Step #6 Toward Being Trusted Facilities Where Physicians Refer Their Patients [Connecting Health Clubs to Healthcare Series]

Physically active physicians serve as role models for their patients.  In a study conducted at the Harvard School of Public Health between May 2019 and February 2020, physicians mention how their own personal familiarity with a health & fitness center makes them more credible with their patients, and influences their likelihood of referral. Increase physicians’ personal familiarity with your facility. 

Step #6 of a 10-step roadmap for health & fitness centers toward being trusted facilities where physicians refer their patients is:

Invite physicians to spend time in the club to increase their personal familiarity with programs and equipment.  

It is helpful if you have actually been into the club and you know where the machines are.  I can talk to them about, yeah go upstairs and go into that group of machines and it is the third machine.  So patients like that, that you are familiar with it.  Physician

Bantham, A. (2020). Perspectives on Exercise Prescriptions/Referrals and Patient Exercise Behavior Change: A Mixed Methods Study of Physicians and Exercise Professionals (Doctoral dissertation).