As your practice grows, existing patient referrals begin to make up an increasingly large portion of your new patients. Practitioners will often know where a referral came from, but rarely will they know exactly why that person referred. We often know the source, in other words, but not the cause.

The truth is, however, often the patient herself often doesn’t know exactly why she referred. You can ask, but you might find the answers a little vague. Here are some of the behind-the-scenes reasons that patients go out on a limb to refer to you:

Successful Outcome
The most obvious: they got better. Helping someone find their way to good health is one of the surest ways to win their referral hearts.

Personality/Emotional Connection
Although it applies to all service business, it’s particularly powerful in CAM care: patients who you connect or “click” with tend to come back more, and refer more.

Feeling Special
If alternative health care has a competitive advantage in the modern health care market, it’s the ability to individualize. Many MD’s don’t have the time to treat people as unique cases. Your ability to make each one of your patients feel like their health care concerns (and solutions) are important and unique will go a long way toward driving referrals.

Treatments
We discussed this previously – people love having things done to them. Many CAM modalities have the distinct advantage of being able to treat patients in a way that’s actually relaxing, soothing, or even fun. Making the treatment process something to be enjoyed rather than endured makes it easy for people to refer. Expand this to the rest of your office, too: make sure all your procedures – from booking to paying – are something to be enjoyed.

Related Posts
Generating More Existing Patient Referrals for Your Alternative Health Practice
New Patient Referrals: The 5 P’s
Practitioner-Centered vs. Patient-Centered Alternative Health Care