I have 25 years of experience as a healthcare executive, including senior business development roles forming, managing, and growing physician practices. I am board certified as a medical practice executive and a fellow of the American College of Medical Practice Executives (ACMPE). I’ve developed and instructed finance and accounting curriculum for a top-ranked graduate program in healthcare administration, and recently developed a class with a section on how to increase physician referrals.
Based on research and my experience, the community reputation of a medical practice is an important driver for patient referrals, volume, and practice revenue. Reputation, among other things, can be adversely affected by defamatory statements, and referring physicians are very influential to a practice’s business. I would be interested in purchasing state-recorded data to identify regional changes in doctor-referral volume. In previous positions, I identified why doctor referrals decreased and took steps to intervene. I interviewed referral intakers in the office, analyzed market share data, and formulated strategies to increase referrals. If by regression analysis I am able to demonstrate that referrals decreased over time after the defamatory statement was made–despite controlling for changes in insurance, patient preferences, market volume, etc–then I can easily calculate financial damages as loss of business plus interest.
