TL;DR
Price the work from form receipt through the agreed evaluation-scheduling handoff, then separate it from ongoing clinical and program administration. Ask who handles medication questions, payment explanations, unconverted inquiries and existing patients. Compare quotes using actual charges and practice workload, without assuming recurring revenue makes acquisition affordable.
Put the handoff beside the lead price
A quote for leads may stop when a form arrives. Your clinic may still need to clarify the evaluation offer, answer administrative questions, confirm the service location and route clinical questions. Ask bidders to price the actual handoff instead of comparing unexplained cost-per-lead figures.
Write the service being promoted and the administrative next step at the top of the brief. State which tasks must remain with qualified clinic personnel and which may be assigned to an outside operator after the practice's privacy, legal and operational review. Do not assume an outsourced responder replaces a clinician or billing specialist.
GetPatients has a commercial interest in healthcare visibility services. Apply the same purchasing questions to its proposals. This worksheet establishes no agency package, prevailing price or performance benchmark.
Draw a boundary between acquisition and continuing care
For each task, mark acquisition administration, established-patient administration, clinical work or unresolved. Use your practice's actual arrangements; the categories below are proposed purchasing distinctions.
| Work item | Question for the quote | Acceptance evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Explain the initial evaluation | Who maintains the approved scope and payment script? | Script matches the current offer without implying treatment access |
| Respond to an unconverted inquiry | Who makes permitted administrative contact, and when does responsibility return to staff? | Defined purpose, approved communication process and named owner |
| Handle a medication question | What may the responder say, and who receives the clinical question? | Approved boundary and accountable qualified handoff |
| Confirm location or modality | Who checks the service-area rule supplied by the practice? | Destination and responder use the same verified boundary |
| Explain program terms | Who supplies current inclusions, exclusions and recurring-charge wording? | Commercial owner verifies the explanation and change process |
| Receive an existing patient's question | How is it redirected to the established care channel? | Care requests leave the acquisition queue without being treated as fresh leads |
| Maintain ongoing program administration | Is this separately purchased or practice-owned? | Named scope, workload owner and actual charges |
Beside each item, record bidder ___; included work ___; extra charge ___; clinic time ___; evidence owner ___; handoff accepted ___. Mark exclusions and unanswered questions explicitly. A bundled fee can be evaluated without inventing an internal price for every component.
Use actual inputs in a cost bridge
Choose a common comparison period from the proposals. Enter agency fees ___; media ___; required software ___; outside response work ___; implementation ___; other actual charges ___. Record what is bundled so each charge enters the cash total only once.
Then record practice acquisition work separately: task ___; responsible role ___; measured or approved estimated hours ___; costing method ___; additional cash or displaced work ___. Keep clinical care costs and ongoing program administration in their own records. They belong in business planning but should not be silently assigned to acquiring new relationships.
For a shared responder or software subscription, have finance document the acquisition share using a supported allocation method. Keep the continuing-care and program-administration share visible separately. Do not assign the whole shared charge to acquisition merely because the agency's lead report is the easiest place to put it.
A useful bookkeeping identity is total acquisition resource cost = acquisition cash outlay + acquisition staff-resource cost not already included in cash outlay. Define the costing method and comparison period before using it. Unknown inputs remain unknown rather than becoming free labor.
If you calculate cost per verified first attended evaluation, use the relevant acquisition cost and the matching defined cohort. State attribution and data limitations. If the qualifying evaluation count is empty or cannot be verified, report the unit cost as unavailable. The arithmetic describes observed accounting under your definition; it does not forecast ROI, justify a treatment decision or prove that a recurring program will retain a person.
Price exceptions rather than ideal calls alone
Ask the bidder to walk through an inquiry that expects a particular prescription, an inquiry outside the verified service area, a payment question and an existing-patient care message. Use no real person's information. Each walkthrough should end with a named owner, an allowed response and a priced responsibility.
For U.S. covered entities, HHS generally requires authorization for protected-health-information marketing uses or disclosures, with exceptions and distinctions for specified healthcare communications. Have the practice classify the proposed follow-up, recipient and data use before buying the workflow. HHS marketing guidance.
The source does not establish that any particular clinic is a covered entity or that a message is permissible. It is a reason to fund and define the actual communication review, not to assume every reminder, care message and acquisition campaign follows the same rule.
Ask what the recurring fee keeps doing
Request the tasks that continue when advertising pauses or the clinic cannot accept more evaluations. Are approved assets maintained? Are unresolved inquiries returned to a clinic owner? Does required software continue billing? Get the actual agreement rather than inferring answers from the fee's name.
Google's SEO hiring guidance recommends discussing expected results, measurement and communication about changes. Use those questions when a quote includes organic visibility alongside paid acquisition. Google's hiring guidance. Keep the general scope budget for access and implementation dependencies; this cost bridge prices the hormone inquiry and ongoing-program boundary.
Frequently asked questions
Is a higher lead price automatically worse?
No. First establish what the lead means, which handling tasks are included and which costs remain with the practice. Compare the same completed scope using actual terms.
Should renewal payments offset the acquisition bill?
Keep collected revenue, continuing-care obligations and acquisition costs visible in the practice's own financial analysis. Do not assume future renewals or use recurring billing as proof that acquiring a relationship is profitable.
Which questions must we resolve before signing?
Aim to resolve required handoff ownership, total charges, access, review responsibilities and exit terms. If a material responsibility remains unknown, narrow the purchase or obtain the missing written answer before relying on it.