Looking Inward – Part 2 Practice strategies for a tough economy Scott Newman is a senior consul- tant, specializing in designing and implementing patient reactivation systems. he can be contacted at [email protected]. centrating on strategies that will serve to make your prac- tice come out of the recession even stronger than it was before – namely, you should be invest- ing your time and money into the internal aspects of your practice, rather than focusing all your energies on bringing in new patients from the external world. This is the time to be actively focusing on how to improve your patient retention, and on I reactivating patients who have left your practice for various reasons. In part 2, we’re going to focus on patient reactivation, because this is an area that will glean immediate and measurable results. WhY PATIENT REACTIVATION WORkS A person who has been a patient in the past, and comes back, is far more likely to stay longer, be more compliant and see lasting results than a patient who walks in “off the street.” There are a lot of reasons for this, but the biggest is simply that these patients don’t need to be convinced that chiropractic treatment is right for them. They don’t need to be con- vinced that you’re going to have their best interest at heart. In fact, since they were previously patients, they know exactly what you can do for them – all you need to do is remind them. Shawn Veltman is a practice growth expert operating out of hamilton, Ontario, and the founder of SV&A Chiropractic Consulting. he has helped practices in Canada, and the U.S., develop systems to bring back patients, retain existing patients, and run their practices more effec- tively. For more information about SV&A Chiropractic, visit www. svachiro.com. A SIMPLE REACTIVATION STRATEgY Many practice owners will look at a structure, or a strategy, but will decide that it’s either too complicated, too costly, or requires too much effort to use. So, they end up using a strategy that has the same underlying idea, but none of the elements that will make it successful. (Then, of course, they’ll tell you, “Oh, I tried that once – It didn’t work for me.”) The key to seeing results is to keep a strategy simple, and to use it consistently. Let’s look at a simple patient reactivation strategy that can be used effectively in practice: 1. Identify a large subset of patients who have been gone for a significant period of time (say 120 days to three years). 2. Develop a schedule – a series of times/ways that these patients will be contacted within a fairly short period of time. 3. This schedule should consist of three or four contact points, organized in such a way that each patient receives each contact at consistent intervals. (For example, if you de- cide to do a letter with a phone call followup, make sure that there is a consistent delay between letter and phone call for all patients.) 4. Follow through by making each of the specified contacts on specified days. You have just created four easy steps to an effective patient reactivation program. How to waSte 90 Per ceNt of your DoLLarS aND effortS Sometimes, when we talk to prospective clients about utilizing systems and strategies, they are adamant that they’ve tried them all, and none of them has worked. They’re “old hands,” 24 • CANAdiAN ChirOPrACTOr | JUNE 2009 www.canadianchiropractor.ca n part 1, we discussed that during difficult economic times you should be con- Shawn Veltman Scott Newman feature
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