TNR Happenings September 18, 2018

Have you ever noticed people change? 

You’re humming along and a long-term practice member discontinues care. What? You worked up an urgent DCME and they text or email you and say they want to discontinue and they want a refund. Urghh. You thought they were all in. You get a practice member that wants to upgrade to a heavy duty level 2 with you when they made it clear they couldn’t afford it before. What’s happening? You get a person who is so thrilled with their care they refer in lots of people and they want to become a DC. Here’s a brief explanation for something that continually happens in all of our offices. The decisions that practice members make will not make linear sense so don’t be attached to the outcome. There are so many factors at play when people make decisions. Most of it goes unnoticed or they aren’t consciously aware of it. Most DCs who have been in the heavy-duty realm of cases understand the stages of disease people go through.

Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance/Surrender. Imagine for a moment that you first engage your practice member when they are in the stage of denial. They agree to your recommendations, pay you (sometimes even pre-pay), and then they quit, usually up front. They start thinking, it’s not that bad, maybe it will go away on its own accord. They usually don’t even temporarily commit during this stage. They will ignore the problem, lean on drugs, look online for low commitment cures, or turn to alcohol or other forms of anesthesia and distractions. They still think they are going to wiggle their way out of their problems. Like an ostrich, stick your head in the sand and maybe the problem will go away.

How many people have experienced angry practice members? They have no filter and can really create non-peaceful moments in your office. They don’t want to fill out paperwork or they don’t want to watch a video. They don’t think they should pay outside of insurance, etc. At this stage, they are willing to do little except give you a try with an adjustment or two.

Bargaining, you see a lot of people go to church more often when the handwriting is on the wall. They start taking vitamins, meditating, or trying food restrictions; not for better health, but as a bargaining to get rid of this illness or disease. It's a type of confession, like making a deal with the devil, etc. They start to act kindly towards others and they really look like they have made a permanent change. It looks like they have turned the corner. But they haven’t. If they were to get out of their predicament, they would turn right around and become themselves again. So many DCs see practice members in this stage and think they are going to be great practice members; then they are so surprised when the patients disappear.

Depression based people are in some form of hopelessness. They have tried all the quick and not so quick cures, like copper bracelets and essential oils, and have taken advice from all of their relatives. Yet their disease still persists and the curtain is starting to fall. We see many of these as practice members. Some do well and others just can’t stick to their recommendations. When they find out that what they believed in is not true, like western medicine and insurance companies hold the key to your health, it can seem like a piece of them is dying

Then you have acceptance or surrender where the person has accepted the severity and finality to their condition. There is a calmness about them. They would love to be healthy but they also realize it may be too late. The condition doesn’t have to be fatal, it just isn’t going anywhere, fast. This is where you will have more people entering relationships and staying in the relationships. It’s not that you can’t have great relationships during any of the stages, but this is usually the stage where most of the best patients are. Don’t blame yourself for the different decisions practice members make during the various stages that they all go thru.

Practice tip of the week 

This is one of the more counterintuitive concepts in TNR. If you have any concerns about new patients, please get your Health Awareness Seminar back in place. It’s always a function of personal power, nothing else. The most successful offices I have ever coached all have one trait in common. No, it's not their technique, philosophy, location, or fees. It's having a weekly HAS.

As you know, there are usually 2 huge problems with having one. First, you can’t get people to attend. You’ve tried in the past and people either laugh you off or just don’t show. If you listen to Below the Line reasoning, it’s because they are too busy on their computers. Second, when people do come, you have an information-laden, snooze fest. They will not come to an experience just to be a captive audience to something they could observe on a computer. Which problem is worse? It's the old chicken before the egg paradigm.

Now I know you can get by without one. There are a few problems with this strategy. You will need to buy a substitute for a functioning HAS. Your overhead will increase considerably with needing to do social media marketing and advertising or purchasing BSOs. And remember, you have to take the time to write and post almost daily with the social media. This creates worry, distraction, and personal power loss in your office. At the seminar on Saturday, I saw the light bulbs go off in all of the attendees' heads. It occurred to them, ‘If I reach for BSOs or online or offline advertising, I will become dependent on something that changes like the weather.' Insurance promised to liberate DCs when it first emerged and it now imprisons DCs. It's better to put some effort into something that works today and will work tomorrow, something you have complete control over with no outside regulation. Have the freedom to practice the way you choose to regardless of external factors like insurance coverage, regulations, etc. The Health Awareness Seminar is the PERMANENT SOLUTION to quality new patients and it’s FREE! I've seen too many DCs who had the focus of their offices on new patient procurement, insurance paperwork, ERH, regulations, and compliance and correspondingly had a low focus on practice member care. This predictably leads to low retention, low referrals, and low respect for the doctor: the three R’s.