Picture your clinic at the top of the local healthcare market. Who supports you there, and what does your collaboration look like? An area leader uses collaborative medicine to give their patients something unique: holistic healing through cooperation between a variety of elite clinicians. Appraise your potential referral partners along three lines: quality, diversity, and accessibility. This is how they break down.

Quality

Leading clinics form close, interoperable referral relationships with desirable partners. Think of your network as a decentralized hospital: the institution looks good when a surgeon performs an excellent surgery and directs the patient to a skilled physical therapist. After preparing a list of non-competing area clinicians, start to narrow it down to those who excel in quality. Research reputations, patient base, and the authority of the clinicians who work there. Gathering the highest-quality clinicians in your area will increase the quality and number of your referrals, as well.

Diversity

Your referral network should be able to account for every aspect of a patient’s health. This way, you create a holistic healing machine that maximizes the angles from which patients can enter your network. Building a network of complimentary health services is essential for collaborative medicine, but for holistic healing, bring other perspectives into your fold. A network dealing with pain, for example, shouldn’t shy away from recruiting acupuncturists when an Allina study from the Journal of Patient Safety found its average pain reduction to be 55 percent.

Studies show conventional and alternative medicine users, on the whole, consider these treatment avenues effective and that most seek it out because it aligns more closely with their values. Bring together conventional and alternative approaches to medicine in your network, and you’ll be able to offer uniquely interdisciplinary holistic healing, bringing in a diverse array of new patients.

Accessibility

Remember, your referral partners need to be more than revenue sources. If you’re going to trust a referral partner with your patient’s health, you should be able to collaborate with them—as a matter of both principle and effectiveness. Visit any clinic you’re considering bringing into the fold and find out if: 1) patients are brought in smoothly, 2) the management seems open to adopting changes required by partnership, and 3) they keep their records electronically. Electronic recordkeeping is vital to interoperability, the benefits of which are discussed in our article, “Independent Clinic to Healthcare Leader in 3 Steps.”

Leading clinical networks in New York City, Washington, D.C, Maryland, Virginia, and Philadelphia have connected through Metro Collaborative. Connect with top physicians over guided discussion at their dinners, workshops, and retreats. Check out our clinician open house September 24^th, 2019 at 15 E. 40^th Street in Midtown, or call Metro Collaborative at (609) 876-9163. You can also visit their website to RSVP for the best networking choice of your career.