Chiropractic Practice: Creating Compliance: The Magic of “Want To”

Hello everybody and welcome to Thrive in Five. I’m Dr. Dennis Perman, and it’s my pleasure to be here with you today as your chiropractic coach. The subject matter today is creating compliance, the magic of want to. Now, this is a favorite topic of mine because we all know that people who understand chiropractic care actually want it. They recognize that there’s something in it for them and they prefer it, but most new chiropractic patients don’t yet have that perspective. They’re coming from have to now, because I spend all day every day talking to doctors on the phone, it’s easy for me to pick up on rhythms that are happening in the marketplace, and whereas most usually the song I hear most often is, how do I get more new patients? These days, new patients tend to be flowing rather easily. So the song I’m hearing is a brand new song.

I’m getting lots of new patients. How do I get them to stay? Well, that’s the subject matter of today’s podcast because if you can figure out how to get somebody to stick with chiropractic care, then not only is it great for them, but it’s also great for you in your practice, your demand for new patients becomes less. You become more discerning about the kinds of new patients you attract, and the fact is you are taking care of people who actually all want to be there. So let’s talk about how to generate a, want to practice well, what makes people want to do anything? I remember when my kids were growing up, trying to get them to do their homework was really a drag. They didn’t wanna do it. They only did it because they have to, oh, dad, I don’t wanna do my homework. Well, you have to, well, you know what?
Create what created is created out of that a sour disposition and sitting at the kitchen table endlessly waiting for them to finally get done with their assignment. 

What I realized was that if I could help them shift to want to, if I could help them want to do their homework, then not only would it be easier on them, it’d be easier on me too. So I learned that I had to expose the positive benefits of doing homework. And indeed, if you show them that, oh, well, you’ll do better in school, it’ll be easier for you to get all your work done. You can go out and play after you’re done. I mean, you can have some ice cream if you like, if you finish your, I mean bribery is, is is not the optimal way to go about it, but it certainly does work. The key is to see if you can get people to want to do something. So I got my kids to want to do their homework, and it eliminated a lot of stress for them and a lot of stress for me. Well, I’m suggesting that you experiment with how to get your patients to want to come in for their care. In the very beginning. They come in because they have to. They’re in pain, they want relief. They hear you can help them, and invariably you do. But sometime

Thereafter, they’re starting to feel better, and now you are leveraging, getting them to continue on with care begins to dwindle. Now, here’s a secret. Most don’t know if you wait until they’re feeling better in order to get them to want to come in for care, the chances are it’ll be hard for you to get them to convert because the response potential is greatest when in the very beginning they’re most enthusiastic and passionate about your care in the very beginning. So you need to begin to introduce one, two concepts right from the get-go. Mrs. Patient, I know you’re in pain now, and certainly we wanna make sure that you get some relief as quickly as possible. But what you don’t yet know is that people who stick with chiropractic care experience tremendous quality of life benefits, they sleep better, they digest their food better. People even tell me that their relationships get better, and who couldn’t use some of that.
By introducing these ideas about want to early on, you make it much more likely that the patient will be able to embrace them. And then when you get to that critical point where the patient is considering discontinuing, now you’re in position to be able to cause them to stick around. Now, why is this so important? It’s important because, sure, there’s no shortage of new patients. 

They’re everywhere. I mean, you walk down the street, everyone you see, I mean, 90% plus are not under care and 99% are not under your care. But as I said before, the tide is starting to turn. People have become a bit more health conscious and they started to recognize that chiropractors were thriving during the pandemic years because we had something to offer people that was not treatment. It was benefits of regular healthcare. And people started to recognize that that was a huge asset.

So people are starting to flow towards chiropractic care, but they have not yet been trained not to use us as an expensive aspirin that comes from you and your training of the patient early on. If you can help the patient to understand why they should want to come in for care, you’ve got a much better likelihood of them following through. This is something that I have been talking about on the phone with doctors very much recently, and if you check in with your patients, you’ll see that right around visit 18 to 24 or so, they’re starting to, they’re starting to become less interested in coming back. Now, if you use a good re-exam system, you can punctuate your care and you can keep them on the straight and narrow. But in the absence of that, you need to make sure that you expose the positive benefits of want to. That’s the way for you to make sure that your patients get the full benefit of your care. Thank you very much for watching. This is Dr. Dennis from The Masters Circle Global where legends are made and legendary practices are built.

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