Join Gerda as she shares actionable strategies to revitalise your practice’s client inquiries. 

As economic shifts and increased competition impact the allied health sector, it’s crucial to adapt and implement effective strategies to keep your practice thriving. This includes learning how to leverage timely reporting, referrer relationships, and targeted marketing to ensure that your phone keeps ringing and your practice stays busy. 

In this Episode, you’ll learn (amongst others):

• How economic and market changes has impacted your client inquiries.
• How timely communication with referrers can position your practice as a preferred provider.
• How building and maintaining relationships with referrers is essential for sustained client flow.
• The importance of crafting an effective marketing message that resonates with potential clients.

Special Bonus:
If you are keen to learn more about Gerda’s highly effective client generating marketing strategies, then be sure to check out her in-depth training called “The Fully Booked Practice Diary” which she is making available for FREE to you as a listener of Episode 5. You can get that HERE.

Who This Episode Is For:

• Practitioners experiencing a decline in client inquiries.
• Practice Owners looking to improve client acquisition, strengthen referral networks and refining their marketing strategies.

Connect with Private Practice Success & Gerda here:

• Follow the Private Practice Success Facebook Page
• Follow Gerda on Instagram
• Connect with Gerda on LinkedIN
• Join the Private Practice Success Facebook Group – exclusive to practice owners.
• Email Gerda directly at gerdam@private-practice-success.com
• Order your hard copy of Gerda’s book, The 7-Figure Practice HERE.
• Ready to work with Gerda? Send in your details HERE and she will be in touch.

 

Episode 5: When the Phone Stops Ringing

Well, hello there, fabulous private practice owner. My name is Gerda Muller, and you are listening to episode number five of the Private Practice Success Podcast.

Today, I want to talk to you about what to do when the phone stops ringing. For the majority of us, the way that clients, or potential clients then contact us, is via the phone. And I’ve been speaking to quite a number of people of late telling me, “Gerda, my phone is not ringing as often as it used to.” And what people are experiencing is a decline in the number of clients reaching out for mental health support – in the case of psychology practices like my own – or across the other allied health disciplines.

The Impact of COVID and Other Economic Shifts

It’s a really interesting phenomenon because if we look back over the last five years, pre-COVID, there was high demand for allied health and mental health services. That demand skyrocketed during the COVID years, and especially for mental health private practices. I know because I own two group private practices, and the majority of the clients that I do mentoring, coaching, consulting with, are psychology practice owners. So demand far outweighed the supply during the COVID years.

And during that time, we also saw a lot of people go into private practice for themselves, which is amazing, right? Because I can tell you now, the group practices and the solo practice owners that existed at that time could not deal with the demand – it was too much. And a lot of people – some out of their own accord, other people’s circumstances forced them to do it, had to go out on their own – starting their own solo practices, some people started group practices, and a lot of people started telehealth businesses during that time.

I love the fact that our industry stepped up and started new businesses. But what has happened post-COVID, is slowly but surely, businesses have started to see a decline in clients reaching out. And that has really started to slowly happen over the last 18 months to 12 months. And I personally – and this is just my personal opinion – do think that a lot of that has to do with, yes, an increase in the supply of providers within the industry, but also the economic contraction that is currently taking place within the marketplace.

We all know that there has been talk about a recession in Australia for quite a long amount of time now. As far as I know, we haven’t officially been labelled as being in a recession, but we most certainly are in a period of economic contraction. Meaning that people are more mindful of what they spend their money on.

And generally when these type of things happen, it has been my experience that it takes quite some time – generally 12 months, before we as a small business start to see the consequences of it. Something very similar happened when it was the global financial crisis back in 2008. We only felt that on the ground as small business in 2010, and this is happening now as well when I look at these patterns. It is now starting to have an impact on referral numbers, for especially group private practices, because if you have a group private practice, you don’t just have one diary to fill. You probably have five or 10.

Some of the practices I work with have an excess of 30 diaries to fill – just one business. And people are starting now to see a decline in the ringing of the phone. Because I suspect our community has really been hanging out there trying to keep up with looking after their mental health, trying to keep up with looking after the allied health needs of their families.

But at some point, it’s now getting to that crunch, which is really, really hard. It’s getting harder and harder for people to have that money and put that money aside to pay for their sessions. Does that mean that we just give up? No. That’s not what it means. It does mean that we need to be aware of it. So, if the phones have stopped ringing within your business, I want you to know that you are not alone.

It is actually happening across our industry. Yes, there are also those practices that still have long wait lists, but they are not the rule anymore. For a long time that was the rule. Everybody had wait lists. That’s not like that anymore. Well, at least not the people that I talk to, and I’ve got a private facebook group of private practice owners only – there’s about 3000 practice owners from across Australia, across all allied health disciplines in that group, and that’s what I’m hearing. And that’s what I’m seeing in people that reach out to me to work with me.

Numbers That Matter

So first, I want you to know that it is happening – you’re not alone at it. And yes, there are most certainly things that we can do about it. And today I want to share three things with you – three very specific strategies that you can put in place to kick start the ringing of the phone again. What I also want to just clarify and make sure that we have awareness of this is that the phone ringing, and in other words, the amount of enquiries we are receiving and the amount of referrals that get sent to us is a lead indicator.

A lead indicator is something that happens that leads to something else. So the number of enquiries leads to, ultimately a number of people booking an appointment. Between those two parts, there is a conversion process that happens. So, for clarity – the phone rings, reception answers it, does an intake on the phone. If they have availability in the diary and there is obviously a clinician with the competencies, skills and experience to support this client – they will then book this client into the diary.

So there’s a conversion conversation happening on the phone. Some of those clients will convert into actual appointments and some of them won’t, and that’s okay as well. But the number of leads versus the number of new client bookings allows us then to work out what the conversion rate is for your specific practice.

But the lead indicator, which is the number of enquiries, predicts what can we expect with the number of bookings to be in the diary, knowing what we know our conversion rate is. Then, obviously, the number of appointments in the diary provides another number, like your booking rates. You would know how many appointments you need to break even, how many appointments do you need to achieve a certain amount of percentage – all that type of stuff.

How to Take Action and Fill Your Diary

So when this phone stops ringing, it can have a significant impact down the road. Does that make sense? Because that impacts conversion conversation, which impacts new appointment bookings, which impacts money coming through the doors. And if we don’t have money coming through, we can’t pay our team, we can’t keep our doors open. So it’s really important for us to look at this. And if you’ve noticed it, well done. It tells me that you are looking at what is happening in your business.

For a lot of people, the way they realise that the phone has stopped ringing generally is that there’s a lot of open appointments and that is generally when people start panicking and they go – “What is happening? How many referrals did we have this week? How many faxes came through?” And then they go to reception and start asking questions around, you know, “How busy have you guys been? Has the phone stopped ringing?”

And a lot of times these days, it seems the answer is yes. It’s been really quiet. And if you don’t know what these numbers look like at your practice, this is a reminder to go and look at those. It is really important to know what is happening across this whole process from the enquiry coming in, to actual appointments in the diary. But today I want to specifically share with you three things that you can do when the phone has stopped ringing, and when there are all these open spaces in your diary.

Now, there’s a lot of things you can do, but for the sake of being timely, I’m going to share three things with you. What I will do, however, is in the show notes, I’m going to share with you a link to a training I previously did. I’m going to give this to you for free, and in that training I take you through, I think it was around about 10 strategies for having and creating a Fully Booked Diary. Because I can tell you it just doesn’t happen just all by itself. You, as the business owner, need to have specific strategies and tactics that you’re putting into place to ensure that it happens – and that it stays that way. This last part is a bit of a hint as to what the problem can be, because a lot of times we do things – but we set and forget – and unfortunately you cannot do that. So let’s get started.

Strategy One – Building Trust with Referrers

The first thing that I would do if my practice had open appointment slots, is I would actually go and look at the current clinician team that we have, and I would pull a couple of client files – these days we do that with the electronic files – and I would look at the reporting that is going back to our referrers. Now, in my practice, the majority of our clients come to us with a mental health care plan, which means that the majority of our referrers are GPs (General Practitioners}. Now, in your practice, depending on the discipline you have and depending on your niche, that could be paediatricians, it could be psychiatrists, it could be guidance counsellors, it could be NDIS local area coordinators or NDIS support coordinators. It could be other allied health professionals. It could be workcover rehabilitation consultants.

So any third party referrer that refers to you, I would expect there to be a report back to that referrer. So yes, in Medicare with mental health care plans, there’s a Medicare requirement for us to do that. In my practice, it is just a requirement. I think – I know, it’s good practice. And if somebody refers to you for there to be reporting back to that person, of course, with the client’s full permission and consent for that process to occur. But coming back to what I know is a lot of bread-and-butter work for private practice, and that is Medicare.

Timely reporting back to the GPs is incredibly important. I have been talking to GPs now since 2007, when I first started my private practice. And I’ve seen lots of them, and I can tell you for a fact that throughout this period, the number one complaint they give me around working with psychologists particularly, is the lack of timely reporting. And how do I know that? Because when I do a GP meet and greet, I have three very important questions that I ask them. And one of those questions is the following – I say, “I’m obviously a psychologist, and I would love to hear from you. What is that one thing that annoys you the most when working with a psychologist and referring to a psychologist?”

I ask that question and they normally have a bit of a giggle and a chuckle, and then I’ve given them permission to complain to me, and they do. And the number one complaint is the lack of timely communication, which means the lack of timely reporting back to them. A GP wants to know what’s going on with their patients. In Australia, GPs are the primary care provider of individuals and we need to treat them with the respect they deserve. And if they have sent us a referral, we need to let them know if that person stops coming. Even if it’s an unplanned discharge, we don’t wait four months, six months to get back to them. You need to be clear in your practice – and if you’ve got a group private practice – you need to have a policy that clearly states that we send a discharge report after X amount of weeks from the last appointment that the client had. And it’s then your job to make sure that your team actually follows that process.

A GP doesn’t want to get a discharge report from you – or a conclusion report, or termination report, whatever word it is that you use in your practice – and they’ve already seen the patient four times since that’s happened. Now they look like a fool, they’ve never checked in with them in the last four appointments. And when people have mental health presentations, it’s really important for them to get the support they need. And I find that the GPs that are really into mental health, it’s so important for them.

And if you are that practice, whose clinicians are going to engage in timely reporting, guess who they are going to be referring to? Your practice – okay. Because your practice is showing them the respect as the primary referrer within the system. You are making sure that they know what is happening to their patient. You are making sure that they are then able to recall their patient back in for an appointment, if that patient has fallen out of therapy. The GP will then take over the support in looking after their patient.

And on the flip side, by doing this in a timely manner, not only are you a great team member within that multidisciplinary team between your practice and the GP surgery that refers to you, but your team member, and your business are staying Medicare compliant. Because you need to remember that there is shared responsibility under Medicare for repaying rebates if reports doesn’t get done after sessions were attended.

And I feel that it’s really important for you, not only to protect your own business, but also your team members, because Medicare will ask them to repay money as well. And I don’t want my team members to need to repay money to Medicare. That could ruin a person financially, and it could potentially ruin your business. And I can tell you, it happens way more than you think. I have spoken to a lot of people that this has happened to. You generally don’t hear about it because people are very ashamed of it, which I totally understand.

And a lot of people that happens to, it’s not that they did it on purpose, it’s just, they got busy. They forgot, and they were so focused on helping the next person that was calling up, or the next person that was booked into their diary – that they went – Well, what’s more important seeing this person and helping them, or writing a letter? And they’ve gone – seeing the person.

And I’m not saying that makes it right. I’m just saying it’s very easy to get into trouble. And we want to make sure that that doesn’t happen. So I’ve gone off on a bit of a tangent there, but it’s so important for us to protect our team members when it comes to compliance. Also to protect your business and ultimately, if there is timely reporting, I’m not saying long, big, fancy reports. I hope you’ve noticed the word I keep on using is timely. Timely reporting needs to go back to the doctor. I can guarantee you that will go a long way towards making you their preferred service provider of the discipline that they are referring patients to.

So ask yourself – when last have you actually checked the timely reporting done by your clinicians? Do your clinicians know what that looks like? Do you have a policy around it? Are you taking corrective action if it’s not happening? Have you actually done some file audits where you looked at when last did this client have an appointment, and has the closure or discharge paperwork been sent?

What was the period between the last appointment and the date of that report? Unfortunately, I’ve spoken to a lot of people that only realise big gaps in reporting once clinicians leave – and then it is too late. So go and check that one.

Strategy Two – Strengthening Your Referrals with GP Meet and Greets

Second one a lot of you are going to go, “No Gerda, I don’t want to do this.” Okay, the second one is that old chestnut. GP meet and greets. Now, I’m calling it GP meet and greets because GPs are the biggest referrer at my practice, and probably the biggest referrer if you are a psychology practice, again, like I said earlier, that could be paediatrician meet and greets for you. It could be a lawyer meet and greets for you. It could be LAC meet and greets for you. This is basically meeting and greeting third parties who are referring to your practice.

Now, just this week, I spoke to two group private practices, and both of them told me the same thing. Both of them said that the phone has stopped ringing. Both of them said that there’s now more gaps in their diary than they’ve had in a really long time. Both of them said that, “Gerda, we used to always have waitlists”. Both of them said that, “Gerda, I’ve never had to do marketing like ever. We have always been able to rely on word of mouth and a really great reputation, and it’s not working anymore.” And they don’t know how to market and they don’t want to – because it feels yucky, because it’s something they’ve never had to do.

And I had obviously this similar conversation with both of them in terms of going – You know what? A lot of more people have gone into the marketplace, so there is a lot more competition, for lack of a better word – but it is what it is. We’re talking business here, right? More service providers have gone into the community, and are providing similar services to us. So to some extent, yes, they are competing for business, right? So, we can’t just sit back on our laurels and expect referrals to keep coming. Because they are probably doing marketing, and your business isn’t doing marketing – because it never did. They are going out there telling the GPs that they’ve got immediate appointments available. They are out there building relationships, as they should. Good for them and they should keep on doing that. But this also means that you need to do that. And what I have found – because at my practice, we are still doing meet and greets to this day – our goal has always been to do two GP meet and greets a month (10 months of the year), so we don’t do it in January and December. And so it’s basically from February to November – the goal is two a month. One for a new surgery, and then the other one will be to one of our practice angels.

In other words, a business, a surgery that’s already referring to us, because we don’t want to just be a wham, bang, thank you, ma’am, meet and greeter. We want to maintain ongoing relationships with our referring doctors and therefore we go back and we meet with our practice angels – GPs already referring to us and GPs that have been referring to us for many, many years. And this is what they’ve told us because a very similar thing happened to us. Luckily, we pick it up very quickly because we look at our KPIs and the phone ringing enquiries, that is a business KPI, we look at that on a weekly basis. And immediately at the next GP meet and greet, we were speaking to a longstanding practice angel. And this person just said, “Well, we just assumed you guys are full. We just assume you’ve got a waitlist. So we started giving the patients, three other options to go to.” – and that happens because you provide quality service.

GPs assume that because you are good – not you personally, but your team providing clinical intervention, the customer service, the whole client experience for the patient is always good. Feedback is good to the doctors providing high quality outcomes, and if you’re really good at engaging clients, which means that your dropout rates are low – GPs then just start to assume you’re going to be busy.

And they want to make sure that they can help their patients as soon as possible. So they don’t want to refer them to somebody that’s going to put them on the waitlist for 12 to 18 months, which I totally get. So it’s again up to us to proactively communicate to the GPs to say, “Hey, we’ve got appointments available. Hey, we actually recruited a new clinician, this is who they work with, this is the niche area. They are available to take appointments at the same days and times.”

So ask yourself this: When last did you have a GP meet and greet? And if you don’t want to go and see them personally, give them a call, get on the phone. Don’t be scared to do that. Remember the two of you are working together to support a mutual client. The two of you are there as part of a team, in our instance, look after the mental health of the GP’s patients, and that patient is your client. So reach out and build that relationship. It’s so important.

And again, there’s communication that needs to happen here. Just like timely reporting is really timely communication, from that paperwork perspective. And of course, every time your reports or the report of a clinician goes across the desk of a referrer, guess what? Your name, your practice name, that clinician’s name is there in front of mind when the next person walks in and needs a referral to a similar service.

And then again, communication during meet and greets by ensuring that you always know what challenges the GPs have, and so that you can keep on nurturing that relationship and make sure that they know when you do have wait lists and when you don’t have wait lists.

Strategy Three – Mastering Your Marketing Message

And then the third thing I would recommend you look at is obviously marketing, right? And there’s a lot of ways to do more general marketing with that social media, whether that is Google Ads that you need to pay for. But ultimately, a lot of people tell me, “I’m very active on social media Gerda, but it’s crickets.”

Irrespective of the type of marketing you do, whether that is social media, whether it is emails out to clients, whatever the tactic is – you first need to focus on the messaging and you need to get the message right. Because you can write 10 Facebook posts and get zero engagement and somebody else can write 10 posts – both offering the same service, both targeting the same audience – and the second place can get a lot of engagement. And it all comes down to the content and the messaging within it. So you need to be really mindful when you are writing your content for your marketing that you know – who am I talking to? What are their pain points and what are they moving towards? So when somebody reads your email or your flyer or your Facebook post or your Instagram post. They need to be able to self-identify. They need to go, “Geez, this person is talking to me, it’s like they’re in my head and they know exactly how I feel and what I’m needing.”

Until you can get your messaging and the language in your messaging to speak to that. It doesn’t matter how many social media posts you put out there, it’s not going to be effective. And that means that you’re going to have to dig deep. You’re not going to be able to just use it, you know, templated stuff. Yes, you can use templated things to help you not start from a blank slate to give you some ideas.

You could even use Chat GPT to help you come up with ideas, but ultimately you need to bring that personal experience into it and go, those clients that we see at our business and at our practice – What is their pain? What are they struggling with? What are the words they would use? What’s the language that they use to describe these problems or to describe what it is that they want? What are their outcomes? What are their goals for counselling? What is those words? And then if you are really good at weaving this into your marketing message, then your clients will feel understood. They will self-identify that you are the service for them. They will proactively reach out to book in with you. If they want to get a referral somewhere, they’re more likely to go to the doctor and say, “Hey, thank you for giving me these names, however, I’ve seen these guys on Facebook or on Instagram. They’re in my local area and I actually want to go check them out. Can you give me a referral for them?” Or at the very least they can tell the doctor, “Hey, have you heard of them?” And the GP might go, “No.” And then the client might be doing the marketing for you, right? But it only works if you get the messaging right.

Conclusion

Okay, so that was the three strategies: Timely Reporting, Meet and Greets, or Networking, and the marketing messaging needs to be right. Start with those three, because it’s really important. And then once you’ve done those three, then I would recommend you check out the link in the show notes and watch the webinar I did called: The Fully Booked Practice Diary, which is going to give you a lot of concrete actionable strategies in addition to these three to also implement.

Alrighty, thank you so much for tuning in, and as always, remember that I am here to help you build a practice you can’t stop smiling about 🙂