Attracting New Imaging Referrals: A Growth Guide for Clinic Managers

Imaging referrals come from two distinct sources, and most clinics underinvest in one of them:

1. GP and specialist referrals - the traditional channel. A doctor writes a referral and the patient chooses (or is directed to) your clinic.

2. Patient-initiated bookings - the growing channel. A patient has a referral in hand, searches online for a clinic near them, compares options, and books directly.

Most clinic marketing and business development activity focuses on the first channel (GP visits, fax marketing, relationship dinners). The second channel - where the patient is the decision-maker - is largely underserved by clinic outreach.

The clinics growing fastest in 2025-26 are investing in both. Online discoverability and a compelling clinic profile are now as important as GP relationships for sustainable volume growth.

GP relationships remain the backbone of imaging volume in Australia. Here's what works:

Presentation visits: • Meet with practice managers and GPs, not just to introduce your clinic but to solve a problem - fast turnaround times, bulk billing for their patients, specific subspecialty services they can't easily access nearby • Bring something useful - a one-page scan type summary with your clinic's turnaround targets, a bulk billing list, or information about a new service you're offering • Focus on the top 20 GPs in your catchment area - 80% of your referral volume typically comes from 20% of your referring doctors

After the visit: • Follow up with a brief email confirming what you discussed and any commitments you made • Send quarterly updates - especially when you have new equipment, new services, or improved capacity • Respond to GP queries quickly - a GP who gets fast answers to their patients' imaging questions becomes a loyal referrer

Online channel: • GPs increasingly use Radly's Practitioner Portal to send digital referrals - clinics listed on Radly are visible to GPs when they search for clinics to refer their patients to • Ensure your Radly clinic profile shows turnaround times, subspecialties, and GP contact details

Referring GPs care deeply about two things: their patient's experience and the speed and quality of the report they receive.

Turnaround time for reports is one of the most powerful competitive differentiators in radiology, and it is largely invisible until you make it explicit.

What to communicate: • "Same-day reports for urgent referrals" • "Routine CT reports within 24 hours" • "MRI reports within 48 hours of scan"

If your turnaround genuinely beats local competitors, this should be front and centre of every GP communication, your Radly profile, and your website.

If turnaround is not currently a strength, it is worth investigating the bottlenecks - often it is radiologist workflow rather than volume that creates the delay, and targeted process improvements can meaningfully shorten it without adding headcount.

When a patient has a referral and searches "[scan type] clinic near [suburb]", your clinic needs to appear - and it needs to appear compelling.

Steps to improve online discoverability:

1. Claim and complete your Radly clinic profile - ensure all services, pricing, hours, and contact information are current. Incomplete profiles rank lower in results. 2. Claim your Google Business Profile - respond to reviews, update your hours, post photos. Google Maps presence directly drives walk-in and nearby searches. 3. Ensure your website lists every scan type you perform, with suburb and postcode - this is the foundation of local SEO for imaging. 4. List your bulk billing status explicitly - "bulk bill CT Glenroy" is one of the most common searches for your area. If you bulk bill, say so clearly everywhere. 5. Collect and respond to patient reviews - a clinic with 50 recent reviews at 4.5 stars will outperform a clinic with 8 reviews at 4.8 stars for most patients.

Radly's search algorithm surfaces clinics based on scan type, suburb, bulk billing status, and review score. A complete profile with accurate pricing data is the highest-leverage action you can take this week.

Price competition alone is a race to the bottom. The most defensible growth strategy for imaging clinics is differentiation through subspecialty services that are not available at every nearby competitor.

High-differentiation subspecialties with strong referral demand: • Cardiac CT (coronary calcium scoring, CTCA) - high GP interest, relatively limited availability • Breast MRI - important for high-risk patients; limited availability in many areas • Musculoskeletal MRI with subspecialty reporting - GPs and sports medicine doctors seek out clinics with MSK-specialist radiologists • Dental imaging (CBCT, OPG) - a completely separate referral stream from dentists and oral surgeons • Women's imaging - dedicated breast ultrasound and mammography services attract a specific referral pattern • Paediatric-friendly imaging - clinics that invest in child-appropriate environments and protocols attract paediatric referrals from GPs

Once you have a differentiated service, communicate it aggressively: to GPs, on your Radly profile, and on your Google Business Profile.

Your existing booking data contains a referral growth map if you know how to read it:

• Which scan types have you grown fastest in the last 6 months? → These are services with organic demand momentum - invest in capacity and marketing here • Which GPs are not on your referring list? → GPs within 5km who are not yet referring to you are your highest-probability growth targets • What does patient postcode data tell you? → If a significant share of your patients are travelling from a suburb 10+ minutes away, there may be unmet demand in that area • What do your Google and Radly reviews say? → Patient feedback about what they value most - your staff, your speed, your location - tells you what to amplify in your marketing

For clinics using Radly's dashboard, booking trend data and geographic patient distribution are visible without any additional tools. For clinics not yet tracking this data, even a simple spreadsheet analysis of the past 6 months of referrals will reveal patterns worth acting on.