The key to developing your community physician referral channel starts with you developing your hospice’s Medical-Provider Staff. The biggest underdeveloped growth pillar for many hospices is how to develop and engage your Medical-Provider staff in your growth efforts.
This starts with asking your Medical Director and other providers for assistance in the area of growth. You need to literally sit down monthly and discuss the business with your providers and then ask them for specific help in specific areas. Each month, I would take my Medical Director/Providers out to dinner and share the performance results from the previous month, i.e. financial performance, quality measures, growth indicators and the like. My biggest ask with my Medical Director and other providers was mostly to open doors to other physicians, providers and facilities. Further, I had my sales staff meet weekly with my Medical Director for 30 minutes and discuss prospective referral opportunities.
Another strategy I used to develop my Medical Staff was to engage as many physicians/providers as I could. I had a nun I worked with in the Mercy/Trinity Health System who said, “if it is not illegal, unethical and immoral, the more physicians you can engage in your enterprise, the better.” Mary Ellen Howard, RSM taught me how to engage physicians while staying compliance and meeting regulation requirements.
Here are some methods I used to engage physicians. Besides my Medical Director who was a member of my Senior Leadership Team, I did the following:
- I would engage Associate Medical Directors and pay them hourly (usually 10-12 hours per month) to assist in the development of a specific service segment, i.e. developing an acute care strategy-hire a hospitalist. Programing for Skilled Nursing Facilities -hired a Sniffist. Programming for Senior Living Communities- hired a Visting Physician.
- Like the above, engage Associate Medical Directors for specific geographic needs and/or to be a Team Physicians.
- Consulting Physicians (6-month agreement) to assist with the development of a End-of-Life Specialty Program, i.e. Cardiovascular End-of-Life Program.
- “Side Hussle” weekend physicians. Those physicians who would like to work weekends and visit patients in Senior Living Communities. Pay them 80% of the revenue they collected from the visits they made. A great way to fortify a vulnerable time for hospices….the weekend.
The best strategy I developed to engage community physicians in my hospices was the development of a Physician Advisory Board. This is a AAA strategy. A Playbook on how to execute this strategy and further information on the others can be obtained at our Orlando, November 20th and 21st Growth and Sales Boot Camp. View the details, https://hospiceadvisors.com/product/hospice-growth-sales-two-day-master-class-boot-camp-orlando-2/ or call Kurt at 734,658.6162
