Suppose a patient walks into your clinic for pain management or a treatment for addictions (smoking, overeating) or decompression therapy or any number of other therapies not covered by medical insurance.
If a treatment costs upwards of $100, many clinic staff will tell the patient, "Oh, that's not covered. You may not want to do that." Because that's how they naturally react.
But if you want to build a thriving practice that brings in more than $1 million a year and is not entirely dependent on the dwindling insurance payment system, then you have to overcome this mindset.
The quality of your staff -- their hiring and training – is crucial to this. You need the type of staff who can close these cash services.
Now you may be thinking, "I can't afford to hire more than an $8 to $10/hour employee. There's no way I can afford a go-getter or a more highly-trained staffer."
But it isn't a matter of how much you pay them. If you get the right person, with the right personality, and train them properly, they'll close those cash services. One of my best people was only 18 years old and she sold more cases than I did at the time. Yet she'd never been to college.
The problem with most staff in chiropractic clinics today is apathy. They are going through the motions, collecting their paycheck, not quite sure why they're there.
Many people take jobs in chiropractic clinics because they think it's 9 to 5 job. After all, it's healthcare. What could be a safer bet than a job in healthcare? They want security and safety and think healthcare is the way to get it. When the truth is, the healthcare industry has changed radically in the past 20 year.
And as I said before, a lot of staff are limited by their own beliefs and push those beliefs upon patients. If your staff think they can't afford the care, they certainly are not going to be able to ask the patient for the money.
You need a "rainbow vacuum" type of staff person. You need staff that are capable of educating patients. Not being hucksters, of course. But also not being afraid to confront patients and tell them what they need, if they truly need it.
You need someone who can tell patients the truth and give them options: you can do this, and be tons better and we can finally take care of the problem. Or you can just do this small treatment, and be temporarily rid of the pain. Which one do you prefer?
Unfortunately, right now, very few staff are being hired and trained for this. But they are the ones we want to identify, hire and train. Staff who can close more cash services.
After all, chiropractors are often the most affordable treatment option in town. If these patients went to their doctors for conventional treatments, or to the hospital when things got worse, it would cost them much more, wouldn't it?
Let me give you an example: a lady came into our offices and needed spinal decompression. She wasn't going to get it because it would have cost $2,000 and it wasn't covered by insurance. But she was a nurse and couldn't work because she was in such pain.
Her grandmother was with her for the appointment. And I said to her grandmother, would you co-sign a payment for the $2,000 so she can get this treatment? And she said, "Of course I would!" Well, the clinic staff were sitting there with their mouths open and wondering, how did you just do that? We could never do that."
Well, that's not the type of staff you want, is it?
So our goal must be, let's solve the problem right now, once and for all, for the patient's own good. Let's give the patient options. Let's treat them like family. I'm sure both your patients and your practice will be better of, as a result.
Hiring the right staff
The place to start is by hiring staff who tend to have a more open personality to this approach. Staff who are not afraid to talk to patients about solutions.
The first step is to use personality testing. Usually people with high self-esteem are capable of operating this way. The ones without high self- esteem can't, and will never be able to do it, and frankly, we don't want them in your clinic.
As for hiring, many chiropractors hire on appearance and personality and don't go through the right systematic process for interviewing and hiring. With my clients, we do group interviews, personality testing for the top few that we like, and then we have new staff work "on probation" for three days to see if it's a fit or not. All these steps need to be in place to ultimately get the right person. And even then, it's not a 100% sure bet. But at least it eliminates a lot of the guesswork.
A group interview, for example, involves calling all the applicants in. You might have 40 chairs. They all get name badges. We go through a systematic approach with them, telling them about the clinic. We then take them for a tour of the clinic, then take them back to the main room and say, "What I mentioned a few minutes ago about our chiropractic clinic … I want you to tell me about it now."
We want to see who remembers the information, what their thought processes are, how well they write, and if they can spell. You find out a lot very quickly. You want a staff person who can communicate well both in person and in writing, because some patients respond to verbal communication, others to writing. You see how staff work in groups. You pick out the extroverted versus introverted personalities. Many clinics will have introverts, because they're really good at filling out insurance forms. But those are not necessarily the type of staff who will close cash services. A drama student might be a better at times, then the one who is just good at math.
Unfortunately, many chiropractors do not have the tools or experience or the time to do this kind of systematic selection process and training.
It's not something they teach at chiropractic school. There aren't many seminars about it because it's just not "sexy." But hiring and training of staff is probably the single most important thing you can do to for the success of your practice.
That's because the average staff person for a clinic might only stay a year-and-a-half. If that's the case, and the average doctor practices for roughly 30 years, then how many staff are you going to run through? 20? 30? For each position? Now multiply that by how many staff you have in your office!
It's imperative that you have a training program in place because you're going to be doing a lot of it. This is where coaching and training videos become so important. Systematic training can be done over and over again. So when staff come in, they've got the right materials to read, to listen to, and they are rehearsing and practicing the right procedures in the office.
We help chiropractors to give their staff the training and mindset they need to help patients and close cash services.
We have programs where we go into your clinic and work with staff one on one until they fully understand and realize that it's about educating people and helping people. Once they understand it, staff are more excited to help patients get well. Asking for payment isn't a bad thing at all. It's an exchange of value for services.
As long as their minds are open and they realize it's all about the patient, there's no obstacle. They begin to understand the big picture. Most staff will embrace this approach, take it and run with it – for phenomenal results.
With a properly selected and trained staff, you can focus on being the doctor, building your practice and living your dreams.
Call me at 817-939-8435 with any questions. Or if wanting to get started for in time for spring this year. Now is the time to ATTACK not pull in.
Sincerly, Chandler George, D.C.
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