The Patient Referral System

Is there a patient referral system that you could implement? Not only one, there are many, and all may have a degree of success. The interesting thing is that the success is not consistent within any given system. Why? Because there is a fundamental administrative principle that supports the success of a patient referral system, or any system for that matter!

So, what is this principle that is so important? Allow me to illustrate by having you imagine you have a sports car with the most powerful engine in the world. It is sleek, beautiful custom paint job, has the best tires; in all – a dream. One detail though: the driver’s front tire is turned to the left, the passenger front tire is turned to the right, one of the rear tires is perpendicular to the car and the remaining tire is in the direction most rear tires should be. Now you get in and press the gas pedal expecting it to go… Will it go? Maybe a little bit. Will it be efficient? No, it will burn a lot of gas to trying to move just a little. And the tires will probably burn out in the first few blocks.

The same thing will happen with your practice. You get a patient referral system that worked wonders for a colleague and you expect the world from it. Only to realize that your staff are like the tires of the car in the example above: one does not agree that you should have such a system and is doing something else, another one thinks that you should give it a slight twist and proceeds to do so, another one did not get the memo and continues to do things the old way, and another one agrees with you and is doing the system by the letter.

As you see, the key fundamental principle is alignment – that’s the one thing that allows the power you have under your hood to manifest.