How to: Physician Liaison Outreach Strategy

First: what is a physician liaison?

A quick Google search defines a physician liaison as an employee hired by a hospital or healthcare system who acts as a relationship manager between healthcare providers. In many ways this individual is the face of the institution to external healthcare providers and their support staff.

Think of a physician liaison as a communication conduit between their represented institution and other community healthcare organizations – the point-of-contact for external providers needing to connect with an internal provider where the liaison is employed. This individual helps onboard physicians as they get acclimated to their new role, community, healthcare system, or all of the above. The role encompasses marketing, sales, business development, and other soft skills such as communication, customer service and organization.

However, there is one skill that all physician liaisons must possess to remain competitive and successful in their career: strategy!

Below is a 3-step process outlining how to build an outreach strategy for a Physician Liaison.

Step 1: Identifying Clinical Priorities

Before a liaison can get started on creating an outreach strategy, Senior Leaders must first identify the hospital or facility's clinical priorities – which service lines and clinics have the most capacity for volume growth based on the organizational strategy? These are based on the measurable objectives and will determine how the liaison should structure their outreach strategy.

Typically 4 - 8 clinical priorities should be identified every fiscal year. Once the clinical priorities are identified, the liaison should schedule a meeting with the clinical team and invite the following team members: clinic administrator or practice manager, marketing staff, clinic provider(s), referring coordinator, and physician liaison.

Step 2: Meeting Service Line Providers and Support Members

There may be many group members who help support the outreach strategy, but the following may be the most important members of the team.

Administrators/Practice Managers

This team member is going to be able to provide the liaison very valuable information (i.e., What is the current patient pathway to clinic? Who currently refers to the clinic? What are the clinic's hours of operation? Which providers are on the schedule?)

Administrators/Practice Managers may help formulate the strategy plan, and they may also be a focus of the liaison's outreach as they are the "gate-keepers" to their practices/clinics. The liaison should make sure to build a strong relationship with the internal and external administrators and practice managers.

Marketing

One of the most important team members, and one who may be easily forgotten: marketing! The marketing and outreach strategy should complement each other, creating a unified approach to both strategy plans.

It is imperative to involve the marketing team early and often: website update, doctor profile(s) pages, magazine Q&A publications, online AdWord campaigns, social media campaigns, FAQ fact sheets, new provider announcement card(s), e-blast, articles, conferences, etc. (I'll go into detail on each of these marketing tactics in a later post).

Market new programs, new providers, patient outcomes, and highlight patient stories to help build the hospital/facility/clinic/service line/provider brand!

Remember a liaison's role is more than just building referrals – a liaison is the face of the organization. Each time a new publication, article or announcement is created by the marketing team, the liaison can use the marketing publications as an opportunity to re-visit a community clinic or hospital.

Provider

The star(s) of the show! A liaison's main objective, for the most part, is to help onboard new providers and to generate referrals through relationship management. The goal is to promote the service line/provider to external referring providers, clinics and hospitals while building and maintaining relationships for future outreach visits.

During the initial service line meeting, ask the following questions:

• Which types of diseases does the provider/clinic care for (i.e., limb preservation, valve replacement, melanoma screening, OB-GYN)?
• Who is the target audience: Primary Care Providers (Family Medicine or Internal Medicine), Cardiologist, Neurologist, Oncologist, Naturopath Providers etc.?
• Where is our target region: Rural, Metro, Statewide, National, etc...
• What is our differentiator? Why should communities refer to us over competitors (marketing team can also help formulate statement)? Think programs, clinical trials, research, etc.
• What is the best day of the week to schedule outreach (this may be tricky as community clinics and provider clinic schedules do not always match - make sure that is stated in meeting)?

Referral Coordinator

Very important team member! This individual(s) will be able to help explain the referral process to the clinic (i.e., does a referral need a progress note, lab results or images?). Additionally, a referral coordinator may be a person the liaison may call if a community provider is inquiring about a patient who has been referred to the clinic/hospital.

Although a referral coordinator may not be a main focal point of the outreach strategy, it is highly recommend that liaisons form professional relationships with community clinic referral coordinators as they assist in facilitating out-going referrals to the liaison's clinic/hospital, and they can identify concerns with referring to the liaison's represented institution, if any.

Step 3: S.W.O.T. Analysis and 30-60-90 Plan

Throughout Step 1 and Step 2 the liaison will have gathering some valuable information, and now it is time to begin creating an outreach strategy.

A good recommendation is for the liaison to begin the outreach strategy with a S.W.O.T. analysis: Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats.

Strengths

• What advantages does the organization (or provider) have?
• What does the organization (or provider) do better than competitors?
• What unique resources can the organization (or provider) draw upon that others cannot?
• What do consumers in the market see strengths as being, i.e., community perception?

Weaknesses

• What needs improvement?
• Where should the liaison avoid, i.e., competitor hospitals, specific provider offices, clinics?
• What does the consumer in the market see as being weaknesses, i.e., community perception?

Opportunities

• Current referral sources?
• New programs, services or clinical trials?
• New hires or opening of facilities/clinics?

Other healthcare related opportunities

• Changes in technology?
• Changes in government policy?
• Liaison attending healthcare conferences and tabling events to promote program
• Traveling Continuing Medical Education program (I'll go into detail about this program in a later post)

Threats

• What obstacles will the liaison face?
• What are the competitors doing?
• Is changing technology threatening a service?
• Could any of organization (or provider) weaknesses seriously threaten the business?

30-60-90 Day Plan (quarterly)

Now that the liaison has created a S.W.O.T. analysis based on the conversation the liaison had with the administrator/practice manager, provider, referral coordinator, and marketing team, it is time to put the strategy in motion with a 30-60-90 day outreach plan.

This plan is really for the liaison to structure their schedule, keeping in mind they may be working one 4 - 8 clinical priorities per fiscal year.

The 30-60-90 should encompass all outreach events and meetings for all service lines the liaison is tasked to support. The reasoning is it allows the liaison to begin thinking of what message they may be going with to a specific clinic, i.e., liaison is visiting clinic A with provider Z, but the liaison also knows (from their meeting in Step 2) that provider X always wants to visit clinic A.

The liaison should always be entering a facility thinking of their next visit: What else needs promoting? How can the liaison leverage the current visit to schedule a future visit with a another provider/service line?

A liaison should create the plan quarterly, and add visits/meetings to the 30-60-90 day plan as they become scheduled – this will help when using data to identify return on investment (I'll go into detail on data and ROI in a later post).

After each outreach trip, the liaison should write notes in the corresponding section to help support future outreach – notes can be added in whatever format the liaison chose to structure their outreach plan: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, or a CRM. Before a liaison revisits a clinic or hospital, take a look back on the notes from the prior visit to see if there are any follow-up items that need to be addressed. This helps build the relationship piece of the liaison's outreach strategy.

And there it is: a 3-step process to creating a Strategic Outreach plan for a Physician Liaison.