Purpose or Profit?: Chiropractic Patient Education (Part I)

Chiropractic patient education is vital. It is vital to the health of your practice and for reasons much more important than the confines of your practice walls. Let's look at three reasons why you should be dedicated to educating your chiropractic patients.

Why is patient education so crucial? I know what you are thinking. It's the argument used to support chiropractic patient education 90% of the time. So let's get it out of the way right now: Patient Retention.

Educated chiropractic patients are more likely to stay on as a patient after their pain and symptoms have resolved. We all know this. Patient education usually results in wellness care which is great for patients, and great for practice revenue. A practice cannot survive without patient retention.

Yawn. These are all true statements, but is this it for YOU? Are you educating patients just so they don't disappear when their low back pain resolves? Is the mission of your patient education only profit and patient retention percentages? Isn't that a little empty and hollow?

Don't get me wrong. Although I'm blogging from high atop my virtual chiropractic soapbox, I'm also realistic. Patient retention and your own wallet are certainly important to consider in your daily practice. The problem arises when these concerns dictate what goes on within your practice. When you design your treatment plan based on how much money you can milk out of an insurance company it's called abuse, fraud, or at the very least: a disservice to the patient.

Is patient education based solely on maintaining income and patient volume any different?

You must educate patients for the good of your practice; but there are two other reasons that are far more important.

1. The Health of the Patient
2. The Well-being of our Profession

The first one is obvious. As chiropractors most of us believe in our profession. We believe in the power of chiropractic care beyond relief of back pain. We know chiropractic care helps promote wellness. We may not have double-blind randomized placebo controlled clinical trials to prove it, but we see it first hand every day. We need to put this knowledge and passion into our patient education efforts. The purpose of our patient education should be the patient and not our bank account.

It's easy to understand why patient wellness should be a focus over profit. Admitting and accepting the fact that your individual patient education efforts impact the entire profession is much more difficut. You and and your patient education are part of a collective whole that extends far beyond your practice and your community. I'll shed some light on this in my next post.