PCP of Specialist Referrals

 Meeting with the Medical Specialist

Leveraging Referral PCPs 

I would like to talk to a little bit about leveraging the medical specialist to introduce you to primary care physicians.  When you build a relationship with a medical specialist such as a spine surgeon or an interventional pain management doctor [injections] that can be a very good relationship because they have a lot of people that need to be managed mechanically.  I am going to be doing a lot more consults on the maintenance of sagittal curvature in relation to spine surgery but for this consult, we want to talk about them referring into YOUR practice. 

Now, when it is surgeon, they can be referring in for preoperative care, meaning that they want the patient biomechanically stable before they do their work or it could be postsurgical care, however, in the end we prefer it to come at the beginning.  Once they are fused there is not a lot we can do at that level.  From the interventional pain management side, essentially they are just controlling inflammation and pain.  So you have the ability to build a solid relationship from a structural and correction perspective.  Understand that every single one of these providers that sends you a patient, not only get referrals from primary care physicians, but they also get referrals from other specialists.  Guess what, every single one of those patients has a primary care physician for the most part. 

So when I get a referral in my office what I do is make sure that even though the primary care doctor did not send me that patient they get put on my patient reporting list. When I am looking to build a new relationship, one of the best things to do is complete your initial evaluation print it off and then hand deliver it to the primary care office as a way to introduce yourself.  I always bring a binder with research or the Science of Chiropractic book and say, “Mr. Jones or Dr. Jones, I had the opportunity to see Mrs. Smith, she was referred over by ‘insert the name of the of the interventional pain doctor’, and we have been co-managing and she is doing really well. I just wanted to make sure that your office had this report and if there is anything else I can do I would be happy to discuss it.  Here are some postcards with some basic information on my practice.”  That type of approach gives you credibility because you are showing you are part of the team.  You are telling them that the patient was actually referred to you by the specialist and in the primary care’s eyes that can elevate you pretty quickly.  Make sure you are targeting the primary cares of the patients referred to you office!