Which doctors send you patients? Running referrals like a sales pipeline
Most practices can't say which primary care offices referred them patients last quarter, or which ones stopped. A simple way to track referrers and know who to visit next.
Ask a specialty practice where its new patients come from and the answer is usually a mix: search, ads, word of mouth, and referrals from other clinicians. Referrals are often the steadiest source. They are also the one practices track least.
Most practices can't quickly answer three questions: Which offices sent us patients last quarter? Which ones used to send patients and stopped? When did someone from our team last talk to them? A sales team would never run without those answers. Referral relationships deserve the same attention.
Think of referrers as accounts
A sales pipeline is just a list of accounts, what's happened with each one, and what should happen next. Applied to referrals:
- The accounts are the clinicians who might send you patients: primary care physicians, physical therapists, chiropractors, urgent cares, athletic trainers, and anyone else in your area who sees patients before you do.
- What's happened is two kinds of events: referrals you received from them, and outreach you made to them (a visit, a lunch, a call, a letter).
- What should happen next follows from those two lists. Someone who referred five patients last quarter and none this quarter needs a call. Someone you've never visited who sits next door to your busiest location needs a lunch.
What to track (and what not to)
For each referring clinician, keep:
- Name, credentials, and the practice or group they belong to
- Category (primary care, physical therapy, chiropractic, and so on)
- Office address, phone, and fax
- Each referral received: date, and whether it was a new patient or a follow-up
- Each outreach: date, type, and a one-line note
- Your own notes: who the office manager is, the best day to drop by
Keep patient details out of this list. Counting that a referral came from Dr. Lee on March 3 is enough to manage the relationship. Who the patient was belongs in your medical record system, not your marketing tools, unless that tool is covered by a business associate agreement.
Four views that tell you what to do
Once referrals and outreach are logged, a few simple views do most of the work:
- Top referrers. Ranked by referrals over the last 90 days and the last 12 months. These are the relationships to protect.
- Going quiet. Clinicians who referred regularly before and haven't in 60 to 90 days. This is the list most practices never see until the drop shows up in the schedule.
- Never contacted. Clinicians in your area with no outreach logged. Your growth list.
- Overdue for a touch. Strong referrers you haven't reached out to in a set period, for example 90 days.
A simple outreach rhythm
You don't need a sales team. A realistic rhythm for a small practice:
- Weekly: review the "going quiet" list and make two or three calls or drop-ins.
- Monthly: one lunch or visit with a top referrer, and one with a new office.
- Quarterly: a short, useful update to every referrer, such as when to refer, what's new, and how fast you can see their patients.
- After every referral: close the loop. A quick note that you saw their patient builds more goodwill than any lunch.
AdLivo's Referrals page is built for this. It keeps each referring clinician and every referral and outreach you log, and sorts them into the views above: top referrers, trending down, due for outreach, and never referred.