Resource Centers:(News, information, and tools to support your practice)
January 2010
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Learning from your peers
Given the climate of healthcare today, practitioners of all types are working harder then ever to run a successful business.
Being a chiropractor comes with a unique set of challenges — advice comes from a lot of sources on how best to handle practice concerns. But are you listening to the right people?
You can learn a lot from your peers, but you need to be careful about who and what you are listening to.
Advice, while most of the time is well intentioned, may not always be good advice. Every day, people get told to do one thing or another from a well-meaning colleague or family member. However, one big question to ask yourself when deciding what to do with this advice would be, “is this person an expert on the subject?”
Expert advice
An expert would be someone proficient and trained in the subject at hand. As a chiropractor, you are an expert in treating musculoskeletal maladies. If you were to ask a roomful of chiropractors about how to treat a shoulder injury, you would receive great advice from just about everyone asked.
However, if you were to ask them the best way to get new patients, the advice given in return would range from serviceable to absurd.
Marketing and advertising is not something you are trained in during your professional schooling, yet it is something many have an opinion on. How many times have you heard, “I don’t do any advertising, my practice is all referral.”
To follow this advice would be near practice suicide especially for a new practitioner. While referrals are an important part of the growth of any office, the profession, now more than ever, must be visible in the public eye. Chiropractic must become a household name to more than the current 8 percent of the population that utilizes our services.
If 80 percent of the population saw a chiropractor, imagine what that would do to the health of our communities. Taking that a step further, imagine what 80 percent of the population would mean to the success of the profession. This will not be possible if the profession does not get over the “mom and pop” mentality that seems to permeate the chiropractic landscape.
Lesson learned
One good lesson to learn from some of your more unfortunate colleagues is to not count on the referral-only plan. You must have a marketing and advertising budget, calendar, and system in place to continually attract new patients no matter what the financial
Some of you may think you have this in place, but you probably don’t — at least not to the level you should. Marketing and advertising is much more than running an ad in the newspaper or putting your picture in the Yellow Pages. Screenings, lectures, medical and professional networking, internal referrals, advertising, social events, and social media are repeating strategies that need to occur every month in your office and community.
How many of you are intimidated by this list? Being intimidated is okay, but not acting could be costly. While this may seem daunting at first, you don’t have to do it alone and you don’t have to spend insane amounts of money.
Proper management
Proper management can help you navigate the marketing waters and help you to create your budgets, calendars, and systems. Not all management companies provide this turnkey of a service so do your due diligence. While researching who can help you create your marketing plan, also pay attention to what kind of service is being provided to your patients.
By service, it’s not what types of therapies and techniques are being provided, but more specifically what type of customer service is being provided. Whether you like it or not, the profession is based on customer service.
You have to create an experience for your clients from the point of contact all the way through to arriving back at home. Every employee and procedure must be set up to create the ultimate experience. This creates happy customers who refer people to go get the same experience and return themselves.
Gauge the crowd
Look around your community and visit your colleague’s offices. Go when you can see patients coming in and gauge the level of service being provided. If you were the patient, would that experience make you want to come back? Apply that to your own practice and ask the same question.
What could you change that would increase the “wow” factor in your office? Provide your patients with a level of service they are not used to at a doctor’s office. During summer months, you could provide cool towels for your patients as they come in; winter months have hot chocolate and assorted teas. These are just the tip of the iceberg in service.
It starts with your staff and you by providing that extra touch that will keep them coming back to you. Learn from your peers and take the lead in giving your patients and community the best chiropractic care possible along with the best service.
Get advice from professionals who have training in areas you don’t. Don’t let others mistakes become your own. Seek help from a quality management company that has systems in place to take your practice to the next level and make chiropractic a household name.
Alex Kallio, DC, is a 1999 graduate of Northwestern Health Sciences University, a member of Integrity Management since 2002, and is a senior consultant with the company. He can be reached at 800-843-9162.
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Comments
Location: Wisconsin
DSHEA and Codex here we come. The chiropractic profession needs to be at this table or they will remove our professional ability to inform patients of the benefit/risks of supplements.