A gracious contributor is allowing me to share this story of one of his tactics for you to use for your success:
“My go-to surgeon was a real pain in the ass.
She was a fantastic operator with exceptional judgment and a heart for service. She took wonderful care of her patients, sweated bullets for them in fact. They loved her. But she was also needlessly mercurial and flighty. You never knew what was going to set her off.
One day it was “call me if you need this”, the next day the same circumstances evoked a hostile “you don’t need to call me for that.”
Life is too short to deal with such behavior, but I sensed she could still be a great resource.
So, I went and spoke to her long-time nurse about how to best grease the wheels when my patients needed surgical care.
“Just call me or (the office manager),” the nurse replied, “We’ll take care of it.”
And from that day on, that’s what I did.
My patients in need received excellent, high-efficiency care. Immediately, tomorrow, next week—they saw the surgeon exactly as clinically appropriate. I can’t tell you how many emergency room visits and hospital days I saved. And I only had to deal with my bipolar consultant when she was already engaged with their care.
If a consultant is worthy, they always have a go-to person. That might be a nurse or an office manager, but that go to person is there.
My tactic was to pick out my favorite consultants. Ones who did the right things when they needed to be done. Ones that recognized my needs and served my patients well.
Then I found the “go-to person” in their office—and created a relationship.
That’s who I called when I wanted my patient to be seen, or to jump the line.
It was a tactic that worked time and time again.
Every once in a while, I found a great consultant who didn’t have a go-to person.
I dropped them. No matter how good they were, accessing their services wasn’t worth the effort. Without efficiency, their talent was useless.
That’s what happened to my favorite surgeon.
After many years, she eventually lost both his nurse and his office manager.
And, no matter how good she was, his antics were simply not worth it.”
My advice?
Shop around for consultants that are good, but also recognize that you need efficiency in accessing their services.
Find the staff in their office that can reduce the friction of a referral.
Use them to create efficient workflows.
You and your patients will thrive.”