Office Assistant

9 Ways To Get Doctor Referrals

Want to build strong referral relationships with medical professionals? The key is offering them something of value.

A few therapists at my clinic have been focusing on networking with Doctor's offices as potential referral sources. Through my 10 years in private practice, I've wasted a lot of time visiting medical practices with little result. However, during that time I found a few doctors or health practitioners who have consistently referred to me so I put together an training and presented it at our staff meeting yesterday. I thought that some of you might appreciate some tips on how I've built relationships of trust with medical practices who have referred patients for mental health or relationship therapy.

1) Ask for referrals

Don't be afraid to be bold and ask specifically for referrals from the physician or health provider. Let them know that you currently have openings and will get their patients in as soon as possible. When they refer, be responsive and get their patients in as soon as possible.

2) Face to face builds trust

While sending an email or making a phone call are convenient ways to reach out to physicians, nothing can replace face-to-face interactions when it comes to building trust.

3) Educate them on your specialty areas

Be clear and concise about who you are, what you do, and how you can help their patients. Be clear with them about who you want to see: your ideal client. For more information about how to craft your basic practice message see my post Why Therapists Need An Elevator Speech.

4) Teach them how to make strong referrals

  • Suggest that they write the prescription for therapy on an official RX pad
  • Suggest that they (or an office assistant) call your office while the client is still in their office to make an appointment.
  • Suggest that they strongly recommend you, specifically.

5) Make friends with the office staff

The office support staff, receptionist, nurse, medical assistant, or office manager may actually do more of the referring than the provider. Don't over look the power of building trust and rapport with the support staff in medical offices.

6)  Follow up every three months

Periodically following up with providers is important to staying at "top of mind" for referrals. I've found that contacting the provider every quarter is a good time frame for following up. You don't want to be a nuisance to busy medical practices, or appear desperate by following up too often, however, if you wait six months they may have run out of your cards or forgotten about you entirely.

7)  Make sure they have plenty of cards

Even though we live in a digital age, paper is sometimes the best method for communication. Having professional business cards and brochures printed and regularly stocked give physicians offices something concrete to give to patients and increases the likelihood that they will actually contact you after they leave the office.

8) Offer to be a resource

Healthy relationships need to be mutually beneficial. So, when you ask the doctors for referrals, be sure you have something to offer. I've offered to be an ongoing resource should they have questions about referrals. I often say, "Refer anyone to me and I'll make sure that your patient's get the mental health or relationship counseling they need." Another service you can offer is in-service trainings for their staff on topics relevant to their patients, speak at their staff meetings on something that is valuable to them.

9) Send personalized thank you cards

When you receive a referral from a physician office, be sure to acknowledge and share your appreciation. I've found that sending a personalized physical "thank you" card via "snail mail" makes an impact. Always include a few of your business cards, and ask for more referrals.

What tips have helped you build referral relationships with medical professionals? Please post them below.

(c) Can Stock Photo

6 Ways To Give Yourself A Raise

Dollar billYou're in the mental health field because you want to make a difference AND an income. Too many therapists are making a big difference but only making a small income. Here are 6 ways you can make your private practice more profitable within the next month. 1) Cut expenses

Look more closely at your recurring monthly expenses. Can you find a way to reduce any of them? You might want to sub-lease your office on the days you're not there so you're paying less rent. Do you pay monthly for a therapist referral listing that rarely sends referrals your way that you could cancel? How about buying bulk printer paper of files online? We recently cut expenses by replacing water bottles that we offered to for all clients with a water cooler in the waiting area. This save $100 a month. The little things add up.

2) Raise your fees

When is the last time you raised your fees? Do some research on therapist's fees in your area with similar level of experience are charging and see where you fall in comparison. Ask yourself what is keeping you from raising your fees?

3) Hire an office manager

Most therapists who don't hire a billing person or office manager because of the added expense. I want you to count up the minutes and hours you spend doing clerical work each week. Let's say it's 10 hours per week. If you saw additional 10 clients at $100 per session that's $1000 of additional income per week, or $4000 more every month. With that additional income you can hire an office assistant for $13 per hour for 10 hours per week. You'd be paying out only $130 a week or $520 per month for the additional support. After paying your assistant you'd be bringing in $3480 every month just by replacing your time spent doing clerical hours with clinical hours.

4) Charge more if sessions go over

Do you allow clients to go over the scheduled session time without paying for it? Consider this...If you're seeing 6 clients in a day and 5 of them go over 10 minutes, you're giving away the equivalent of one session that day. If you charge $100 for a 45-50 minute session that means that you're losing $100 a day of income if you don't charge additional fee for additional time. If you charge for additional time you'll make $100 (or your session fee) each day you work. You will have given yourself a raise of several dollars in a month.

5) Charge full fee for no-shows or late cancellations

What's your no show or late cancellation policy? Do you stick to it? I don't like being at work and not getting paid, do you? For years I've charged full fee for no shows and late cancellations, even for first sessions. And a few years ago, I started requiring a credit card in order to schedule an appointment with me or one of my therapists. New clients were notified that if they failed to cancel with more than 24 hours notice they will be billed for the entire session. Guess what? We rarely have no shows and if we do, clients pay the full fee for the therapist's time. I've found that when I require the client to invest something from the get-go they invest more in the therapy process.

6) Tighten up your collection policies

If you're in solo practice, I know how easy it is to let client accounts get out of control. You didn't get into ther therapy business to do accounting. Try scheduling some time to review your client accounts, send out bills and follow up with clients who owe you money. In my clinic, our policy is if I client is more than one session behind in payments their therapy is "on hold" until their account is current.

More on therapist and money in upcoming posts, but until then, I challenge you to try one of these suggestions this month and give yourself a raise.

Creative Commons License photo credit: ZeRo`SKiLL