Physician liaison

A physician liaison serves as a representative for a medical practice and is responsible for building relationships within the local community. While the position is relatively new, it undoubtedly is becoming increasingly essential in healthcare.

What is the role of a physician liaison?

Generally, a physician liaison bridges the gap between a doctor or a practice and other medical practitioners through physician referrals. The key is to grow referrals—necessary for patients to see another practitioner or specialist—and, as a result, connect the doctor/practice to the local healthcare community.

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Fostering referrals and ultimately creating partnerships help sustain a medical practice and, moreover, provide patients with complete care. Therefore, by acting as a representative, a physician liaison plays a crucial role within a practice by establishing and maintaining lasting and profitable relationships. Equally important responsibilities include:

• Managing physician outreach programs
• Helping organize necessary meetings
• Attending healthcare events and forming networks
• Coordinating outreach marketing
• Providing customer service and relaying feedback
• Increasing overall practical revenue as well as high revenue procedure.

In brief, a liaison plays a vital part in communications, relationship-building, and sales/marketing.

Who makes a good liaison?

A good physician liaison must be excellent at collaborating with other practitioners and administrators as well as patients. Therefore, the qualities of a good physician liaison include:

A well-rounded education background should consist of marketing, medicine, hospital administration, and communications.

Why is a physician liaison important?

The tasks of a physician liaison are important because connecting and building associations is necessary for the survival of a practice. Furthermore, hospitals and insurance companies close referral streams to in-network providers, which means private practitioners may need to develop their own outreach. Doctors understand this and also understand that they cannot always fill this specific position themselves. Indeed, by sourcing the job out, a doctor can focus on patient engagement and treatment. Especially nowadays as patient care includes safeguarding protected health information and HIPAA compliancy.

SEE RELATED: HIPAA Compliant Email: The Definitive Guide Undeniably, such a specialized position is vital for medical practitioners to be able to provide comprehensive care.