What makes your agency stand out? Imagine the options from which hospitals and physicians have to choose when they are ready to refer a patient to a home health agency. A competitive marketplace is precisely why your agency must handle every referral opportunity with care, work diligently to differentiate itself from the competition, and build profitable relationships with referral sources to keep a steady influx of patients on the agency roster.

This week, think about your current marketing strategy. Can you identify the things that affect the physician most when referring patients?

• Amount of time it takes to make the referral
• Ease of sending the referral
• Level of confidence the physician has in the agency that it can provide excellent care for each patient and deliver positive outcomes

Make sure you target each of these items when you market to physicians. In addition to providing excellent care for your patients, consider the following tips your agency can use to maximize physician referrals and grow your business:

Tip #1: Get the Right Person for the Right Task
Make sure you have the right person doing the right task for his or her skills and training. You can start this assessment by asking yourself the following straightforward questions:

• Who are the people answering the phone calls? What are their skill levels?
• Are there staff members you could relocate to different, possibly more appropriate tasks?
• Could you take staff members with fewer skills and relocate them into skilled positions by supplementing their skill set with additional training?

Tip #2: Strengthen Your First Impression
Never underestimate the power of the first impression you have with a referring physician. Your receptionist or customer service representative can be a powerful marketer for your agency. Make sure you have an enthusiastic, friendly and outgoing person with exceptional phone presence on the other end of the line when the physician contacts your agency. Help your staff become engaged in their jobs by providing brief and regular customer service training to increase the quality and frequency of physician referrals. Train them to quickly identify the specific questions they need to ask in order to demonstrate proficiency with each type of audience, such as

• Physicians
• Caregivers/family members/patients
• Other referring clinicians

Tip #3: Let the Web Work for You
Physicians are busy people. Make it convenient for the physician to send you a referral and limit requests for patient information as much as possible. Utilize technology to make the referral process easy for the physician. The most efficient option is to select a software solution that enables physicians to send referrals electronically in real-time.

Let us know how these tips work for your agency. What other ideas do have for improving the service you provide at your agency? What are your success stories?