If your marketing reps are not spending a lot of time away from their desks driving from physician office to physician office and building relationships, they’re probably not doing a very good job. So, how do you build physician relationships and add profitability to your business? We advocate a marketing program that gets your marketing reps or physician liaisons out of your practice and into the doctors’ offices. Before you begin, separate your area physicians into three … [Read more...]
Setting Up Compensation Structure for Hospital Contracts
December 14, 2010 By 2 Comments
When you establish a contract with a hospital system, you can choose a variety of mechanisms for compensation. Here are your options: Flat fee plus incentive With this structure, you charge a hospital a flat fee for providing services and incentives for building the program. The flat fee should cover all your direct costs, while considering a per-visit or per-unit charge. This provides an incentive to grow outpatient volume. Direct costs plus management fee In this structure, the … [Read more...]
Hospital Contracting: Structuring the Deal
December 14, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Once you’ve gone through the process of becoming the installation manager of a hospital’s outpatient physical therapy program, you’ll need to structure the deal. You have two choices. You can propose a joint venture with the hospital or become an independent contractor. The legalities of a joint venture can be cumbersome and cause major delays in initiating the program. So I would recommend developing a program as an independent contractor. Hospitals are usually comfortable with … [Read more...]
How to Contract with Hospitals for Physical Therapy Services
December 14, 2010 By Leave a Comment
In most states, hospital reimbursements are more favorable than those for outpatient therapy and are not under the Medicare Cap. This dynamic makes the time perfect for joining forces with hospitals as an option for growth. Hospital contracting is a growth strategy that could yield high profitability along with the added benefit of spending more time with your referring physicians. Hospitals usually have difficulties developing out-patient therapy clinics because they aren’t familiar with … [Read more...]
Physical Therapy Marketing- Breaking Down Barriers
December 2, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Physical therapy marketing reps tell us all the time that they can’t get past the physician’s front office staff. I say use the Donald Trump strategy. If Donald Trump walked in and asked to see the doctor, would he get in? Of course he would! I admit the job of what we call a Physician Liaison can be tough. Here are a few strategies that can help. Timing of Visit If you always go to a physician’s office on Tuesdays at 2 PM and there are always 100 patients in the waiting room, … [Read more...]
Marketing Strategies for Building Physician Relationships
November 30, 2010 By Leave a Comment
In the physical therapy world, there is a certain amount of frequency of contact we need to have with our physicians to build relationships. Did you know it takes from six to eight contacts to build a relationship? When we consult with a physical therapy practice, the first thing I ask the marketing staff (we call them Physician Liaisons) is how many qualified visits did you make with physicians last week? I mean good, quality contacts. Not just walking into an office to drop off cookies or … [Read more...]
