The Default Referral Choice Strategy for Specialty Practices | EP 14

In this episode of Health Care Marketing Edge, Tim Bouchard, Owner/CEO of Luminus, and Will Ross of Origins Spine & Joint discuss strategies for becoming the default referral choice in the competitive pain management market. Will shares insights on building relationships with referring providers, the importance of quality care, consistency, and operational excellence. He emphasizes the need for effective tracking of referrals and the significance of digital presence and patient reviews. The conversation also covers how to humanize the referral process and maintain engagement with providers to ensure continued referrals.

Tim Bouchard (00:00)
welcome to Health Care Marketing Edge, where we share our stories and strategies to grow your practice. I’m Tim Bouchard from Luminous, a health care marketing agency specializing in helping practices acquire patients and grow their practice. Today, we’re talking about something every specialty practice wants, becoming the default referral choice in your market. Our guest is Will Ross, marketing director at Origin Spine and Joint Physicians, who’s going to show us how to build real relationships with referring providers, break through kind of that sales rep stigma.

and create an operational excellence that makes you the obvious choice for everyone in the market. If you’re trying to grow that referral network, this episode will definitely be right up your alley. And Will, it’s great to have you here. Why don’t you tell everyone a little bit about yourself and your background, and then we’ll dive into some more referral-based talk.

Will Ross (00:43)
Yeah, sure. Well, Tim, first and foremost, man, thank you so much for having me. am ecstatic to be here. It’s exciting. It’s an honor. So I really appreciate it. But yeah, like you mentioned, my name is Will Ross. I’m the marketing director for origin spine and joint physicians or an interventional pain management practice located in Northeast Georgia. We’ve got locations in Athens and we just recently opened our second location back in Gainesville. ⁓ So super exciting stuff. My job as the marketing director is to help ⁓ acquire patients, acquire new patients at an effective and efficient rate.

overall just kind of drive business growth. ⁓ More recently, one of the recent roles I’ve kind of taken up is just kind of expanding and looking into several different markets that might be good to expand to in the future. In Georgia, our long-term goal is to have clinics in all areas around Georgia where we deem it necessary. So lot of cool stuff happening at Origins, but when you think of pain management, ⁓

You know, you may think a couple of different things. We’re more on the interventional side. think, you know, our bread and butter is epidural steroid injections, trigger point injections, ⁓ nerve burns. They can go all the way up to kyphoplasty spinal cord stimulators and the more complex procedures as well. But really our philosophy is we’d rather get to the root of the problem, solve their pain and, know, follow up with them six months to a year, instead of getting them in, you know, month to month on a medication basis kind of thing. So that’s kind of our philosophy and referring providers love that. So.

Tim Bouchard (02:01)
Cool. Yeah, it’s kind of a crowded and popular market right now too, right? I’m sure that’s a little bit of the motivation for becoming one to be the default practice for this type of thing. I know that from a referral standpoint and then a consumer standpoint, you’re trying to balance the give and take between where you’re putting your efforts. But what makes being the default choice for referrals, especially just one of the best options for a practice like yours?

Will Ross (02:28)
Yeah, so obviously, I mean, like you mentioned, this is a growing market and I think every year you see more and more of a need for pain management and interventional specifically.

Tim Bouchard (02:36)
Yeah, especially on the pain management side. Yeah.

Will Ross (02:39)
Yeah,

Tim Bouchard (02:39)
Mm-hmm.

Will Ross (02:39)
definitely. Definitely. It’s the way that I like to talk to referring providers about it is we’re a good middleman, know, like, you know, there’s neuro up here, there’s chiropractors. Uh, we’re a good middleman where we can do most of the procedures to eliminate pain on a short term and sometimes a longterm basis. Um, but really to become one of the top referral sources, it’s, hard now because it’s, it’s a crowded market. There’s more pain management practices popping up. It feels like every other week. And so it is becoming more and more competitive even since I’ve started, uh, back in 2023 here in Athens. I mean,

it has grown tremendously. So it’s become more and more difficult. ⁓ to me, you know, there’s, there’s a few things that I think are a necessity to, become the default referral referral choice. And when I say default, it’s, know, let’s say the primary care physician is sitting down with a new patient and they express that they have consistent back pain, neck pain, joint pain. The first thing we want them to think is this, this person would be a great fit for origin spine. So how do we get to that point?

There’s a few different factors that I’ve got that I want to go over. So I really break it down. And the way that I work is I boil everything down to its simplest form. You know, it’s like teach it to me, like I’m a third grader because everybody can understand it. Absolutely. So the three points, ⁓ and really I’ll order them in, in order of importance, at least for what I’ve found so far. So the first is the first and foremost is you gotta have quality care.

Tim Bouchard (03:44)
That’s perfect for a podcast, so let’s do that.

Will Ross (03:59)
And as marketing leaders, that’s not always something that we can control. There’s plenty of things that within our control.

Tim Bouchard (04:02)
Mm-hmm.

Will Ross (04:05)
But ultimately you could have the best marketing team in the entire world. If your end product is not the highest quality possible, you’re going to have a hard time growing. So you have to make sure that the quality of care is there and that you’re consistently generating consistent outcomes. So a referring provider should know exactly what they’re getting when they send a patient to you. They should know what to tell the patient, what to expect, and that patient should get the exact results that the referring provider is expecting. So it’s by far the most important factor. I mean,

It’s all about creating a good experience for the patient. And we’ll go into the operation side here, here in a second as well. But the end result is you have to have really good quality care. ⁓ the second thing here is you gotta be consistent. So, you know, I lead a marketing team. We are always in front of the referring providers. We try our best to stay as consistent as possible without being annoying. ⁓ in the beginning, you’re going to be a little bit annoying. You just have to kind of break through that sales rep kind of term, but

the more that you show up and the more patients that get referred to your practice, ⁓ the more well known you’re going to become and the more welcome you’re going to become as well to that practice. So if we’re in front of them all the time and we go into their office, we bring them lunches, we bring them breakfast and they also see the results that we’re bringing to their patients, you’re going to become a no brainer as far as the top referral source, because that shows that you guys care, that our team cares about what their patients are dealing with and that we’re here to help. So

being consistently in front of the referring providers is the second point. And then the third is operations. You have to have a really good op team. ⁓ the operations need to be optimized and that can be anything from referral intake. So how much time does it take? When once a referral crosses my desk, how long does that referral take to actually get on the schedule? Are we calling them the same day, the same week? Are we waiting a few weeks? You know, you really have to make sure that you’re on top of things. Timing is such an important factor. And in my industry in pain, you know,

Patients get irritable if, if time goes by and they’re not being scheduled. Rightfully so. Yeah, absolutely. Rightfully so because they’re in pain and they need help as soon as they can. So as soon as they can get it. So we make sure that the timing is right. Once a referral crosses my desk, I’m calling them by the end of the day. Timing is important. Also in the waiting room, they don’t want to wait in the waiting room for too long. They want to get back there. They want to get their pain resolved as soon as possible. And that, goes down to the, to the minute literally over the past three years have been like, it’s, it’s so important to make sure that they are pulled back.

Tim Bouchard (06:00)
Yeah, patience is thin on that one. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Will Ross (06:25)
If a room is available, but also procedure wise, because we’ll get them in for a consult, but we’re not solving their pain on the first visit. They want to each reach the end result. So we have to make sure that they get to that point as quickly as possible. So timing for us is one of the most important things. And if we can reduce the time that it takes for referral to come through to then they’re scheduled for a consult to then the procedure happens. If we can reduce that time without sacrificing quality of care, that’s the end goal.

So those are kind of like the three frameworks that I like to follow and that I preach to my team as far as the top three most important things that we can do to stay top of mind for our referring providers.

Tim Bouchard (07:04)
Yeah, we can dig in deeper those two if they come up in some of the other things too. But ⁓ how do you know, even if you’ve taken some of those steps, how do know if you’ve actually become the default option for a provider for that referral?

Will Ross (07:15)
Yeah.

Yeah. I’m extremely analytical. And so I track all the numbers. I make sure that the, we’re, on pace for our targets, as far as growth goes. So we’ve got a massive dashboard that tracks the incoming referrals, ⁓ what providers referrals are being scheduled at a higher rate than others. ⁓ so we make sure that we’re optimizing for that. So when a referral crosses our path, we, write it down, we make sure that we know, okay.

Dr. Smith has referred us this amount of patients this day and a year’s time we can look back and say, man, Dr. Smith’s referrals have jumped up. And that means that our efforts going into his office, going golfing that one time with him has really gone a long way.

Tim Bouchard (07:58)
And is this something where also you can look to see, if someone’s referrals are either dropping off or maybe you don’t have a good patient sign on for someone’s referrals, is that a red light or like, you know, red flag that you could dig deeper into? Either maybe that’s the provider interactions that you’re having. Maybe there needs to be a little bit more education going between the two of you. Or where do you go with something like that?

Will Ross (08:21)
Yeah, definitely. mean, there’s going to be ebbs and flows naturally, in healthcare and you know, with new practices popping up, like we were talking about earlier in the competitive market, there’s other people fighting for our business. ⁓ at the end of the day, we’re just, we just want to make sure that the patient gets the result that they want. So if we see a drop off in referrals from a provider, I’m happy to stop by and say, man, like

Tim Bouchard (08:32)
Mm-hmm.

Will Ross (08:42)
You know, I’ve noticed a little bit of a drop off. There’s anything that I can help with. ⁓ we’re, we’re still here to help, but also you kind of have to track the natural swing of things and far as far as seasons here in Athens, everything follows the school schedule. So when, when students are out, our numbers climb and vice versa. So if we noticed kind of the natural trends, know, right, you know, December rolls around and the patient numbers are dropping off. That’s just natural. So if we see the drop in referrals from that referring provider,

Tim Bouchard (08:55)
Mm-hmm.

Will Ross (09:11)
We know that’s probably not big of a deal, right? It follows the natural trend of things, but if we’re in our busy season and we don’t see nearly as many referrals as we think we should from a referring provider, I’ll stop by, I’ll schedule a lunch. I’ll do something that puts me over the edge to try and win back that business. It’s all part of staying top of mind.

Tim Bouchard (09:30)
So even ⁓ that’s good. You’re just segueing into something else I want to get into. You’re doing a lot of touch points and a lot of direct connection to especially referral. It’s also trust based, like patient and providers trust based. But you’re going beyond just like a typical like even the initial interactions, right? Why should someone pay attention to you when you reach out to them about building that relationship in the first place?

Will Ross (09:52)
Yeah, I think it, again, it boils down to how, how much of an asset can we be for that MD? ⁓ if it’s a, you know, it’s, if it’s a case where they’re referring a lot out to pain management, we need to be consistent as consistent as possible because I’m a true believer that what we provide would help, not just being selfish, that we want more patients. Obviously every practice wants more patients, but truly we care about their patients, finding the needs and making sure that their needs are met.

So if we think that we can be an asset for that provider, I’m always going to be top of mind. And a lot of times it’s, it’s the case of, you know, I’ve had in the beginning, I’ll bring a lunch in and, ⁓ they’ll say, Hey, you know, we’re so happy you’re in town. We’ll send some patients over and they do for a short amount of time. And then months go by and we kind of see that slowly decline. And I stopped by again with lunch and, ⁓ the doctor’s like, honestly, man, I forgot about you guys. Like I totally forgot. Thank you for, for coming in and reminding me and.

that’s so integral to growth is being consistent. know I sound like a, you know, a broken record, but truly that is the formula for success, at least for breaking past that initial barrier. Cause eventually or initially providers are going to have questions, especially if you’re a new practice, right? They’re going to have questions as to how, how high is your quality of care? The more that you can prove that the better. And the more patients that they send over, the more chances you get to prove that in order to get that, you just have to be consistent.

Tim Bouchard (11:08)
Mm-hmm.

And that’s a very direct way to do it too. So you have to start there. There are also like extra outside contributing factors that they might be using from like a vetting standpoint or a competency understanding standpoint that you’re implementing.

Will Ross (11:32)
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I’m in charge of the digital, the digital side as well. Our digital reach is incredibly important. ⁓ and we do paid ads, you we run social media ads, we run Google ads, but the organic side of it is just as if not more important. So we want to make sure that our Google My Business pages are extremely optimized. Photos are updated every single quarter that our five-star reviews are continued to grow up. And we use an automation system that sends new patients and existing patients, ⁓ review requests and it sends us a private message. You know, how are we doing?

Simple question, how are we doing? They can rate us one through 10. If it’s an eight through 10, they’re then pushed to our Google page. They can leave a public review. And if not, they can send us a private message and kind of give us some feedback. Here’s why I didn’t enjoy my experience. Here are some things that we can improve on or that you guys can improve on. And we use that feedback to kind of implement how we go about business in the future. So driving those five star reviews to Google is incredibly important.

⁓ The more that we’ve been able to build those up the more that you see not only you know more referring providers trusting us But also you see a lot of call-ins it gives the general public a reason that they should go with you over a competitor and as marketing leaders we all know The importance of organic social organic Google SEO AIO all that stuff is great ⁓ But truly, you know getting as many five-star reviews as you possibly can

is more important nowadays than it ever has been. And it gives you a little bit of a leg up when you go into a lunch, right? If you’ve talked to a neurosurgeon and you’re trying to convince them why they should send you patients, you use that. You absolutely use your base as five-star reviews. You Hey, you could take my word for it, but here’s 325 reasons why you should go with us. It definitely helps.

Tim Bouchard (13:03)
Mm-hmm.

They’re not going

to do it because you rank number three for X number term in SEO.

Will Ross (13:16)
Yeah, exactly. you, they’re

not going to ding us for rank, you know, yeah. Number four for facet injections, you know, that that’s not feasible.

Tim Bouchard (13:24)
Yeah, and that’s becoming more important. I said that because my immediate thought was that, especially on the consumer side, that the business pages, MapPaks, reviews, even off of Google too on other things, you might want to even pull in something like health grades or something like that as one of these extra third party things are all being pulled into AI now too. And they might not be just on search looking at the MapPak. They might be getting directed to…

practice names based on like AI inquiries, which is going to take multi-source stuff and that will be heavily review based, heavily third party based. And it doesn’t matter. You should have authority building and content competency stuff on your own website. But if you’re the point of origin for all that stuff, it’s useful. It’s nice that you know it, but it’s not going to get the same weight as like third party reviews and the whole ecosystem together.

Will Ross (14:21)
Absolutely. Yeah. And to add to that, I mean, you got to think too, with Google introducing Gemini in the past two years, you know, if, we’re being realistic, you know, the, elderly patients that don’t know to click to the first page, to see the Google, my business page, they see what Google shows them. And a lot of times right now it’s by default, the AI answer, you know, somebody searches up pain management in Athens, Georgia, they’re going to go with whatever AI tells them to, not because that may necessarily be the best.

Tim Bouchard (14:33)
Mm-hmm.

Will Ross (14:49)
those may not necessarily be the best options, but because that’s the direct result they’re given and they may not know to go, you know, scroll a little longer or go to the next page. So you have to make sure that you’re optimized for AI. I completely agree with you.

Tim Bouchard (15:01)
What’s nice about the ratings and reviews side of this equation is you don’t necessarily need a marketing company to help with that. Sometimes a lot of the self-service contained EHR systems and things like that will have that as a bolt on feature where you can have that post practice follow up text message and it can have that automation to send them over to Google or to get them to your practice manager or front desk or something after that.

So I bring that up because I think sometimes people think it’s unattainable or they’re worried, like, you know, how do I get into getting more reviews to build up that side of my public facing PR basically? And sometimes you might already have the systems there, you’re just not taking advantage of them in the system yet.

Will Ross (15:46)
Yeah, you definitely have to look into it. Make sure that’s an option that’s available because if it is, and you’re not using it, you’re missing out on, on a lot of utility there. One of the things that we did before we implemented that several years ago now at this point, and it’s funny to look back in and think about this, but we had a little QR codes in the, in the waiting rooms, which looking back may not have been the best strategy. Cause if they’re waiting too long, they can leave us a bad review. You know what I mean? But, but it’s a, yeah, exactly. But they’re at the checkout desk and they’ve had a good experience. And I, I pride ourselves on being able to provide that good experience more times than

Tim Bouchard (16:06)
Yeah. Whoops.

Yeah.

Will Ross (16:16)
So if they’re at the checkout desk and you can train the front staff to say, Hey, by the way, you know, no obligation necessary, but if you enjoyed your, your experience here, we were trying to build up our Google reviews. We’d really appreciate you leave us a five-star review. That single line sentence goes so much farther, especially if you don’t have that automation. Maybe you want to get the ball rolling before you commit to something like that. That’s an excellent way to get your first, you know, 30, 50, even a hundred reviews.

Tim Bouchard (16:41)
So let’s talk about someone getting all of that stuff in order. they have, even internally without a referral network or a budding referral network, they have good patient outcomes. So they have something to build on. They have reviews building up. They want to take the first step into building their referral network. So we’ve talked about what you do once you’ve started the referral network to keep them engaged. But someone might be saying like, well, am I not going to just sound pushy if I start going after and introducing myself to providers to get those referrals? How do you make it feel human or not like?

⁓ some weird overly pushy persistence that just annoys them versus trying to bring them into your world to say, no, I can be a helpful resource. I just, need you to know who I am.

Will Ross (17:21)
Yeah, it comes across very sales repsie at first ⁓

Tim Bouchard (17:26)
Mm-hmm.

Will Ross (17:27)
Which is not what we want, you know, and we’re not sales reps, right? We want, we want to make sure that the providers know that we’re providing value for the patients that are sent over. We just have to break through that additional wall. One thing that really helped me in the beginning, our founder and lead physician, Dr. Kreider, he’s, head of our Athens location in the Gainesville location. Him coming around with me in the beginning when there wasn’t that much volume, right? When, when we were on, know, on a random Wednesday, we had, you know, let’s say four patients in the morning, four patients in the afternoon. And there’s a block from 10 to 12 in the morning where he’s

And I create a list of 10 places locally that we can go to and I bring the doctor around because it’s one thing for me to roll up in there, you know, in a nice button down shirt with some flyers and a business card. It’s another thing for me and the doctor in scrubs to roll up. Cause immediately you can see their reaction. Their reaction goes from this guy’s trying to tell me something to, my gosh, a doctor just rolled in. should probably go get our, our doctor. know what I mean? And it’s difficult because.

We don’t have access unless you’re a doctor. We don’t have access to that level of authority yet, but if you can bring your lead physicians into the clinics that you would like to start referring to, that makes an incredible difference in the beginning. And by that point.

You know, if you, let’s say I bring Dr. Kreider in to a neurosurgeon’s office and they’re, we’re able to meet, we’re able to shake hands. Next time I roll in there, they know that I’m affiliated with him and I won’t need him. You know what I mean? So it kind of gets me past that barrier, but you just have to be open to the idea that in the beginning, when you’re trying to build up the practice, the physician’s going to have to have time. They’re going to have to make time to go around with you to introduce themselves. Cause at the end of the day, you’re trying to grow your practice, but they’re also trying to grow their name.

⁓ equally Dr. Kreider’s name is equally as recognizable and important as the practice name origin spine. We w those two coincide. And one day when we get another physician on, we’re going to have to rebuild that again with that doctor. But the physician’s name is absolutely just as important as origins spine. More people look up Dr. Kreider than they do origin spine when they’re directly looking for us. So that I think tells exactly what we’re talking about.

Tim Bouchard (19:31)
another reason for good organic presence to to represent that doctor the right way. But I was listening to that. was like, I’m hearing every practice manager and front desk person being like, man, I wish everyone would do it that way. So doesn’t feel like I just have to like gatekeep and tell them, no, like we don’t have time right now. So that’s yeah. The bringing the show on the road. That’s a definitely good approach. It seemed like it helped you out a lot, too. So let’s say you get that relationship started or maybe it’s not even started. You made the intro. How do you actually make the intro into something after that?

Will Ross (19:34)
Absolutely.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Right.

Absolutely.

You have to break past the gatekeep, right? We don’t rely on consistent referrals from just talking to the front desk. Well, you establish relationships with the front desk, you know, Hey Ashley, how are you doing today? Haven’t seen you in while. How’s the family goes a long way, but equally we want to make sure that we get in past the gatekeep. So schedule a lunch, schedule a breakfast.

I went golfing with a chiropractor around here recently. We’ve got a great relationship and now we text each other about golf and fishing, like stuff like that, that goes completely past the actual work experience, but you have to get past the gatekeep. So scheduling a lunch is one of the most common and effective ways to do that. And to be honest, when I started, I was a little skeptical, you know, like, Hey, know, what are the benefits of that really? ⁓ I know you’re going to be able to shake the hands of the doctor and that’s valuable, but

bringing a lunch surely doesn’t bring in enough patients to justify paying for the lunch. I couldn’t be more wrong. It, you go in there, you establish a relationship and you sit down for an hour. Sometimes they’re a little late. Sometimes it runs over, but you sit down there for an hour. You’re providing them and the staff lunch. You’re already doing them a service without them having to do anything for you yet. You bring marketing material, you talk about the practice and the thing that works best for me, man, is I go in there and sure for 15, 20 minutes.

Tim Bouchard (20:59)
Mm-hmm.

Will Ross (21:21)
I’m talking about origins. talking about Dr. Kreider, what services we offer, how can we help their patients best? The real relationship is outside of that. Exactly what I’ve been talking about. We talk about the area we live in, you know, I was looking for a house last year. I picked their brains about real estate and where they live and the process of buying a home. And that just created an authority and a friendship outside of the medical, you know, work relationship that I think really goes a long way, especially when they’re thinking about

You know, they obviously think about Dr. Kreider when they send a patient, but who are they going to trust more? You know, a practice that just has a digital presence that really hasn’t made much of an effort to try and gain their business. Or they’re going to trust Will who actually went and asked about their family and their wedding that they had last year that went golfing with them and who had Dr. Kreider come with him and shake his hands. Like that goes such a long way for so many providers.

Tim Bouchard (22:15)
Well, that’s a definite difference between it being transactional engagement and relationship building engagement, too. And, you know, I would also say, like, when you flip the script like that, too, you don’t have to keep selling them after that point. You’ve made your case. You know, this is who we are. This is how we treat this is our philosophy. This is our results. I can’t talk about that for 60 minutes and not bore your head off. So, like, let’s just move into what your practice is doing, what you guys do around here and and actually try and build the

Will Ross (22:19)
Absolutely.

Mm-hmm.

Tim Bouchard (22:44)
foundation blocks for that. So last piece I was thinking about was you get them on and you would also mention that you like to reengage them to keep them involved. But I don’t know if we touched on what are the things that you reengage them with to keep them involved. And maybe we could touch on that before we get too close to wrapping up.

Will Ross (22:46)
Absolutely.

Yeah, absolutely. I’ll cut, I’ll try to make this short and sweet, but I know that I beat a horse was saying, you know, stay consistent, but it’s all about tracking. When was the last time I went in there? When do we think is too soon? You know, you don’t want to go every single week. then at that point you become a nuisance, but you have to make sure that you’re referring providers are happy and you know, it’s not pushy.

to drop off Starbucks or to drop off Krispy Kreme or something along the, it sounds silly when I say it, but it really, it really, really goes a long way. You know, I don’t have to go in and bring you a lunch and make you feel obligated to sit down with me for 60 minutes to talk about pain. I don’t need that. And you don’t need that. Your time is valuable. My time is valuable. I want to make sure that I’m getting the most out of this and that you’re getting the most out of this. So if I say, you know, I haven’t stopped by this place in, let’s say a month, two months, ⁓ maybe their referrals have dropped off a little bit.

Tim Bouchard (23:41)
Mm-hmm.

Will Ross (23:55)
One of the things that my marketing rep in Gainesville, Mackenzie has done recently is during the Christmas time, we dropped off some, um, some like holiday themed donuts from Krispy Kreme. And on the inside of the box, it was a little business card and it said, thank you so much for your business this year. We look forward to working with you in 2026. We didn’t go past the front door. We didn’t go past the initial front staff. We dropped off the donuts said, Hey, thanks so much for letting us stop by. Hope you guys have a blessed holiday season. We’ll see you guys in the new year.

something that simple. Again, you’re doing something for them that they didn’t ask for and that’s providing, you know, authority just by showing them that you care. So that little touch point right there to keep them re-engaged is incredibly important. And little things like that go a long way, but you’re absolutely right. The initial point of breaking past that sales rep barrier is the hardest part. Keeping them re-engaged is much easier once you know that they’re consistently sending you referrals.

Tim Bouchard (24:25)
Mm-hmm.

Cool. I have one more question before we wrap up. Someone’s heard this and they said, wow, this all sounds awesome and Will has all of his stuff together. But they’re also saying, like, I wonder how I know if we’re actually doing this right. Is there any way you could help someone figure out, is their relationships or their referral strategy too transactional versus too, you know, not enough relation? Like, how do you look at that and judge if you’re doing it right?

Will Ross (25:15)
To me, it, it, shows, um, when you walk into a practice, how welcomed you are and that it sounds simple. But if I walk into, to, a place and I’ve been with origins for years now, if I walk into a practice in Athens and they have no idea who I am, I have not done my job unless it’s they’ve changed front staff or something along those lines. But if they have never heard of origins or will or Dr. Crider, I haven’t done my job correctly. So.

Tim Bouchard (25:20)
Mmm.

Will Ross (25:43)
In a new year, we’re all kind of reframing our strategies. Go around to all the providers, go around to all the clinics and really take notice of how welcomed you are. And if you’re noticed or not, if you, if you’re a new practice, take that opportunity to get in. But if you’ve been around for years and you’ve been doing the exact same strategy for years, one, the frequency is not enough. Clearly you haven’t been there enough for them to know who you are or two, you really haven’t broken past that barrier yet. And how can you break past that barrier? You need to establish a relationship. looks different for everybody, but you need to make sure that you break past that.

Tim Bouchard (26:13)
Cool. ⁓ Is there anything I didn’t ask you, you wanted to make sure that you got out?

Will Ross (26:17)
Yeah, no, I, again, I just really appreciate your time and it’s been, uh, it’s been an honor. love doing stuff like this. love sharing what origins is able to do. And, we’re growing a lot. So I would say anybody in the Gainesville Athens area, be on the lookout for origin spine. We’re going to continue to grow, hopefully at a position on our team, um, within the following months. That’s one of the biggest goals of 2026 as well. There’s a few different areas of Georgia that we’re looking at. eventually we’ll, begin to roll those out.

We wanna be in every spot of Georgia eventually. So there’s a lot of growth to come. I’m really excited and this is just the first step.

Tim Bouchard (26:49)
Cool, why don’t you tell people where they can find out more about you too.

Will Ross (26:53)
Yeah, absolutely. ⁓ so you can find more about me. I’ve got a YouTube channel that you’re more than welcome to look at. ⁓ it’s called when in marketing, it’s just tips, tricks, different things like that on the marketing side, not necessarily in healthcare, just overall marketing tips and tricks that I’ve been going for a few years. I also have a newsletter attached to that. but if you want to learn a little bit more about me and like the medical side of it, follow me on LinkedIn. And, I try to provide as much valuable content as I possibly can. And I met you through LinkedIn. So it seems to be working.

Tim Bouchard (27:18)
Yeah,

cool. Well, this has been incredibly valuable. So thanks for being out for that. And I’m sure anyone that’s looking to improve their referral network ⁓ has definitely picked something up from this. So thanks for sharing what works for you, what works for Origins. That’s been great. ⁓ Listeners, Listeners, if you want to build a brand and communication strategy that can accelerate your referral network with the right digital presence and relationship building approach, check out our Patient Pipeline Blueprint Session offer.

Will Ross (27:33)
Thanks Tim, I really appreciate it.

Tim Bouchard (27:45)
It’s a workshop to uncover how you can attract new patients and convert more inquiries into appointments for your practice. Learn more at luminous.agency slash blueprint. And of course, subscribe to Healthcare Marketing Edge on Spotify, Apple or YouTube. If you like this channel, you can rate us too, that would be great. And if you want more insights like this, catch out our future episodes. See later and Will, thanks for coming on.

Will Ross (28:04)
Thanks Tim, appreciate it.