Patients come into your office for various reasons, but the most important aspect is not just having them come in. What's most important is that they have a great experience and want you to be their doctor of choice.

This happens through three types of "influence points" that make up your office. They will actually create patients who'll want to follow through with your recommended care.

Your staff. These are the people in your office who control the first point of contact with your patients. Members of your staff are the extension of you and your judgment towards the importance of service for your patients and making sure they are well taken care of.

The look and feel of the clinic from a patient's perspective. Patients have a tendency to look at the clinic from the outside in while doctors and staff members look from the inside out.

You (the doctor) and the all-encompassing services, comments, decisions, and results you create for your patients' care. This is the most important one. There are many influence points that can cause a negative response for patients. Often the simplest ones can be the most noticeable. Someone once said that it isn't the suit the person sees but rather the small stain on the lapel.

Here are the principles for making influence points effective in your office:

*** Make your patients participants in their health care. Get them interested in what you provide for them. If they become disinterested in what you provide, they will discontinue with their care and your services.

*** Be prepared to dispel patient preconceptions. Patients who haven't been to a chiropractor before have a pre-conceived idea based upon prior opinion from non-chiropractic sources. Other professions have made statements about our profession and left pre-chiropractic patients with misconceptions about what we represent as doctors and providers of health.

When new patients come to us, we have to be prepared to dispel any preconception. We need to give the kind of solutions and service that provides them with the knowledge and ammunition to educate others who've been undermined as well.

*** Be on the cutting edge of technology. In order to further lend credibility to what we do as chiropractors, we must modernize our clinics and continue to upgrade our equipment and instrumentation to monitor results and patient progress in care. Research will create the future and prove the components of the subluxation and break down the barriers of preconceived thought.

*** Make sure your staff is involved. Your staff is the key to any relationship that begins or ends with your patients. Their special services, professionalism, actions and follow-through on any patient questions serve as important influence points.

*** List all of your current positive influence points. There are all kinds of reasons that patients continue or discontinue care in an office. Accentuate the positive points and rectify the ones that may be hampering your ability to grow to the next level in your practice.

*** Take a close look inside your office. Sometimes it's in a doctor's best interest to have an outsider look in. Creating a patient focus group or having an unbiased candid eye look into your office would be a very effective way to find negative influence points. A key influence point is the image portrayed by the outside of your office. It will make an important statement about you as a doctor.

*** Give your patients more than they expect. Give not only exceptional care, but give them way more than they expect. Whenever you've had a great experience, it's been because you felt you got more out of it than you had anticipated. Give as much to your patients as possible within the laws of fair exchange. Their incentive to refer others for your services will drastically increase.

*** Mean what you say. Being a great doctor is extremely valuable as an influence point in your practice. But patients have become more sophisticated and they pay more attention to the details of what you tell them and your follow-through is a considerable influence (i.e., re-evaluation, progress in care, exercise programs, etc.).

*** Hit home runs. It has been said in the past that base hits are instrumental in building your practice -- or winning a baseball game. Yet, who remembers base hitters? Every year great honor is bestowed on the person who hits the most home runs. It's true that base hits are important, but when you find something that's working well and gets a high rate of return, it's important to stay with that formula.

*** Maintain focus in building your practice. With all the other components to maintaining a practice, it would seem logical to remain focused on building and growing the practice. Doctors become complacent and find that during a busy day in the office, it's easy to be thrown off course and end up going in many directions. One of the prime points to remember is that there are many people who need our services and it is up to us as doctors to remain focused and interested IN our patients -- not interesting to them.

In conclusion, everything that revolves internally and externally in and out of your office has a point of influence, creating an impression on your current patients and the ones waiting to be influenced. Anything you do can be a part of a long-lasting impression and image for your practice, your colleagues, and chiropractic.

So, if you're just starting out as a brand new doctor, understand that everything you do reflects on our profession and directly effects your future in it. We must hold ourselves out with high honor and esteem for what we do for our patients.

The WCA's Council on Chiropractic Mentoring would like our young practitioners to become more involved by joining forces and participating in helping to develop a strong, unified front for the future of this great profession.