Beyond Hormones, The Business of Wellness
Running a hormone or wellness clinic is rewarding — but let’s be honest, it can also feel overwhelming. That’s where Beyond Hormones: The Business of Wellness comes in.
Hosted by Jody Layne, co-founder of Accelerated Medical Practices, this podcast is here to help providers build thriving, profitable practices without losing sight of why they started. With over a decade of experience in marketing, sales, and business development — and after working with hundreds of clinics — Jody brings both expertise and encouragement to every episode.
You’ll hear candid conversations with clinic owners who’ve been in your shoes, expert interviews with professionals who share tools and wisdom to help your practice grow, and Jody’s own insights from years of working behind the scenes in the hormone industry.
If you’re ready to feel more confident, more supported, and a little less alone on the journey of business ownership, you’re in the right place.
Beyond Hormones, The Business of Wellness
Ep #60 - The One Hire That Pays for Itself: Building Revenue with a Patient Liaison
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You're spending money on marketing — or at least investing your time in it. So why are leads still falling through the cracks? In this final episode of the POWER Framework series, Jody reveals the one hire that has the highest ROI of anything she's seen in hormone and functional medicine clinics: a dedicated patient liaison.
This isn't a nice-to-have. This is the revenue role your practice is missing — and in this episode, Jody breaks down everything you need to know to build it right, from scratch.
Jody shares a real example from a Virginia clinic that was already doing over a million dollars a year — and what happened when the owner added this role the wrong way. She covers what this hire actually costs ($40–70K+ base), why commission matters, and how to do the math on ROI so the case essentially makes itself.
She also gets into the personality traits and professional backgrounds that predict success in this role (hint: pharma reps, timeshare salespeople, and entrepreneurs top the list) — and why putting your sweet front desk person in this role is one of the most common and costly mistakes clinic owners make.
Plus: what goals to give this person, how to do monthly reviews without making them feel like a performance trap, and why YOU have to be part of the process if you want this role to actually produce.
Topics covered:
• What a patient liaison does day to day (and why it's technically a sales role)
• The full patient journey from lead to enrolled patient — and where clinics lose people
• Why a dedicated role outperforms a split role every single time
• Real compensation structure: base salary + commission explained
• The personality profile and professional backgrounds to hire for
• How to handle objections — and why the best patient liaisons are life-changers
• Goal-setting, monthly reviews, and how to lead this person for long-term success
• The Virginia clinic cautionary tale — and what the owner said after it went wrong
This is the R in POWER — and it's the one that funds everything else.
🎙 Connect with Jody:
Email: jody@acceleratedmedicalpractices.com
Website: www.acceleratedmedicalpractices.com
The Accelerator Training Platform: accelerator.acceleratedmedicalpractices.com
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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/accelerated-medical-practices/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@AcceleratedMedicalPractices
This podcast is powered by Accelerated Medical Practices, where we believe hormone and wellness care should be both life-changing and profitable. If you own or run a clinic and are interested in being a guest on the show, please complete the form here and let's connect! Or email Jody at Jody@AcceleratedMedicalPractices.com.
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Welcome to Beyond Hormones, the Business of Wellness, the podcast for hormone and functional medicine providers who want a thriving, predictably profitable practice, and maybe a little less stress along the way. Hi, I'm your host, Jody Lane, and I've worked with lots of clinics in marketing, sales, and business development, and I have seen what works and what doesn't. And here's what I believe hormone and wellness care should be available to everyone who wants it. And while providers know the medicine, many struggle with the business side of their cash practice. And that's where I come in. See, this podcast is here to share real strategies, real stories, things you can implement in your practice right away. So I am so glad you're here. Come on, let's go. Hey everybody, welcome back to the Beyond Hormones, the Business of Wellness podcast. I'm your host, Jody, and I, if you have been riding along for this power series, then you know that today is the big day because today we're at the final letter, the final pillar. We made it to our revenue. And I'm gonna be honest with you, I debated my with myself for a long time about what to cover in this episode because, you know, revenue is this massive sprawling topic. I could do a four-hour deep dive just on marketing funnels and paid ads and lead generation strategy and social media and email and SEO, and we can barely scratch the surface. There is so much that goes into building the revenue engine of a hormone and functional medicine practice. But you know me, I'm not here to overwhelm you. That's not my goal. I'm here to give you the thing that actually moves the needle. And I try to do it in under 30 minutes. And when I think about what has made the single biggest difference for the clinics I've worked with and run, including the clinic in Orlando that I do talk about a lot, there is this one thing that stands out above everything else when it comes to revenue growth. And it's not a marketing strategy, it's not a funnel, it's a person. Specifically, it's having a dedicated person on your team whose entire job is sales. Now, I know some of you tensed up a little, right? Sales in a medical office, ugh, sounds weird. Sounds maybe even a little icky. And I get it, but I'm going to address all of that today. I promise you, by the time we wrap this episode, you're going to see this role completely differently. So just settle in, whatever you're doing, walking outside, working out of the gym, cleaning your house, because today we're going to talk about the patient liaison, what this role is, what it does, what it costs, who you should hire, and how to lead this person once they're on your team. All right, let's get into it. Okay, so let's start at the beginning. What is a patient liaison? I call this role a patient liaison, but some clinics call it a patient care coordinator, a patient concierge, a patient success specialist. You can call it whatever you want because the name doesn't actually matter. What matters is the function. And the function is this: this is the person on your team who is responsible for all things sales. And yes, I said sales because that's what it is. Now, I don't want to call it a salesperson because having someone with a title salesperson in a medical office just feels kind of off, right? Patients are not buying a used car. They're making deeply personal decisions about their health. So the title matters from a patient-facing standpoint. But internally, you as the clinic owner need to understand this person is your sales engine. So, what does this person actually do from a day-to-day perspective? Well, let me walk you through it. First, they handle all the incoming leads. When someone calls your clinic because they saw your ad or your social media post or they heard about you from a friend or they were doing some Googling or they were in Chat GPT. The patient liaison picks up the phone, not your front desk person who is also checking in three patients and printing a super bill and trying to check in the next person. No, this person is the patient liaison and they answer the phone because that call that's coming in deserves someone who has the time, the knowledge, and the relationship-building skills to really get into that person's world. Now, second, they manage all the pre-consultation touch points. Because here's what a lot of providers don't realize or think about. The patient journey doesn't start the moment someone walks through your door for their first consult. No, it starts the moment they pick up the phone or fill out the form on your website or talk to somebody in your office. And between that first contact and that first appointment, there are a lot of things that need to happen. Maybe they need to fill out their intake paperwork, maybe they need to get their labs done, maybe they need to pay the consultation fee. All of that, that communication, that hand holding, that guided process is what the patient liaison's job is. Now, third, they handle the financial conversation after the initial consult. Now, this is a big one. It doesn't really matter whether you do a la carte pricing or you have membership pricing or package pricing. After a patient sits down with you, the provider, and you tell them what their labs show and what treatment could do for their life, somebody needs to sit down with them and walk them through exactly what it's going to cost. All of it, not just the membership fee, the labs that aren't covered, the hormones, if you don't include that in your plan, the supplements that you will likely recommend to them, everything. Because there is absolutely nothing worse than a patient who says yes to treatment, starts, and then is hit with unexpected costs in the first three months that they didn't expect or they didn't understand. That is a retention killer in your practice. That's a trust killer. The patient liaison needs to own that conversation. Now, fourth, they need to handle the patient agreement process. No matter how you price your services, you should have a written agreement that both you and the patient sign. It will include cancellation policies, lab requirements, pricing terms, and it should all be in writing and it should be crystal clear. The patient liaison is the person who walks every new patient through that document and makes sure that both parties are on the same page before starting treatment. And fifth, and this is the one that providers most often underestimate, the patient liaison handles all non-medical follow-up questions from existing patients. Because here's the thing: once a patient starts treatment, the questions don't stop. And a lot of those questions have nothing to do with their prescriptions or their labs or any of that. They may have a question about a billing issue or a comparison they saw online about another clinic's pricing, or they couldn't get into the patient portal, or they had a weird interaction with a staff member. These are all conversations that, if handled well, will keep the patient coming to your practice for years. But if it's handled poorly or not handled at all, it leads to cancellations. And when you think about the fact that the lifetime value of a single hormone patient is somewhere in the neighborhood of $3,000 to $4,000 a year, or $12,000 or more over the course of their treatment, losing a patient because no one had the time to return their call is an incredibly expensive mistake. And this is one of the really important reasons this role exists. All right, now let's talk about dollars and cents because I know that's where your head's going. Jody, this sounds like a great idea. And I know I need to do this, but can I really afford this? And I want you to flip that question because the real question isn't, can you afford a patient liaison? The real question is, what is it costing you not to have one? Think about it in this way. Every single week, leads are coming into your clinic, right? Maybe it's someone calling the number on your website. Maybe it's someone who is filling out a form on your contact us page. Maybe it's someone who heard about you at a party because they were referred by another patient. Even if you're not running paid ads, even if every single patient you have came to you purely by word of mouth, those leads are still coming in and somebody is answering those phone calls. Or maybe nobody is. Maybe they're going to voicemail. Maybe they're getting a call back three days later from someone who is juggling six other tasks when they could have been calling back. That first impression you're making on perspective. That's the first impression you're making on prospective patients. It is everything. Now, it's either going to start with a relationship that lasts a decade, or it's going to send them straight to the clinic down the street. Now, if you're running paid ads, then I want you to lean in and I want you to listen really close. You're spending real money to generate those leads. Every single person who fills out a form calls your number, slides into your DMs because of something you paid to put in front of them. That person deserves follow-up from someone who has the time and the training, and let's face it, the personality to convert that interest into a booked consultation. Now, when I worked at the hormone clinic in Orlando, and this is something I talk about a lot because it really was the proving ground for everything that I now teach, having a dedicated patient liaison was one of the core reasons we were able to scale the way that we did. That role was not an afterthought. It was one of the very first hires that we made. It was central to our growth strategy. Now, in terms of what this person costs, because I know you're running numbers right now in your head, in the Orlando market, I would put a patient liaison salary somewhere between about $45,000 to $70,000 a year, depending upon their experience. And that range is wide because it does depend on a number of things. First, where you are in the country and whether you're hiring somebody with an established sales track record, or you're someone who is brand new to the industry, but just has all the right raw skills and personality, and you're willing to invest in developing them. But here's another really important thing that I want to say about compensation for this type of role. Base salary alone is not the right structure. You want, no, you need to give this person some form of commission or performance bonus tied to their result. Whether that's 1% of revenue they generate, 2%, a flat bonus per new patient enrolled, it doesn't matter. You figure out what makes best sense for your practice. But you want to give this kind of person a financial stake in the outcome of their work. Now, I can already hear some of you saying in the back of your mind, Jodi, I don't want someone on my team who's just motivated by money and pushing patients into programs they don't need. And I want to be really clear about this, guys, because it matters. I am not suggesting that you hire a pushy salesperson and create a pushy sales environment. I'm not talking about someone who uses high-pressure sales tactics to get patients to sign agreements they don't want to do. That is not what a patient liaison should be doing. That is not what I'm describing. What I'm talking about is someone who is motivated by performance, someone who actually cares about KPIs, key performance indicators, who gets genuine satisfaction from watching a number go up. Think about the best device reps you've ever met. They're the ones who really knew their product and genuinely believed in it. They were driven, they followed up, they were persistent without being overbearing. That's the energy that you want someone to be bringing to your practice. And here's the thing that I always say when I talk about this: some of your best patients are going to walk in the door half-sold. They've done the research. They know they want the treatment. They had a consultation by you or one of your providers and they heard everything they needed to hear. And they're still a no because they're scared. Because they're scared about the cost. Maybe they're scared about what their spouse is going to think. Maybe they're scared because they did some research before and they read that it's going to be dangerous, or they got burned by some wellness promises before. A great patient liaison sits down with that person, validates their fear, hears them out, and then gently, skillfully helps them work through it. And three months later, that patient walks into your clinic with their energy back, their sex drive back, their relationship back, and they're thanking every single person on your team for encouraging them to start. That is the transformation that this role can enable. That is why when I say that a patient liaison can truly change lives and your revenue at the same time, I'm not kidding. Okay, so I've sold you on the roll, right? Now let's talk about who you're actually looking for because this is where I see a lot of clinic owners make a really expensive mistake. The mistake is this they take whoever's already there and give them the title. My front desk person is really sweet and she loves talking to people, so we're just gonna make her the patient liaison. I hear that a lot. And I understand the logic. You're trying to grow without adding headcount. You're trying to be resourceful. I get it. But let me tell you why. This is almost never a good idea. First, loving to talk to people and having the skill set to be on the phone all day building relationships and handling objections are two very different things. There are plenty of warm, wonderful, people-oriented humans that are in your clinic right now who would find it completely exhausting to be on the phone for hours every day doing emotional, relationship-heavy sales conversations. And that's not a flaw. That's just their personality. The person you want for this role has a very specific set of natural traits. They are genuinely deeply curious about people, not in a performative way, in a real way. The kind of person who can go into a grocery store and walk out with a brand new best friend before they even reach the checkout line. Look, I am genuinely like this. I can't help it. I walk into a room and I want to know everyone's story. That's natural curiosity, that warmth, that isn't something you can train. That's something you want to look for and hire for. How about someone who's worked in timeshare sales? I know, I know. Stick with me. One of my best patient liaisons came from timeshare sales. Timeshare reps are some of the most skilled at converting skeptical buyers in high-pressure environments. If you find someone to do that job and has integrity, then you have an incredible asset. How about someone who was a successful or even not so successful entrepreneur? Entrepreneurship requires you to sell yourself, your idea, your business every day. Someone who's done that and thrives in it understands that sales is nothing more than just relationship building with intention. What I'm not looking for in this role, a medical assistant who wants a change of pace. A nurse who was great at patient care, but has never done anything sales adjacent. A friend of a friend who's really outgoing. Those are not disqualifiers on their own, but they're not the default yes. You're looking for demonstrated ability to build relationships, handle objections, and be driven by metrics. Oh, and one more thing. They don't need to be a clinical expert. They're not diagnosing, they're not advising on hormones. You're gonna onboard them, you're gonna teach them all the basics of your programs, and they can have informed conversations. But their skill set is in people, not in your protocols. All right, so let me tell you about a client of mine who owns a clinic in Virginia because this story really illustrates exactly what happens when you hear this advice and almost follow it, but not quite. This clinic was doing over a million dollars a year. They had the revenue, they had the space in their office, and they wanted to grow. And from the very first planning workshop we did together, I told the owner, you need to hire a patient, Liaison. He heard me, he nodded, he said he'd think about it. And then he didn't do it. A couple of months into working together and me beating this idea to death, he finally decided to hire someone. But instead of giving her the actual dedicated role, he put her at the front desk. His thinking was this well, there are only patients three days a week, so two off days, she can do more outbound calls. And you know, the clinic days are never really back to back, so she won't be that busy. She'll have pockets of time where she can do patient liaison work. Now I want you to picture what this looked like in real practice. She's sitting at the front desk. You know what a front desk looks like, right? The phone rings, incoming patient call. She answers, then a patient walks in and needs to be checked in. Then a prescription refill needs to go out. Then someone needs to be rescheduled. Then she has three minutes of downtime and she tries to pull up her CRM to make an outbound call, and the phone rings again. Meanwhile, every conversation she is having about a prospective patient is happening in full hearshot of the entire waiting room. It was a complete failure, as you can imagine. Not because she wasn't capable, but because she was never really given the conditions to succeed. She was constantly pulled between her front desk responsibilities and her patient liaison responsibilities, and neither got done very well. And he let her go. And the minute he did, I mean, like the minute she walked out the door, he called me and he said, Jody, I get it now. I need somebody sitting in one of the back offices with nothing else to do but generate sales for my clinic. Yeah, that's exactly right. That's what I had been saying all along. So take this story to heart. Don't be that clinic owner. Don't wait six months and then hire the wrong person and wait another six months to see that it's unraveling before your very eyes. The moment you have the revenue to bring this person, bring them on and give them a dedicated space, a dedicated role, and most importantly, a dedicated time to do it all right. Here's a simple way for you, I want you to think about the ROI. Let's say that this hire costs you $65,000 a year in total compensation, including bonuses. If that person brings in 25 new patients in a year, 25, they have paid for their own. Salary and then some. And every patient above that 25 is pure revenue growth that funds your next hire. All right. So you made the hire. You've heard this information. You found the person, you onboarded them, they understand your programs, they shattered a few consultations, they've got access to your customer relationship management software. Now what do you do? Now you have to actually lead them. And this is the piece that providers often always skip, and it kills the whole thing. And it's obvious because they've never done this before. But here's what I mean: every other role in your clinic has relatively straightforward success criteria. Your medical assistant show up on time, complete their clinical tasks, interface with patients appropriately. Your front desk manage scheduling and intake efficiently. You can evaluate those roles largely by whether the work gets done or not. Patient liaison role is different. Their role needs goals, measurable, specific, written-down goals. Things like the number of outbound calls made per day, number of new consultations scheduled per month, the number of patient agreements signed per month, conversion rate from initial consult to enrolled patient. These are the metrics that tell you whether this person is performing. And I want to be clear about something. The point of having these goals is not to create a gotcha system where you're just looking for reasons to fire somebody. That's the wrong mindset entirely. The point of the goals is to give this person a compass. And when they miss a goal, when their numbers aren't exactly where they need to be, your job is as the owner is to sit down with them and get curious. Ask them, what did you try? What conversations are you having? Where are people kind of dropping off and not moving forward? What obstacles are in your way into having success? And then work on it together. Work on the solutions as a team. This is how you build greatness in patient liaisons. Not by hiring someone and walking away and saying, you figure it out, and not by checking in six months later and being surprised that the numbers aren't where they supposed to be, but by being a genuine partner in this person's development. And it's worth it because if they succeed, if together you work on actions that allow them to be more successful, get the numbers, reach the goals, then everybody wins. I cannot stress this enough. You are a part of this process. It's your clinic, it's your growth. Don't outsource your accountability for revenue to another person, and then wonder why it isn't growing the way that you want to. If after several months of real investment, real goal setting, real coaching, real collaboration, then this person still isn't moving the needle, that's a different conversation. I'm not saying keep somebody forever, but you have to actually take the time, put in the work, help them develop, and see if you can fairly evaluate whether this person is the issue. Okay, let's bring this all home. Because I know that was a lot. And I may have gotten a little fired up on my soapbox during some of this podcast. And if I did, I make zero apologies because this is a topic that not only do I really care about, but it can make such a difference in the predictable profit growth of your clinic. So here are the four things I want you to walk away with today. Number one, have somebody on your team whose only job is sales, lead follow-up, pre-consultation communication, financial conversations, patient agreements, ongoing patient retention. This is one full-time role. It's not a side task you add to someone else's plate. Two, hire for the right skill set, not for proximity. You want someone with a background in relationship-based sales, pharmaceutical sales, timeshare sales, entrepreneurship, something like that. Or at a minimum, someone with proven natural curiosity, strong communication skills, and a genuine drive to hit numbers. Medical background is not required. Number three, make this their only job. Don't split this role with front desk duties, clinical tasks, or administrative work. You will not get what this role can give you if this person is constantly being pulled in other directions. A dedicated patient liaison in a dedicated private space, focused on one thing, is a completely different animal than someone trying to do two or three jobs at once. And four, you be a part of the process. Give your patient liaison specific and measurable goals. Meet with them monthly, review the numbers together, help them problem solve, nurture this person, invest in their growth. Because when this role is working, when you've got the right person fully focused on sales with your support behind them, it is genuinely one of the most powerful levers you will ever pull in your practice. And with that, we have officially completed the Power Framework series. We've gone over positioning, operations, workforce, experience, and now revenue. Five pillars, five episodes. And if you've been with me for all of them, thank you. Genuinely. I mean, it really does mean the world to me that you're investing this time in your business. And I hope that something in this series has sparked an idea, challenged an assumption, or given you a clear next step. And if you missed any of the episodes, by all means go back. Go listen to any of these pillar episodes so that you can get the entire framework. And as always, if you heard something today that made you think of another provider or a colleague or a friend, someone who's just starting out, or someone that's just reached a ceiling with their practice, do me a favor, share this episode with them. It helps out more than you know. And if you've got questions, you know where to find me. Email me direct, Jody, J-O-D-Y, at accelerated medical practices.com. Thank you so much for being here. We have our next Fiverr coming up on Thursday and a ton of incredible interviews that I have been doing as we've been doing this power series. So we're gonna do several weeks in a row of just interviews on Monday because there's a tremendous amount of knowledge out there, and I've captured quite a bit of it, and I can't wait to share it with you. Thanks for being here with me. Thank you for listening to Beyond Hormones, the business of wellness. I hope that you're walking away with fresh ideas and real strategies you can use to grow your practice with profit and purpose. If you enjoyed today's episode, be sure to follow the show so you never miss a conversation. And if something you heard today resonated with you, do me a favor, share this episode with a friend or a colleague. It's one of the best ways you can support the show, and it might be exactly what they need to hear right now. If you want even more tools and support, go ahead and head over to accelerated medical practices.com. Until next time, keep doing the work that matters. Your patients need you, and I am cheering you along every step of the way.