Customer retention is challenging but it’s particularly tough for healthcare practices. People expect a greater level of service for health issues and most treatment plans only last a couple of months. It puts a lot of emphasis on your patient experience.
Patient service goes beyond the treatment patients receive. It’s in every interaction with staff, every email and phone call. Each touchpoint shapes your overall patient experience. So, this article explores how to enhance the experience to improve patient retention at your chiropractic practice.
1. Review your workflows and patient touchpoints.
People crave certainty from care providers, especially when they’re in poor health. They want to know how much their treatment is going to cost, how long it will take, and what the next steps are.
It’s normal for some outdated processes to go under the radar when you’re running a busy clinic. So there might be some room for improvement to provide a better patient experience.
Workflows to review:
- Patient intake – Revisit your process to see if all the steps/questions are relevant to the treatment your patient is interested in. Remove any unnecessary steps and improve personalization, where possible.
- Appointment scheduling – Only booking appointments during office hours is likely hurting your patient retention; it also creates more work for your receptionists every morning. Explore 24/7 appointment scheduling to capture every opportunity.
- Email communication – Look at all communication sent to your patients. Are emails adding value to your patients’ experience or are they cluttering it with unnecessary information?
- Patient education – Looking at feedback responses, your email marketing, and speaking with your team, do you feel patients are engaged with their treatment plans? (Editor’s Note: ACA provides members with a number of patient education tools on its website.)
- Invoicing – Do you have fast and convenient ways for patients to pay for their treatment?
- Post-treatment care – Does communication cease immediately after patients finish their treatment or are you following up with home exercise programs, check-in emails, etc., to see how they’re doing after their treatment has ended?
Look to make adjustments that improve convenience, patient education, and care to help your patient retention.
2. Always make every patient feel valued.
Every interaction matters, whether it’s on the phone or in person. A 2023 report from Zendesk found that 52% of patients would switch to a company’s competitor after one bad experience. So it’s vital to make every patient feel welcome.
Compassionate staff, effective training, and regular reminders from management are important to maintain a warm and welcoming practice.
“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” ― Maya Angelou
3. Explain treatment plans thoroughly.
Certainty and clarity are essential to patients when searching for health care. They might be considering physical therapists, osteopaths, or another chiropractor. If all three claim they can help patients achieve their goals, people tend to pick the one who makes them feel safest.
Explaining a patient’s problem and how you’re going to improve it builds trust. Use visual aids, and written summaries, and break down technical talk into layman’s terms. This should be consistent throughout treatment plans to keep patients engaged and feeling cared for.
4. Streamline appointment booking.
The majority of chiropractic practice phone lines are open during office hours only, which is inconvenient for patients. They try calling you day and night; 40% of appointments are booked after business hours.
While you can use voicemail machines, they’re not an ideal solution. Statistics show that the majority of people don’t like leaving voicemail messages. And starting each morning checking your voicemail messages is tedious—you may even return calls only to reach patients’ voicemail machines.
Offering a self-schedule appointment service is a convenient option for patients and your staff. It reduces the chance of no-shows, and you will no longer start each morning reorganizing your calendar.
5. Personalize your service.
Personalization improves every aspect of your business. Remembering patients’ names and past conversations, tailoring treatment plans, and customizing marketing efforts all make a big difference. You can’t overdo personalization.
How to personalize chiropractic services:
- Ask patients for their preferred communication method.
- Complete a lifestyle evaluation to personalize treatment plans.
- Set personal goals and treatment plans.
- Segment patients (so workflows/marketing are relevant).
- Send them emails on their birthday and holidays to wish them well.
- Recommend additional services based on patients’ goals.
6. Send appointment reminders and confirmations.
No-shows are a problem for service-based businesses. While the occasional one is inevitable no matter what you do, a simple appointment reminder text can reduce the chance of a no-show by 29%.
7. Provide around-the-clock patient service.
Office hours are slowly becoming a thing of the past as 72% of patients want immediate service. Chatbots can help with after-hours patients but a recent study from Zendesk found that 78% of patients who use them end up needing to speak to a human agent anyway.
A medical practice answering service can take calls on your behalf 24/7. Calls will be answered by a team of HIPAA-trained medical receptionists, answering using your customized brand scripts.
Answering services typically offer:
- After hours, call overflow, and 24/7 answering services.
- Live chat.
- New patient intake services.
- Bilingual receptionists.
8. Build authority with content marketing.
Sharing valuable free content such as blogs and emails educates your patients while keeping you fresh in their minds. It builds authority in your space and keeps patients invested in their treatment.
Content marketing ideas for chiropractic practices:
- Write educational blog posts on conditions that you treat.
- Share case studies, testimonials, and positive reviews.
- Share “behind the scenes” videos of the daily running of your practice.
- Create “how to“ guides to improve common issues people suffer from.
- Host webinars, workshops, and Q&As around common topics.
9. Collect patient feedback.
Regularly collecting patient feedback helps identify what’s working and what needs improvement. Trigger an email to go out after treatment to see what patients thought about appointment scheduling, practice environment, staff interaction, treatment, pricing, overall satisfaction, etc.
Popular patient feedback software:
Regularly assessing feedback is vital because unhappy patients don’t always express their feelings. Many walk away and won’t return. You can offer incentives to complete a survey such as prize draws as patient service feedback is invaluable.
Stephanie Maharjan is an operational leader with WellReceived, a corporate partner of the American Chiropractic Association. To explore how WellRecieved can help your patient retention and lead generation at your practice, visit this page today.
