How to convey the promise—because you matter—to your patients with three adjustments

Communicate to your patients that they matter. This promise must be showcased at every opportunity. The following tips indicate how it can best be demonstrated. Be ready to think outside the box because marketing a practice encompasses more than you think.

In The E-Myth Physician, Michael E. Gerber writes, “Marketing done well is a commitment to provide your patients, your employees, and yourself with a business experience that is life sustaining, with a relationship that is renewing, and with a promise to everyone, ’You Matter.’ Marketing communicates your promise, but it also focuses on the way your practice delivers that promise.”

You Matter
Because You Matter—listen to the unspoken message: Ask yourself if you can make the following promise to your patients: “Because you matter, I guarantee that my attire, attitude, staff, and office décor will be modern, organized, bright, and professional.” Without a doubt, marketing includes the unspoken message experienced as soon as patients walk through the door.

A year ago, I suggested to the doctor whose practice I worked for that we modernize the offices, which included with a fresh coat of paint, removing taped or tacked up posters, hanging professional-quality educational pictures, having fresh flowers at the reception desk, providing complimentary copies of a chiropractic wellness magazine, introducing two massage chairs in the waiting room, and adding sEMG equipment for initial evaluation and reexaminations. The patients appreciate the customized color bar chart, which shows the effects of vertebral subluxations.

One year later, our patient visits have increased to 1,004. To accomplish this, our office had to analyze our budget and evaluate the return on investment from other marketing methods. The first to go was our $1,000-a-month Yellow Pages™ advertising, because when we tracked where new patients were coming from, fewer than 1% were the result of the Yellow Pages.

Next, we reviewed the cost—time, printing, and mailing—of our in-house newsletter and office brochures. For almost the same cost, we could use Chiropractic Wellness and Fitness magazine’s customized newsletter program. The newsletter quality increased as did the professional image of our practice. We now use the newsletter as our office brochure. The unspoken message is that we invested in these changes because You Matter.

Wellness Provider
I will be your Wellness Provider: Paul Zane Pilzer, an author and businessman, writes that the wellness revolution will be the next trillion dollar industry. Wellness-oriented chiropractors can become the gatekeepers of that trend. Robert M. McMath, coauthor of What Were They Thinking?—a guide on what choices to make in bringing new products and services to the market—says that businesses that focus on healthy living and lifestyles are the best ones to go into in 2003.

If you believe that health is not the absence of disease, then step out of the pain management box and get back in line with where chiropractic started. This requires that we practice the art of facilitating the body’s innate ability to be self-healing and self-regulating. It is the animation of this chiropractic philosophy that will change public opinion. By becoming the new Wellness Provider, chiropractors can attract a qualified target market looking for more than to be free of pain and discomfort.

This was demonstrated when we introduced a chiropractic wellness center at the Wendy's Championship for Children LPGA tournament. The response from the players was overwhelming. They even developed and signed a form petitioning the LPGA to have access to this same kind of care during tour. Later, one of the tournament volunteers heard about the wellness center services and asked how she could have access to that kind of care in the community. "I have avoided drugs and doctors as much as I can most of my life. I want holistic, natural care but don't know where to find it," she said. We referred her to a chiropractic office nearby.

Three Adjustments
You will get three adjustments with each visit: With each office visit there should be three adjustments: mind, spirit, and body. If one of those adjustments is missed, then the healing is not complete. Patients will leave as soon as they no longer feel pain and the dis-ease remains within the patient and the practice. The unsettled feeling will be in wondering what more we could have done to have them stay on their journey to optimal health.

How do we provide three adjustments? You, as the doctor, will address the physical aspect, but the mental and spiritual adjustments are the obligation of the entire staff. The spirit is adjusted with personal attention—greeting patients by name when they come in and making sure no one leaves without a warm good-bye. Ask about their families and compliment them on their promptness and regularity of visits in front of other patients.

Mental adjustments are done by giving them some health-oriented educational information with each visit. Start with: Do you know what I learned this week? I read the most interesting article. Did you know that—ear infections, digestive disorders, arthritis—can be the result of subluxations? This is the obligation of the entire staff. Paperwork can wait until patients are not there. While patients are in your office, the three adjustments are the number one priority for everyone.

Power of the Pack
Don’t be a lone wolf—use the power of the pack: To change the public’s perception of chiropractic,it will take more than every doctor explaining that there is more to it than just snap, crackle, pop. The change in perception must come from a grassroots level by the unified efforts of doctors from every community. You want your patients to hear a consistent message from your peers. That message should be You Matter and chiropractors are your Wellness Providers.

One way is to join your local chiropractic association and participate in events that promote chiropractic in your community. In our state chiropractic district (OSCA District 9) the local group had gone defunct. One chiropractor, Andew Mowry, DC, had a vision of starting a nonprofit foundation that would pull together health care professionals on preventative issues for area communities. The Central Ohio Health Awareness Foundation (COHAF) was created and began attracting local DCs as members. A few months after its formation the State Chiropractic Association asked Mowry also to start the local group. The Central Ohio Chiropractic Association (COCA) went from zero membership 9 months ago to more than 30, and is growing weekly.

The focus for both COHAF and COCA is to identify the need and the market for true wellness care. People are tired of the readiness of mainstream health care to turn to drugs and invasive surgery.

This gets our foot in the door for many events where chiropractic wellness can be showcased, including the Wendy’s Championship for Children LPGA Tournament; and two upcoming fall 2003 television shows, “Bill Frank’s Forever Young” on the Discovery Health Channel and “A Beauty, A Body and A Spirit” local program in the Columbus, Ohio, market; and the Columbus Marathon. We are at the major network affiliates health fairs and working on starting up a city-wide backpack safety program.

The Columbus Marathon happens annually in October. It is one of the top five marathon races in the country with 7,000 participants expected this year. Last year, COHAF was asked to provide post-race coverage by the assigned team chiropractor who was going to be unavailable due to a scheduling conflict. COHAF doctors volunteered and enjoyed the opportunity to work with the athletes. Prior to the race, we screened runners who were surprised to find when taking a weight displacement test that there was a significant discrepancy (5lbs or more) on one leg versus the other. It was explained to them that during a 10-mile run equals almost 2 tons of extra weight on the heavy side of the body. This year we decided to offer a pre-race wellness care and counseling for the runners. We had done this successfully at the 2003 Wendy's LPGA Tournament. A meeting was set up with the public relations person, who was a runner himself. After being screened, he saw the value for the Marathon in offering this service.

Some suggestions to start community programs would be to work with your local association partner, such as a health-oriented medical doctor or osteopath, in performing school physicals for children and charge what would be considered the average fee. Then donate the money back to the athletic department. It is better than having just the service donated. Now you have the inside track on providing chiropractic care and backpack safety programs through the students, faculty, and parents.

Even though 15 years of my marketing background has been in the heating, ventilation, and air conditioning industry, I quickly adapted those business skills into chiropractic. How? About 3 years ago, I started as a typical patient with sciatic problems. But this was the first chiropractor I ever had who gave three adjustments with every visit and helped me see that I matter. I am now one of its most vocal proponents. This is how it starts—one patient at a time. CP

Karen S. Kelley, PRCA, is the director of operations for the Central Ohio Health Awareness Foundation and the Central Ohio Chiropractic Association. She can be reached via email: karenkelleyprca@aol.com.