Building Your Therapy Clinic Beyond Doctor Referrals
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[00:00:00] Uh, most hand therapists, we have built our businesses off of our therapy clinic businesses off of doctor referrals. You know, if you are an occupational therapist and you're a certified hand therapist, you um, maybe have made connections with the hand surgeons, the local hand surgeons, plastic surgeons and things like that, and you are talking to them because you want more referrals from them.
Well, here is the thing. Yes. Word of mouth. Referrals from surgeons are one of the strongest referral sources you can have. But how can you build your business without necessarily relying or having a more sustainable referral system? And here, this is why it's gonna be so important, right? My name is Wong.
I'm an occupational therapist and certified hand therapist. I did all that shit years ago. I started over 10 years ago in my therapy clinic, and then over five years ago I started teaching, um, online and in person, uh, clinical [00:01:00] skills and business skills to therapists, right? The reason why I am encouraging you to go beyond.
Just doctor referrals, even though you might say, oh, these are the strongest and I want those kind of patients. You know, it was post-surgical patients and stuff like that's because if you want to do anything that's out of network cash, premium cash, anything like that, some of these doctors are gonna be limited in their thinking in terms of what they expect you to be able to do.
Right. They can go ahead and they can make their money doing their surgeries and getting their patients, but God forbid you as a therapist make any kind of money. Right? So I'm gonna share with you, um, this recently happened to me, but this has happened to me over the years of having my therapy clinic. My therapy clinic is an out of network therapy clinic.
I started that way. Um. Oh, it didn't start that way, but it ended up that way because I could not get into network. The networks I could get [00:02:00] into barely paid for shit, I would've gone broke by now, I would've been resentful because I'm not making any kind of money. Um, and then it's hard to hire. Staff and paid them well and teach them everything when you are barely making any money for yourself.
So what happens is, um, I had a, a doctor reach out and say, Hey, you know, I got this complex case. I would love to send it to you. Do you take this insurance? I'm like, I'm out of network. Love to work with them and tell them about our services and tell 'em how they could work with us. Nope, he cut me off like, thanks, but no thanks.
Found someone else in network. And that was a stark reminder to me that this is why I have all the other things that I'm doing to build a sustainable word of mouth practice, uh, um, marketable, um, referral source that's constantly churning, right? Regardless of that, doctor likes me, regardless if I'm in network or out of network.
[00:03:00] And, um, it's one of the ways that you want to work to build your company so that you're sustainable over a long period of time. 'cause things are constantly changing, but therapy doesn't change. Like what you provide doesn't change. It doesn't have to change. Like you, if you want to provide great customer service, provide great customer service, we need so much more businesses that cater to providing great customer service.
We don't all need to be like that box down the street where the therapists are rude. Um, the front desks don't pay you any mind. Um, you know, that type of thing. I mean, I, I've had patients go to other clinics and they're like the, the. They're sitting there and talking in front of me about how they all wanna go home and they don't wanna fucking be here.
And I'm the patient. I need the therapy. Can you imagine the therapist sitting there talking with the front desk, talking about how they hate their job and they can't wait until they get home? The fucking patient's right there. That's so rude. Uh, I can't even, and then my patient's telling me this and I was like, wow, [00:04:00] that's terrible.
I can't believe we don't do that. We don't do that. Like people value, um, great customer service, people value, um, getting outcomes that are fast, but being, doing it in an environment that is helpful, that is nice, that caters to them. Um, so. So really think about if you want to create like, um, a system where you go beyond word of mouth.
Like word of mouth is a great. A system to work on and, and, um, and like pay attention to, but they can't be your only resource. That can't be your only referring source. So think about outside the box doctors if you love doctors. Think about the outside the box doctors, because some doctors are so in the box, they wanna keep you in the box too, right?
They, they don't make any money, but they don't want you to make any money either, right? They wanna sit there and bitch, but they want you to sit there and bitch, if you [00:05:00] want that, go ahead. That's not me. Um, I can't do that. Even if I wanted to insurance, like in-network insurances, they don't wanna work with you.
Those companies are getting so big that they can pick and choose and they pick bigger, you know, uh, systems. And so I, I'm not fighting it. I don't, I don't want any piece of it. So one of the ways that I have, um, grown a more like sustainable referral system, it's actually through my YouTube videos. I create YouTube videos for my therapy clinic.
And I really share, um, I share things that maybe people are like, oh, they wanna hold close to their chest. 'cause they don't, they don't wanna share, um, because they think, oh, maybe someone else will steal it. Nobody's stealing. I mean, like, so what if they do? Right? So what if they do, the patients who need you will find you.
And one of the great things about creating videos, especially on YouTube, and you can pick any platform that you choose, is. That [00:06:00] it lives on, right? So I create YouTube videos for my therapy clinic. I try to turn those videos, I turn those videos. I don't try to, I turn those videos into blogs and so people can find it from a blog perspective.
Um, I just think that nowadays with ai, people are putting a lot more worded content out there that it's just generic. So I prefer to create videos, um, and in creating videos. Um, people know that I'm a live person. You know, it's not AI generated. AI didn't start saying these things. I've been saying the same things over and over for the last 10 years.
If anything, because I create videos, I've gotten much better. My writing has gotten better, my speaking has gotten better. I still, of course, need to improve. You know, I, I always feel like, you know, I need to improve. Um, but I now do a lot more organic social media. I pick my platforms and I just go all in.
[00:07:00] Um, I do a lot of organic, and then because I do organic and organic does well, then I do paid. One of the things that people who do a lot of, you know, market or selling, their agency will say, oh, you have to do it paid. The issue with just doing it paid cold off the bat is that it requires a lot of money.
'cause you suck. I did it, I did it, and I sucked. And, um, it didn't get me shit. So I stopped those ads. I dove into organic much more and I found my voice, I got much better at it. And so now I do a lot more ads. So if you see my ads, thank you. Um, but then that's who I can sustainably attract to my clinic, to my business to say, Hey, if you have this type of problem, you have a hand on hand problem, you have a wrist problem.
If you're trying to avoid surgery, you know, those types of things. So I can go beyond just the doctors. Uh, and I was reminded, again, I was reminded again this week [00:08:00] when someone reached out to me and was like, oh, oh, you're not in network then I don't wanna work with you. I'm not offended. That's just how it comes across.
Right? Because, and I told him, I was like, you know, there's a lot of people who are willing to pay for the best and we are the best. You know, so why are you deciding for your patient? Right. Why are you deciding for your patient? Let them call me and tell me no. But he didn't even want to. Right? So I'm just saying that, that sometimes when you rely on referral sources that they have their own mentality of of it, right?
They're not gonna send you patients if you have a block, if you are mentally blocked to referring outside and asking people to, um. Uh, to pay for your services or refer other people to pay for other people's services. You know, if you have a mental block, like a money block on spending money or referring for money, [00:09:00] then you're gonna block it for yourself too, right?
So you have to kind of get over your own thing in order to be able to attract that type of thing. And that's self, that's self work. I'm not. I'm, I'm never gonna convince that doctor, like, Hey, you should send to my clinic. Because some people do value great services, great outcomes, and some people are willing to pay for it because he can't see that for himself.
He can never see that for me. Right. So just keep that in mind. Go beyond the word of mouth. Go beyond, uh, doctor referrals that are all in network. I've been doing this for over 10 years, and I can tell you over the 10 years, the people who are so embedded in in network, they will never see your worth as an out of network provider.
Even the doctors that go out of network now, they have a hard time seeing therapists as an out of network or cash provider. [00:10:00] So my point being is that unless. Somehow you have a more collaborative relationship with them. You know, going to these doctors, if you don't have a, a shared perspective or a shared value system, when it comes to being an out of network provider, being what you want, consider the best within the industry, within your area, you're never beating those people down.
You gotta attract patients. To your therapy clinic based on you and based on the value you provide. And you gotta go out to the marketplace for that. You gotta go reach directly to those people and talk to those people. One of the most powerful ways to do it is through organic social media, because it's free in terms of money, but it's not free in terms of your time.
It takes time and it takes practice, and it takes doing it over and over and over until you get better. And then once you get better. Then you can turn those messages into paid ads, and so then that way you can attract more and more [00:11:00] people into your business. Yes, you can pay for people to do some of that for you, but in the process you're gonna spend a lot of money and you just have to decide.
You decide, do I have the money for that? Right? I had some money for that, but I couldn't not sustain, and there's a whole system that goes into place with that. So you have to decide what's gonna work for you, but. But this video here is to encourage you to go beyond that word of mouth, beyond that like doctor referral system.
Let me know if this video helps you. Click the like button, subscribe, and if you wanna work with me personally in terms of business, the link's below. Alright, I'll see you in the next video.
