Issue 3 - March 2005

Reactivation works — if you work it right!
By Michael R. Wiles, DC

Handling a large patient population means knowing when and how to contact people who have apparently “dropped out,” as well as contacting patients who have not been seen for a long time.

A news report in Chiropractic Economics (Vol. 50, Issue 9) on the use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) stated that about 15 million people in the United States sought help from chiropractors during the prior 12 months, yet 40 million people reported having had chiropractic care sometime in their life.

This would suggest that 25 million chiropractic patients are currently inactive. Assuming about 60,000 chiropractors currently in practice, this translates into more than 400 inactive patients per chiropractor. Reactivating only a fraction of this number could represent a significant increase in practice volume for thousands of chiropractors.

Almost all chiropractors have a long list of patients who should be reactivated, yet few actually develop a formal reactivation procedure.

Chiropractic consultants suggest that mailing a reactivation letter yields a 2 percent to 3 percent positive response. A follow-up phone call yields about 7 percent to 8 percent response.

My own research, based on 570 phone calls to patients who had not visited the office in 3-18 months, suggests a much higher yield. Also, my data shows why patients do not book reactivation appointments.

First try: a letter

We began the reactivation process with a simple letter. This contact alone yielded very few appointments. Our letter read:

Dear Patient:

According to our records it has been ___ months since your last visit to our clinic.

Our purpose is to assist as many people as possible to achieve optimum health. We are committed to our purpose and want you to know that we are vitally interested in your health status.

At this time, we recommend that you visit our office for a periodic checkup. This includes a review of your general health, your personal health goals and a review of your posture and spinal alignment and a corrective spinal adjustment, if necessary.

Please call 555-1234 to schedule your visit.

Sincerely,

Within about two to three weeks of sending this letter, I had my staff call the non-responders. They used this script:

CA: This is (name) calling from __(name of clinic). The reason I am calling is to see if you received the letter we sent you recently.

Patient: Yes I did, or, No I did not.

CA: Well, let me explain. Dr. Wiles has set aside some time over the next few weeks to help his former patients make sure they are as healthy as possible. He asked me to call you to set up an appointment since it has been so long since we last saw you. Can I set up an appointment

Patient: Yes (appointment made), or, No.

CA: (If patient says “no”) Fine. Would you mind me asking if there is any reason why you wouldn’t make an appointment at this time?

Patient: (gives reason)

CA: Thank you for telling me and I’d like to invite you to let us know if we can be of any help in the future. Good bye.

INTERESTING RESULTS

The results of their phone calls reveal some very interesting findings.

• 47.2 percent appointment rate. My staff made made 570 telephone calls, which resulted in 269 appointments.

• Assertiveness helps. All of the CAs achieved similar appoint-ment averages; however, when I looked at who was most effective, it was apparent that the CA who had the most assertive personality on the telephone was most effective.

• Good news, bad news. We tallied the reasons why patients didn’t want to make an appoint-ment: 11.1 percent of patients stated that they “felt fine” and that, in their opinion, no appointment was necessary at this time.

This was “good news and bad news.” The good news was that they did feel fine and had a good impression of our office. The bad news was that they needed education about chiropractic and preventive care.

• Almost 25 percent gave a brush off. Almost 25 percent of the patients were “busy” and stated that they would call us when they felt they could get in for a check-up. We recognized this reason as a brush-off but also recognized that these patients were friendly and had a good impression of me and our office.

• Few had money issues. Only 4.7 percent (27 patients out of 570) stated that money was an issue in continuing care!

• No benefit. Only 1.2 percent did not make an appointment because they felt chiropractic hadn’t helped them or hadn’t helped them enough. No patients stated that they were worse from treatment.

• Other reasons. Other reasons given for not making an appoint-ment: 0.9 percent had been advised by another practitioner or a family member not to continue with chiro-practic services, 2.8 percent were seeing another chiropractor (or another type of provider) for a variety of reasons, the most common of which was proximity to workplace or their home.

Approximately 8 percent gave a variety of reasons, such as “patient had died” or “moved.”

The research confirms what you already suspect: You have nothing to lose and everything to gain from implementing a well-planned reactivation program.

Consider your own reactivation research project and learn from the reasons given by patients for not making appointments. Then use this information to modify or improve your office procedures accordingly. Remember, there are 25 million people out there waiting to come back to chiropractic.

Michael R. Wiles, BS, MEd, DC, FCCS(C), a private practitioner as well as an associate professor with the Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College, is the author of How to Create a Professional Strategic Plan for Your Chiropractic Practice. He can be contacted through his Web site, www.thewellnessteacher.com.