How to Develop a Physician Relations Framework

You can’t just decide to put reps in the field and expect physicians to suddenly be happy. That’s akin to buying a new piece of equipment without building the plan and business stream to make certain the equipment will meet your expectations. Unfortunately, too often, we see hospitals put in only a piece of a physician relations framework without seeing the whole picture.

An effective physician relations effort consists of three components:

1. External outreach
2. Internal issue resolution
3. Leadership rounding

External outreach consists of well-trained. knowledgeable sales representatives who call on doctors on behalf of your organization. Their goal: to establish a more personal relationship with the physician and their practice by providing an avenue through which the physician may get their needs better met. 

Creating this more personal relationship comes through a thorough understanding of what the physician needs and wants in order to make your organization the easiest place with which to do business. 

According to the National Association for Healthcare Quality, physicians who are highly satisfied with a hospital place the most value on the hospital’s ability to provide: 1) an environment where they can give the best patient care; and 2) an environment where their self-interest (read efficiency, access, quality, ease) is met. 

It’s the challenge of the external representative to find those needs and issues that affect the quality and self interest, and help the organization to determine how to meet those needs.

External outreach can only be effective when there is a defined internal issue resolution process. Let’s imagine for a moment that the external representative finds an issue of concern to the physician. Do they have the ability to resolve it on the spot for that physician? Typically, they don’t. Therefore, they must rely on being able to bring the issue to the right internal leader to see that it gets resolved.

Think about how that process works in your organization:

• Is it well organized? 
• Does the issue typically get resolved in a timely manner? 
• Do people know to whom they are accountable for resolving the issue?

In all likelihood, the system is only as organized as the yellow pad of paper that records the issue. What’s more, the issue doesn’t get resolved in a timely manner, if at all, and most managers don’t know to whom they’re accountable for these types of issues. Typically, they see them coming from a marketing or sales rep and often don’t feel any sense of accountability to them.

So, what happens to the rep who brought the issue forward? They typically lose access to the physician office over time because the physician quickly discovers that while they may be nice to talk with, they have no ability to get things done. Therefore, having a process that will support the representative in the field is a key element of their ultimate success, and that of your physician relations program.

Supporting the issue resolution process is a leadership rounding process. While reps are busily discovering physician’s business needs and finding issues that get in the physician’s way, and the other managers and leaders are busily resolving them, Leadership is also following a structured process for working with physicians.

Essentially, Leadership owns a list of key physicians with whom they’ll have regular conversations to best determine how well the hospital is meeting their needs, as well as where the hospital might be vulnerable.

Leadership rounding gives the senior leader the ability to build stronger relationships with physicians. The senior leaders gets to experience firsthand what physicians go through each day inside the system, and helps them better understand their resolution options.

All three elements must co-exist in order to make your physician relations effort produce the desired outcomes. Read the following articles on to find out how. And for more about building an effective physician relations effort, check out this CHG-authored book.

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