Getting Referrals from Doctors

If you have been in private practice for some time, you probably have a few or more referral sources that (thankfully) send you referrals. Some of these might even send you a considerable number of referrals and, combined, these referrals keep you busy.

Now, what does it take to maintain a certain volume of production and expand it? What would it take for you to add a couple more therapists and, even if partially, phase out of treating patients yourself?

Imagine you are a fly on the wall of a referral source’s office. You are watching, without their noticing, what they do with every patient that walks in, what goes on, what they prescribe, where they refer them when needed, etc. From this, do you think you will conclude that this referral source is sending you everything you can help him/her with? Would you agree that they are sending you any and all patients that need your services? I can almost guarantee that the answer to these questions is, “no!”

So, what does getting referrals from doctors take, to be able to truly help all the patients who could benefit from your services? More lunches? More presentations to the doctor and their staff? More brochures? Maybe all the above would help, if there is already a foundation on which they are to operate. And that foundation is a peer to peer professional relationship with the referral source.

This might be a challenge, taking into consideration that theirs is a several hundred year old profession, entrenched in society and dictating the course of more than it even should, while yours is a new profession that has not yet made the inroads in society it should merit.

There are some fundamental elements to building relationships that need to be known for what they are. The clients whom we have trained and apprenticed on these elements have been able to achieve the above and with ease! It is worth looking into.