3 Reasons You Should Be Tracking Physician Liaison Activity

3 Reasons Why You Should be Tracking Physician Liaison Activity

You’re checking your monthly referral report and you see that the PCP down the road, Dr. Roberts has finally referred patients to your clinic. You’ve been waiting for these referrals since he first started his practice over 1 year ago. But you can’t help asking yourself, why now? You pull up the activity reports for your physician liaisons, and since all of the activity for your physician liaisons is tracked, you are able to see that Sara — the liaison for the region — completed numerous activities with Dr. Roberts over the course of that year. As it turns out, this included a series of phone calls and emails to him and his staff, office visits to drop off marketing materials, physician-to-physician visits, and an issue had been successfully resolved between his office and yours.

So why is tracking activity important? After all, those referrals might have come in without tracking Sara’s activity — simply because she put in the work. But if you couldn’t correlate the rise in referrals to the actual physician liaison, how would you ever see that the time and money invested into the program was worth it? How else would a physician liaison prove their ROI and feel secure in their contribution to the organization? And how else would you measure accountability?

In a physician liaison ROI case study completed by The Vein Specialists of America, they stated that a physician liaison should, on a weekly basis, submit an activity report. They also note that “The physician liaison should document what practices they visited, who they spoke to, what information they left with the practice and any issues that were identified and follow up that may be required.” So what are the benefits of tracking activity?

1. Proving ROI by Tracking Physician Liaison Activity 

Tracking all physician liaison activity allows you to view completed tasks for specific physicians and compare that activity to the revenue those physicians bring to the organization. If a physician liaison visits a physician a few times in one month, and the referrals they send to your organization increase that month and/or the next, you can infer that the activity completed by the liaison contributed to the rise in revenue. The same works when revenue drops and no activity has been completed with that particular physician. When physician and engagement are high, the ROI of the physician can be proven.

2. Driving Referrals Through Physician Preference

When all communication with the physician is tracked, you have the ability to not only correlate peaks and drops in referrals with physician liaison contact, but you can also track how particular outreach methods work with individual physicians. Not all outreach efforts will have the same effect on every physician, and so it is important that you know which particular method of engagement will influence referrals the most. Maybe a physician’s referrals double after physician-to-physician meetings occur or maybe a physician sends more referrals for a sub-service line once it is advertised to the physician though an in-depth email. Properly tracking the items discussed during visits can provide an insight into which tactics work for which physicians.

3. Measuring Accountability

Not every physician will increase their referrals; however, that does not mean that the physician liaison is not putting any effort into getting that physician’s business. Tracking activity will make the physician liaison accountable for his or her time and effort toward gaining referrals. Reporting based on tracked activity will help the physician liaison, and his or her manager, see if the goals established for the physician liaison are clear and realistic.

There are many important factors that go into a physician liaison’s job and success. Although tracking all activity may be viewed as time consuming and unimportant to some, there are many benefits to having your physician liaison take the time to document the interactions that occur with specific physicians.

Looking to learn more about how you can better track physician liaison activity? Schedule a free, fully customized demo of Marketware’s Physician Relationship Manager with 1 of our solution specialists today. 

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Date: November 25 2020
Subject: Physician Relations
About the author
Amanda Houchins — VP, Sales
Amanda Houchins

VP of Sales (former)

Marketware