5 Tips to Grow Referrals and Improve the Patient Referral Experience
How to Grow Physician Referrals in your Practice
It feels good when you get a patient referral, doesn’t it? It should. It means that another doctor trusts you to care for their patient. Yet, it’s difficult to set aside time to grow referrals, ask your referral base for more, or communicate with the doctors who are already referring to you.
Sound familiar?
Sophrona’s Referral Portal is helping practices improve the patient referral process and make each patient experience a great one.
How?
Follow these tips to grow referrals and improve the patient referral experience.
1. Roll out the red carpet for referring doctors and their patients.
Referrals are often sent via fax or a business card is handed to the patient to schedule. The scheduling process is difficult and the patient may slip through the cracks. Sophrona’s Referral Portal allows referring doctors to give their patients a red carpet referral experience by streamlining the traditional referral process. Through its universal interface, referring doctors can schedule patients directly and easily communicate with your practice.
2. Establish an onboarding process to increase kept appointments.
When patients are referred without a set appointment, patients may forget to schedule, don’t understand why they should schedule, or simply choose not to follow through.
This is why establishing an onboarding process for referred patients is so important. Onboarding helps the patient know why they are being referred, who they are being referred to, and when – the patient leaves with a confirmed appointment to see the specialist. A similar approach should be taken when they reach your office to reaffirm why they were referred and what treatment you will perform. Removing the obstacle of scheduling, and clarifying the treatment plan helps to increase the number of kept appointments for referred patients.
3. Empower your referring doctors with more visibility.
Patients want fast responses and timely follow up. Referral Portal increases communication and collaboration between doctors. At any time, the referring doctor can login to share information, send a secure message, and view status updates. Empowering referring doctors with more visibility throughout the referral process ensures they have access to the information they need when they need it.
4. Enhance the referral experience through improved turnaround time.
It can be frustrating for patients who are referred to your practice but are unable to schedule an appointment quickly. The standard length of time for referring doctors to receive follow up reporting varies drastically because there is no efficient process in place. With Referral Portal it is now possible to track where the patient is in the process from initial handoff to final outcome. Turnaround time can now be measured and when the feedback loop is closed, the referring doctor receives a status report.
5. Deepen your relationship beyond the usual suspects.
As eye care professionals, it is common to focus heavily on referrals from external ODs. But primary care doctors, pediatricians and other specialists should not be overlooked. Referral Portal provides an opportunity to engage more doctors in your community by helping to improve the referral process. Placing efficient technology in the hands of potential referring doctors allows them to better serve their patients. Real-time scheduling, secure information exchange, and timely follow up reporting are mutually beneficial for your referring doctors and their patients. Armed with these resources, Referral Portal can function as a marketing tool giving your practice a competitive advantage to expand your existing network and deepen relationships with new referring doctors.
Sophrona’s Referral Portal is helping practices improve the patient referral process and make each referral experience a great one.
If you’d like to learn more about how we are helping other eye care practices to grow referrals, improve the referral experience and expand their referring doctor network, please contact our team.
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Kristina Slattery, Sophrona Product Manager / Account Manager