August 2007

The new patient solution

by Dr. Kevin Pallis and Dr. Ed Plentz

So many DCs are continuing to struggle to attract new patients. The question is, why do chiropractors have such difficulty in helping people discover health? After all, chiropractors are part of American culture, aren't they? We've succeeded in creating a limited paradigm of short‑term low back pain relief only. We are natural fixers of adult cricks and sprains. But what about children or people who aren't symptomatic? You mean the only way to experience chiropractic is after you've lost your wellness? Who will educate a culture on how to express health from birth to death? No wonder so many DCs have trouble attracting and retaining new patients.

Our culture is searching for heroes who can actually deliver wellness. Yet, they're looking everywhere except chiropractic offices. The reason is that many chiropractors restrict their practices to adult healing of sprains and strains only. Laser beams, decompression tables, and spa settings will not bring about a paradigm shift in health. All the pain relief in the world will not show families how to stay well.

Many of the chiropractors joining our family admit to adjusting their own children on a regular basis, but will not adjust children in their practices. When will we step up as a profession and take a stand on the education of family health? Holding our sacred gift back for acceptance from the masses is not in anybody's best interest. It takes courage to speak what you know to be true in your heart. Healthier people create a healthier planet.

If you look to a magazine like Newsweek and examine the front covers, they always depict topics of concern that people feel frustration with and do not have the answers. Autism, men's depression, infertility, learning disabilities, anxiety... it's almost like Newsweek is asking, who are the health leaders willing to step up and help the nation truly understand health?

When you invest in a patient, you're creating a win‑win situation. Long‑term relationships based on trust and referral are the natural consequences of increased understanding of chiropractic. If you attempt to remove symptoms and spare the education, you'll create short‑term patient relationships. You take the responsibility away from the patient. Most parents are more grateful when they're in a position to make the best decision for themselves and their families.

Parents are actually quite receptive to new concepts of health, when they don't compete with their dominant medical beliefs. You don't need to bash medicine, the chiropractor down the street, or other health care practitioners. You must have a complete patient education system in place that doesn't compare you to anybody. It's not about you building a better mousetrap. Rather, it clearly states the new concept of chiropractic as an expression of wellness and allows the new patient to understand it and feel your genuine concern. When people understand the benefits of chiropractic for everybody, the paradigm shift will begin to happen.

Long‑term relationships are natural, whereby short‑term relationships are stressful and often disappointing for the doctor and the patient. There will be a massive need for more family chiropractors once people are able to identify with wellness, which includes symptomatic care rather than the old back pain model with no patient education.

Let's examine a mother with three children. Odds are at least one of these children has a learning disability, anxiety, acid reflux, asthma, etc. If the health challenge is moderate to severe, it's in the mother's consciousness 24 hours a day. Have you ever seen the look of worry on a mother's face for her child? She's then referred to your office for what she thinks chiropractic is for: a musculoskeletal complaint.

Through your office environment, the posters, the pamphlets, the seminar that orients patients to the new concept of chiropractic and, most of all, your concern, she asks you if you can help with her child. And then it happens. There is a magical moment of hope, inspiration and trust. She sees how the child enjoys the process and soon brings in her other two asymptomatic children as well as her husband. This is the beginning of a long‑term partnership. She found help in a place she never expected. Her experience exceeded her expectations. She will also refer in friends just like herself.

How many more squandered opportunities for long‑term patients will you waste, trying to be all things to all people? Leaders always have a very sharp, clearly defined area of focus. Well or sick, everybody needs chiropractic care. Imagine all the changes in the world that would result from people having competent, adaptive nerve systems. That would be a world that we, as chiropractors, could take pride in creating.

(The New Renaissance is a movement of passionate chiropractors dedicated to changing the world. The leader in patient education since 1977, the Mentor IV Coaching Program is a step‑by‑step navigational guide that embodies the very essence of The New Renaissance vision of healthier people creating a healthier world. Without patient education, your patients won't "get it." To learn more about The New Renaissance, contact world headquarters at 800‑525‑3879.)