Blog, Chirosecure Live Event January 18, 2022

Best Practices: What’s Working Now to Attract MD Referrals

Click here to download the transcript.

Disclaimer: The following is an actual transcript. We do our best to make sure the transcript is as accurate as possible, however, it may contain spelling or grammatical errors.  We suggest you watch the video while reading the transcript.

You like the idea of attracting new patients from medical doctor referrals, doc, patients who are referred by doctors tend to. Start care and stick with it. And it’s just more wonderful to work with patients like that. But are you in a place where you have either try to reach out to doctors, but you feel like nothing’s ever come of it before?

Or you’re not really sure how to get it going well, you’re in the right place as far as this is Chen Yen your 6 and 7 figure practice. Make-over mentor atintrovertedvisionary.com and your show host today for ChiroSecure. And I look forward to helping you with this with what’s working right now, so that you could apply this to your practice, to attract patients without always having to feel like you need to be marketing all the time, because isn’t it exhausting to feel like you need to be spending money on ads, trying to figure things out spending time on it.

And then sometimes it’s not even fruitful. What if he had a way of. Approaching medical doctors, such that they do refer, because imagine if you even had three medical doctors sending you one or two referrals a week, what would that do for your practice? It’s one of the few approaches where once you get it set up, you don’t have to always constantly be.

Spending money on marketing or marketing all the time, because it, you can be getting referrals from medical doctors, even three months from now, six months from now or a year from now. But here’s some of the most common things I’ve been hearing from you. Quite a few of you wrote in an and said this.

So we’re going to be talking about. Answer your most common challenges and questions today. And for example, I hear, oh, it get no response from them. Many MD simply shun chiropractors and tell patients not to go to one or I don’t know how to get in touch with them. How do I get past the gatekeeper?

Some of you have even connected with MDs. If someone wrote a we’re connected to MBS, but referrals aren’t coming in, or I have medical doctor patients, but they’re not referring to me. So what do you do? So go ahead and type in the chat right now like this, actually, if you have ever experienced any one of those situations before and type in the chat, what scenario have you experienced?

So I get a better sense of. What you’re dealing with and we can we, I can help you best with it. So let’s talk about each one of the challenges that you have, those of you who wrote in have mentioned you’re experiencing it, what to do about it. The first thing is the no response from them.

One of the reasons for this many times is because of not really having an approach that works to get their attention, that would make them want to talk to you. Because many times medical doctors are busy just like you. And they’re. Have people trying to reach them, whether it’s vendors drug reps, other providers, nurses, all kinds of people trying to get their attention.

And they have a full schedule of patients. So what would have them want to talk to you and even start to develop that relationship with you? Many times? One of the most common mistakes I hear is not really having a strategy for this and not really having an approach that works. Now as far, and we’re going to be talking a little bit about that coming up next, as far as your first steps with that, that will work another another kind of concern, which one of you wrote in said hard time, finding medical doctors who are congruent with chiropractic philosophy and treatments.

Isn’t that frustrating when you feel like. There are medical doctors and perhaps other conventional medical practitioners who feel skeptical about what you do when you know that what you do is amazing for your patients. And in fact, it’s helped your patients to the extent that it’s much further extent than drugs and surgery might have when they have gone to.

That goes through the conventional approach for some situations before coming to see you. And This is where some medical doctors from having worked in different settings. So I’ve been in the inside of, for example, at Merck, at the FDA, in the outpatient setting, inpatient setting over the years, and working as a pharmacist.

So I seen the insides of what, in working with many medical doctors over the years, I’ve seen what gets medical doctors to refer. And what doesn’t. And from the comments I’ve heard from medical doctors and over the years, what I’ve noticed is this, unfortunately not all medical doctors understand and.

Maybe never will because they are pretty set in their ways that, that it needs to be this certain way. And then he needs to have it’s drugs and surgery and cause that’s what they were trained and everything outside of that is too risky, a thing. And the. It is true that not all doctors will refer, but you, the, you don’t need that many medical doctors.

You just need a handful of people who are your biggest champions, just as we talked about before, even if you had one or two providers or one, what two or three providers sending you one or two referrals a week, that can be very significant in the number of people you can help over the years. And The, as far as that goes, don’t get discouraged because you think where you’ve even experienced it before that some medical doctors, shun chiropractic also, I will say from having worked in the conventional medical system for a while, I noticed that there are many conventional practitioners, whether it’s medical doctors, nurse practitioners, pharmacists, and other kinds of conventional healthcare practitioners who secretly would prefer holistic options.

Do you know? I have a client of mine who says he, she has a she knows that a a surgeon who drives and he tries. 45 over 45 minutes to see a chiropractor because he doesn’t want his colleagues to know that he’s seen a chiropractor. Can you believe that? So there, there are medical doctors who secretly are into holistic options as well, too.

So believe me, there are enough of them out there to fill up your practice in terms of help helping you, them referring you and help you helping their patients. So another no I got from one of you, it was, I don’t know how to get in touch with oh actually I did before I mentioned that, I also want to mention that the idea of how, many MBAs simply shun chiropractors tell patients not to go to one or having a hard time finding MD’s who are congruent with philosophy.

So that’s exactly why. You need to educate them because the reason why they are not educated about chiropractic is because they haven’t really learned about it in school. Like the full scope of benefits that it can have for patients. Some of you are into other kinds of things like functional medicine as well.

And other types of things aside from just chiropractic as well. And so if not you who is going to educate them, Many times they are open to helping with patients outcomes. And when they hear about something that makes clinical sense to them, and it does work for their patients, they would be open to.

This is perfect for your area of opportunity to take leadership as a chiropractor, as someone leading the profession to change the paradigm of what many medical doctors in the conventional healthcare system. Providers think about chiropractic and holistic options. Okay. So another comment I got from one of you is I don’t know how to get in touch with them.

I don’t know what would be the most effective way to reach them in my area. That I hear quite a bit, right? What do you, what should you do? We should do email them, try to find their email and email them to do, go to their office. You call them what do you send them? Something by mail. What is the most effective approach?

It’s interesting because I’ve heard of a, when a practice management company suggest that you write down a list of a hundred doctors in your area and then look at reaching out to all of them. And when I heard about that, I thought, oh my gosh, it’s so exhausting. Just hearing about it.

Whereas our clients, aren’t actually having to reach out to that many people and they’re getting referrals. So what is the difference? And so it’s about having. A simple approach and having a system to plug into that works, for example, one hot tip about this is we could first start with low-hanging fruit and then we could go beyond that to beyond the low-hanging fruit.

So one way of approaching medical doctors with low-hanging fruit, I would, as far as low hanging fruit is who do you have? Mutual patient with where you have a patient you’ve gotten good results with. And then they also have seen a medical doctor, or, as we think about re reaching more medical doctors and helping their patients, we could also think about other conventional medical practitioners, too.

It could be nurses. The PA’s for example, we’ve had clients who have been nurse practitioners or nurses, and they’ve said, Hey, don’t forget about us. We’re actually easier to get in with, and then medical doctors. So yeah so then, and also other holistic practitioners, could you develop relationships with.

Naturopathic doctors, acupuncturists health coaches, who might do different things than you and you support each other. And it’s more of a team approach. So low-hanging fruit is for whom you have mutual patients, and then you just need to have a way of how, what do you actually say to them? What would actually get them to start referring to you?

And let me help you with this first step here coming up about, which was asked by another Chiropractor who said I’m not sure how to get past the gatekeepers. So because the gatekeepers try to screen you up. Don’t they that’s their job. Isn’t it. The front desk person, they are there to try to keep just the most important thing to be passed along to the doctor because the doctor is busy.

So how can you get their attention when there’s that gate paper right there. One way. So there are definitely ways to get past the gatekeeper and I, and as a part of our MD referral success systems. And one thing that you could do is to go around the gatekeeper. There are a couple of ways to go around the gatekeeper.

So one way is to reach out to medical doctors directly. Directly through messaging them on linked in. And then, because that way you’re not having to have that gatekeeper. And so would you like to have an exact script that a chiropractor client of ours has used and gotten in with medical doctors through their script?

So if you would like that, I made a give this link to you and you can see it below also. And you can just click on the link below and, or copy and paste or. It and get the free script. So it is, you can go to www dot, get more M D referrals.com forward slash linked in script. So again, it’s www dot, get more MD referrals.com forward slash linked in.

So can. Go there now click on the link and download the free copy and paste template you could use to, to get in with medical doctors. And then you just need to know what else to do after that, that, that ends up translating into. So the first, first is getting your foot in the door. And then how does that end up translating into referrals?

Because it’s one thing for them to know about you. It’s another, for them to actually think of you first to send their patients to. A second way of getting around the gatekeepers is something that our chiropractor clients and other holistic health practitioner clients, or. Very well, in terms of very successfully and getting referrals is what is to educate them, speak in front of them.

So how can you do this? So you could either be educating them one by one. It could even be done through a zoom. Or it could be educating their office of providers and their staff about it. In fact, did you know that front desk receptionist sometimes are even better sources of referrals for patients than even the doctor themselves?

So what do you say to that? So things like that. And then there are other opportunities to speak in front of a room full of doctors as well, whether it is in person. I know during these times some it, depending on where you are geographically, there are still opportunities in person where you could be in a room full of medical doctors.

That are it’s 10 of them or four 50 of them, or even more than that, it could even be done through a webinar way. So meaning that, for example, if you speak in front of medical doctor conferences, And you’re a main speaker there, then you can be or you could do in-services for hospitals and then be in front of more than one doctor at a time, because how many of you would love to be in a room full of doctors?

We had a client of ours. Who was in front of who did a talk in front of a very well-known hospital in the New York city area and got referrals from medical doctors. And that really helped him grow his practice significantly. And so as far as the Notice the opportunities, because you might think why don’t want to speak in front of a group of doctors.

I don’t feel like I, I feel like I need to know more before I do that. So here’s the thing you don’t have to even start with speaking in front of a handful of doctors. They could just be one provider. And then, or it could be someone who’s not a medical doctor. It could be a nurse or a nurse practitioner or a PA or someone who might just feel like a bit less intimidating too, because you feel like you, you don’t you just feel more comfortable.

In terms of. Feeling like you need to know more, so much more about chiropractic than other medical doctors already know. So I don’t worry about it at all. Now, as far as the, because when we actually work with our clients, what we do is help them come up with one, not several.

But just one. So it’s basically one framework. One, what I call signature talk that you can give in front of potential refers. So it translates into referrals sooner rather than later, because it is one thing to just educate them and it’s, and for them to see you as someone who’s smart and clinical. To see that you can really help their patients also because that’s what translates into referrals, not just when your talk is very informative, because there’s a difference.

And so I it’s about, having the ability to do both. Yes. So having that one signature talk dialed in is really important. And then you can use it in different situations, whether it’s in front of one doctor, you’re speaking in front of whether it’s in front of a room, full providers or. And it could be webinar based, right?

You don’t even have to leave your house or feel like, oh, I need to go and get dressed and go see someone at the doctor’s office. You don’t even need to do that. It could be at home, okay. So another note, one of you sent into me that I want to help you with is there, so we are connected to MDs, but the referrals aren’t coming in, this is what I like each one of you to do. If you either have an interest in getting doctor referrals, but you haven’t yet, or you’re currently getting referrals from doctors and you would like to have more referrals coming in from medical doctors is to draw a triangle. So draw a triangle and on the very top of the triangle.

You to write down. So what I’m going to have you write down it are because in order to want to get to get more referrals from medical doctors, it helps to have a, it’s an understand why they’re not, they might not be referring as much, right? So this triangle is going to help you with that.

So on the top part of the triangle, I want you to write down. Connection with you as a person or provider. So this is connection with you as a person it’s not necessarily, what’s your clinical knowledge of it. That’s certainly helpful. If you think about it, who, if you were, had your choice of referring and you knew, let’s say several people, you could refer to your patients of those people, you choose, who of those will you be more likely to choose?

Is it someone you tend to like more, as far as your relationship with them enjoy talking to, or is it someone who is a big grumble Bumble? Like really grumpy and all the time. So it probably someone who you enjoy. Joy talking to you and have a connection with, so that’s one thing which is on the top of a triangle to put on there.

So connection with you as a person provider, the bottom left of the triangle corner. I want you to write down trust in your modality. This is about whether the extent they trust in your modality, but not just your modality itself, as far as trust in chiropractic, it’s also trust in the, what you, the kinds of in terms of helping the patients, as far as you would like to attract, right?

With those kinds of health issues, what is their trust in you for those kinds of things and what is their understanding of safety and efficacy? Because if they don’t, if they have a concern about its safety or efficacy, they’re not going to refer many medical doctors are concerned about lawsuits these days, very under, in a very understandable way.

So they don’t want to be putting their license on the line to refer someone to you. And then you do something with their patient that they regret that they ever see. Because it’s causing them trouble and including legal trouble. Would you agree if that would be scary for them? And so many times medical doctors take the stance of, I don’t know what’s going on with that, so I’m not going to even go there.

That’s why they may not be referring. So it’s helpful for you to, in terms of that corner of the triangle to write down the trust in modality, including safety and efficacy, that’s the other corner of the triangle, the final corner of the trial. Here. Final quarter is top of mind awareness.

What is their top of mind awareness about you? And when do they, because many medical doctors are busy, they go about their day. Remember we talked about how you they’re seeing patients all day long and they’re probably really booked. And then all kinds of people trying to get their attention, whether it’s vendors, drug, reps, and nurses.

All kinds of different practitioners and providers, the patients and the patient’s family, all kinds of people trying to get their attention. So what would have them out of their busy day when they’re seeing patients, they think, oh, I need to refer this person to this chiropractor. So what would make them actually think that?

That’s really important as well. So I gave you the three triangle points. Now what to do with it is rate yourself. Think about one medical doctor you would like to have more referrals from and think about what you would rate yourself on a scale of one through 10, with 10 being the highest, what would you rate yourself for each corner?

And then we could look at how can we get you closer to a 10 in each of the three corners of the triangle? And that’s what will help have those medical doctors referring to you more readily is, the question to ask yourself is, do you have a system that supports getting referrals? Do you have a way of approaching the doctors to help them feel more comfortable and confident in you?

And, for example, these are things that we help our clients with. So let’s talk about. The here’s one final thing in terms of a common kind of concern or challenge, and frustration, a feeling, right? So one of you wrote in, I have MD patients, however, still they’re not referring to me.

So this is a situation where remember the triangle where they might have trust in you. As a person, as a practitioner, perhaps they may have trust in your modality and perhaps the safety. But they might actually not necessarily know or be very clear about certain situations that you’re looking for referrals from.

They might maybe they don’t know, you think they might know, but maybe they don’t know. Maybe they’re seeing you for. More generalized kind of pain and they have no idea, even though you can help them with this, they have no idea it could help support improving fertility or in terms of the yes.

And so there are. Things that they might not truly know about clinical wise. They’re also, what about top of mind awareness? Look at that corner of the triangle about top of mind awareness. So yes, they see you as their paint as a patient, but when they’re seeing, when they’re seeing a patient, do they come across a patient and they think thinking, meaning this is a perfect situation to refer.

That chiropractor, right? Are they crystal clear about that? So it’s about how are you communicating that to the medical doctors so that when they are in the room with the patient, that they remember that, and once you have made a CA a con an initial connection with the doctor by the way, those of you who want that script again for the LinkedIn script, that’s just one way to get to.

There are several other ways, but I’d want to give you at least one way to get started with, so that is the you can go to www dot, get more MD referrals.com forward slash linked in script. So when you, in terms of, after you have started developing that relationship, Remember, it’s also about how do you continue that relationship so that they refer and they continue referring because have you ever experienced before, maybe you’ve heard your colleagues say, Hey, I reach out to that doctor.

I thought they would refer. We had a really good conversation and they’re not referring so many times. I noticed when chiropractors tell me that and I asked them to dig in deeper and find out what’s going. And I noticed that it’s because usually they think they have this unrealistic expectation of them getting a whole flood of referrals from just having talked to the doctor.

What’s right. So usually just think about it. If someone just met you and they said they could help your patients, are you going to send every patient to them pretty much that you think they can help? How how likely is that right? So the likelihood goes up when they’re educated more, feel more comfortable about those corners of the triangle, for example, especially the safety and efficacy, which you can do by educating through a webinar or zoom or a talk.

Like I mentioned to you before that speeds up the process of getting referrals sooner rather than later, or, and, or also, what else, how do you. How do you keep them in your top of my keep in top of mind, awareness that, and help them feel comfortable in starting to refer, having a system for that in place that supports you getting referrals.

So that’s what you’ll need next. And for those of you who want help with this and would like systems to plug into that work or what guidance to get this going so that you’re able to start attracting those referrals. Remember, like three, three providers, any one or two patients a week that adds up, doesn’t it.

And with, especially with ad costs rising these days, and with you per perhaps experiencing that, the sources of getting patients may be aren’t working as well, or even if they are working as well as really important to diversify, especially with things changing and shifting. And reach out to us at introvertedvisionary.com.

So go there now and then click on the button to get in with us and happy to see how we can help you grow your fast practice faster, whether it’s through doctor referrals or in other ways. To you, helping more people who need you and waking up the planet because more people need to know about chiropractic.

More people need to know about holistic options that can really help them beyond just what they may know about with drugs and surgery. And you are an important key to that. You’re an important person to be able to change. The trajectory of people’s health situations and conditions and issues, but more people need to know about you.

And that can only happen when you are able to educate more and also have providers even start referring you because it just will snowball from there. So do you having an amazing year go to introverted visionary.com and happy to help you further? So till next time,