Chiropractic New Patients: #1 Way
May 5th, 2010 // 8:52 am @ Dr. Todd Osborne // No Comments
As Chiropractors we have a great gift to give to society. Of course we want to run a successful business, but when it comes down to it, we all want to help as many people as possible. It gets very frustrating having something great to share with people, but you can’t get them to understand it, or you can’t get them to come in and experience it. We all need and want new patients!
I won’t go into the details in this post, but I think we could all agree that the best new patients in our chiropractic offices are referrals. They are the most solid patient that will walk thru your door, no doubt. But how many of us are getting the referrals that we should be getting? Probably a very low percentage. Here is the thing, we know patients should refer, but do they? Most of them have experience in the medical side of healthcare where the referral process takes place between the doctors, not necessarily at the patient level. So in essence they have not been “trained” to refer to their doctors! And we just expect them to refer, well just because! Doesn’t work, been there, done that.
Here is the secret and number one way to get new patients. YOU HAVE TO ASK FOR THEM! Yes, that may seem simple, but I promise you, if you are not asking for them, you are not getting all the referrals you should be. When I came out of school I had developed the philosophy, just go out and do a good job for folks, get them well, and they will send new patients in the door. Found out the hard way, that philosophy is incorrect. The real true philosophy is this, do a good job for folks, get them well, then ask them to send new patients in the door. That works!
There are dozes of ways to ask for referrals and we won’t try to get into all of those in this short amount of time. Any and all of these techniques for stimulating new patient referrals are nothing more than giving patients reasons or excuses to refer. The foundational principle is to have the audacity to ask for them whatever your technique. I’ll give you one example. Dr. Vance, who I associated with right out of school, used to say this when transitioning a patient from their care plan to maintenance. “I’m here to help as many as possible and now that you are going to one time per month, you need to send another patient in her to take your place in my schedule.” And yes, it worked! That simple, but effective!
Try just asking for referrals and see what happens. Remember I said ask, not beg, there is a big difference! You have no right to ask for something you don’t deserve, but every right to ask for something that is deservedly already yours!
Category : Blog &Featured Works &Practice Building
