Actual surveys of qualified referral sources have determined that if you get results – they will refer. The way in which your results are made known to your actually referring sources, is to use something called; a “Your Patient’s Results” form, which is placed on your practice’s letterhead.
A “Your Patient’s Results” form is a statement in the patient’s own handwriting that communicates his or her results achieved at your facility. It could say something like; “When I first came I could hardly walk – my back was killing me, now I’m walking 1½ miles a day. I feel great!”
A “Your Patient’s Results” form is a documentation of real results from the perspective of the patients themselves. Something the patient can now “do,” is always best – not just how they “feel.”
For example; “After not being able to work for 6 weeks I was able to return to work after only three visits!” The patient writes the result on a “Your Patient’s Results” form that is placed on your letterhead. If it is a good result, you can mail the original to the referring referral source with a cover letter (see below) and route a copy to the patient’s file in your facility.
Note: It is also recommended you make 3 additional copies; one for responsible clinician’s personnel file as a record of their personal production and accomplishments; another for the Primary Care Physician and one for the patient’s chart as well. If you consider that sending the “Your Patient’s Results” form would not make your referral source think highly of your results with his or her patient, just don’t send it. If it says something like; “I feel better, thanks guys” – then just put it in the patient’s file.
The most ideal “Your Patient’s Results” form is one where the patient simply writes the result without all the dripping sugar remarks about how wonderful you are and how much you care, etc. You do not want flowery praise about how great you or your staffs are since that is not what is needed or wanted by referral source according to our survey results.
Referral sources just want to know about results and they prefer to hear them from your patients.
