How to Reach More Referring Dentists and Physicians

You may be able to identify your current referring dentists and physicians, but do you know how many other health care professionals in your community could be good referral sources for you? And can you quickly and easily reach them all?

Growing your dental specialty practice means reaching out to other dentists and physicians who are currently not in your network. What would your practice be like if you received referrals from five to ten health care professionals with whom you do not have a current relationship?

The first step in this process is to identify from whom you would like to get your referrals. For example, many pediatric dentists prefer referrals from pediatricians. If you are a periodontist, you might want to include endocrinologists who treat patients with diabetes. Use your creativity in thinking of which other health care practitioners might be able to refer the types of patients you would like to treat.

The next step is to define the geographical area you serve. Obviously, an oral surgeon in South Dakota is likely to treat patients from many, many miles away while a prosthodontist on the Upper East side of Manhattan will think of a much more tightly focused geographical area.

Finally, the question becomes how to generate this list of potential referral sources. In theory you can go to the library and manually compile your own list from the various yellow page listings.  However, this is not very practical.

Here is an unabashed plug for one of our most popular services—EZ Lists. Based upon a brief telephone consultation with your office, we will research and generate a list that fits your individual criteria. Your list can be defined by radius, ZIP codes or by drawing the physical borders of your referral area. The cost of this service is surprisingly inexpensive.

For more information, call 800-323-4995 or e-mail referrals@wpicommunications.com.