subject: ChiroMyth #3 New Patients Are Where It's At [print this page] The majority of DC's have swallowed this myth, hook line and sinker. Regardless of the school you graduated from, technique, location, or insurance coverageyou are pushing your patients out the door by believing in this outdated and inefficient concept. By not having a PES in place, you will place yourself on the new patient treadmill for the rest of your life. This will be one of the most controversial concepts in Chiropractic today. Why? Because old beliefs are difficult to give up. Having a traditional leaky bucket practice in which your chiropractic patients move on before they understand what chiropractic business is all about, means that you must constantly add new patients to replace the departing ones. What a waste of resources! You expend all your energy on replenishing your practice with a stream of new patients instead of keeping the ones you already have. What kind of a strategy is that? Imagine a dentist trying to get rid of you in a few forced visits by saying, "Come back when your teeth hurt." You can't even picture that scenario. Being a leaky bucket DC tells your community that you are a copycat, a face in the crowd. You blend in with all other DC's instead of standing out. You have no unique value to offer your patients or the marketplace.
Recently, I saw a great commercial for a small bank. It depicts a child and an adult at an ice cream stand. The kid says to the man in a suit "I would like a nice double dip chocolate ice cream." The man tells him that the ice cream is only for new customers. The kid insists, "I'm a new customer" and the man replies, "Not new enough." Along comes another kid who is brand new and immediately gets an ice cream cone. Then the narrator says, "Even kids know that it's not right to only treat your new customers well." The commercial was very graphic and powerful. In any profession, retention is the solution to the new economic challenges and new patient (client) acquisition.
It's a win/win for everyone. There are no sales tactics used here, only the willingness to help. Money, time, insurance coverage, stalling tactics all disappear for good. One more advantage of long-term relationships over short-term, adversarial relationships.
You must understand that it's not your technical skills that are holding you backit's your RELATIONSHIP BUILDING SKILLS AND PATIENT EDUCATION. Who knew?
In The New Economy, practices that have managed to make lots of money in the past, requiring a monster- sized new patient acquisition machine, are in for a severe reversal of fortune. The fuel consumed by such machines is becoming ever more expensive and less efficient. If you stubbornly refuse to alter your strategy to fit the current environment, you will make yourself extinct. More of what doesn't work won't help here. The end result will only be frustration, lack of profit and loss of love for your chosen profession and your life. In the past you could afford to be sloppy, have no system in place and you might still get away with it and earn a good income. Those days are gone. Only a DC who can adapt to changing conditions will prosper in this dark economy'.
