When Polite Visits Weren’t Enough
I still remember the sticky feeling of knowing we were doing something wrong, even when everything looked fine on the surface. I’d just taken over as director of liaison operations, full of energy and goodwill. Our liaisons were making weekly visits to local clinics—bringing donuts, brochures, and their friendly smiles. We all clapped ourselves on the back for “outreach,” but the referral numbers didn’t budge. Not even a fraction.
It wasn’t until the CFO asked me in a meeting, “What lengthening of the chain are we missing here?” that it fully sunk in. We had activity—checklists filled, calls logged—but no movement. Clinics had logs of visits, but our referral rates stayed flat, month after month. And I knew our leaders were beginning to notice.
One afternoon, I sat in my quiet office, staring at a half-eaten donut on my desk, and realized something important: outreach without results felt hollow—and honestly, a little embarrassing. We needed a real game-changer. That’s when I decided to bring in a strategic growth for healthcare systems consultant to diagnose exactly where our efforts were falling short.
Our consultant didn’t shy away from the cold truth. They observed calls, reviewed our data tools, and listened to referrals flow—or rather, fail to flow. It turned out we lacked strategic touchpoints. Our schedule of visits wasn’t based on referral potential, provider behavior, or urgency. It was based on “fairness” and convenience. We were generous with everyone—and effective with no one.
The turning point came during a site visit with our liaison team. One of them greeted a physician with casual small talk, asked about her weekend, then slid off with a brochure. Meanwhile, inside, I felt something shifting. I could almost see the missed moments and wasted opportunities. And I realized I’d hired a liaison team—not an outreach team.
That moment ignited my determination. We needed strategy, metrics, and structure. Not just visits.
Building a Team That Could Do More Than Smile
The hardest part wasn’t admitting our mistakes. It was figuring out what to do next without dismantling the entire team. I had people who cared. I had professionals who showed up early and stayed late. What they didn’t have was a framework. They had no roadmap for meaningful conversations. No insight into referral barriers. No training in how to move from “checking in” to driving growth.
When I presented this reality to our executive team, I braced for pushback. Instead, I got nods. Everyone already knew—we just hadn’t had the words for it yet.
That week, we decided to invest in physician liaison training through an outside program. We chose a group that focused not only on healthcare etiquette, but actual field-based sales training—real scripts, real objection handling, real behavioral change.
I’ll never forget the first training session. Our liaisons came in expecting a refresher on rapport-building. Instead, they were asked to roleplay with resistance, map out service line growth opportunities, and deliver value propositions in under 90 seconds. I watched them squirm. I watched them flub. But I also watched something ignite.
One liaison, Jennifer, who’d always relied on her warm personality, paused after a roleplay and said, “So you’re saying we’re not supposed to just be friendly? We’re here to move the needle?”
“Yes,” I told her. “Exactly.”
The trainers didn’t let up. They held everyone accountable—myself included. I learned how to coach in real time. I learned what KPIs actually matter. We revamped our CRM usage. We dropped our “equal visit” scheduling in favor of focused targeting based on data. Suddenly, conversations started to sound different. We were asking about patient pain points, service line gaps, diagnostic delays. Our liaisons stopped leaving cookies and started leaving answers.
By the third week, Jennifer landed three new referring providers for our neurology service line. She cried in my office when she showed me the numbers. “I didn’t think I could do this,” she said.
“You always could,” I replied. “We just hadn’t given you the tools.”
From Outreach to Impact
By the end of the quarter, it wasn’t just the numbers that had changed—it was the way our team held themselves. Our liaisons no longer approached physicians like polite visitors. They walked in as informed partners, offering solutions tied directly to referral bottlenecks and patient access delays.
The strategic growth for healthcare systems we’d once only hoped for was now taking shape right in front of us. Referrals had increased by double digits across three key service lines. But more importantly, we could tell you why.
We’d identified underutilized surgeons in orthopedics. We’d built out a new ramp-up model for specialists who were previously idle. We mapped our referral trends against population gaps, and created targeted strategies to fill those blind spots. Suddenly, we weren’t reacting to slumps. We were preventing them.
Our executive team began looking at outreach data not as vanity metrics, but as a core part of system operations. The CRM dashboards weren’t just weekly reports—they became our growth compass. I even had providers start calling me directly with ideas, because they now saw our liaisons as a conduit to real solutions.
I wish I could say the transformation was clean and linear. It wasn’t. Some liaisons didn’t make the leap. They didn’t want to be measured. They liked being liked, and that wasn’t enough anymore. But the ones who stayed? They became irreplaceable.
As for me, I no longer feel like I’m apologizing for outreach. I walk into meetings with evidence, confidence, and a seat at the table. Because what we do isn’t “nice to have.” It’s essential. And now, finally, people see that.
We still bring cookies. But now we bring outcomes too.
Comments are closed.