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How to Get Past the Gatekeepers for MD Referrals – Chen Yen

 

 

You like the idea of attracting more patients through medical doctor referrals, but you’re not really sure how to get past the gatekeepers,

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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.  Due to the unique language of acupuncture, there will be errors, so we suggest you watch the video while reading the transcript.

You like the idea of attracting more patients through medical doctor referrals, but you’re not really sure how to get past the gatekeepers. So this is Chen Yen your six and seven figure practice make-over mentor at introvertedvisionary.com and welcome to my show today on AAC live. So, uh, you might have been thinking about getting referrals from medical doctors, but, um, let’s talk about, well, how do you actually connect with them? Because some of the most common challenges that I hear are having trouble getting past the gatekeepers, or, you know, how do you approach them so that they actually do take you seriously? And then what if they’re saying things to you? Like the, you’re not a part of my insurance network and, or they might seem skeptical. And the truth is that as far as I’m days go, it is true. Not every medical doctor will refer, but did you know that medical doctors have thousands of patients in their practices and many would be actually happy to tell their patients about you, if they knew about you and how you can help their patients.

So, um, as we get into this, I w I want to share, uh, uh, let me just, let me just think about this, what I want to share. Okay. So, so then is it worth it to you to develop that relationship with, with a medical doctor? And it just, you just only need, like, you don’t need a ton of medical doctors referring. You just, you know, a handful of medical doctors who are your biggest champions. And remember, they don’t always have to be medical doctors either. They could also be other kinds of conventional medicine practitioners or holistic health practitioners too. So whether it be nurse practitioners or nurses or PAs, I have clients who are nurse practitioners also, and they say, Hey, don’t forget about us. It’s actually easier to get in with us then, then medical doctors as well. And then you could also look at like making connections with other holistic health practitioners, for example, chiropractors and naturopathic doctors, too, to mutually collaborate on helping you’re working as a team or to collaborate more on, on getting better outcomes for your patients.

So specifically, let me give you three hot tips related to connecting with MDs. And, uh, this comes from my experience of having worked in different settings in the hospital setting as a pharmacist, as in the outpatient setting. Also, I’ve been in the insides of the FDA and at Merck, and having seen what actually gets medical doctors to refer and what doesn’t and giving you the shortcut to that. So, and by the way, I, I have, um, okay. So as far as, uh, the, the, the, the, uh, the tips that I was going to share with you, so the number one tip of connecting and getting in with MDs is to actually go around the gatekeepers, because if you’re just facing the gatekeepers, what are they doing there? They’re there to screen you out. One of the most common mistakes is, is I actually also sending things like letters, but what happens to, to a letter, just think about the kinds of mail you get in your office.

And you, you look at one and you really don’t know, uh, you don’t really recognize it. What do you do? Right? It’s like, and this is what the gatekeeper might be doing like, right. So, so then, um, how, how do you actually, I approached them, get them going around the gatekeepers one hot tip is to, to actually, I message the doctor on a platform like LinkedIn. So this is a, an Avenue that our clients right now are getting really good results from. And we had a client of ours. Who’s been doing this, and then he’s been getting zoom meetings with the medical doctor. He also, um, offers up to, to meet in person too, but isn’t it nice to have that opportunity where you don’t have to leave your, your, um, house, you don’t have to leave your clinic. And then you could just do a zoom with a medical doctor and start to, to help them be more aware of how you can help their patients.

So that is one hot tip, and then you just need to know what exactly to be messaging them. And then I went to do, if they don’t, don’t actually, um, get back to you, right? So, but that’s, that’s one thing that’s working really well for, for, um, our clients. And then the, um, the second hot tip is, um, and these are tips that I’m teaching you from the doctor referral success roadmap in the, uh, in our consistent patients, make-over, uh, mentorship for introverts. And so it’s to actually go, go through your existing patients, see this is instead of sending letters instead of calling the office. And then they’re like, who are you? Um, some of the most low hanging fruit is, is think about the, the patients you’ve, you’ve had good results with and, or who have been very appreciative of your care. And how can you actually, um, ask, they’re even ask the patients more about the, their primary care doctor, if they have one or other kinds of practitioners they see, and then, then you can ask them, um, do you, do you like them?

Right? Cause it’s also important to, to get a sense of what that practitioner is like, you’re the people who, who will likely refer most to you. And also the people you’ll enjoy working with the most are ones who are most with you value wise. So you need, it’s not just about reaching out to any kind of provider. It’s also helpful to be discerning too, about who you develop these relationships with. And then, so then how do you go about this? So once you, after you have, have, uh, have a better sense of whether he wants to connect with that, that doctor or not, then you could always suggest that the patient bring it up to, to the medical doctor about how they’ve been coming to your practice and essentially putting a word in for you. Right. Just saying, tell your, your doctor, how, how it’s been for you coming here.

And I would love to, um, connect with your doctor because, uh, I would love to too, I’m developing my network of referrals and in the area and wanted to connect with, you know, would like to talk to them and understand their, their practice philosophy better as there might be the ne uh, opportunity for mutual referrals or, uh, when, when the need arises. So, so that is something that you could bring up to your patient. And then what happens when I’m after that? How do you actually approach the, the doctor, uh, when you, you know, doctor’s office and Dr. So we actually have a template for this that I want to make sure you have, because that we could just, just, uh, use it right away already to help you with, with getting into the next step of this. And, um, you can go to, I’ll give you the website link.

So it’s at introverted visionary.com forward slash get M D referrals. So it’s introverted, visionary.com forward slash get M D referrals. And there you can download a template, um, that will be instantly, and you could use that to help you with what, what do you actually, uh, how do you go about, you know, what do you say to that doctor once you actually have that opportunity to connect with, with that doctor so that you start getting referrals, you’re more likely to start getting referrals sooner rather than later. So the third hot tip of what you can do to go around the gatekeepers instead of just, just, you know, talking to the gatekeepers and then them screening you out is, uh, to, uh, educate the doctors through, uh, and a talk or a webinar where you’re in front of the providers. So why is this it’s because many times when, when, um, you might not be getting referrals, it’s because of, of one, three reasons, and let’s have a look at the slides here.

So let’s hop into the second slide here. So, so, you know, and, and also in terms of the, Oh, and go ahead and go to the second slide. So this is, this first one is just that most people often quit, right? When they’re looking at getting referrals from doctors, they’re just like, well, they try a little bit, and then they quit. And they’re like, well, this thing doesn’t work. Whereas it might be that it’s just because you haven’t, uh, haven’t had a system in place that works to have it happen because we have clients. Imagine if you actually had three providers sending you one or two referrals a week, what would that do for your practice? It’ll get filled up pretty quickly. Right? So, so in order to increase the number of referrals, for example, if, uh, whether you’re not getting any or whether you’re already getting some, let’s look at the three reasons why you may not be getting referrals as much right now, one.

And then, and then we’ll talk about why, you know, the, the webinar also doing your talk and then how you know, that kind of thing, um, can help speed, speed up this referral referral thing happening. So one reason why they may not be referring or not referring as much yet is because there’s not trust in you as the practitioner. So this, this is also in you personally, you know, that, that personal connection with you just think about it, the people that you might connect with the most, or the people you might refer to the most, you like them, like chances are, there’s some, you know, they either like them for who they are personally, uh, or they, they, they’re just really great with their patients, right. But there’s still some kind of a personal connection. Otherwise you could, you could choose to refer to someone else also.

So, uh, so their connection with you as a person can also play, play a role. The second reason why you may not be getting as many referrals as you could be, or any at all yet is they might be, they might not trust in your modality. Now, when we talk about modality, I don’t just mean that they think acupuncture can help it. It’s also beyond that, it’s like, what do they actually understand the scope of what acupuncture can help with? Or do they just think that it’s just used for musculoskeletal pain and that’s about it, right? So to what extent do they actually under skid stand the scope of how you can really help their patients? Also, they need to know and understand if it’s safe and effective. If it’s not safe, they’re not going to refer. Even if they think it’s going to be effective, but if they’re kind of scared about safety or, or, um, or like, if you’re, you know, if you’re you offer Chinese herbs and then they’re all concerned about drug interaction, then they won’t be referring.

So how can you help, help them feel safer? And also there are many of them are concerned about lawsuits these days. And so that’s a, um, an of consideration whenever they, they, um, they refer, they don’t want to get in trouble for referring to someone who ends up screwing up on their patients because they can, that’s not a good thing, is it? So, so then how are you communicating your, um, the safety and efficacy of your approach? The third reason why you may not be getting as many referrals as you could be get is because they’re not necessarily, you’re not necessarily top of mind awareness for them. So they’re busy and they might be going about their day with so much happening. Seeing patients day in and day out, are they having nurses have get their attention vendors are trying to get their attention. Drug reps are stopping by people.

They’re getting calls and requests all the time throughout the day. They’re really busy. And so what we want, and if you’re not top of mind awareness for them, they’re not gonna refer. So because today they might have thought about you. And then two days later, they already forgot about you. This is why drug companies think about this. Why do drug companies spend so much money sending drug reps to eye, to doctor’s offices? They know they have statistics to back it up that every single time when a drug rep goes and educates the doctor more, there’s this spike in prescribing, I’ve seen this because I’ve been in the inside of a pharmaceutical industry company, right? So this is the sort of thing that, that I, if you are able to get to the point where, where when doctors are, are seeing patients during the day, and I think thinking anything, meaning I remember I should refer to this person, that’s when you will be getting more referrals from medical doctors.

And so, um, uh, and so thank you for showing the slides for my help with this. Like the, so then, um, the, as far as an Ellen, if you could switch back to me, that’d be great. So as far as the, the, um, in, in terms of what can you do is to actually educate, um, the doctors further, right? Remember we talked about the, the, even if they realize that, uh, or understanding, Oh, acupuncture can help with pain, but if, if there are certain scenarios where they’re not as, as, um, well, an understanding about related to whether it’s safe, or if it makes sense for this particular situation that can think, then they’re not going to refer for that situation. So one way, how are you going to actually, um, help the doctors understand better? So one great way is to educate them. And, and then, uh, but then how do you educate them when, when they’re really busy seeing patients all times.

So if you’re able to have the, have the doctor hop on a zoom, or if you’re, if you want to stop by, and then, then also be sharing a couple of key things, you know, then, uh, or if you’re speaking in front of a more for like at a conference or something, um, where there are providers there, for example, we had a client of ours who spoke to a room full of 50, um, medical doctors and other kinds of conventional medicine practitioners. So she got 10 patients herself, as far as those doctors coming in to see her. And then she got referrals. In addition to that, now some of you might be thinking well, but I don’t know about speaking in front of such a large audience. I feel a little intimidated for one and another. I just don’t want to be speaking at a large audience.

Don’t worry. You don’t actually have to, you could literally just be talking to one, one, a medical doctor, one person’s not feeling more comfortable. So, um, yeah, but for those of you who want leverage, cause imagine if you, you actually just, I, again, you know, you do one, one webinar or one talk and then you’re, you’re done for a long time. The doctors are referring, you’re getting three patients a week. You’re getting five patients a week consistently for a while. Then you don’t actually have to be doing marketing for a long time. This is one of the few approaches where, where, um, you can literally be putting it in place once and you could be getting referrals three months from now, six months from now, even a year longer from now, and not have to be constantly marketing other approaches. Typically you need to be constantly marketing.

Would you agree? And that can get exhausting. You would just like to be focusing on helping your patients and treating patients. So, so then you just need to have a system that brings in doctor referrals quickly and consistently as well. That works. And so, as far as I promise to also share with you the what to do, uh, when the doctor is not in your insurance network too, so, um, or the ones that you seem to my top, it might seem skeptical. So, so as far as the, the, the w if there, you’re not a part of their insurance network, it’s just a matter of two things. One is what if instead you reached out more to medical doctors who had cash based practices, or who had concierge based medical practices, because there are medical doctors like that out there, and they would be there.

Patients already used to that kind of a culture of pink cash. And so that’s one possibility. Second possibility is, um, just because a patient has insurance doesn’t always mean that they won’t pay cash for it, for example, um, there, I mean, I can think of two instances, have you ever, uh, perhaps maybe you have insurance, right. But have you ever paid out of pocket ever happily? So if you have, then, then that’s an example of, of someone, even though they would much, but would you also rather prefer to, to, um, have your insurance? We accept that. Of course, most people, if they are paying for insurance, they want insurance to be accepted, but you still in the end still also paid out of pocket. Right? Why that it’s because you really saw the value. And, and so the second possibility is that, you know, again, we can’t really judge people for, um, whether they will pay or not.

For example, I actually had a client who, who, um, who told, who suggested her patient, this patient actually got on a train one hour each way to go see her. And she said to her one day, she’s like, well, why don’t you see someone closer to you? You know? Um, and she’s like, and this person was on Medicaid. Right. And I, because also my client was going to be moving to another location. And it might’ve been a little bit further away from this person. So, but she said, well, why don’t, why don’t you just, just let me, let me refer you to a different provider who be closer to you. And she said, no, I save up my money every month to come and see you. And it just really hit her. And it really hit me too. Right. And as it should hit all of you that it’s, who are we to judge, whether someone can afford it or not, or choose to save up their money to come and see you, even if indication is, are maybe they, they quote unquote can afford it.

Right. Um, and so, so it’s not fair for us as practitioners who judged that it’s fair for us as practitioners to, to let people know about their options. So if, if a medical doctor actually says that to you while you’re not in our insurance network, and you’re say that’s true. And, um, I believe, you know, one of the most powerful, one of the most helpful things for patient is for them to know their options. And then you could tell that story that I just shared with you, you could say, you know, for example, there a practitioner who, who actually had a patient who, who had Medicaid and, uh, and she said, you know, so you could just tell that exact same story to this metal, whoever medical doctor you’re talking to, who might be concerned, you’re not in their insurance network. So if you’re finding this helpful, go ahead and, and like this, or typing the chat, uh, what’s been one valuable tip so far.

And if you want the script that I promised you in terms of a, an exact, um, script that you can use to help you approach, uh, medical doctors for whom you have mutual patients with so that you can get the ball rolling more, to be getting more referrals from medical doctors, then you can go to introverted visionary.com forward slash get M D referrals. And then you just need to know, see one of the most common mistakes. A lot of acupuncturists end up making with this when wanting referrals from medical doctors is, um, not really having a strategy. It’s just like, Oh, let me, let me go ahead and reach out to these doctors. And, Oh, I had a good conversation. Oh, they should start referring now because they said they would let me know if they had any, anyone who could refer you, but, but, um, how’s that worked for you before it, and if you haven’t tried it before, let me just share with you this, that typically, that doesn’t work very well.

So you need to have, do you actually have a strategy that works? Do you actually have systems in place or even certain things that are automated that support getting doctor frills? And these are the things that our clients come to us for in our consistent patients make over mentorship for, for introverts, um, as well. So you’re welcome to go to our website at introvertedvisionary.com. And if you’re, if you’re tired of being at a plateau and, uh, would like to be busier consistently with patients, or if you’re already busy and would like to be able to free up your time and, um, be able to still help more people without having to, to feel so burnt out, then, uh, feel free to reach out to us as we help our clients. We’ve helped our clients. We’ve ushered our clients into six figures and seven figures the introverted way. So stay tuned next week for a year. Yair Maimon, uh, who will be your host for AAC show next week, till next time