Physician Referrals: A Marketer's Goldmine

One of the most popular HealthLeaders marketing webcasts each year continues to be physician referrals. As fluid and amorphous as healthcare continues to be, marketers continue to crave the knowhow for building, tracking, and measuring physician referrals.

This year, while discussing the topic with webcast speakers I noticed a common obstacle: difficulty getting passed the gatekeepers and collecting referrals from hard to reach practices. The HealthLeaders Rachet Up Physician Referrals: Proven Methods & Measures webcast on May 18 will address this issue among others.

Breaking the barriers into hard-to-reach practices does not come easy, experts say. Scott & White Healthcare, consisting of 12 hospital sites and 60+ clinics, had 22,331 baseline referrals in FY 2007 and boosted the number to 41,885 in FY 2010. The organization's target for FY 2011 is 51,144.

One way Scott & White is able to keep the referrals pouring in is by facilitating regular physician network events such as dinners for cross-introductions. Brian Borchardt, director of physician relations at Scott & White Healthcare, advises that successful physician relations include building a connection with senior leadership such as VPs of the organization they are referring.

Communication is a hot topic in the field of physician referrals. Though face-to-face interaction can help the numbers stack up, other, less-personal means can help too.

A common obstacle for practices has been measurement of primary care physicians (PCP) referrals.  Specialists should send a note back with the patient's PCP saying what occurred and what care is necessary improves both patient satisfaction and the continuum of care, advises Kriss Barlow in her book A Marketer's Guide to Physician Relations.

Other communication techniques include sending out an electronic newsletter sent out to external physicians and staff members.

"They know the name of the cardiologist who referred the patient and the name of the hospitalist who admitted the patient, but often fail to capture the name of the doctor whom the patient sees regularly," writes Barlow, principal at Barlow/McCarthy, a consulting group focused on hospital- physician solutions.

She advises that practices set up consistent measures to track PCP referrals and set achievable goals. Tracking physician referral patterns in a database can show which service lines need targeting. Just because one physician gives many referrals doesn't mean there is no more room for growth for referrals to other specialties, Barlow writes.

Barbara McLaurine, manager of physician services at Progress West HealthCare Center stresses the point of creating a "just say yes" attitude within your clinical operations team. Is it easy to do business with your hospital? If not, what are the solutions and how are they divided? These two questions are key to creating a growth mentality, she advises.

With the release of the federal accountable care organization regulations in early April, there is a new opportunity to open up communication among physicians.

"Physician relations teams are in an excellent position to be a conduit for communication to physicians about the ACO conversations at your hospital. Likewise, there is an excellent opportunity to learn more about the physician's sentiments- their concerns and plans they are formulating," Barlow says.

"Today referral development programs are working very hard to keep the competitive edge, it means attention to all the details and it means systematic and consistent results," she adds.

See also: 

ACO Proposed Rules Spotlight Physician-Hospital Alignment

Physician Alignment in an Era of Change

MD Appeals Court Upholds State's Physician Self-Referral Ban