How Precision Data Helps Boost Physician Referral Rates

Data-Driven Physician Referrals Can Boost Your Patient Numbers
Hospitals and health systems must look at the market potential on an ongoing basis. These organizations need precision data to do it. Intelligent data can do big things if it’s handled right. Take, for example, healthcare claims data analytics that can boost the physician referral tracking and accuracy to your hospital or health system. 

Claims data can also identify the “top providers.” These physicians refer -- or have the potential to send -- a larger proportion of their patients to your front door compared to their colleagues. 

More appropriate, completed referrals are a must when many hospitals and health systems are operating on razor-thin margins. The COVID pandemic, staff shortages and inflation added unwanted challenges on top of those many hospitals were already facing. So optimizing referrals to get more patients in to see your specialists or revenue-generating services can makes sense.
  

Focus on Relationships

Physician referrals are all about relationships, and relationships can take work. Your organization already interacts with a number of primary care doctors who send their patients to your hospital or health system. You need to invest in these relationships so these doctors continue to think of you first -- and not your competition. Intelligent claims data can make it easier to identify and engage these loyal referrers. 

Establishing new relationships also takes time and effort, but they can be worth it. There will always be high referrers you haven’t met yet. Finding them by partnering with a precision data company can simplify the process. 

Look for a company than can drill down to the individual physician so you’re not wasting resources by targeting every provider at a large practice. Some doctors, for whatever reason, will refer no patients, or only a small number of patients, to your door. Claims data can help you identify them too. You can focus your valuable time elsewhere or decide to nurture the relationship for future referrals. 

Precision Data Can Provide Answers

Optimizing your physician referral process is not a one-and-done project. Like any worthwhile relationship, it requires ongoing attention. A doctor who referred 100 patients to you last year is only on track to refer 40 this year. What happened? 

Claims data can help solve the mystery. It could be the doctor formed a new relationship with an ambulatory surgery center a few miles away from you. Or he or she could be a ‘splitter’ – someone who routinely refers to more than one doctor in the same specialty. Did your proportion of their referrals fall off for a specific reason? Again, you need the insight from precision data to know. 

Claims data can also help hospital leadership monitor referral benchmarking numbers. If you’re having great success in one service line or specialty, they’ll want to use it as a model to boost other sagging service numbers. Intelligent claims data can help you do all this and more, and help you keep your referral numbers up.