Delivering the diagnosis and prognosis in understandable terms builds the circle of trust, especially when the pa-tient chooses what type of treatment he/she wants and for how long. For treatments, I was always willing to work on the soft tissue component of the problem using hands-on tech-niques even though it took more time. And patients always got one or two simple things to do at home, and a warm goodbye and thank you. Also, at every visit we had two con-versations, one about their condition and one about their personal life. Building rapport in this way made patients feel special. Finally, transitioning from sympto-matic care to rehabilitation care to wellness/supportive care was always done with agreement and their under-standing. When it came to wellness/ supportive care, we always agreed on the next visit date based on their feed-back and my examination findings. We usually found their optimal visit fre-quency by adding a week or two to the time since their last visit. At some point, the patient would say he was glad he was coming in this week because he could feel it was time, and then we knew this was their length of time between visits. Some patients came in once a week, some once a month, some once a year. But it was always their choice based on their feedback. www.canadianchiropractor.ca AL: When you taught me it was during a different time when technology wasn’t as mainstream as it is today. Do you feel practice development today is as depend-ent on technology or are the basics still the basics in any time period? CG: I think that fundamentally the principles that have succeeded over the centuries still apply today. Patients want to like, respect and have confi-dence in their doctor and it is up to us to give them the reasons to do so. Essentially, this occurs best during the face-to-face care we give patients. However, you have to stay current with the way people are becoming introduced to your practice and how you are keeping in touch with your patients. So, having a great website and being accessible on social media sites is important. Of course, depend-ing on the quality and content, this can work for or against you. Using email and text messaging to contact your patients is critical, especially for patients who use these a lot. Paying attention to rating websites (for example, Yelp) is also a smart thing to do, and don’t let bad com-ments go unanswered – or at least try to neutralize them. Having another patient advocate on your behalf is pretty necessary in this day and age. This is especially true regarding the generation coming into adulthood. They have a very mixed bag of socially progressive beliefs cou-pled with a strong sense of entitle-ment. They are quick to react on social media to the things that upset them, almost to the point of absurdity. It’s why some of the edgy comedians are hesitant to go on college campuses these days. You ignore this at your own peril. But ultimately, all people want to be heard and cared for on some level, and this is what we are all about. The rap-port you build is unique to each per-son because of his or her beliefs, knowledge and life experiences. The more you can listen with two ears – one for the clinical information, one for the personal information – the better the rapport building. Chiropractic has always been a beautiful profession that changes lives in so many ways. We just need to position ourselves so people have the best opportunity to experience this. Good was also kind enough to pro-vide me with a copy of the Moment of Truth questions to share with our readership. If you would like me to send it to you kindly email me at [email protected]. For more Business Talk articles, visit www.canadianchiropractor.ca December 2015 Canadian Chiropractor 19
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