How to augment your health care practice through attorney referrals

Attorney referrals and other referral relationships are not just about creating a thriving business — it’s about opening up channels and creating opportunities

Doctors of chiropractic and MDs who provide specialty medicine or health services of any kind could greatly benefit from attorney referrals. In fact, it’s almost impossible to run a practice without them.

The expert knowledge and the money required to find and secure new customers without a referral represent a major cost to any practice — one that undermines the ability to focus on providing great health care.

Building personal injury attorney referrals

Love them or not, personal injury attorneys represent an extremely lucrative potential channel for leads, referrals, and ultimately, income.

But, like anything worth having, a good relationship with an attorney who provides referrals to your practice also requires an investment. In short, you have to put in the time and effort to convince them that you’re someone worth having on speed dial. How do you do that?

Getting attorney referrals business (frankly, any referral business) is a two-step process. First, you have to get their attention. Then, you have to keep it by providing them with benefits that are not easily replaced. Sound hard? It’s not!

Getting the attention

The process here is simple — and can be applied to investors, business partners, or even clients. The best way to grab someone’s attention is to show them that you know about something that will benefit them, something they want that is not easy to find.

This begs the question: what benefits can you offer? How can you make their professional life a lot easier, and how do you stand out as unique? How do you separate yourself from mediocrity and get noticed?

As a health care provider (whether a DC, DO, MD, PT, or other), the answer is really quite simple. You make sure you seriously understand the injuries that you treat according to research-backed guidelines.

When I first meet a personal injury attorney that represents spinal injuries, I ask them, “Are you aware that there are over 220 specialized ligaments that hold the spine’s 100 intricate joints together, and only 23 of those ligaments are discs — the other 197 are non-disc spinal ligaments?”

Most attorneys in the market today have never been educated on the spinal soft tissue injuries that they represent. This is why they are often insistent on everyone getting an MRI. They don’t know that the MRI is a limited tool and was never designed to pick up on one of the most important injury findings there is — excessive emotion that leads to significant spinal instability. They don’t know just how easy it is to work up this condition.

Spinal injuries are nothing new to lawyers, but the immense amount of misinformation that surrounds them is. That same misinformation pervades the whole sector, from research to records-keeping to front-line providers themselves. Spinal injuries constitute the most common and lucrative cases in the business. So, if you can educate the attorney, demonstrating not only that you really know what you’re talking about but that you can actually do something to help their clients, you’re off to a great start.

Getting their attention puts you squarely on the path to making a valuable new business connection. Next, you have to turn it into a real relationship.

Following up

First impressions matter greatly in business, the same way they do in personal relationships. Just like it’s rare to get married after the first date, it’s unlikely that impressing someone with a deep understanding of your field will immediately translate to a long-term business relationship.

Any adept attorney usually wants to know after a conversation like the one above whether all that knowledge actually means something. Does it differentiate you or your practice in a meaningful way? Can you back that up with proof that you care about getting effective results?

Then comes the follow-up. Don’t be pushy, but be persistent. Like health care providers (especially those running their own practice), attorneys are busy people. There are endless reasons that you might remain just a blip on the radar for what seems like a long time. Don’t give up!

Eventually, the right case or right set of circumstances will lead to them needing someone just like you. If you’ve played your cards right, it may be the start of something fruitful.

Building attorney relationships as a best practice

Creating a professional and honest business relationship with a particular attorney is not only legal, but it is highly suggested. While it does serve to create a stream of clients on both ends, the main purpose is to offer attorneys a reliable source they can trust to get an accurate diagnosis.

Building any type of useful business relationship usually involves some trial and error, so if you try this approach and it doesn’t work out, don’t be discouraged. Once you do find success with attorney referrals, get creative, and apply the method to anyone you think could be an equal asset to your practice.

Lastly, lest we sound greedy, let’s remember that attorney referrals and other referral relationships are not just about creating a thriving business. More importantly, it’s about opening up channels and creating opportunities so that suffering patients can find their way to the right providers — and stand a real chance of lessening their pain and improving their quality of life.