Generals are often accused of “fighting the last war” and this is true also for chiropractors. The strategies and tactics used when most patients had generous health insurance are no longer working. Conditions have changed. And if you don’t (or haven’t) changed along with them, you’ll become a casualty.
There were only a couple of strategies back then. Most, a variation on the “extract-as-much-money-from-the-patient’s-insurance-policy-as-possible” theme. Even chiropractors with the highest motives found themselves avoiding the term “subluxation” in their insurance narratives, adding physical therapy or other services that were reimbursed by the patient’s carrier. Most chiropractors “followed the money” and now years later find themselves in a strange land. Some are understandably panicking like a child suddenly feeling lost at the shopping mall. But finding mommy won’t be easy. Because there is no mommy.
Hit hardest are those who have known nothing but the insurance game. They still believe discussing patient finances is best delegated to a staff member. This, along with assuming patients will be motivated by swift, drug-free results, a winning tableside manner and the generosity of their carrier, has produced a generation of chiropractors who believe an ample supply of new patients would solve everything.
True, a patient “keeping” problem looks like a new patient shortage problem. But that’s like patients thinking their headaches are the result of an aspirin shortage. Sure, you need new patients, but consider your trophy case of inactive patient files. They were once new patients. If you interact with your new ones the way you did with your old ones, you’ll simply prolong the day of reckoning.
May I recommend our Converting to Cash program? Besides laser-focused patient education, your new responsibility is now patient financial education. New patients are showing up as damaged goods, waving their HMO membership cards as if they were worth something. The danger is in pretending that they are. That was the last war, remember?