Continue giving patients knowledge throughout their care

Patient education is crucial to a healthy, thriving chiropractic office. Recently, our office doubled its size in a 3-month period after we changed our patient-education system.

With proper education, a chiropractic patient becomes your ambassador, sent off spreading cheer and health throughout the land. Without it, a patient can feel neglected—indifferent about you, your staff, and chiropractic—and may even leave your office. Patient education also helps you determine who the best doctor is for each specific patient.

Webster’s dictionary lists multiple definitions for the word “doctor.” First, a doctor is a teacher. Also, a doctor is any person licensed to practice the healing arts. When you combine these definitions, DCs become more than back-pain healers, more than subluxation therapists, and more than wellness gurus.

All too often, patients hear horror stories told by other health care practitioners about what happens in a chiropractic office. I don’t know how many times I have heard patients tell me their doctors scared them into thinking cervical adjustments cause strokes. Proper patient education dispels myths about what DCs do and who they can help. It provides the truth about the benefits of our sacred healing art.

Sure, we will find some patients who don’t want to learn anything, who “just want to get fixed up and be on their way.” Patients are usually willing to listen and fully understand what a healthy adventure they are embarking on. We owe it to them to tell them.

Education Must Begin on Day 1
I look at the initial exam as my opportunity to make an impression on each patient’s paradigm. I deliver a simple 30-second explanation of chiropractic and couple it with pamphlets and models. Simply put, tell your patients the truth about what chiropractic is. For me, it is a healing art that recognizes the fact that your body is coordinated by your brain through the action of your nerves. When this communication system breaks down, your body malfunctions.

Two communication analogies I use are that of a married couple that argues versus a married couple that does not. Or to a teenager, I paint the picture of wanting to talk to a friend, but you are in a place where you can’t pick up a cell-phone signal, or a tree has fallen on a telephone wire. For you, it may be about spinal motion, or symptom relief. If you make it congruent with your core values of chiropractic, your patients will understand.

I always paint a picture of the human body that illustrates the spinal cord coming down from the brain, with nerves serving every cell, tissue, organ, and system of the body. I ask people what would happen if a nerve going to their heart (or any other part of their body) were to become damaged. Invariably, they will give an answer that demonstrates they understand that the body part won’t work properly.

In my office, I always face the patient toward the wall with something to read while I take x-rays. This way, he has something to do while I am moving through my routine. We have subluxation-degeneration x-rays on the wall and a posture poster behind the x-ray tube itself.

Last week while taking films, a patient asked me if I thought his spine looked like phase three on the poster. He was afraid of looking like his mother, who was bent over with a hump back. I told him I wouldn’t have taken the films if I didn’t think they would help me help him. Upon seeing his films during the report of findings (ROF), he discovered he was only a phase one and knew chiropractic could help him avoid his mother’s fate.

When I need to leave the room to adjust, I make the point of leaving a testimonial book—tabbed by condition—next to the examination table. Nothing teaches a patient better than other patients who share their experiences.

When delivering my ROF, the most important policy is for the spouse to be present with the patient. Having the spouse present during the ROF allows the DC to answer all of their questions before care commences. By educating the spouse, I ensure that each patient has one person in his or her corner when a skeptic asks why they are seeing a chiropractor.

Case Study Recently, a woman came into our office for a free chair massage. After seeing a pictorial in our office of the nerves innervating the body, she asked if chiropractic could help her daughter, who had tarsal tunnel syndrome. “Of course it can,” I replied. She quickly brought her daughter into our office. Her daughter was a swimmer and avid runner, but since her ankle injury, she had ceased all activity. We began adjusting her spine and ankle. She received a chiropractic biophysics style protocol consisting of full spine diversified adjustments for the first 2 weeks at three times per week. After this, we added lumbar extension traction (up to 10 minutes per visit), also at three times per week. She had a little difficulty tolerating the traction, and it averaged out to twice per week. For her ankle, I used a talo-calcaneal superior-to-inferior pull at a once-per-week frequency. She continues to receive care once per week to control flare-ups. We have since taken her off the traction altogether. We also gave her a heel lift to help balance out her short left leg. Upon re-x-ray, her spine has corrected fully. Recently, the daughter told me she went for a jog for the first time in months and is regularly using a stair-climbing machine again.

Education Tools: Pictures, Pamphlets, and Confidence
Visuals give patients a deeper understanding of what is going on inside their bodies. When they can see them and formulate a picture in their own minds, they can understand our purpose much more. The patients’ body language tells me when they understand. I see their posture change, their facial expressions show hope and happiness, and they are captivated.

Subluxation-degeneration pictures, pamphlets, and models help patients understand asymptomatic and wellness care. This teaches them about the healing process, and that it doesn’t happen overnight. If it seems they still don’t understand, I ask them what happens when they cut a finger. Their answer will be the process of healing, and they understand that healing is a process.

Try not to babble on or be verbose. Verbal diarrhea leads patients to the mute button faster than anything else. I’m always practicing to use terms they will understand with clarity. Although it doesn’t always happen, I do my best to keep sentences short, concise, and direct, and then move to the next point. When it looks like I’m losing them, I ask them a question that helps them refocus on their health.

Beware: The more you try to support what you do with facts, statistics, and testimonials during the ROF, the more you come across as a salesman peddling his wares. I learned this one the hard way. When I first opened my office, this was all I did. I thought it would influence potential patients more. These items are helpful and insightful, but when used incorrectly, they are detrimental. When I backed off, more patients agreed to my regimen of care.

Confidence is essential to effective communication. You are the authority on chiropractic; act like it even if you don’t feel like it. In time, your feelings will come around. The more patients told me it was my confidence that helped them take care, the more I believed in myself and the care I provide.

By the end of the ROF process, the patient knows I can help him, but the process of education has just begun. I provide patient workshops that describe their home care, giving instructions during the workshop. I also allow for time to educate everyone about chiropractic basics.

In our office, every patient reads a pamphlet before receiving the adjustment or while in traction. Patients are thankful we took the time to provide them with information and answer their questions.

The reception room is another terrific opportunity for patient education. We have a bookshelf that displays all of our nutritional products, home traction products, and cervical pillows. All literature associated with these products lines the shelves for patients to randomly peruse. Also, we include free samples of the nutritional products we supply.

Each end table in our office holds patient-testimonial books. Other health-related books and information line the office walls. These provide proof that we have helped people. They tell the feel-good stories and communicate the expressions of thanks and gratitude that patients have for us and the staff.

Get Staff Involved
Staff needs to be familiar with all patient-educational tools, including pamphlets. Each of our staff members is trained on chiropractic analogies and demonstrations. One of the first topics is always the fingertip or rubber-band analogy.

We role-play everything, such as handing out pamphlets and newsletters and answering the phone. We empower our staff to educate patients. They are helping to build our practice by educating the patients, who will in turn share their knowledge with their families and friends. Remember to thank your staff each and every day.

In the end, effective patient education requires having a system. Once you develop it, adhere to it. If you need help setting up your own system, talk to local chiropractors or join a practice-management group. If professional athletes can have coaches who help them, why do we as chiropractors always think we can do it alone?

Patient education is all about building a knowledgeable clientele, which in turn benefits you, your community, and all of humanity. CP

Brian Nardi, DC, practices in Avon, Conn. Contact him at nardi4911@sbcglobal.net.