Growth Essentials for Chiropractic Offices

Photo by Micheile Henderson on Unsplash

Top 6 Steps to Grow Your Practice 

1. Create a Vacuum
2. Remove obstacles
3. Crystalize procedures
4. Improve Communication Skills
5. Scheduling Patients
6. Educating on chiropractic and wellness care

Create a Vacuum

You must have space for people to fill.  If you are a poor time manager then you will find being filled by things other than seeing patients. 

In order to help and serve more people you must delegate tasks that can be done by others or set specific times to get them done, other than patient hours.

Create a schedule using a calendar, day timers, phone/laptop scheduler etc… that has specific times for everything you need to accomplish in a week. 

Remove Obstacles

Your patients will tell you if there are obstacles to care.  Whether it’s a lack of parking spaces or not enough payment options, they will tell you.  The key is to recognize the obstacles, listen to your patients and then figure out a solution.  

There is always a way around the problem if you want it bad enough. 

Crystalize Procedures

All of your staff should be cross trained so that each time the patients come in they have the same experience.  Everyone enjoys consistency and congruency whether it’s at work, at home or at the chiropractor. 

The systems and procedures that you use should be set in stone and so easy you can do it with your eyes closed. 

At your weekly meetings your staff should be training on systems and procedures and always looking for ways to improve (see step 2). 

Improve Communication Skills

We are directly talking about the report of findings here.  The patient gleans most of their information during the report of findings and this is a never-ending process.  To the degree that you are willing to work on your report of findings is to the degree that you will succeed.  No matter how many years in practice, you can still work on your report of findings.  

Video tape yourself and send it to leewooddc@gmail.com . 

Scheduling Patients

Look over your metrics, if you are keeping track and calculate the number of rescheduled/missed/cancelled appointments for your last month.  Now aim to ½ that number next month. 

If you can cut that number in half, then that means you are improving your communication during the report of findings and your CA is explaining the cancellation policy appropriately. 

The doctor and CA must be in sync and express the seriousness of the care schedule to the patient.   They must understand that they need to make up missed appointments within the week or worst-case scenario the week after. Also, we would appreciate advanced notice so that we can fill that spot. 

Educating on Chiropractic & Wellness

Depending on the type of care you offer in your office, you will have somewhere between 10-60 adjustments with the patient.  

If you did a proper report of findings, they understand their care schedule and how they are being treated, why they are being treated, when they will move on to the next phase and how we evaluate/measure progress. 

So, what should you talk about during the visits? Wellness and importance of chiropractic, the ramifications of the subluxation and the adjustment pathway. 

Your patients should be very well educated on chiropractic, nutrition, and physical health after their initial care is over and want to continue with wellness/maintenance care. 

Remember it’s green lights and blue skies and if you want it bad enough, there’s nothing you can’t do.