Getting Started in 2020

The start of a New Year is always an opportunity to set new goals, review office policies and put new plans in place. Here are some ideas for jumpstarting your medical outreach for 2020:

1. Plan your public talks! Look at dates, occasions (such as health observances) and put them on your calendar. Add to your January to-do list notes to book any necessary venues and reach out to other physicians you may wish to present with.

2. Make your list and check it twice. This is especially important to new chiropractic practices and for those who may be reflecting on areas of improvement. Look to your own patient base, Google Maps and Yelp to ensure you have a targeted list of MD’s that you want to expand, renew or begin a professional relationship with.

3. Plan your lunches. If lunches are something you are interested in doing why not take the opportunity to work the phone lines and plan some lunches for the first quarter?  

4. Prepare your marketing material. As you meet doctors, as you plan a paper marketing campaign or as you write patient reports, have marketing material on hand. Consider printing out 3 medical newsletters – one each for January, February and March.  Have your staff address all of them to your target list, and note in your schedule on which dates they should be dropped in the mail. Keep extras on hand as you add doctors to your marketing list. Getting this out of the way now puts your mind at rest, minimizes the task and allows you to focus on other areas of marketing and business operations. Other items – practice brochures and a curriculum vitae which are great to attach to patient reports for doctors you have not yet met. Premium members – please review my tips on creating simple, effective, unique and personal newsletters available in the members blog. 

5. Have systems in place! Having a system in place makes the task of jumbling medical outreach seem less over whelming. Noting in your schedule when a newsletter should be mailed along with knowing it is already prepared and ready to go, removes clutter from your brain by removing the need to wonder when the next one is coming up and scrambling to get it done and out. Consistency is critical in this type of marketing.  Equally important are having systems in place for tracking medical outreach. If you have a patient come in, are you getting their medical doctors information and consent to share their progress? If you do, are you taking time to write a summary report? Keep in mind, reports should not be overwhelming or lengthy.  A one page summary of what the patient presented with and your treatment plan keeps it short and simple (unless of course this is a workers comp or medical-legal situation).

Start 2020 off right by making sure you have systems in place to maintain consistency and ease of marketing.

Most chiropractors didn't choose our profession because they wanted to be in sales, but the reality is sales is part of running a business. It's important to promote our business and continue to gain access to the majority of the public who may not otherwise consider our care. This requires medical outreach or a "sales" approach to the profession who holds the largest piece of the musculoskeletal market.

Sales in the basic, traditional sense is often epitomized in many popular movies with sales focused on numbers and being "sold" to conjures up on an image of being persuaded to buy something you don't really need. That is far from the type of sales we want our profession to represent. Chiropractic services are needed and our level of professionalism requires a higher ethical standard and sales approach.

Much of what I write about and teach, helps break down a conversational method designed to understand physician need, build mutual respect and uncover objections so that they can be addressed immediately and the foundation to MD/DC relationships can be strengthened. 

One of the most important components of sales is closing, but before you can do that you need to trial close. Trial closing involves asking specific questions to understand the level of engagement or interest a physician has in your clinical approach and it can start on your first visit to the physician. This type of closing allows physician's to voice an objections, ask questions and enhance their understanding of what chiropractic care can do for their patients in need of our services. When properly asked trial closing sounds nothing like a "close" in the traditional sales sense.

Failure to address objections, concerns or simply to estimate the value the physician see's in your services often leads to a lack of referrals for what felt like a very good meeting. Rather than be frustrated, learn to ask questions that help you understand exactly where you stand in the physician's treatment algorithm enabling you to uncover and overcome objections on the spot.

If you need help understanding how to ask these questions or need more insight on a professional level sales process please consider joining our monthly members only blog memebership or taking my e-course series for a deeper dive into the process.  For more information click here.

Maintaining consistent contact with MD’s means you remain in the forefront of their mind for possible services for their patients. But how do you maintain appropriate contact without being a pest? We’ll try to capture some of our more popular ideas in this tip of the week.

• Topping the list - patient reports. Why?  Nothing sings your praises louder than results in a patient that an MD has seen struggle. Your discharge report should be limited to one page if possible and produced in a timely manner.  Try walking the report in and in under a minute you should be able to summarize the care directly with the MD. A phone call also works, but nothing beats a face to face interaction and it provides an excellent excuse for personal outreach. 

• Grand Rounds. Google your local hospitals “Grand Rounds” or lecture series which take place anywhere from daily to monthly to quarterly depending on the size of the hospital. These are free lectures open to the health care community where you can sit shoulder to shoulder with the medical doctors in your community enhancing professional relationships.  This is a great way to maintain contact and to establish new relationships. Even better – consider presenting a lecture or case report of your own.

• Literature. It is always a plus to point out pivotal research. It places you as the expert in your  field, illustrates your commitment to continued education and underscores that chiropractic is a research based profession. Whether you simply send a paper or visual aid referencing research via mail or email, it’s one avenue for maintaining contact between face to face encounters.
  

• Holidays. The holidays are an excellent opportunity for face to face interactions where physicians are more likely to be relaxed and open to casual conversations and rapport building. Small gifts (branded or not) provide the opportunity to arrive unannounced - just make sure it's during a time where you can get a quality hello, such as the beginning of lunch. Gifts aren't a guarantee you'll get time, so make sure you are prepared and have a personal card attached.

There are multiple ways to maintain contact. Find what works for you so you don't find yourself 8 months down the road with lackluster results and  awkwardly trying to reestablish contact.

Has a medical doctor ever said to you "You are comparing apples to oranges?" It's a common phrase so what do they mean?

It means that what you are trying to compare maybe similar but not so similar it is fair to compare them. In medical outreach, this would usually come up during a conversation where you try to compare one research paper to another to make a claim. 

For example: You have one research paper that shows chiropractic is effective for managing headaches in 80% of patients treated.  In another research paper it shows that physical therapy is effective for managing headaches in 50% of patients treated. 

If you try to make a statement that chiropractic is more effective than physical therapy for managing headaches the doctor would rightfully state that you are comparing apples to oranges. 

For comparisons to be made correctly, they must stem from the same research trial or be a meta-analysis otherwise you're just comparing apples to oranges. 

Nerves and anxiety are a normal process no matter how experienced you are but can greatly hinder efforts of medical outreach.  If nerves are paralyzing you from acting try applying the following 3 tips:

Tip 1. Start with baby steps. Select smaller offices with 1 to 3 providers and have a goal that is attainable. Maybe it’s simply to open the door and drop off an introductory package with the staff. As you get more comfortable you’ll be able to build confidence and take your outreach to the next level (meeting the doctor or trying larger practices).

Tip 2. Research the physicians you are calling on prior to meeting with them.

This can be done through a simple internet search. Pubmed can provide insight from articles the MD may have published or responses to other published research. Google searches can bring up professional activities, patient comments and of course the MD's own practice website. Each of these helps you understand clinical rational, bedside manner (or personality) and professional interests or memberships.

Nothing helps quell nerves more than having an idea on the type of person you are about to meet. More importantly, it helps you prepare for a more meaningful conversation. 

Tip 3: Have a meaningful conversation

Many doctors trying to forge MD Referral Relationships make the mistake of overwhelming the physician with every condition they treat and every service they provide. Unfortunately its not memorable and its not conversational. Utilizing a conversational method to have a strategic conversation that focuses on meaningful information the doctor is interested in hearing about and uncovering and responding to specific objections. Tip 2 above can provide insight to help you determine your conversational path and apply a conversational sales approach.

Log-in to read more about the conversational sales approach.  

Being competitive doesn't mean you need to bash the competition. Rather it is understanding a problem or weakness of a particular competitor and knowing when your services meet the competitors while resolving an identifiable problem. In sales this is known as the  "Meet and Beat".  For instance both NSAIDs and spinal manipulation can help with pain - this is the "meet", however, SMT does so without systemic side effects - the "beat". 

"Seeds of doubt" can help introduce a competitor without bashing them. For example, medication works on pain which may be a motivating factor for prescribing it, but they typically have side effects or aren't appropriate in certain subsets of patients. These problems can be utilized as a "seed of doubt".  For instance "I understand NSAIDs work well to control pain, what about your patients with GI concerns?" (or at high risk for cardiovascular events etc....).  

Now you can utilize research as a neutral talking point - show the MDs what the research shows on how manipulation acts on pain.  

A seed of doubt can help you professionally position your care as perhaps a more ideal starting point (aka - meet and beat) that maybe hadn't been previously considered.

Building relationships with MD's are similar to many others that we build. They are multi-layered, successful, unsuccessful, and filled with many nuances, variables, personalities and quirks that come with the territory. They can evolve into meaningful exchanges and respect between two providers and they can also crumble when not tended to. It adds another challenge to your marketing efforts and reminds us that approaching physicians is like any other relationship in that we must have enough rapport to have a meaningful exchange of words and for those that we value, we must spend time maintaining them.

The relationships that we build will result in patient referrals. However, there are variances as to how many you might see. There is no magic number. I have heard many of you mention that you see only 2 to 3 MD referrals a month, and others reporting upwards of 3 to 5 a day.

I am often asked, how long will it take to begin seeing referrals? That's a harder answer but I would say I would be surprised if with good effort you weren't seeing them within 6 months and hopefully much sooner. There are other variances to consider from local hospital politics, insurance issues and of course how busy of an MD office that you target can all play a role. For established relationships there is always the opportunity to expand upon the physicians knowledge of your services to expand the number of referrals you are seeing from one particular MD. 

One benefit of a conversational approach is that you can continue to build upon your relationship. Conversations about other conditions that you can treat can be introduced to build upon the foundation you have already laid. Respect and understanding for each others clinical approach can be appreciated when conversations are steered in the right direction. Another benefit is the ability to trouble shoot and ask pointed questions that yield information, needs and objections.

This week our membership blog focuses on this last point. What can you do if you think you are having positive conversations but you aren't seeing any referrals? How can you improve the number of referrals an occasional referring doctor is providing you? How do you handle a doctor who has been referring but suddenly stops or drastically slows down?  

I speak a lot about relationships with MDs, how to reach out, how to build them and how to maintain them because as mentioned above without tending to them, they can go away. You spend a lot of time trying to get them started it's important to keep them going.

My tip for all readers this week is to setup a tracking system that allows you to see where you need to spend the time, how long it's been and importantly what are the results. If you have good medical relationships but you aren't pleased with your results consider joining us in the membership blog. 

It's important to maintain contact with medical doctors to reinforce patient outcomes and rapport. One of the easiest ways to achieve this goal is to provide a release from care summary report. Reports are also a great opportunity to foster new referral relationships. While all health professionals are inundated with paperwork (electronic or otherwise) the thought of sending a report once a patient has completed care may almost induce a tear or two. Not to worry, non medical legal summary reports for the purposes of informing and updating a physician on a patients results isn't as bad as you think.  Here is a quick outline of how to make it consistently easy. On your letterhead include:

Date

Patient Information

Physician

Physician Address

Dear Dr.:

Below you will find a brief overview of Patient’s Name progress with our office.  

Paragraph 1: Overview of initial symptoms emphasizing the impact on ADL's and pain qualities - bring the patients pain and disability to life. For most patients this can be completed within a few sentences. (members may log in for an example on how this might be easily phrased)

Paragraph 2: Summarize your findings and treatment, home care and work place modifications. Again, this is simply an overview. You're not listing every positive exam finding or how many times a week etc.. It's an overview, a summary.  (members may log in for an example on how this might be phrased as an overview)

Paragraph 3: A simple sentence indicating final results. 

For more detailed information regarding "patient name", please feel free to contact me at the above  number. 

Sincerely,

Your name & specialty

cc: any other physicians who may have been involved with this patient for this particular condition

This is a very basic summary for the purposes of providing an update to a referring physician or at the patients request. Hint: You should be asking every patient for permission to correspond with other primary care or specialists who have a need to be updated on that particular patients care.  It takes minimal effort if done on a daily basis. 

Talking about inactive patients always feels a little dark. So much so, many practices turn a blind eye thinking that a good percentage rate, often examined through retention rates provides the justification to turn that blind eye. I think that's a mistake.

We often hear that losing a patient is the most expensive patient to lose and I would agree with that for two reasons. The first is reputation and the second is not adjusting your marketing strategy between inactive and active patients. 

When did you last take a deep look at your inactive patients?

There is a lot your inactive patients can tell you and even if your stats are good, you should still want to know what they have to say and you should still be tracking that statistic for early warning signs. 

You should also be marketing to them differently because what they have to say is invaluable to knowing how to improve your statistics and protect your reputation.  It's this last point that ties the importance of this issue into medical referral marketing. 

Your reputation is everything when it comes to medical outreach and patients who don't return for care have a lot to say about that reputation, even if they are a small fraction of your practice. Examining your patient reviews on social media and on review sites like Yelp won't necessarily raise a red flag, only a small percentage of your inactive patients will take the time to post a negative review - the others do it by word of mouth and sometimes their audience is their MD, maybe even the MD that referred them to you in the first place.  A correlation you may see when an MD stops or slows down what was a good referral relationship.

Most practices try to reactivate or market to their inactive patient base in the same manner as they do their active patient base. For example, many offices simply keep them on the newsletter list, the birthday card list and assume social media posts will keep them engaged but it fails to address the reason they left. The needs from a marketing perspective are different than the needs of your active patient base and this should be factored into your marketing strategy. 

Think about this way -  you have 1,000 patients and 30% have not been to your practice in over a year for a variety of reasons. Maybe they feel fine, maybe they don't have any pain, maybe they had a bad front desk experience or find your office hours or billing procedures inconvenient. Maybe they didn't think your care or the experience in your office was exceptional. What are these 300 patients saying about your practice? 

Take the time to find out and change how you're marketing to this practice demographic. 

I'm not one to pose a problem without offering a solution. If you think you this situation applies to your practice, consider joining our membership blog for only $4.95/mo,  for solutions and additional insight. Your reputation is everything when it comes to building medical referrals and a successful practice.