A diversified marketing strategy is more important than ever to meet the varying behaviors of spine patients, said Daniel Goldberg, senior vice president of sales and growth at United Musculoskeletal Partners.
Mr. Goldberg shared practical advice for surgeons on growing their practices and strengthening their referral networks.
Note: Responses were lightly edited for clarity.
Questions: What’s one thing all spine surgeons should do to grow their practice?
Daniel Goldberg: Spine surgeons need to have a diversified marketing strategy in order to grow. Not all spine patients behave the same. Some will wait weeks or months before seeking treatment, and others will seek treatment within days of onset. Once they decide to seek care, some will seek a recommendation from their primary care physician (PCP) while others go right to Google or ChatGPT to find the best spine specialist for them. The key to growth is understanding your market and evaluating what strategies will facilitate the most growth.
In some markets, PCP groups are highly consolidated by health systems or payers, which can make driving referrals difficult if your practice is not aligned with that health system or payer. But, that does not mean you should give up. Focus on communicating your advantages to these referring PCPs. Highlight access, outcomes, innovative techniques and other differentiators that can position you above others in your market. Also, be communicative back to the PCPs around diagnosis and treatment plans for your shared patients.
On the direct-to-patient marketing side, it is about understanding your competition. What are they doing and, more importantly, what are they not doing well? Are they overinvesting in billboards or radio and underinvesting in digital? Is access a challenge for new patients? Do you offer unique approaches like minimally invasive surgery or artificial disc? Use their gaps to your advantage to create competitive distinctions and pursue digital channels where you can stand out.
Q: What does a referral relationship that actually works look like in practice? What kills one?
DG: A true referral relationship is predicated on trust. Most importantly, the PCP must trust the clinical decision-making of the orthopedic surgeon they are referring a patient to. Second, the patient has to trust you too. Even if the PCP makes a strong recommendation, most patients will still validate that decision. They will check reviews, your website and what others are saying. If that doesn’t reinforce the PCP’s recommendation, the referral is already at risk.
In practice, a relationship between a PCP and an orthopedic surgeon can span multiple years and drive reliable high acuity volume.
What kills this relationship is poor communication. The first failure point is the patient experience. If it takes three to five days for your scheduling team to reach out to the patient, if the referral sits in a queue or if the next available appointment is weeks out, that reflects back on the PCP. They send you a patient who is in pain and expecting urgency and if your process does not match that urgency, it creates friction immediately.
The second failure point is communication back to the PCP. Referring providers want to know what happened to their patient. What was the diagnosis? What is the plan? Did they have surgery? How are they doing post-op? When that loop isn’t closed, PCPs feel like they’ve lost visibility into their own patient. When that happens, they don’t usually complain and instead they just start referring somewhere else.
It is important to remember that PCPs or their referral coordinators often take the path of least resistance for a referred patient. If your practice is creating barriers to access or communication is poor, those referrals will gladly be absorbed by another orthopedic surgeon in the market.
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