TL;DR
Review a psychiatry agency case study by matching the service, payment arrangement, professional roles, acquisition event and available capacity to your own purchase. Separate therapy demand, psychiatry evaluations and established-care encounters before considering any performance headline. A useful work sample can survive a poor outcome comparison; an impressive total cannot repair an undefined patient mix.
Ask what kind of practice produced the example
A mental-health case study may combine services delivered by therapists, psychiatrists and other prescribers. It may blend in-network and out-of-network arrangements, outside transfers and new evaluations, or current-patient follow-ups and new relationships. Ask which of those actually appear in the example before treating its results as relevant to your practice.
GetPatients has a commercial interest in healthcare visibility services. Apply this review to its examples as well. It does not rank agencies or claim that an example establishes typical performance.
For U.S. advertising, FTC guidance says satisfied-customer statements usually cannot substantiate claims requiring objective evaluation. FTC advertising FAQs. A testimonial may help explain a person's reported experience; ask for evidence supporting the exact performance claim the seller wants you to rely on.
Complete a service, payment and capacity comparability sheet
Send the same blank sheet to each candidate. Request a suitably limited explanation and authorized evidence, not patient screenshots or clinical records. Mark unknown information explicitly.
| Comparison field | Evidence requested | Decision affected |
|---|---|---|
| Service mix | Therapy, psychiatric evaluation, ongoing prescriber care and any other service counted | Whether the example measures the service you intend to buy acquisition for |
| Professional roles | Who delivered the promoted appointments and how assignment worked | Whether your team can support the same truthful offer |
| Payment arrangement | Actual network or self-pay scope and what inquiries were told | Whether the administrative buying conditions are meaningfully comparable |
| Acquisition unit | Defined new relationship, evaluation request, scheduled appointment or encounter | Whether repeat care inflates the headline |
| Transfer treatment | Outside transfer, internal prescriber change and returning relationship definitions | Whether the people counted were new to the practice or only a service |
| Capacity at launch | Available evaluation access, receiving staff and continuing-care constraints | Whether the vendor's method depended on resources you cannot supply |
| Observation group | Entry event, period, cutoff and duplicate rule | Whether outcomes belong to a defined compatible cohort |
| Cost and scope | Media, agency work, appointment support, software and practice handling | Whether the quoted purchase reproduces the demonstrated work |
| Verification limits | What is actual, selected, estimated or unavailable | Which conclusions remain unsupported |
These fields are an original procurement tool. They do not establish that matching every field would reproduce another practice's outcome.
Refuse a blended denominator before discussing a rate
If the headline says new patients, ask whether it counts attended evaluations by people new to the practice. A therapy client beginning prescriber services may be new to that service while already known to the organization. An established patient changing prescribers is different from an outside transfer. A follow-up encounter is different from acquiring another person.
Ask the seller to separate those units using its actual records and approved definitions. If it cannot, retain the example only for a narrower supported point. Do not invent a psychiatry-only acquisition rate by allocating part of a blended total according to an assumed share.
The measurement dictionary explains general event boundaries. This sheet adds the psychiatric-service and professional-role distinctions needed before a mental-health result can inform a psychiatry acquisition purchase.
Compare payment conditions without copying the other offer
An example with a different payment arrangement may still demonstrate useful website work. It does not automatically establish demand for your practice's actual terms. Ask what the page disclosed, how payment questions were handled and whether the reported inquiry category excluded misunderstandings about coverage.
Do not assume that willingness to inquire means acceptance of an out-of-network evaluation fee or a particular reimbursement outcome. Have your practice's commercial and billing owners verify its own explanation. Any comparison of economics needs actual appropriate inputs, including delivery costs and uncertainty about collections.
If the case study relies on ongoing visit revenue, ask which relationship cohort and observation period support it. Do not import another practice's care duration or payment pattern into your acquisition forecast. Marketing should not set a target for continued psychiatric treatment to justify the purchase.
Inspect the transferable work separately
Request the public offer, page decisions, role descriptions, receiving process and reporting method. A candidate may demonstrate clear evaluation wording even when its financial result is not comparable. Another may show a large total while leaving the new-versus-established definition unresolved.
Use the agency selection questions to evaluate how the provider reasons through your actual problem. Ask it to state what your practice would need to supply: factual review, intake coverage, website access or usable evaluation capacity. Make those requirements part of the quoted scope.
The source-check guide helps assess the exact proposition behind a claim. A client logo, video or polished chart is not a substitute for a defined event and relevant method.
Make a limited purchasing conclusion
Write: transferable work demonstrated ___; material service or payment difference ___; capacity dependency ___; missing evidence ___; claim we can reasonably use ___; next purchase decision ___. Keep the conclusion no broader than the evidence.
When historical results cannot answer your local acquisition question, ask for a bounded diagnostic or appropriately scoped test using real terms. Do not replace missing comparability with a guaranteed outcome, or disqualify sound reasoning merely because the agency cannot share confidential client records.
Frequently asked questions
Does an agency need a case study from our exact practice model?
Relevant evidence helps, but inspect what it establishes. A different model may demonstrate useful technical or editorial work while offering little support for expected acquisition economics.
Can we compare cost per patient when a study includes therapy and psychiatry?
Only when the included costs, relationship events and compatible service cohorts are defined. A blended total cannot be normalized using an invented allocation.
What if the vendor says its numbers are confidential?
Respect legitimate limits. Request a reporting demonstration, public work sample or appropriately limited explanation. Keep unverifiable performance claims outside the purchase justification.