January 2003
Building a care-focused practice
by Dr. Eric Plasker
Have you ever heard the saying, "Energy grows wherever
your attention goes?" Well, it's an important principle to understand
as you set forth in the task of creating positive outcomes for yourself on
both a personal and professional level in the new year.
For example, let's pretend that you were catching a cold. If
you focused on how bad you felt while you were at work, your symptoms
would probably escalate and your performance decline. However, if you were
able to keep focused on the health of your patients while you worked
(instead of your own), then pretty soon, you would have forgotten about
your own problems and the severity of your symptoms would probably
subside.
Let's take this concept a little further.
Many chiropractors tend to put their focus on getting new
patients just for the sake of being able to make additions to their staff
or they recommend procedures that they are not absolutely certain their
patients need in order to increase their profits. In fact D.C.s, who have
suffered from this self-centered approach to patient care, are paying the
price today with big time audits and orders from the government and
insurance companies to cough up reimbursement checks for procedures, that
in hindsight, they have decided to disallow as "unreasonable" or
"uncustomary."
It's this type of story that illustrates what can happen to a
practice when the attention of the chiropractor is not "patient
care‑focused." It also begs the question of why anyone would
want to invest their energy in policies and procedures that would cause
them to constantly have to look over their shoulder all the time and
invest even more energy down the road when they will almost certainly have
to enact some damage control. Wouldn't it be better if the primary focus
of your practice was care-focused to begin with?
Here are some valuable questions to ask as you formulate the
guidelines that will help support you in establishing a patient
care‑focused practice:
1. What does the person sitting in front of me really need
from me?
2. What could they benefit from in order to get the best
results from their chiropractic care?
3. How many adjustments do they need and what type of
wellness program best suits their needs?
4. Could their children benefit from chiropractic care? If
so, what type of care and frequency would be appropriate to recommend?
Without a doubt, not only is maintaining a care-focused
service orientation the right thing to do, but it is the single best
practice building advice you will ever receive.
Your success in achieving this sort of focus lies in one very
simple yet complex talent -- the ability to block out everything while you
work (including all the stresses and uncertainties in your life), so that
you can focus on the immediate needs of the person sitting in front of
you. At any given moment, your patient should be the sole source and
recipient of your attention.
It is this ability to concentrate on and commit to a care
focus 100% of the time that separates the master chiropractor from the
amateur. A term for this is being able to live and operate in a
"present time consciousness." Maintaining this care-focus,
regardless of what is going on in the greater world or in your personal
life or office, is what separates the successful, busy practices from
those that struggle.
In fact, the more your practice grows, the more you will be
required to master this skill and cut through all the extra noise of
annoying phone calls, crying infants and employee demands to focus on
responding to the patient at hand.
Your ability to perform under pressure and get out of your
own head and into your patient's is priceless. Remember, when you
consistently maintain this kind of care-focus, your practice will become a
haven for patients to experience your true abilities as a healer and the
remarkable difference it can make in their lives. In the process, you will
build an incredible practice.
(Dr. Eric Plasker is the founder of The Family Practice,
a chiropractic coaching and training organization that provides all the
systems, tools and support to build a highly successful and profitable
family practice. Internationally recognized as a speaker and educator, he
is best known for rallying chiropractors around the Lifetime Care For Everyone [LCfE] and Family
Practice visions. For seminar, coaching, training, or product
information, call The Family Practice toll‑free at 866/LEAD‑DCS
[532‑3327], ext. 118. Or visit online at www.thefamilypractice.net.)
