As a follow up to yesterday’s Putting the “Alternative” in Alternative Medicine, I thought it would be interesting to look at the term complementary from a business strategy perspective.

There are some deeply entrenched camps on this issue. There are many who view the term complementary as subservient to the allopathic medical community. It’s the “either-or” attitude, and it’s not right or wrong, it’s simply an opinion. There is a growing mountain of evidence that multi-disciplinary approaches to health care (read: professionals complementing each other) are great for patients. Whether you want to believe the data or not is up to you.

In terms of how you approach your business, however, you may be missing out on an incredible referral resource by not considering yourself as complementary. While existing patients are truly an exceptional source of new client referrals, they are only one source. CAM practitioners, by virtue of their “alternative” status, often fail to tap one of the best business growth opportunities out there: medical doctors.

MD’s have some terrific advantages as sources of referrals:

They’re In the Right Market
First of all, they deal with sick people all day. While your patient Bob may be well connected and sing your praises, not everyone he knows may need your help. Just about everyone who walks into an MD’s office, however, is a potential client. Nearly all of them have a complaint of some sort.

They Carry a Big Stick
Secondly, MD’s are authority figures (whether you like it or not, it’s true). If Bob tells his golf buddy to come see you, they’ll “think about it”. If an MD tells the golf buddy, he’s far more likely to go.

So, if you can get physicians referring to you, your practice can really take off. The challenge, however, is that the average MD is notoriously difficult to swing to the CAM side of the fence. If you’re smart about this, though, you can slowly build a great referral network of physicians who will bury you in new patients.

Next: Leveraging MD’s as a Referral Base