What to do if referrals start falling off
Independent Practitioner Today has called in private practice troubleshooters Sue O’Gorman and Hannah Browning to help doctors’ deal with the big questions affecting their business’s future.
QI have been in private practice for several years, but the patient volumes have plateaued. I am willing to invest some time to review and understand my practice in more detail but don’t know where to start.
A As a consultant, time is often in short supply. It is, therefore, even more important to understand what to look at within your practice to get the most out of your review.
Your practice should be looked at holistically, not just with a view to increasing the volumes of patients you see. There may be other aspects within your practice that are not working well and, by changing them, you could improve your experience or that of your patients.
Mystery shop
It is important to understand, in the first instance, if you are capturing every opportunity that is currently being generated. For some consultants this is a real quick win.
Ask a friend or family member to call your practice at different points in the day – on a variety of days – and with the brief that they are looking to book an appointment but need some extra help to see if you are the right consultant.
1. Was the phone answered?
2. Was the secretary able to give relevant information about you and your practice?
3. Did they offer to book you an appointment?
4. How was the service; did it reflect how you would like to be portrayed?
Now do the same via email or a contact form on your website.
1. How long did the response take?
2. Did it provide all the info rmation that you would expect?
3. Was there an offer to book an appointment?
4. Did the response look and feel professional?
It is important to be impartial and critical when undertaking this process. The aim is to improve your practice and, by making some simple changes, it could have a big impact.
What to do if your phone or emails are not being answered
Have a chat with your medical secretary to understand their workload and priorities and how these may vary from your expectations.
It might be that you can streamline or automate some of your practice functions that would enable your secretary to have more time to answer the phone.
Ultimately, the incoming inquiries to your practice are what will make it grow. This must be a priority and if your current secretarial service doesn’t support this, there are other options.
There are companies that are trained in taking healthcare-related calls and make appointments. From a patient’s perspec-tive, they are an extension to your practice.
The call team will work closely with your secretary to ensure streamlined flows of patients, giving you the reassurance that every inquiry is captured.
You have now established that your phone is being answered and are happy with the front-end patient experience. You can now look at extending the opportunities to grow referrals.
When was the last time you reviewed where your patients are coming from?
Your patient administration system should be able to create reports based on the referrer.
This information will highlight which GPs, physios or surgeries refer to you most. Create a report that looks at the month-on-month activity over a 12-month period. This will then show you which referrers have grown and those that have declined.
If a surgery’s numbers have declined, then look at making contact with them or giving them a personal follow-up on a specific patient.
It may be that they have had staffing changes, and a reminder that you are available to answer queries is useful and relevant.
As well as looking at the referrer, reports should be generated to see which payer groups you see. This may highlight any issues with insurers or a particularly low result with self-pay may guide you towards a review of your fees.
How patients book with you is also relevant
Are they being generated through your website, via the hospital sales team or directly through your secretary?
Going to see the hospital sales team is always a good use of time. Offer to give a ten-minute overview of what you do and the types of patients you see.
This will help the team to be informed of your services and give them an opportunity for them to ask questions and to build your relationship with them.
You might have profiles on review websites, if you are paying for these services, so it is good to understand if they are generating referrals. Ensure you have the right processes in place to maximise the benefit from reviews.
Put in place processes that pro-actively ask patients to review your services and ensure that any post – positive or negative – gets a timely response.
Check any online profiles, this includes hospital websites and your Bupa profile.
- Do you still hold all the posts and memberships?
- Do you refer to any dates – ‘Recently’, ‘in 2001’ and so on – that need updating or removing?
- Is it clear the types of patients that you would like to see and what you specialise in?
- Is there a photo that is good quality and recent?
- Are all the contact details correct?
Try reading your profile from a patient’s perspective and ensure that you use language that is easily understood. Keeping your profile updated and fresh will help to attract patients.
Google a treatment or procedure that you offer and your location, and see how hard it is to find you.
For the consultants that come higher on a search result, what are they doing that you don’t?
Add content
Having a website is not a tick-box exercise. If you would like your website to generate referrals, then the site needs to be optimised and have new content added to it regularly.
Be clear with the marketing company – marketing is a specialist skill and one that should be outsourced – what your expectations are. They will be able to advise you on the best way to generate referrals and the cost.
Once you are making an investment, keep track of it each month to help monitor your return.
If you are not seeing the number of inquiries being generated after three to six months, then a new marketing strategy should be created. Taking control of this process will help you to understand your business better.
Protecting regular time within your diary to review and update your practice is an important routine to get into.
Each month, focus on a different area, but also remember to check that any amendments made previously are continuing to work and have a positive impact.
Sue O’Gorman (left in picture) is director of Medici Healthcare Consultancy. Email: sue@medicihealthcareconsultancy.co.uk. Hannah Browning is director of Beyond Excellence Healthcare Consultancy. Email: info@beyondexcellenceconsultancy.co.uk.
