How are you doing on marketing your healthcare practice? Is it going well? Driving in patients you\u2019re qualified to treat?<\/p>\n
If so, that\u2019s wonderful. Congratulations. No doubt, you\u2019re focusing on doctor referrals, the #1 way to boost your healthcare business.<\/p>\n
But if that is the case, it still leaves a question open: At what cost?<\/p>\n
There are three main ways you can boost your appeal in other doctors\u2019 eyes, increasing your chance of receiving quality patients \u2013 those you\u2019re qualified to treat.<\/p>\n
You can do it all yourself.
\n You can bring on a specialized staff member to handle that task.
\n You can hire an outside firm to do it instead.<\/p>\n
Depending on your personality type, one of the options above might automatically sound better than the other two. Or perhaps you can see the value in all three.<\/p>\n
Certainly, each option does have its pros and cons.<\/p>\n
As for some of the pros, you have easy access to all the data coming in when you handle it all yourself. Outsourcing that responsibility gives you more time on your hands, of course. And bringing on a new staff member can offer you a blend of both positives. <\/p>\n
But then there are the downsides. Whichever route you take, there are three primary ones you\u2019ll need to consider.
\nThe True Financial Cost of Referral Marketing<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re handling your doctor-to-doctor referrals on your own, it\u2019s not going to take a chunk out of the profit you bring in, of course. But it will lessen your profit potential \u2013 possibly severely.<\/p>\n
More on that later.<\/p>\n
Taking on a new staff member makes a much more obvious bite in your budget. According to VeryWell Health, which bills itself as \u201can award-winning resource for reliable, understandable, and up-to-date information on the medical topics that matter most to you,\u201d physician\u2019s liaisons make an average annual salary of $57,000.<\/p>\n
Practice representatives typically come cheaper than that, but they\u2019re also going to be less qualified. Plus, you\u2019ll still need to factor in the cost of any employee incentives such as health insurance, 401k matching and the like.<\/p>\n
Smart Hustle Magazine takes it a step deeper by noting these less obvious costs associated with adding to your staff:<\/p>\n
Hiring process
\n Background checks
\n Headhunters
\n Job postings
\n Federal and state unemployment taxes
\n Social Security and Medicare
\n Workers\u2019 Compensation Insurance
\n Employee Payroll (i.e., software to handle all of it).<\/p>\n
That\u2019s a lot.<\/p>\n
Yet turning to your average referral development firm can be pretty pricey too. Perhaps not as much as directly hiring someone, but it can still easily amount to something that\u2019s borderline unaffordable \u2013 or worse.
\nThe True Time Cost of Referral Marketing<\/p>\n
How much free time do you have on your hands during the work day?<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re the average healthcare practitioner, the answer is probably somewhere close to zero. Therefore, you quite simply don\u2019t have time to properly form, cultivate and maintain a doctor referral list.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s too much involved in the process, including the time it takes to connect with them in the first place\u2026 arranging sit-down, face-to-face meetings\u2026 driving to and from those sit-down, face-to-face meetings\u2026 and then following up on them in similar fashion to keep the work relationship functional.<\/p>\n
Hiring someone to handle all of that might seem like the only viable solution, except that there\u2019s plenty of time commitment involved there as well. As Smart Hustle Magazine implies in the afore cited \u201c5 Hidden Costs of Hiring You Must Consider\u201d article, bringing on a new employee is work in and of itself.<\/p>\n
You have to weed through worthwhile candidates during the interview process. Then, even after \u201cthe right one\u201d has been hired, he or she is still going to need time \u2013 your time \u2013 to get properly acclimated to your specific healthcare practice.<\/p>\n
Outsourcing the task altogether is thereby the most effective solution. Though that can still entail vetting processes and \u201ccheck-ups\u201d to make sure they\u2019re doing their job properly.
\nThe True Misdiagnoses Cost of Referral Marketing<\/p>\n
Your profit has value. So does your time. But the same applies to your reputation: your ability to provide quality diagnoses and solutions.<\/p>\n
This is an area of your professional life that can suffer greatly when you\u2019re distracted by, say, worrying about how well your referral marketing plans are holding up.<\/p>\n
Medical mistakes are bound to happen from time to time. It\u2019s unfortunate but true. Yet healthcare practitioners can drastically cut down on those by delegating non-healthcare related tasks to experts in those fields.<\/p>\n
As we\u2019ve already discussed, that can be a costly process. Though it doesn\u2019t have to be.<\/p>\n
Doctor Referral Network works just as hard on our end as you do on yours to make your healthcare practice run smoothly. We get to know you and what you offer, then take that information to the healthcare community around you\u2026<\/p>\n
Promoting you.<\/p>\n
Representing you.<\/p>\n
Boosting your bottom line, your time-management and your ability to provide quality care to the patients who walk through your door.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the pledge DRI makes from the get-go. And we do it without any hidden costs. <\/script> <\/script> <\/script> <\/script> <\/script> <\/script> <\/script> <\/script> <\/script> <\/script> <\/script> <\/script> <\/script> <\/script> <\/script> <\/script> <\/script> <\/script> <\/script> <\/script> <\/script> <\/script> <\/script> <\/script> <\/script> <\/script> <\/script> <\/script> <\/script> <\/script> <\/script> <\/script> <\/script> <\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
How are you doing on marketing your healthcare practice? Is it going well? Driving in patients you\u2019re qualified to treat? If so, that\u2019s wonderful. Congratulations. No doubt, you\u2019re focusing on doctor referrals, the #1 way to boost your healthcare business. But if that is the case, it still leaves a question open: At what cost? […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":329,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_analytify_skip_tracking":false,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[6,8,7],"class_list":{"0":"post-331","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-referral-marketing","8":"tag-cost","9":"tag-healthcare-practice","10":"tag-referral-marketing","11":"entry"},"yoast_head":"\n