Referral concentration

Definition

The share of new patients arriving from one physician group or hospital, the risk beside owner dependence.

Why It Matters

A practice fed by one physician group or one hospital relationship can lose a third of its volume in a phone call, and the caller does not need a reason. Ask for new patients by referral source for three years, by month, and read the spread and the trend together: a book widening across sources is worth the band and one narrowing toward a single surgeon is not, whatever the trailing year says. Then read the relationship itself, since a referring group being acquired by a health system with its own therapists is a source about to close.