Tell me if THIS sounds familiar. A new patient comes in. You take a good history, do a thorough exam, take the time to educate your patient on the importance of care, impress them with an excellent report of findings… and they still don’t show up for their appointments.
What happened? We’ve all been frustrated with non-compliant patients (some of us more so than others!), and a lot of us seem to think at as long as we give a killer report of findings, our patient will be 100% compliant and there will be peace and happiness in the valley, forever and ever.
Wrong.
And while it may be borderline unfathomable to us as to why patients do that, in order to understand this sort of non-compliant patient behavior, we only need to take a step back and look at our own lives. How often do WE put off or otherwise ignore various appointments or duties that we KNOW we should be doing?
THIS is why your patients forget to come in.
Oh, tell the truth. Don’t fib. Nobody’s listening. You know it and I know it… we all do it. And your patients do it too, for one simple reason: distraction. They’re overwhelmed by life, all the little details of life that spin us around and make us crazy. Bills, mortgages, kids, deadlines, work stress… modern life is a cacophony (why yes, that IS an SAT word) of noise and light and nonsense and basically a non-stop flurry of activity.
So don’t be shocked when patients miss or forget an appointment. Be shocked (and pleased!) when they DO remember!
This goes DOUBLE for wellness care…
Of course, we can’t just sit back idly and hope that our patients will come around. It’s no good for their care plan, and no good for your practice stats. We have to find a way to encourage them to do the right thing, without becoming such a pest that we end up shooting ourselves in the foot and driving them away.
“FRONT OF MIND” DEFINED
The solution is to increase what’s called “Front of mind”: staying in your patients’ thoughts on a consistent basis so that they DON’T forget or ignore their appointments. Again, it’s a delicate dance; you don’t want to annoy your patients or become a flat-out stalker.
The best way to achieve front of mind is to deliver passive, excellent content that DRAWS their attention to you, rather than trying to PUSH them into the office with aggressive tactics. Make no mistake; a phone call after a missed appointment is absolutely appropriate (and usually welcomed by the patient)… but repeated unsolicited phone calls, especially to non-acute patients, is annoying and makes the doctor look desperate and pushy.
The patient newsletter is a good example for keeping front of mind. This is a classic of chiropractic marketing, and really, marketing in general. Unfortunately for chiropractors, they’re taught all kinds of incorrect principles when it comes to HOW to properly create a newsletter for their patients, but that’s an article for another day.
Periodical communications like newsletters catch your patient’s attention for just a few minutes with content that they (hopefully) are interested in, and so they stop what they’re doing and look… now you’re front of mind for them. It doesn’t need to be for a long time; just a short little pause in their crazy swirling chaotic life is enough to remind them that you exist.
Facebook and social media is another form. These are usually sites that people go to in order to, well, waste time (you know, like when they’re stuck in line at the bank or something). So this lends to a shorter, more frequent interaction. An example of the kind of content that’s best for social media is the list of daily health tips that I offer for free on this site. Quick, to the point, consumed in less than thirty seconds.
You don’t want to be long-winded on Facebook. In the words of a video that went viral on Youtube, “Ain’t nobody got time for that”.
Using tactics like these will allow you to very cheaply and easily send out little gentle reminders to people that your office does indeed exist and that they do indeed need to get their butts into your office to get taken care of. Notice I used the word “gentle”. That’s absolutely critical in today’s marketing environment.
FORGET THOSE AWFUL REACTIVATION CALLS
Remember when I said you can’t be a pest? The days of aggressive “reactivation” cold calling campaigns are over. Really, they were never a GOOD idea. The reality is, pushy tactics like that always drove away more patients then they brought in… I know because I got tons of patients over the years who came in to my office saying “I used to go to the guy up the street, but he kept calling and pestering me, so I’m coming here instead.”
I mean really, let’s think about it. How does a cold calling campaign make any sense? This is a person who, by definition, hasn’t heard from you in forever, right? They’ve completely forgotten about you. So after a long, hard day at work, they come home, finally try to settle down at least a little bit as they sit down to dinner and then…
RIIIIIIIIIING!
“Hey, it’s your chiropractor. Where have you been! I need more visits! Get in here!”
People REALLY hate to be cold called.
Okay, I know you’re not saying THAT. But really, that’s what your patient hears when you ninja-sneak-attack them with a cold call. Oh, you can dress it up any way you like, with “oh, I’m so concerned about you, that’s why I’m calling!” or what have you, but the bottom line is, people feel violated when you pester them. They really do.
So yeah, you might get two or three people to come back in with that sort of aggressive tactic, but for every one patient who comes back in (usually for one visit before they disappear again), ten or more patients will disappear forever. But you won’t realize that (at first), because it’s not like they’re going to call you up and inform you why they’re leaving you for the guy up the street… they’ll just quietly disappear.
That’s why it is so very, very critical to rely on MAGNETIC tactics when keeping front of mind. DRAW your patient’s attention to you, by being super interesting… with content and information that THEY will find interesting or intriguing.
THE BENEFITS OF STAYING FRONT OF MIND
Here’s what happens when you get that right. More patients comply with care… because they don’t forget about you when they get distracted. You’ve reminded them about you, so they remember to come in.
Guess what else? They stick around for wellness, or if they do fall off of care, they come back in their own. Why? Because you’ve reminded them that you exist, without pestering them, so they actually have a chance to have this thought: “Gee, you know what? It’s been a while since I got in there. I should really go.”
And it’s THEIR idea, so they’re happy to see you, rather than feeling obligated to be there due to some reactivation cold call guilt trip.
You know what else? They’ll refer more. Oh yes. Picture this scenario: Guy #1 is talking to Guy #2 about his neck pain. Guy #2 is super distracted by all the junk in his life and therefore has no front of mind about your office. His response to Guy #1: “Hey, good luck with that.”
Now, same two guys, but this time, Guy #2 has your office front of mind, because he just saw your newsletter in his email inbox a few days ago, or looked at one of your daily health tips on his Facebook feed, so now when Guy #1 complains about his neck, his response is “Hey, you know what? You should see my guy. He’s the best”.
See how it works?
A FEW RESOURCES FOR YOU TO GET MOVING QUICKLY ON THIS
If you’re stuck with not knowing what to do to stay front of mind, or just plain want to outsource as much of the grunt work to somebody else, feel free to check out my services. I mentioned a list of free daily health tips (a year’s worth), you can click here to swipe that. If you hate the idea of creating your own newsletter over and over (and over) again, and/or you’re not confident in your staff’s writing abilities, I’ve got that too. There’s a one dollar trial, you can check it out by clicking here.
Either way, make sure you implement some front of mind strategies ASAP in your office. It’s amazing what a difference it makes.
