There's no mystery to starting families in practice. Building a family practice starts with learning to love being around families!

I say learning to be around families because many chiropractors desire to serve families, but are apprehensive when it comes to having families in their office. We tend to get stuck on the distractions that can occur like kids running all over the place. Questions involve how to perform a family exam, and where do families go when you're adjusting, just to name two. That's why most chiropractors never get out of the blocks when it comes to serving lots of families.

You've probably heard this a thousand times, but it's true. You must create a vision for your practice that centers around serving families. You don't have to attend a pediatric seminar to find what's already in your heart. Taking care of children is the absolute easiest form of chiropractic practice. You just have to remember how to think like a kid.

The first step is to get together with your team for one full day with the purpose of revealing the new vision of your practice. Engage them early and often, interacting in the discussion and have two or three flip charts on easels to construct pictures, concepts and flow diagrams. By the end of this one day summit with your team, you should have all agreed upon the launching of a brand new paradigm of practice and committed to a multistep, long term plan of implementation. You should also agree upon the first couple of steps in the plan that could happen right away.

For instance, your team must evolve from trying to promote to family members as an angle to increase your new patient numbers to a practice philosophy that makes having every family member checked simply "a way of life" in your practice.

Another example would be the transformation of your team's communication with your patients. Rather than saying "we have a patient who...," you could say "we have a family that..." -- thereby continuously instilling the principles and beliefs of your new practice paradigm in the minds of your patients.

You have to learn how and why to get families to refer other families. But first you need to attract the families who will refer lots of families!

This starts the moment you decide that there is no such thing as sports injury patients, auto accident patients, work injury patients, insurance-based patients or cash-based patients. All of these patient scenarios fall into one single category: families.

In the life of a family, all these things and a lot more will happen, so you must practice from a paradigm that can serve their needs. This means an auto accident case can become a family of patients or a sports injury can become a family of patients. When your team believes in this new paradigm, promoting family members into your practice becomes as simple as answering the phone.

The second step to building lots more families into your practice is to recognize them more in front of your patients.

"Family of the month" is a great start! Have testimonials distributed to your patients that were written by a family of patients under care. Make sure when teaching your workshops to acknowledge a family who has started, and praise them in front of the rest of your patients.

You must convince the adults in your practice (especially those who are parents) the adulthood problems can be largely prevented by eliminating the cause of the problem during childhood. Nerve interference is at the center of every known disease known and subluxation is directly or indirectly involved with every case of nerve interference. If you're ever to build a large family practice, your patients must learn the truth about chiropractic. So praise the families publicly (in front of other patients) and watch what happens.

The third step is to understand the proper flow process during prime time when multiple families are scheduled for adjustments. Use just one clipboard for the entire family. Only allow adults to sit in your hot seats (inter office lobby), the kids should be in the kids corner play area until it's their turn to get adjusted. The whole family gets adjusted on one table and they stand around the table witnessing each other's adjustments.

Always adjust in the order they appear on the clipboard. Teach your families to efficiently get on and off the table so that you can provide them your absolute best care and be able to move on to the next family without keeping anyone waiting. Your team's ability to create and maintain this flow pattern is crucial to the success of your family practice.

The fourth step is to know how to price your family care so that it is both affordable and profitable. There is no exception to the rule. This requires an in-depth look at your current overhead, case retention and pricing schedule. Team WLP uses a unique scale-down approach that is still valued based upon retail fees, but is priced affordably for your families of patients. You should know what to charge a family before you ever meet them!

Now you're ready to serve families, lots of them. Of course, nothing great could ever be this easy and it isn't. That's why I recommend you get help from a professional who can guide you through this transition and make serving families "second nature" in your practice.

(Dr. C.J. Mertz is founder and head coach of the prestigious Waiting List Practice chiropractic training organization. If you would like more information on all of WLP's family building strategies, and its many services and products, call Mark at 877/TEAM-WLP.)