July 2004

Our time to lead

by Dr. Eric Plasker

Have you noticed what's happening in chiropractic today? Everyone is jumping on the family practice bandwagon and wanting to build practices that will not only support their families but serve the families in their communities as well.

Take a look around, and you'll see that individual DCs, political organizations, chiropractic colleges and consultants who had never considered family practice before or had a family practice themselves, are looking to move toward this type of practice. It's exciting to see that chiropractors are truly uniting behind family health care and The Family Practice is proud to lead this charge!

Many of these individuals have sought my counsel and that of our team in how they can better meet and serve the public's demand for holistic family health care. Many of the challenges DCs face when making the transition from a pain‑based or cash and insurance‑only practice (PI Rehab models) to family practices really need not occur. In fact, if the proper systems and strategies are implemented in advance, this transition can and should be seamless.

Take a look at your current systems to see whether families are just an afterthought for you and your staff. Most DCs don't even realize that one of the reasons they may be having trouble attracting families is that they aren't really "family‑oriented," but "family after thought‑oriented." Families should always be in the forefront of your thoughts, systems and operations if you want to build a successful family practice.

How can you position yourself as a "families first" practice?

Make sure that the communication system you implement addresses family health issues. Talk about families in your marketing and target them in your referral systems. Instead of just displaying a child‑oriented or individual "successes" story board in your reception area, hang one that has photos of families and information related to multiple generations of families being under care all at the same time.

Review and evaluate your daily visit procedures to see whether they're designed for one person at a time or to serve families. Can your adjustment area accommodate a family? Regardless of the layout of your office (as long as you have good family systems and procedures in place), you will be able to double, triple and even quadruple your capacity with half the effort.

Instruct your front desk staff to schedule family appointments all at the same time and send them back to the adjusting area together. Make sure the family is set up in your computer system under one account so that checking in or out is effortless for them.

Your financial policies should also support family care. Once you establish efficient office procedures for families, it should take you the same amount of time to adjust a family of four as it does for you to adjust two people. If you find that you are not able to adjust multiple family members in this time frame, then DO NOT proceed with implementing a family fee system.

Always, implement internal family systems and efficiency issues before you adopt a family fee. Once you become efficient in both your adjustment procedures and your financial structure, your practice income will skyrocket because your cost per visit will decline.

Use some of these strategies and systems to immediately plug into your practice and solve many of the problems that consultants, coaches and other organizations have found challenging in communicating family practice to you. This is the time in history for chiropractors to lead family health care. Thanks for uniting to lead it in your community.

(Eric Plasker, DC, is the founder of The Family Practice where chiropractors are uniting to lead family health care. A nationally recognized speaker, educator, and author, he's best known for rallying chiropractors around the "Lifetime Care For Everyone" [LCfE] and Family Practice visions in the chiropractic profession. For seminar, coaching, training, or product information, call toll‑free 866‑532‑3327, ext. 118. Or visit the Family Practice website at www.thefamilypractice.net.)