Robert Sandler, renowned sales training professional, calls the process of revealing needs, "probing for pain." Probing for pain requires that you ask a lot of questions to understand fully how a practice operates. You need to know what’s working and what’s not, before you can devise a solution. Probing questions sound like:

Sunrise: Thank you for meeting with me. Sunrise Services is in the business of helping health care practices with claims reimbursement difficulties. Would you mind if we started by my asking you a few questions about how your practice currently operates?

Could you help me to understand how you are currently processing your insurance claims?

Do you know what percentage of the claims you file get rejected?

Could you give me a rough guess as to your average payment turnaround from carriers?

Do you ever experience claim rejections that you have difficulty resolving? What percentage of your rejected claims eventually are paid?

Do you employ someone full-time to process claims for you? If the time that person spent processing claims was suddenly cut by 75%, what would you do with them?

Do your patients regard your office as a resource when it comes to claims filing? Do you consider reimbursement assistance part of complete patient cure?

Who keeps your staff updated on changes in filing procedures, legislative requirements, hardware and software improvements, etc.?

Do you think claims filing and dealing with carriers in general is more or less complicated?

If there was one thing I could do to help your claims processing, what would it be?

PROBING FOR PAIN IS THE FIRST AND MOST Important STEP in the selling process. Through your questioning, you will be generating interest by identifying issues of concern to the practice.

A general rule of thumb is that if a prospect reveals 5-6 pains, the appointment will be a success.

Learn all you can about the practice and how it operates at the same time be sensitive to the practitioner’s time constraints. Over the course of a thirty minute presentation, probing should consume ten to fifteen minutes.

If a prospect tries to push ahead through the interest phase before you have learned what you need, back up. For example:

Practitioner: I’m sorry I don’t have a lot of time, can you briefly explain what you do?

Sunrise: I’d be happy to. Every practice has different problems; excessive work load due to claim filing, slow reimbursements, high rejection rates...I want to make sure I start by addressing the issues which concern you the most. Can you suggest something?

Doing a thorough job in the Interest phase will cover 80% of selling requirements and often eliminates the need for any formal presentation.

Once you feel that the practitioner has recognized Pain in the practices claims reimbursement procedures you should move into the decision phase. In the Decision phase you are determining the ability or intent of the practitioner to make a decision (either positive or negative).

As a professional with a worthwhile service to offer you should expect to leave the practice with some sort of a decision. While that might not always be possible, you should keep in mind that everything you know about your business you know when you are meeting with the practitioner, you won’t know any more in two days or a week. If the practitioner has a problem making a decision, he or she does not have complete information and you will want to make sure to correct that before you leave.

Moving into the decision phase may sound like this:

Sunrise: I believe I understand how your practice operates and I would like to explain how I think we can help. Before I do though, I would like to ask that, when I’m through and have answered all your questions, that you give me either a yes or no decision. You are such a difficult person to contact and I am rally interested in getting any positive or negative comments you would care to offer.

If you are meeting with an office manager or a claims specialist who must have the practitioner’s approval before consenting, you should modify your request to suggest that if they are interested you would like to schedule a second meeting also including the practitioner.

After reaching an agreement on decision requirements, you are free to give your presentation. In many cases it won’t be necessary.

You can use the hand out which can also be left behind. The presentation phase should be short, four or five minutes and in conversational tone. Remember that our service is to help solve claims reimbursement problems. Try at every turn to connect the practice’s pain with our ability to solve it.

Some prospects will try to move discussions about the cost of our service up into the interest phase. The fact is you are offering a low risk, relatively low cost, money saving service to a practice, and money should not present a major issue.

Practitioners who have been hit with high hardware, software, accountant or consultant costs will be sensitive and will attempt to address the issue early, Provide them with a brief, reassuring answer like:

Sunrise: We have a ($295.00) start-up($3.00) per claim fee and other hourly costs that depend on the services we provide. If you don’t mind, I would like to get in to the details of all that once I have established your situation.

Post-sell assumes you have successfully negotiated an arrangement; the practice has said yes. You shouldn’t consider the transaction complete until you have taken the prospect through the Post-Sell phase.

Two or three days after your meeting, the practitioner is likely to question the wisdom of his or her decision. Additional questions will arise or questions to which they have forgotten your answers. It is important that you make yourself available during this time period to address any issues. Find a simple reason to call the practice back; clarification of something you said; following up on some information that was requested, etc. Use the opportunity to ask the practitioner if they have any additional questions, then clear them up. When you have accomplished this, the process is complete and you will be in a great position to begin a rewarding relationship with your new client.