How’s your Patient Retention?
Picture this; you start noticing a strange phenomenon going on in your office. You can’t explain it, but people seem to be disappearing. Every time you think of a particular patient, you look through your chiropractic software for their name, and realize they are no longer in your practice. Another face pops up in your mind, and they are gone too! What is going on? These patients were not “one-timers”. They have been in your office many times. They told you they were ready to regain their health. You thought these people understood the principles of chiropractic. So, what happened?
You have been hard at work ever since you started your practice—,putting in long hours, networking, marketing, getting new patients in the door, then educating and orientating those new patients while trying to cultivate a community of practice members that will be with you to the end! And yet, here you sit, in front of your computer, looking at your office stats for the month and saying, “Where the HELL have all my patients gone?!”…
Does this scenario sound familiar to you?
You may find yourself thinking that maybe it’s just the “name-of-the-game” in chiropractic. Maybe you should just accept the fact that people come and go while you have to work your butt off for the rest of your life to fill the vacancy of every patient who mysteriously disappears; is that it?
I’m here to tell you (thank goodness), “That’s not the case! You don’t have to be the Bermuda Triangle of chiropractic anymore.”
Something happened to all of those patients, yes. They slipped through the cracks in your office. That’s what happened— some offices have “cracks” and others have huge, gaping holes! Either way, as the captain of your ship you are responsible for finding and fixing those leaks. Leaks in your office could be anything that causes (or encourages) a patient to leave before they should. A “leak” could be caused by one, or more, of four things: poor education, poor service, poor procedures, or poor organization in your office.
Now, I’m going to show you FOUR TIPS TO STOP LEAKS IN YOUR OFFICE NOW. By following this advice, you will be able to help more people, grow your practice to the next level, and sleep easier knowing your patients will still be there when you go to work the next day.
1) Educate: Education is key. Most chiropractors educate their patients in some way, shape, or form, but are you really providing the patient with a valuable education in health that will change their life forever? Are you really teaching them the chiropractic story with passion? After all, there are hundreds of thousands of self-proclaimed “health gurus” bombarding your patients with info every single day, but simply “providing info” is not educating! Start passionately educating your patients about the body’s healing power, adding value by instructing them how they can maximize that power!
2) Great Service: Do you train your staff to give great service to each and every person who walks in your door? Does your staff greet the patient with a smile every time they come in? They should. Great service should start with the first phone call and continue throughout the patient’s interaction with your office. Make sure you and your staff are trained and conscious about giving exceptional friendly service.
Now let me ask you another question related to service: How long do your patients have to wait when in your office? If your patients are spending hours in your office, that is bad service. Even if they love the care they are receiving from you, people just don’t have time to spend hours in a doctor’s office anymore. Get your procedures down and start creating a smoother, more efficient visit for your patients. This single tip could blow your retention through the roof!
3) Get Your Procedures Down: Allow me to give you a sports analogy— Do you think there has ever been a world champion team that couldn’t run a proper play? No way. That’s one of the first things coaches go over in the beginning of a season. If you can’t run a play, and I mean run it with perfection over and over again, then the synergy will be off. If this is the case with your office, be aware that patients take notice. You must have your procedures down and train each your staff members to know their position in your office. If you do not do so already, set up a weekly staff training session where you practice running through office procedures. You may even be surprised by how many questions your staff members have about their specific roles and responsibilities.
4) Get Organized! This may just be the single biggest reason behind your poor patient retention. Your patients are walking out of your practice, and you don’t even know it! This happens to so many chiropractic offices it’s not even funny. A patient who has been coming in for years suddenly stops coming in, and by the time you realize you have not adjusted Mary in a while and check the schedule, she has been gone for two months. Now, what do you do? Do you call and check on her? Oh yeah, that will look great, “Hi Mary I noticed you missed your appointment.” Mary replies, “Yeah, two months ago Doc. You’re just now calling me?”
Don’t do that to your patients and don’t do that to your practice. The fact is that Mary didn’t just quit your practice two months ago. She started showing signs of leaving way before that. Maybe she started asking you questions about how her spine was doing, and whether she was “fixed” yet. Perhaps she’d already missed an appointment or two. Maybe she didn’t show up to the workshop she told you she would attend. All of those things are just some of the signs of a patient who is getting ready to leave. If you see these signs, you have to stop and remind them why they started coming to see you, restate the value of their care, and reeducate them on the reasons they get adjusted! You failed Mary; she didn’t fail you.
This is why Genesis Chiropractic Software is such a powerful tool to have in your office. This software is amazing at helping you organize your office and get your patient retention up through the roof! It is designed to detect signs of “distracted” patients, who, if you do not re-educate, will soon drop out of care. The software will send you or your staff a notification (in the form of a “ticket”), giving you the opportunity stop that leak before you lose any water.
The fact is you do not have enough time in your day to patch all the leaks. You need a software program like Genesis that actually organizes your practice so you will be free to give your patients the attention and care they deserve. Schedule a consultation and let one of our trained technicians show you the power of Genesis today.
