How to Market Physical Therapy Direct Access without Hurting Your Referral Relationships

Depending on your state and insurance plans, patients may be eligible to skip the doctor referral and see you directly for physical therapy. This is great news both for you and for your patients, but may not be a positive outcome for local doctors and providers. As healthcare continues to evolve, many primary care providers and even specialists are feeling concerned about their ability to retain adequate patient volumes. Especially as more patients (and their insurance) seem to be favoring urgent care centers, retail store clinics, or self-referral, doctors will become increasingly wary of PT practices that promote direct access to services. How can you market direct access to your patients without hurting your referral relationship with doctors?

Be a teacher v. a salesmen: Take the POV that you want to educate your patients about the new opportunities available to them through direct access.

• Use headlines that support education versus salesmanship.
• Encourage patients to contact you with questions and/or to verify their ability to be seen without a referral.
• Update the accepted insurances list to include (*direct access available) to let patients know about their healthcare options.

Use strategic placements: Not ever marketing or branded piece needs to hype direct access. Consider the intended audience of your marketing—is this a resource for both patients and doctors or just patients?

• If you are sending newsletters to just patients, consider writing an article fully explaining direct access and how it can benefit your patients.
• If newsletters go to both patients and doctors, add a small callout box with short headline or sentence that direct access is now available and to call in for more information.
• Most doctors’ offices do not heavily utilize social media or website marketing. Use these outlets to promote direct access to patients

Proactively communicate with doctors and their staff: Tackle the topic face to face during office visits and be as transparent as possible.

• If you are seeing a patient from a specific primary care provider, let them know and make it clear that you will be happy to communicate progress reports with the doctor’s office as needed.
• If a patient comes to see you directly and needs additional care beyond physical therapy, call the office directly and help the patient get set with receiving care from their doctor.
• Some patients make a 100% recovery with PT—tell the doctor that! Sharing good results with the provider will help him/her feel that they are still up to date on their patient’s health and keeps the communication lines open.

Since direct access (and healthcare regulations in general) is ever-changing, it is important to stay up to date on the opportunities and requirements in your state. Visit www.apta.org for more information or check out this list (linked on April 6, 2015) to see what options are available for your patients. Want more tips on how to market direct access? Ask us what our clients are doing and what has worked for their marketing and practice. Call us today to learn more!

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