Handling the Mission Critical Points of the Chiropractic Patient Experience
In a previous blog article, we talked about how using proactive Chiropractic software to quantify and improve the patient experience can take your practice to a new level. Chiropractic software can do this by handling the mission critical points of the patient experience, making sure that no detail is missed. So, what does mission critical mean when we’re talking about the chiropractic patient experience? Mission critical points for your practice are things that you have to follow-up with in real time or risk losing your patient. Every task performed by you and your staff each day, from scheduling to billing, inventory, collecting recurring cash payments, etc. From the first exam to following up on chiropractic insurance claims will have an impact on the experience your patients have in your office and will determine whether they continue with or drop out of care. Think about how many tasks you and your staff must perform each day to achieve a perfect patient care experience. Exams, adjustments, chiropractic SOAP notes, diagnosis codes, billing, taking patient payments, credit card on file, asking for referrals, scheduling future visits, and following up on no-shows and expired care plans are just a few of the mission critical points your practice experiences every day. These all have to be monitored in real time or the patient experience suffers. To retain just one chiropractic patient, there are an estimated 331 tasks that have to happen perfectly every single time. But, why are these tasks mission critical? Let’s take no-shows as an example. What does a no-show really mean to not only your business but to your patient. If a patient was going in for chemotherapy and they had to miss a visit, would they be waiting for you to call them to reschedule that visit? Absolutely not. Would they walk out of chemotherapy forgetting to schedule their next visits? Or, would they reach the end of their treatment, get their testing done, and not follow-up to get their doctor’s recommendations for the next phase of their care. Never…it is too important to them. So, when a patient in your chiropractic practice no-shows for a visit, walks out without a future appointment, or is not excited about their re-exam, what are they telling you? They are telling you that they don’t value their care. It is no longer important to them. They are telling you that they don’t value their care. Patients visit a Chiropractor and sign up for chiropractic care for the right reasons. They don’t sign up for 36 visits if they don’t understand the value Chiropractic brings to their lives. The problem is that they forget. And, they don’t tell you they have forgotten. They show you they have forgotten by not showing up for their appointments and forgetting to schedule new ones. If you don’t monitor and follow-up on these things in real time, you are in immediate danger of losing that patient. This is mission critical. A proactive Chiropractic software, like Genesis Chiropractic Software brings real value to your practice by monitoring each and every mission critical point in real time. It ensures that every one of those 331 tasks that have to be performed to retain each patient are not only assigned to the best staff member to handle them but also have been completed, giving you the ability to create an outstanding patient experience. Managing these mission critical points is the ultimate key to building patient loyalty, boosting patient retention, decreasing staff frustrations, increasing referrals and dramatically increasing the revenue per patient on average.
Chiropractic Software ROI Increases with Higher Patient Retention
We’ve talked about how important the patient experience is to the success of your practice. We’ve also discussed how using proactive Chiropractic software and technology to quantify and improve that experience helps you to run your practice at the level of big business. Now, let’s look at it from a purely marketing perspective and break down your Chiropractic software ROI (Return On Investment). Most already know what return on investment is. For example, if you gave me one dollar and I gave you back five dollars that would be a 5 times return on investment, a good ROI. But, if you gave me five dollars and I gave you back only one dollar that would be a bad return on investment. Almost every Chiropractor knows that they should be calculating their return on investment when they put an ad in the paper or send out a mailer. However, what these same Chiropractors don’t realize, is that they need to calculate their cost of marketing and getting new patients versus their Chiropractic software ROI of increasing patient retention. According to Harvard Business Review, it costs you five times more to get new patients than it does to retain patients you already have. Five times more. So, what does that mean? It means that you give me five dollars and I give you back one dollar – a bad return on investment. Bringing in new patients is five times more costly than utilizing a solid patient retention program. Yet ironically, most Chiropractic marketing software and systems focus on increasing the number of new patients rather than boosting your patient retention. It is interesting that the best businesses in the world are also the best at customer retention. Take the Ritz Carlton for example. Every single thing they do is broken down into small steps to ensure no detail is missed, every customer experience is personalized, and each person that stays at the Ritz receives the ultimate gold-standard care. The Ritz Carlton focuses on customer retention and in return achieves a huge return on investment with customers who return time and time again, happy to pay their five hundred dollars plus rate per night. It is time for Chiropractors to understand what the largest, most successful businesses in the world already know…retaining your current customers or patients equals a higher return on investment than marketing for new customers or patients, a five times higher ROI. This means that increasing patient retention by focusing on improving the patient experience is vital to achieving success in your practice. Any business person knows that you put your money where you will achieve the highest return on investment. For Chiropractors, the greatest ROI is not found in new patient marketing where most of the marketing dollars have traditionally been spent. Instead, investing in a solid patient retention program, similar to the Ritz Carlton, where each step of the patient experience is broken down and quantified so that no detail is missed, will generate the highest possible return on investment for your practice. Don’t miss our next post where we will discuss managing the mission critical points of the patient care experience.
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