I have a physician client that is well-thought of in the community but who has moved to several different practices in the past few years and is now on his own. He had a a client base that was more medicare heavy and he would like to now recruit new patients with insurance and capable of paying their co-pays!
I would appreciate any ideas to put into a potential proposal. He’s already mined his past patient list and done the rotary circuit- even ran several print ads but has not seen much benefit. I’m thinking he needs a major referral network or may need to approach some individual businesses and offer to treat their patients for a fixed yearly base.
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Jay’s Answer: A person finds a physician from referrals, not from the yellow pages (unless it’s an emergency). Here are some ideas:
- Contact new homeowners & renters in the area
- Sponsor talks on a variety of topics that you specialize in ("Info Night").
- Write articles for the local newspaper ("Ask The Doctor").
As a Boston-based business to business marketing consultant specializing in health care, this is an area in which I have a lot of experience. Here are a couple of ideas starting with the most obvious. Make sure that the physician is a member of all the managed care networks. That’s the quickest referral source, since many people start there when picking a physician. You don’t say whether the physician is a specialist. If so, your next step is identifying primary care physicians and physicians in related specialties who can refer patients to your client. That’s better than consumer referrals because 1) another physician will always know who needs your client’s services since they’ve already presented with the condition and 2)they see many more patients who need your client’s services than consumers who mostly associate with people who are healthy and 3)most people rely on their physicians for referrals to other physicians. For concrete steps you can take to increase referrals from other physicians, I invite you to read “Why Marketing 101 Lessons Still Prevail: A case study”. This article provides a detailed explanation of how we increased referrals for one of my physician clients by 25% in less than 6 months. My guess is that the ads haven’t worked because the only people who would notice them are those that needed a physician right away and most of us need a physician only infrequently. One more thought: It’s harder these days to be sure that patients can pay their co-pays. Although many people still have small co-pays in the neighborhood of $10-$25 an office visit, they’re vanishing quickly. Today, many companies are providing incentives under “consumer-directed health care” for patients to pay the first $1000-$5000 out of pocket. So, the current Medicare base may ultimately be more attractive… I hope this helps!
Good question Jay, and great answers from yourself and Barbara.
I’m no expert in the medical field. But it does seem to me there’s a missed opportunity for your client to develop a broader marketing message within his/her locality using easily produced information products.
These could really build exposure and mark your client out as an expert, someone to go to in their area.
If they write a short report which helps solve someone’s pressing (but non-fatal) medical worry – maybe something about stress, for instance, although there are many other options – then they’re really helping people with useful info/advice they need while also building exposure.
Such reports can be given away free, using varying mechanisms (online, offline, or a hybrid of the two).
But something which is also proving very effective in my own (start-up) business is the use of a simple but effective idea: to get paid for my front-end marketing. So that short report can be sold (at low cost) to prospective customers because it’s something of value to them. But it also serves both as a way of building exposure and helping to sell qualified prospects on your client’s further services (full-charge).
All the best,
Deb