Walk: Don't Crawl or Sprint

by Dwight DeGeorge, MS, DC

 

            There is a certain pace necessary for practice to thrive. The pace is set by the efficiency level of office procedure coupled with both the doctor’s ability to communicate with patients and their ability to retain or quickly re-obtain important information about the patient.

            Of course, with no new patients coming in, a practice will not grow. Sometimes, doctors want their practices to grow so badly, they grow too fast and fail to maintain any kind of increase in size. Many young doctors ask me about how much work is too much work in achieving new patients. How many new patients can be handled without sacrificing quality of care and the ability to achieve a phenomenal experience in the chiropractic office? Though it is different for each of us, some important factors exist in the balance of incoming new patients and returning patients to the office.

            In the years I’ve been in clinical practice, there are a handful of things I consistently educate the patients about. One of these is that they must approach their corrective care like it is a marathon and be careful not to treat it as a sprint. In speaking with many young doctors, I notice they too, educate their patients about this concept of pacing work for long term results, instead of temporary patch-care. Unfortunately, as a group, we have not always been able to take our own advice when it comes to growing our practices.

            When we start in practice, we all want an abundance of new patients and want the best opportunity we can have for taking care of as many people as we imagine is practical. I have seen many doctors grow in practice only to slow down to the same baseline place where they started. Others grow for a period and then are shocked when the world changes and the growth slows or stops. Maybe a newspaper ad for one doctor worked very well; possibly well enough to fill the office with new patients for months or years. Nevertheless, the ad one day stops working as well as it once did.

            Other doctors seem to do almost no marketing at all. Their practices also seem to grow to a thriving place but some still ride the rollercoaster of fluctuating practice volume.

            As a doctor, when I meet someone for the first time, I need a few minutes afterward or that evening to digest who the person is. It is important for me to understand their personality, their values and their health and life concerns. During times when our office has been inundated with new patients, either by marketing outside the office or by patient referral, I notice the long-term likelihood that these new patients will remain as lifelong chiropractic patients is less than it is when we have a more predictable, or steady and deliberate influx of people.

            Anyone who knows me personally also knows I love to eat. I don’t want to work too hard for the food I enjoy and also do not want to starve or eat empty calories either. I want quality and also quantity. I know one young doctor who has a very good chiropractic practice. He has patient referrals, people are getting help and are very positive about the experiences they have in the office. He has found a great staff-person who loves marketing and is skilled at communicating chiropractic and encouraging the people she meets, both at office marketing events as well as during her day and in the office. Between these two, there are screenings, ads, office promotional days, patient appreciation coupons and other opportunity to become a new patient in the office.

            On speaking with this young doctor, I notice that it seems the overall volume of his practice has not changed much since all the new people have been coming in. With the understanding that this doctor is a skilled communicator I can only surmise that he is working very, very hard to achieve new people who may be more inclined to be short-lived patients. It is likely that many more of the people leaving his practice have the potential to be great chiropractic patients. Everything seems right. The supply contains quality and substance. The problem is that the doctor is less likely to provide the focus on new learning and at the same time maintain his focus and keep up with the issues of existing patients.

            This lack of balance creates a situation where the doctor works much harder than he would need to if he were to have fewer new patients. In this case, the doctor would replace volume of new patients with higher quality time spent learning to nurture the existing ones and new ones in a more focused and higher quality fashion instead of jumping the hoops of constantly having to track an erratic influx of patients from so many marketing venues.

            What about the doctor who continues to grow in volume because of a great ad or because they have a way to bring people into a practice at an outstanding rate. Shouldn’t the fact that the practice continues to grow allay any fears the doctor has of maintaining his volume and retention? The truth is that any single great external source of new patients generally is short lived and lasts less than several years. After some people have been through the office as new patients, internal marketing, such as having a, “Discover Chiropractic Day,” is a much higher quality process than anything external. In the face of blazing success and incoming new and renewed patients, the doctor’s ability to focus and communicate with the patients in the office remains the most important thing.

            How should one doctor insure they don’t treat their new patients with a, ‘Sprint’ mindset? The trick is in being realistic about how many new people the office can handle without the doctor losing focus of the necessary and important information to relate and communicate with the patients. If the doctor becomes unaware of what is happening with a particular patient, that patient is left open to feel neglected, will potentially have less of a positive experience in the office and may choose to leave care when they otherwise would not have.

            The doctor needs to know how to spread their attention and their office statistics should show the kind of progress they are making along the way. Doctors who learn to walk in practice without crawling may find themselves as successful as those running a sprint. I do like to walk when I go places these days. I find it is a much more effective way of keeping my practice and my life at the top of satisfying quality and the depth of personal and professional freedom.

            The trick is to water the patient crops without causing flood or drought. The trick is to steadily grow a practice based as much as possible on patient referral using doctor communication skills for internal marketing without excessive spending and personal energy. During our Promote Chiropractic, Inc., “Timeless Doctor” seminar we discuss how communication may be used in the office to maximize patient retention and referral.