What's your take on annual care plans?

My response:

I think annual contracts have a place. But not during the first 90 days or so of care. Blending the symptomatic/relief care that prompts most patients to seek chiropractic care, with nonsymptomatic/maintenance care blurs a critical distinction that is lost on most new patients.

Annual care plans should be reserved for people who truly "get" chiropractic and see it as a way to enhance their life, not as a way of improving retention statistics. Using financial incentives to help patients "do the right thing" on their first exposure to chiropractic is ripe for patient misunderstanding. Many patients simply hear the lower-per-visit fee and look past the fine print that says they have to pay more to extricate themselves from the agreement!

I believe, when improperly handled and poorly presented to an uneducated patient, especially a chiropractic "virgin," that such plans are predatory and ultimately work against the practitioner and the profession. At least if the number of board complaints in Australia and elsewhere is any indication.

Annual care plans have a place, but not when utilized the way so many ambitious chiropractors use them in extract a commitment from a patient who is bringing their lifetime of symptom-treating perspective with them to their first visit to a chiropractor.

Bill