Indentifying Your Ideal Patient

by William D. Esteb

Whether I'm working with chiropractic doctors, CPAs, advertising agencies or other small professional businesses, each has a type of ideal patient, client, or project they particularly enjoy. Typically, these are situations characterized by a win/win environment and a mutual respect between the buyer and seller.

Imagine your entire practice filled with "Ideal Patients."

Rather than aiming for some arbitrary and escalating quantity of patients, many offices are now directing their attention to improving the quality of their patients. Quality is defined differently by each practice. But how do you change your patient mix to reflect more of the kinds of "quality" patients you would especially enjoy serving? Better question: should you?

You must decide that it's appropriate to actively have a hand in shaping the composition of your patient profile. There are doctors who have interpreted their professional obligation to include serving virtually anyone who can dial seven digits on a telephone and present their spines in the office. Conversely, if you have the capacity to serve those seeking care, and you denied access to chiropractic due to some arbitrary social standard, that would be wrong, too. What many offices are doing is simply identifying characteristics of those patients they especially enjoy serving, and making a specific effort to attract them.

What types of patients do you enjoy serving? What are their common denominators? Is it their health attitudes? Personality? Income? Occupation? Hobbies? Lifestyle? Personal habits? Age? Cash? Insurance? Insurance company? Condition?

What is it about your special patients that makes them special?

In an office I consulted with, the doctor enjoyed working with young professionals, especially those who were active and sports-minded. Conflict mounted as the C.A. paid extra attention to elderly patients, making them feel especially welcome in the office while often neglecting the young professionals, in effect sabotaging the kinds of patients the doctor wanted to see. We each have our own particular social orientation, shaped by our background and personalities, and patients feel most comfortable when the office is in alignment. The C.A.'s actions were the source of constant frustration and the problem had to be permanently resolved. (The C.A. is now happily working in a senior citizen facility.)

The struggle facing staff members was more serious in an accounting firm I consulted with. After three years, the practice had plateaued. During a brainstorming session, it was revealed that one of the two principals wanted to have the largest accounting firm in the state. The other, stunned by this discovery, mumbled something about wanting to have fewer clients with interesting accounting problems that could be served in a smaller, "boutique" setting with a low overhead. With their "hidden agendas" out in the open, they continued to practice together but with separate kinds of clients. Unfortunately, the motives, expectations, and attention required to serve these two different types of clients levied a high toll on the staff, who were placed in the position of "choosing sides." Nine months later, they formally separated. Neither one was right or wrong in their vision of the ideal practice and the kind of client to be served. They just had different visions. Today they are both doing well and experiencing greater success and fulfillment than when they were together.

A common complaint I hear among doctors is having to "sell" chiropractic to patients. Many offices have stopped selling chiropractic. They have begun to market chiropractic. And the difference is more than semantic. Selling focuses on the needs of the seller, marketing on the needs of the buyer. Selling is preoccupied with the seller's need to convert his time and services into cash. Marketing is the idea of identifying and satisfying the needs of the customer. It's the difference between selling 1/4" drill bits versus supplying a solution for those who want to make 1/4" holes. Selling is difficult, marketing is difficult, but for different reasons--primarily motivation.

If you're merely "selling" a drill bit, anyone with $1.69 becomes a qualified buyer. If you're "marketing" drill bits, you need to first identify those who need holes. Particular kinds of holes. In what types of materials. You have to find out what a customer wants. And when a customer asks for a way to make 1" square holes and you don't have a solution you make a referral to another source.

You must identify the kinds of patients for whom you have solutions. The temptation is to say everyone with a spine! But you can't be all things to all people. No matter what you think, you aren't providing the same high level of care to patients who are skeptical, have negative attitudes, or poor personal hygiene. It's human nature to search out those who are appreciative, responsive, and open.

Identify the characteristics of the ideal patient interested in the kind of care you provide, and then focus your efforts on nurturing and expanding the number of these kinds of patients in your practice. You may discover that the unique factors in your ideal patient transcend age, sex, income, occupation, and other typical demographic qualifiers. Maybe your ideal patient fits a particular "attitudinal" description. One doctor who especially enjoyed working with young professionals joked that many of his favorite patients wore Rockport shoes! The cars parked in front of the computer store are generally foreign built. In front of the bowling alley? American. What do your ideal patients have in common?

Begin to shape your practice so it is especially responsive to the needs of the kinds of patients you want. What kind of magazines do they like to read? Do they have children who need to be entertained? Is the waiting room furniture easy for older patients to rise up out of? Do busy professionals quietly resent being handed a clipboard and a bent pen on their first visit? Do certain patients want better explanations about X-ray exposure? When you begin marketing chiropractic instead of selling it, you simply make it easier for the kinds of patients you want to feel comfortable in your practice.

More often than not, your ideal patient shares your value system. In fact, I was recently identified by my dentist as someone who shared the same value system with him and his staff. I received an excellent letter from them. While the letter consisted of only six sentences, it mentioned that the dentist and the staff had recently discussed "the kinds of patients we especially enjoy having in our practice," and that in general, "these patients share similar values with the dental staff." Further, they indicated, "because of this similar value system, people you like are very likely to be the kinds of people we would like, too." And since they would like to build an entire practice of people like me, if the opportunity should ever arise for me to send someone to them, they would be especially grateful. What a wonderful referral tool. No selling. No stress. No arm twisting. It was a compliment to me that they valued my judgment and thought that I would send them the "right" kind of patient. Guess what I'll do next time the subject of dental care comes up in conversation?

Who are your ideal patients?

Buy the book
A Patient's Point of View
Originally published in 1992
240 Pages
US $19.95

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