Be sure to visit our other Chiropractic Blogs

As many of you know, we quickly outgrew the limitations of the blogger.com blogging platform. About half a year ago we migrated over to the WordPress blogging platform. It was the right decision. We still maintain activity here on Blogger.com (I must say I miss the simplicity of this interface) but most of our heavy and beneficial blogging is done on our WordPress blogs.

I originally wanted to simply cut and paste our posts from our other blogs here but Google does NOT like duplicate content. For those interested you can check out our other blogs at the following locations:

ChiropracticPR.com http://chiropracticpr.com/blog
ClinicallySignificantProductions.com http://clinicallysignificantproductions.com/blog
ChiropracticArt.com COMING SOON!

Which Form of Chiropractic Marketing Performs Best For You?

As 2009 comes to a close we've been wondering which form of chiropractic marketing has shown the best results for you and your practice. Has TV or Radio generated a ton of new chiropractic patients for you? Is traditional print/display advertising the clear winner for your chiropractic practice? Have the internet and social media been a big source of your new chiropractic patients?

We want to know your opinion! We're taking a poll and want to hear your voice on chiropractic marketing. Go to: http://www.twtpoll.com/clinsigpro and rate the various forms of chiropractic marketing. It's quick and painless. There's no sign up, no asking for your email address, just VOTE and give your honest opinion! Hurry because the poll closes on January 2nd! After the poll closes we will analyze the results and blog about it in a future post.

So tell us. . . what is your go-to chiropractic marketing?

Chiropractic Marketing During a Recession: Less is More

The worst thing to do during a recession is to stop advertising right? Well the answer is not so clear cut. In stark contrast to what your local yellow pages rep may be telling you, pulling some advertising may actually be the best thing you can do for the economic health of your practice.

Chiropractic practice marketing during a recession can be a challenge. Even for a successful chiropractic practice, every dollar counts during tough economic times. A slow economy brings out the conservative side of every business owner, and the aggressive side of every salesman! With that in mind, let's briefly look at why you shouldn't believe everything your local advertising rep tells you.

I know what you're thinking, "Doc we've always been told the worst thing to do during a recession is to stop advertising!" This is only partially true. This statement is usually uttered by a pressured advertising rep or salesman who's worried you will end your advertising or choose not to advertise with him. While stopping ALL advertising is ill advised, pulling some or even much advertising could actually be a great idea for your chiropractic practice.

During a slow economy a Doctor of Chiropractic needs to examine which advertising methods are working well and which are simply not producting enough of a return on investment. You probably have a lot of paid chirorpactic marketing and advertising that simply isn't producing much in the way of new patients. When times are good it's easy to hold on to the "what if" marketing philosophy. "What if" that ad I've been running brings a new patient to me next week?

I present this question: "what if" you pull funding from that low production ad and put the funds toward your marketing that is working? What if you took that great display ad to a second or third print publication? What if you increased your social media or pay per click campaign? Doesn't it make sense to invest in what is working and pull funding from what is not? Although this is common sense it is so easy to forget when we get caught up in sales pitches, pressure, and economic worries.

I totally agree that a recession is not the time to stop all of your advertising. However, a slow economy is an absolutely ideal time to take a critical look at your chiropractic marketing and advertising plan and budget. If something isn't producing new chiropractic patients it needs to go. Pull the money from that non-productive advertising and do something else with it! Beef up your marketing that IS effective, keep it for cash on hand, or try something new.

While you might argue a slow economy is not the time to try new advertising I'd disagree. It is better to do something different than to continue to waste money on advertising that has consistenly shown poor return on investment. We've all heard that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. It's true! If the advertising wasn't very effective in a good economy and poor during a recession, what makes you think it's going to be different next month? To continue to dump money into worthless marketing is throwing your hard earned money away.

Use tough economic times to take a critical look at your advertising spending. Trimming your marketing budget may be exactly what is needed for a struggling chiropractic practice to survive an economic downturn. Trust me when I say, your local ad representative is never going to tell you this!

Purpose or Profit? Chiropractic Patient Education (Part 3)

As difficult as it is I try and set my own personal beliefs and philosophy aside when I educate my chiropractic patients. Rather than painting a narrow picture of what chiropractic is I try and present a broad range of information to my patients. I feed them the knowledge, plant the seed, and let them make up their own mind. Selfless chiropractic patient education is actually much easier than you might think. Let me walk through how I prioritize my chiropractic patient education.

To keep myself on track I evaluate all of my patient education materials by asking three questions, in order of most to least importance.

1. Am I doing this because it is in the best interests of the patient?

2. Does this promote the entire chiropractic profession in general and not just MY niche and beliefs?

3. Is this good for my practice?

If I can answer YES to all three questions then I am comfortable in using whatever the patient education materials in question may be.

Numbers one and three are the easy goals. So how in the world can you be bothered with ensuring your patient education promotes the entire profession? It's much easier than you think. In a nutshell it boils down to thinking beyond promoting your own practice. Your patient education should promote, or at least do no harm to, the chiropractic profession as a whole. Here is how I try to promote my practice without warping the view of my patients regarding the chiropractic profession.

Rather than pushing ONLY my own techniques and point of view I keep much of my patient education vague. Of course I promote my techniques and therapies heavily, but I'm also very careful to point out that these are not the only techniques out there, even if they aren’t my choice for my practice.

There are techniques and doctors out there I don't necessarily totally agree with. That's not to say these techniques or doctors are wrong. They just aren't my cup of tea. That doesn't mean they aren't right for the patient or for the profession. That doesn't mean I need to bash these techniques when I'm educating my patients. It’s bad for the patient and for the chiropractic profession. Let me give you the perfect example.

One of my chiropractic colleagues in town utilizes certain low force techniques exclusively. His advertising and patient education usually contains statements to the effect of "no dangerous twisting or cracking", "no painful cracking", "no twisting or popping" . . . you get the point. While this may promote his practice and technique, it isn't doing much for the rest of the profession.
Don’t misunderstand me, I'm all for low force techniques. They are great for many conditions and they are ideal for certain patients and for those apprehensive about traditional Gonstead or Diversified adjusting. Low force adjusting techniques are great but that doesn't mean patients should be taught that other techniques are "bad".

The moral of the story is we should always make an attempt to think about how our day to day patient education activities affect the profession. Our advertising, practice protocols, and patient education procedures are all a reflection of the greater chiropractic whole. We should all make an effort to promote our profession AND our practices when educating patients. If this is too much commitment then an effort should be made to at least NOT degrade and discount other techniques and philosophies when we educate our patients.

No one is perfect and so we can’t always make the best choice for our profession. We owe it to each other to make the effort to do so however. As a profession we waste too much energy on dividing ourselves and competing with one another. That’s another soap box and another blog post! Until next time, thanks for reading!

-Dr. James

Purpose or Profit?: Chiropractic Patient Education Part II

The fact that your own chiropractic patient education procedures affect the entire profession is tough to believe at first glance. If we put a little thought into the matter your viewpoint will change considerably. How many of your patients have never been to a chiropractor before visiting you? The answer is many. Like it or not, when one of these chiropractic newbies walks through your door, YOU are representing the entire profession. To these patients you ARE the chiropractic profession because they know little to nothing about our field.

Although the number of licensed Doctors of Chiropractic is steadily increasing most of the population hasn't taken advantage of our services. Many of our new patients have never been to a Doctor of Chiropractic. In these instances our actions are bound to be generalized to the entire profession. Although this may be a heavy burden to bare..it's the truth.

Need further convincing? Let's look at another scenario we all encounter frequently. How many times have you had the honor of treating a new patient who was previously the life long patient of another doctor? Perhaps Doctor Johnson down the street retired and you are treating his former patients. Maybe a patient has moved after living in another doctor's community for decades. These cases are very interesting because these patients are accustomed to their previous doctor's technique and procedures. Convincing these patients that your methods, although different, are just as effective can be very challenging.

The point here is a single chiropractor's practice and patient education do shape a patient's view of the chiropractic profession. Patients pass their point of view on to their family, friends, and co-workers. Don't be fooled into thinking that your education stays within the walls of your clinic. So like it or not doctor, your practice shapes a community's view of our profession. Although this can be a frightening realization and a big responsibility, it can should be viewed as an honor.

Most of my patients are bound to believe Diversified, Gonstead, Flexion Distraction, Decompression and basic modalities are all there is to Chiropractic. If they go to an upper cervical, SOT, or other doctor they are going to be in for some culture shock if they've never been educated properly. Likewise if I position myself as strictly a pain relief doctor, they may have difficutly transitioning to a wellness based health care model.

I know this and I am careful to explain to my patients that althought I try to relieve their pain and symptoms, there is more to the philosophy of chiropractic care. I also tell my patients that I am one Doctor of Chiropractic with one set of tools and techniques. If I can't help them, or if my practice isn't for them, maybe my colleague Doctor Jones across town is another possibility. I'm amazed at how patients respect this! I owe it to my patients and my colleagues to spread the word that chiropractic is useful for more than pain relief. I owe it to my profession to communicate the fact that there are many means to the chiropractic end!

Obviously you can't educate patients on EVERY technique and chiropractic philosophy. Instead you can introduce the concept that the world of Chiropractic is huge and a variety of possibilities exist beyond pain relief and the techniques of your own practice. You owe this to your patients and your profession! I encourage you to open your mind and educate your patients with more than your practice goals in mind.

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.