The Better Hearing Institute, Washington, has created a new secure online ordering system for physician referral materials. This system can be accessed at www.betterhearing.org/professionals. Click the ORDER BHI MATERIALS button and you will be led to the new commerce page.
More than 2,400 hearing care professionals are part of the physician referral BHI Physician program. A key element of the program is the use of local hearing professionals as the "messengers" to primary care physicians. The BHI notes that its message is of little value until the family physician comes to know and trust a local audiologist or hearing aid specialist who can care for his/her patients.
The BHI has designed the program to rely completely on those local hearing professionals (and supported by national PSAs in medical magazines). BHI places materials in the hands of the hearing professionals enrolled in its program and the hearing professionals deliver the materials to the family physicians they target.
BHI research on 800 practices over a 3-year period indicated that on average, dispensers receive at least one referral resulting in an incremental hearing aid sale per month, which is a 170 to 1 return on investment.
[Source: BHI]
