Seven steps to selling your rehab services
Stay ahead of the curve
"Rehab providers always need to stay a little ahead of the curve," warns Nancy Beckley, MS, MBA, president of Bloomingdale Consulting Group in Valrico, FL. Here are some tips to help you accomplish that goal:
o Find out if there is a demand for a product in your marketplace. Learn what the required outcome is, and base your product on what it will take to get that, Beckley recommends.
"It's a matter of moving and thinking clearly and looking at the market based on the needs of the community," she says.
o Take allowable costs into account when you set up any kind of treatment program. "Providers need to consider what Medicare will allow them to claim. If they think you need a car, they'll get you a Chevy, not a Lexus or Mercedes."
o Base the products you offer on market need, not on whether a payer will reimburse you for it. "People started a program and got locked into it because Medicare would pay for it. That's star t - ing from a reimbursement strategy rather than a market-needs strategy that involves reimbursement," Beckley says.
o Know your costs for every product and service you provide. This means you must be able to get the information you need from your finance department. And to reduce costs you must streamline operations, even if it makes your staff unhappy.
o When you look at your marketplace, consider the baby boomer population that will move into the Medicare population in the next 10 to 15 years. "The people who grew up in the 1960s believe that with today's medical technology, anything can be cured, or fixed, or at least given one more try," she says. Look at the baby boomers and define the outcomes they are going to want, then develop products to meet those outcomes.
Catch the Web wave
o Use the Internet in your market research - your patients do, Beckley suggests. Surf the net to find out what products and services other providers are offering to your community. Pay particular attention to what alternative medicine practitioners such as chiropractors and massage therapists are offering. Remember your competition may be coming from new sources in this consumer-driven marketplace.
o Don't depend on a managed care contract to make your business grow, advises Carol Stillman, MS, PT, president of Health Creations, a health care sales training consulting firm in New York City.
You're likely to be giving a managed care plan a discounted rate. If physicians find out you're good, they also may refer patients who are not in a managed care plan, she points out.
"Getting a managed care contract isn't really selling. The selling part comes after you sign the contract. Being in a plan doesn't automatically get you patients. You have to contact the physicians to get referrals," she says.
Stillman suggests targeting physicians as the beginning of your sales and marketing plans. For instance, when she gets a walk-in client at her physical therapy clinic or treats a patient out of network, she always calls the patient's primary care physician to thank him or her for the referral. This is a good opportunity to develop a new referral source.
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