Give your patients the education they deserve

Education is getting competitive and complicated. As technology has advanced, so have patient-education materials. Gone are the days of rudimentary spine drawings; now, there are dazzling computer games and brightly lit displays to jazz up your office halls. In fact, there is a mind-boggling array of options for the chiropractic patient. If you were to type “chiropractic patient education materials” into an Internet search engine, your computer monitor would display about 350,000 results—some more relevant than others. When they are all touting to be the best, how are chiropractors to discern which materials are the most effective, efficient, and appropriate for their patients?

Rather than spending hours wading through muddied Web findings, consider the advice of our Roundtable discussion experts. Combined, they have decades of experience in the latest developments in patient education. In this discussion, they offer their advice on how to select the best materials for your office and why.

Chuck Conto is the national sales manager for Performance Health Inc, located in Export, Pa. Performance Health is one of the leading health care manufacturers in the profession, with 15 years of experience in creating quality products for health care professionals and their patients.

Bruce Goldsmith has a background in electrical engineering with a bachelor of fine arts degree in sculpture. Since 1976, he has led Visual Odyssey in the creation of tools to educate millions of chiropractors about the benefits of chiropractic health care. Visual Odyssey, based in Temple, Ga, has a 29-year tradition of providing dynamic, professional, and comprehensive chiropractic patient-education solutions.

Kent S. Greenawalt is president and CEO of Foot Levelers Inc, located in Roanoke, Va. He is also publisher of Success Express, a journal for the chiropractic profession. Greenawalt is the recipient of several awards from the chiropractic profession, including the American Chiropractic Association’s Humanitarian of the Year award—the highest honor the organization can award to a nonchiropractor.

What type of patient-education materials do you recommend for most DC offices?
Conto: It’s important that chiropractors take an active role in educating their patients on chiropractic care, healthy living, and products—all of which can improve the quality of their patients’ lives. Doctors should look to leading health care manufacturers to help with some of their patient-education needs. Many companies see the benefit in providing free product samples, educational brochures, educational videos, and patient-information displays for the office. These items make it easy for doctors to talk about the products and services they offer. Everyone knows that an educated patient is one who will return for additional visits and will refer friends and family to the practice.

Goldsmith: Patient education is at the heart of communicating what makes adjustment and subluxation so different from allopathic care. Chiropractic is unique, but undercommunicated; its special benefits remain unknown. The answer is that DCs who have a passion for their mission must use all materials congruent with their reason for being a chiropractor. Remember, everything from educational messages on business cards to electronic wall charts, Web sites, and lay lectures must be utilized to convey the critical message. What has the biggest impact? Patient involvement. A patient who interacts in the educational process is far more impacted by the message than one who receives passive material or hears a lecture.

Greenawalt: Most people are misinformed about chiropractic, so we recommend a basic approach to patient education. A good place to start is with informative brochures, posters, and videos that demonstrate the importance of spinal health to the overall health of the body.

Another recommendation is patient literature. It should be condition-based and discuss common symptoms that generally bring people into the chiropractic clinic. A simple question-and-answer format of what causes the condition, and what chiropractic can do to help, is effective. Product literature can explain the relationship of chiropractic care and the use of adjunct products to aid in the effectiveness of that care. You can also provide samples and displays to educate patients on the product.

All of these are important, whether DCs are just starting or expanding their practices; but the product category is going to be more closely related to the doctor’s protocols and services.

What are the average costs that chiropractors can expect to spend on patient education?
Conto: Many times, a new doctor may want to start small with educational videos, posters, free product brochures, or samples. Many of these items can be found for free or for as little as a few hundred dollars. More complex systems may cost several thousand dollars. The idea behind any of these systems is to create an open forum for the doctor and the patient to talk about care. Which system is best for you depends on your budget, the image you wish your clinic to convey, your technical ability, and the amount of time you have to spend with each patient.

Goldsmith: A patient-education budget is really an advertising budget. I’ll let the management consultants determine what percent of overhead that should be, but a strong referral practice is one that places a high premium on delivering a quality message. Anything less will undermine all other efforts. Referrals are easier to care for than advertising-inspired patients, so a referral practice is one that has less stress. The best referrals are from patients who have an understanding about chiropractic care—which only comes with patient education. Investments in good patient education will help you reap large, long-term rewards.

Greenawalt: Most practices spend too little on educating patients because doctors don’t realize how important education is to patient compliance. On the other hand, there are great tools available that don’t cost much. Also, a lot of these tools are free to doctors, so there is no reason not to use them. Once you have some basic tools, it’s a matter of keeping materials stocked and adding new items when your protocols change. So, if you build patient education into your annual budget, I would allow 15%–20%.

What type of information should be included in these materials?
Conto: All materials should describe a product or an area of care with clear, simple language that patients can easily understand. Every clinic is different in the types of patients they treat and the products and services they offer. Be sure that the information you are providing follows your philosophy of care and clearly represents the message that you want to communicate. Be sure the products you recommend are quality items that you believe in and wholeheartedly endorse. Look for manufacturers that support the industry and supply you with free samples or brochures.

Goldsmith: Again, all materials should reflect each DC’s personal belief system and health philosophy. This distinguishes and separates you from disease care. It’s important to realize that most patients have to be indoctrinated gently, as you help them learn to question the status quo. In accepting chiropractic, they are acknowledging a wellness approach that is in many ways contrary to the beliefs of their family and friends. Your tools must resonate with their past experience as you paint a better future for them. It must be clear that you understand their complaint, and it’s essential that you use analogies that fit their preconceived understandings. Then, the pictures you build in their minds meld rational thought with emotional motivation. You must cover all the bases—kinesthetic, auditory, and visual—to create a depth of acceptance. It’s essential that you give them the ability to communicate their new choice with conviction to others.

What patient-education materials do you recommend for patient retention and referrals?
Conto: Patients love samples. If you carry product samples, give them to your patients so they can pass them on to their friends, relatives, and colleagues. This is a great way to enhance patient referrals, increase product sales, and generate new patients. Make sure that the samples include your practice’s name and telephone number. Other than required treatment compliance, the best way to retain patients is to have them return to your practice to purchase a consumable item, which you should recommend for self-care between office visits.

Goldsmith: Patients only follow through when they have a compelling reason to do so. Because symptoms often disappear long before lasting or maximum spinal correction is achieved, your patient-education program is critical to your success. Retention and referrals rely on your skills as a healer and as a communicator. Think like a patient, not like a DC, and employ materials that clarify your unique health care contribution to everyone, from high school dropouts to PhD graduates. Everyone deserves the opportunity to escape the chains of symptom care that lead to a loss of life quality in later years.

Greenawalt: Reports of the exam and care recommendations that are patient-friendly, easy to understand, and able to be taken home to share with others are particularly effective in keeping patients interested and in gaining the interest of family and friends. Brochures and pamphlets that can be taken out of the office to patients’ homes and workplaces are also effective in recruiting new patients through referrals.

Tell us a success story about one of your clients.
Conto: I was asked by our local senior center to present a talk about the benefits of chiropractic care. Two days prior to my talk, I received samples and flyers customized with my name and telephone number. At the end of my presentation, I told the audience that we recommend our product above all other topical pain relievers and put an entire box of samples on the table. By the time I left, the box was empty. As a result of the samples, the following day I had six new patients.

Goldsmith: Here is one of hundreds of testimonials we’ve received over the decades. I spoke with Mike Headlee, DC, and received his permission to include the following in this article: “I’m a subluxation-based chiropractor who uses many tools; and like all chiropractors, sometimes you go through the steps. I was looking for something exciting to tie the ROF all together. After 7 years of considering the Neuropatholator, I took the plunge and got one. I’ve had it less than a month, and the response is amazing. I’ve even walked into the ROF room and had patients playing with the chart. They can see how their pain (for example, sciatica) can come from their low back nerves. It has my patients and I really energized, and it has become my favorite tool. Now, I have a sign above the Neuropatholator that tells patients to ‘Feel free to push buttons,’ and they do... all the time! It’s great to see them learning on their own. With these tools, patients are no longer just nodding their heads. These charts and software programs correlate with their scan and x-ray, and they really get it! A picture is worth a thousand words.”

Any last words of advice?
Conto: Keep up the good work. Learn more, heal more, and achieve more.

Goldsmith: Please don’t keep chiropractic a secret. Share it in a way that will change the world. Your gift to humanity is more than pain relief. It’s about a journey to optimal wellness and everyone’s divine right to the freedom of choice. Will you do your part to help others experience chiropractic? The path is through patient education.

Greenawalt: Keeping patients informed is easy to do and well worth the expense to do so. It benefits the practice in two significant ways: patient care and practice growth. CP

Julie Z. Lee is a contributing writer for Chiropractic Products.