Marketing your medical billing business

OK, so you’ve decided that Medical Billing is the business for you. Maybe you’ve been in business for a while but don’t have enough (or any) customers. Getting clients is the hardest part of starting a medical billing business.

New customers don’t usually fall out of the sky, although sometimes it does. But in most cases you have to go out there and promote yourself. For some people, marketing comes very naturally. You don’t even have to think about it. They could sell ice to an Eskimo. But for the rest of us, we actually have to work, and work very hard at marketing.

When my mother and I started our business, I told her that I would take care of all the technical stuff, that she would take care of the business side and the marketing. She never wanted to have to sit down with a vendor and sell myself. That was not my strong point. Soon after, however, I realized that this was not going to be possible. She took us both to sell ourselves. Alice could handle the business part, but when they needed to know something technical, she needed me there.

There are many different methods that you can use to market. Of course, word of mouth and personal referrals are the best method of marketing, but if you don’t have a lot of customers, that’s not enough. If you have friends or family in the medical field, they may be able to give you some references. Let everyone know what you’re doing: billing insurance claims for medical professionals. Then ask them to let you know if they hear of any doctors having billing issues. They might even mention your service to their doctors.

Cold calling is another marketing method. I actually got pretty good at cold calling and now have a lot of funny stories as a result. Like the time I walked into someone’s house and found several people having lunch at the dining room table. Hey, there was a sign on the house indicating that it was a doctor’s office! How was I to know?

Regardless, if you need to get clients for your medical billing business, you’ll need to market. Find the marketing technique that works best for you and that you can do effectively, and get involved. No one is going to grow your business for you.

Copyright 2008 – Michele Redmond