Every year my eyecare center throws an anniversary party. The restaurant next door allows us to set up a trunk show in their space, which means free food and prizes. Our orthokeratology (ortho-k) and contact lens reps are available to answer questions that parents want to ask.
At our party last year, a woman attended with her neighbor. While she wasn’t our patient, her daughter had worn glasses since the second grade and needed a stronger prescription at every visit. Her provider had never said the words “myopia management.” Since that encounter, I have thought about this patient. She had a need for our services but wasn’t familiar with the term myopia management so she could not research or find us online.
This is the purpose of a referral network. It isn’t the brochures. It’s the number of people within 10 miles of your door who could put a name to what you do.
I have practiced in the Phoenix area for 29 years, nearly 27 of them in Chandler. When we opened, marketing a specialty practice meant postcards and hallway conversations with other doctors. There are more tools now, though the work isn’t much different.
Start With the People Already in Your Chair
Your best referral network is your own patients. Impressions are made quickly and your own patients decide what to say about you somewhere between the exam room and the parking lot. Creating positive impressions are critical.
Every room in my practice has a wall cling advertising “Overnight Vision Correction” to stimulate attention. Our patient brochures carry a QR code that opens a short educational video. Some of our videos were shot on a cell phone and they work fine. After we see a child with myopia, we email the parent a plain-language summary of what we discussed, because sometimes patients do not retain everything said to them in an exam room.
Parents repeat what they understand, and it is worth being sure they understand something true.
Treat Referring Doctors Like Neighbors
Most of our referrals come from pediatricians, doctors at retail locations, and ODs across town who do not offer ortho-k and prefer not to. We network and provide them with a booklet on our lens options, print and digital, plus referral cards and a 1-page patient history form. Sending a family our way takes about 90 seconds.
Then, after every consult, we send results back to the referring doctor the same day by secure fax. Most doctors skip that part. A referral that vanishes into silence doesn’t get made twice. Conferences work the same way, just at a distance. I have swapped relocating patients with doctors I met once and never saw again.
Be Findable When They Go Looking
Sooner or later a parent is on their phone late at night, typing "myopia management near me." Keep the blog current. Make sure your myopia control keywords are accurate. Put the videos on your site and your Google business profile. When a patient offers to leave a review, ask them to include the “myopia management” term to continue to drive traffic to your site. That is the phrase the next parent will type.
What Builds A Network?
Sponsor a team. Go to the Chamber of Commerce lunches. Throw the party. None of it does anything on Tuesday. But it does something maybe later, when a parent in a pediatrician’s waiting room hears the term “myopia,” a word first heard at a trunk show and they remember your location.
There is a formula. It is a slow one. Do the work well and make yourself useful to the people around you, become known well enough in your community that nobody must look you up.
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