QUESTION:  Are there strategies that can help in communications with new patients?

ANSWER:  Communications skills and the substance and integrity of your messages are key elements in your practice success.  Your serious consideration, planning and thought are needed to make sure that you utilize your communications skills as an effective part of the care and healing process.  Here is Part 3:

In the experience of chiropractic practitioners in active volume practices, two questions remain the most constant among new patients.  One, "What's causing my problem?"  And two, "Can you help me?"  Even if the patient does not ask you either of these questions directly, rest assured, both of these questions are well fixed in their mind and if they don't ask you, you can make a major impact on their perceptions of you and of chiropractic when you answer them both anyway; preferably on the first visit and for sure, at least by the second visit.  If you have not answered those questions, or not answered either or both of these questions effectively before the third visit, the chances of this patient remaining a patient of yours the complete length of time necessary to make the proper corrections of the cause of their problems or for a lifetime of healthcare through chiropractic, could be gone forever.

If you make effective awareness-building statements at the beginning of a patient's care, verbally or in a personal written report about them, or both, chances are these patients will, like so many millions who understand the chiropractic story, become a patient for a lifetime of chiropractic health care.   However, do not fall into another common trap of isolating the patient's complaint and treating only their immediate problem or symptoms, instead of caring for the patient's overall health.  In your communications with all patients, relate chiropractic care to a lifetime of  maximum self-healing power, resistance and optimal health. 

The patient is well aware that they could obtain, to a degree, relief from out of a bottle, a pill or some other pharmaceutical or treatment method.  But the fact that they have presented themselves in your office is testimony to the growing reality that the world is tired of standard medical approaches and searching for other pathways to health.  In this search, natural means of healing are very important and have a tremendous new validity in the eyes of the consumer.  The chiropractic profession, promoting as it does the message of "correction of the cause (subluxations) for a new healthy life", has become the world's second largest and fastest growing doctor level profession.  Patient satisfaction and a rapidly growing research record on the clinical and cost-effectiveness of chiropractic validate this growing consumer confidence.

Your patients will, in the beginning of their care, naturally relate to symptoms, and it is your responsibility to change this focus, by what you say to the patient on each visit, about the roots of health and dysfunction, and the integrated nature of all of the body's functions.  Health care needs to be expanded into a concept that includes the entire body, and an understanding that symptoms are signals of deeper problems, not necessarily conditions unto themselves.  If you isolate and relate only to symptoms or the perceived problem that initially brought them into your clinic, when that problem is gone, even if only temporarily, regardless of the actual status of their health, they too might be gone! 

The concern here is that despite some symptom relief, the basic cause(s) of their problem might not be fully corrected, only relieved on a temporary basis. You can start changing this thought pattern focused on their symptoms with a simple statement when the patient relates to their initial problem or any problem for that matter, by saying, "Your body's nerve functions have been interfered with by the subluxations we have identified.  It is like electric power has been interrupted to these areas and in order to improve your overall health, we must correct these interferences."  This is the point at which an explanation of the nervous system and how it controls and coordinates all sections and functions of the body should begin.

You as the doctor, and the patient both must come together in the shared understanding that to be a completely healthy person, one must work to keep the life-governing power stored in the brain and transmitted through the nervous system (even before we are born) to run our bodies perfectly 24 hours a day, flowing freely between the brain and the body.  And, uniquely and effectively, this is what we chiropractors do.  Every new patient should know that the removal of nerve interference from spinal subluxations by the chiropractic adjustment is a service that only the doctor of chiropractic is trained and authorized to provide.  To properly do this, we must strive to make sure the patient is in optimal adjustment when they leave the office (or not let them leave); and we must also do our best to insure the patients hold their adjustments for as long as it is humanly possible.  The longer the patients hold their adjustments, the greater the lasting benefits.  In this process, patient awareness and understanding is a critical element.