends upon your ability to capture their attention, differentiate your agency from its competitors and deliver a powerful message. How do you develop a successful strategy that will differentiate your agency and, ultimately, generate referrals? In part one of this article, we will discuss steps 1 and 2. We will conclude with steps 3, 4 and 5 on Wednesday, Feb. 24.

A physician is a businessperson, just like you. In addition to caring for patients, physicians have three core business needs to meet to ensure success:

Increase revenue for the practice Decrease costs Improve efficiency and staff efficiency

Your agency's success depends on your ability to engage physicians and position your agency as best able to meet these core business goals. Jumpstart your physician referral marketing efforts by aligning your marketing to the physicians' needs:

Step 1: Develop Your Value Proposition Competition for patients is fierce. Develop a solid plan for differentiating your agency to physicians by identifying:

Unique aspects of your agency that can be summarized in a one-minute attention-getting presentation

Three things you can offer physicians that will affect one or more of their core business goals Tangible benefits you can offer ,in addition to excellent patient care, which demonstrate your unique strengths in meeting physicians' needs

Your marketing will be significantly strengthened by providing physicians and hospital staff with the data necessary to demonstrate results. Mention your agency's proficiency in taking care of patients only if you can back it up with data. Persuasive data includes identifying:

Expertise with specific patient types or in treating specific diagnoses Measurable health status improvements demonstrated in our patient population Hospital readmission rates for specific conditions

Step 2: Prepare Your Presentation Be compelling. You have limited time in which to capture the physician's attention. Prepare a one-minute pitch that addresses how your agency's key differentiators meet the physician's specific goals, then build a five minute presentation that expands on that pitch, to be used if time allows. Be sure to start your presentation with the most persuasive points and data!

Home Health Referral Marketing to Physicians in 5 Easy Steps (Part 2)

Date : March 8, 2010 12:28 PM

Author : Mindy Pillow

When you market to physicians, everything depends upon your ability to capture their attention, differentiate your agency from its competitors and

deliver a powerful message. How do you develop a successful strategy that will differentiate your agency and, ultimately, generate referrals? In part one of this article, we discussed steps 1 and 2. Today, we will conclude with Steps 3, 4 and 5 to help you enrich your pitch and presentation.

Step 3: Do Your Homework Approach your presentation to a physician in the same manner as you would a job interview. Do your homework and research the physician's practice before your meeting. For example, you can:

Visit the physician's website. You can learn a lot about a physician from the site's online biography or About Us section. Conduct a search for the physician on the professional networking website LinkedIn.com. If you have a LinkedIn account, review your connections to people working at the physician's practice or hospital. Contact the office manager or billing department to find out if the physician is currently billing for Care Plan Oversight (CPO), and, if so, determine how many patients a month. Knowing this information will provide you with an idea of how much potential revenue the physician might not be receiving for patient care already being provided.

Step 4: Know Your Position Find out what percentage of the physician's patients are referred to your agency versus other agencies in the past month or quarter. If the physician is splitting business between you and another agency, can the physician identify a compelling reason to choose a competitor over your agency? If not, focus on making your agency's expertise a compelling reason to refer more patients to you.

Step 5: Add Value During your presentation, go the extra mile to make sure the physician understands how he or she will benefit from working with your agency. Do not forget to pinpoint your agency's key differentiators (identified in Step 1) and tie that to your presentation to show how you will add value to the physician.

One way to clearly demonstrate value is by offering physicians an easy way to improve their bottom line without any extra work. Consider Care Plan Oversight (CPO) as an example. If the physician is not billing for CPO, you have unearthed a potential revenue goldmine. Physicians are leaving thousands of dollars a year on the table when they fail to bill for CPO services. Imagine the value you could provide to a physician if you simplify the CPO billing process with a tool that helps them demonstrate and track billable CPO activities automatically. When you are evaluating home heath software packages, make sure you choose one that provides these services.

Finally, research the numbers for your region to find out how much additional revenue the physician could make from CPO. The National Association for Home Care & Hospice (NAHC&H) is providing the current payment rates for physician services in home health and hospice, effective through March 31, 2010, free of charge to its members at www.nahc.com/regulatory/home.html. After March 31, the scheduled 21.2 percent Medicare payment reduction for physician services may take effect, as the Temporary Extension Act of 2010 (H.R.4691) signed into law on March 2 only delays the reduction until April 1, 2010. Kinnser will provide up-to-date information about the new legislation as it becomes available to the public.

As we continue to cover Care Plan Oversight on the Kinnser blog, what other information can we provide you that will be helpful when marketing to physicians?

Home Health Referral Marketing to Physicians (Part 3)

Date : April 28, 2010 11:34 AM

Author : David Tapia, MBA, Exegete Consultants, LLC

Physicians are businesspeople. At the end of the day, the bottom line is just as important to them as it is to you. Agency marketing messages should focus on how your agency can improve the physician's bottom line. You can

generate referrals simply by focusing on these primary motivators, engaging physicians and positioning your agency as best able to help the physician meet their core business goals. In Part 1 of this series, "Home Health Referral Marketing to Physicians," we mentioned the following core business goals driving most physicians' medical decision-making:

Increase revenue for the practice Decrease costs Improve staff efficiency and support quality

However, sometimes this is not enough to generate referrals, because something else is influencing their decisions. In his bestselling book, Home Health Marketing Bible, Maxim A. Azarov mentions the "Sphere of Influence approach" to home health marketing an approach "based on the observation that individual doctors, case managers, as well as medical institutions, have their own professional influences. These influences can often overpower their demand for your product or service." Physicians often make medical decisions based on "secondary motivation," and knowing what influences your doctor's interests can stimulate additional referrals.

What motivates physicians and hospitals to choose competitors over your agency? Perhaps you are overlooking each physician's personal influences. According to Mr. Azarov, the "Personal Interest Influence affects a doctor's medical decision if he or she has a strong personal interest (medical, or otherwise) outside of the practice. An example can be an involvement in medical research, charitable program or sport."

Today, review your list of current and potential referral sources; the list of physicians from which you hope to receive patient referrals. Do you know anything about their personal interests? Dig deep for information you may be overlooking. For example, is the physician passionate about a particular health cause? Is he or she involved in a non-profit organization? Does the hospital or physician sponsor events such as a sports marathon or health fair? This is an excellent opportunity for agencies to demonstrate involvement in the community, which is one of the factors many physicians consider when choosing an agency for patient referrals.

As home health care providers, you are intrinsically responsible for serving the citizens of the local community. The tricky part is demonstrating the extent at which the agency is serving, or giving back to the community. If you have room in the marketing budget, demonstrate the organization's corporate responsibility by sponsoring a health-related or senior-related event to increase awareness for your agency and catch the attention of physicians who are passionate for the cause for which the event is benefiting.

If you do not have room in your budget, find out which health fairs or sporting events each physician plans to sponsor or attend this year, and be there to show your agency's support.

David Tapia, MBA, ACHE, is Managing Partner at Exegete Consultants, LLC, a full-service consulting firm focused on providing practical and cost effective solutions for home health agency leaders. Exegete provides services such as agency management consulting, Quality Assurance, coding, billing, EMR training and implementation, among other services.

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