How to offer your patients something they can’t get anywhere else

Hey, everyone, it's Chris. And today I'm going to share one of the most valuable strategies that we have ever used in our practice to build our reputation in the area, but also offer a service that patients can't get anywhere else. And when you can do this, you will stand in your community as the only clinic that can offer something that a lot of people want and need. It's a great position to be in. And best of all, it allows you to help patients in a way that nobody else has been able to help them. So I talked about last week in this video of how to, you know, we built our reputation partly by sending patients away and sending them to other practitioners. But most of the time, we don't actually do that. Most of the time they'll come and see me and I'll say, yep, we can help and we'll embark on some treatment. But I also have become a big, big fan of co managing. Co managing is something that I do with way more patients now than I used to. It's something I do way earlier. And it's something that I've been amazed by the results that we can get because I kind of went through three phases with this. And you'll probably recognize definitely the first one, I'm sure many of you will recognize, potentially be in the second one right now. But it's the third phase that I think has really made the difference. So first phase of my career was I graduated. And yes, I knew that adjustments were great, and yes, I knew that some soft tissue could be helpful. And yes, I knew that exercises were helpful and I could offer those things. But I also knew that, you know what, sleep is really, really important for health. Diet is really, really important for health. You know, physical activity through the day, nutrition, stress management, there's always other components that are impacting this person's pain and impacting their health. And I'd like to address, I think they often need addressing with people. So I started to study, I started to learn. Nutrition has been a big interest of mine particularly. And I thought, well, I know, I know I'm going to offer them these things as well. I'll help them with those other things. And then I stand out in the air as I'm not just a chiropractor who cracks them. Oh, you should see Chris. Yeah, he helped me, like, work out my diet. He recommended some supplements. I sleep better, you know, whatever it might be. I thought, I'm going to offer that as well, because that way I'm offering even more value. I recognize now Looking back, part of that came from my own insecurity imposter syndrome, because I felt I wasn't good enough. So I was going to put all this other stuff on top. But anyway, the reason for that is irrelevant. I started doing that, I started trying to make all these recommendations. But over time I realized I was really being a jack of all trades. I couldn't be an expert in all these things. And unless I was going to start spending an hour with every patient, every visit, and going through food plans and things like this, I didn't have the time to do that. And I wasn't going to charge every patient 200 pounds for that because I did not feel like it preferred £200 an hour's worth of value back then. But it also, realistically, I wasn't going to be an expert in all these things, and if I was wrong on one of them, the patient would doubt everything. So I realized, you know what? I shouldn't be trying to do all this myself. So I started to build a network. And this is what many more mature practitioners do, is they start to build a network, relationships in the area, other practitioners who might be able to help. Because chiropractic is not going to sort out everything. And sometimes these other professionals could really add something. And the way I would generally use it is I see somebody, I take them on, I treat them, and then sometimes you just don't get the results. You think, maybe they're not getting better, they're not responding to care, or they are, but it's slower, it's plateauing. And you're thinking, yeah, I try the stuff. Maybe let's look down the chain. Maybe let's address the feet, whatever it might be. But basically, when I ran out of ideas, I go, yeah, I don't think I'm really able to help you. Why don't you go see a personal trainer? Or why don't you go get your diet, or why don't you go see this acupuncture? And I'd refer them out to another person. I learned quite quickly it works much better if I follow up with an email that has the details of the person that I want them to see so they don't have to remember anything. They don't go home and forget. They've got that reminder. So anytime you do refer out, always follow up with an email with the specific details of that person. But over time, I realized that there was two things wrong with this. First, firstly, whenever I made that referral and that person helped them, part of me Would kick myself going, oh, I wish I'd known that sooner. Because we've just spent a whole bunch of time and money and effort not getting anywhere. And that was what was so great about the one. The case I talked about last week is I made that referral immediately and they were super grateful. That doesn't happen when they've already spent several hundred pounds with you over a few weeks or even months. Then they might be happy they found someone, but they're kind of like, oh, I wish we hadn't had to do all that work to work that out. So. So I realized I was doing it reactively, not proactively. I was waiting until things went wrong. The other thing, though, was that I started to wonder, well, wow, what if, like, we combined things? Because some patients would sometimes come back and go, yeah, they've been helping a bit, but actually, like, I feel like it's jammed up again. I'm hoping if you could free it up and then I'd go back to them. I had some patients who would end up co managing, and sometimes that was what really got them moving and really sorted them out was having both of us working together, together. So over time, I realized that actually what I needed to do was start co managing with people and bringing them on board earlier. But of course, the thing that flared up in my head with this was something that I thought I dealt with a long time ago, but it all flared back up again. Something I've talked about a lot here, money issues, is that I noticed, oh, I'm hesitant to make that referral right at the start of care, recommend it early on, even though I think it could be helpful because I'm asking them to spend even more money, you know, like, and realistically, if I said to a patient, right, I'll see you twice a week initially, but also have a weekly massage. Also go see this nutritionist every couple of weeks and you should get some custom orthotics. They're gonna go, yeah, Chris, I can't afford to do all of that this month. And some patients can. And often I was a bit surprised. But you can't just throw everything at everybody right at the start. But what I was doing was the opposite. I was assuming I knew better and I knew best how to spend their money and that I would make that decision for them because they would probably not afford it and they might think, well, that's too much and I don't want to make them feel bad. So I'll decide, well, let's hold off until we know we need it again. It's just like under treating, it's just like space them out too early. This is Dr. Centered practice, it is unethical, it is paternalistic and assuming that you know better. Not judging anyone for that because I did it for years and even whilst I got over the under treating side of things, then this co management thing came up and I was like, ah, it's the same issue again. Yeah, I'm assuming I know how to spend that money. So I started just bringing it up right at the start of care. If I think that massage would help them right now, I, I mention it right now. If I think that a personal trainer might help them in a few visits, I mention it right at the start and say, look, in a couple of weeks, this is somebody who I think could really, really help you with that. And the really cool thing with this is that it has amazed me the number of patients who got really enthusiastic about that. Even patients who might have mentioned something about struggling to afford more than a certain amount of care. When I said, well, actually we could upgrade that care and bring another person on, they often started to find the money for that other person. Because when they said they couldn't really afford it, what they meant was they're not prepared to commit this much money just to me. But when I could offer them some joined up thinking where I would say, not just I'd recommend you see this person, but I'm going to then liaise them, I'll tell them everything that we found, I'll let them know what we're doing, I'll let them know what I think they could help with. They will assess you and let me know what they found. So we'll be working on a shared plan and we've actually had patients who've come to see us, we've had a massage therapist, they've known for years who they trust, who's really helped them. And then I've met, you know, they found out that we do massage here and they've got, oh, can I come see your therapist? I'm going, well, I'll co manage with your one. I can let them know. So, yeah, but if it's in house, I just know that communication, but I'd rather do that. And they've actually dropped somebody that they've known come to see somebody new because they know they're going to get that joined up thinking this is something that is not out there anywhere in the chronic pain world, anywhere in the MSK world. Even though all the guidelines and all the Research is saying this is what people need to. To really get better, not just to get patched up. So what I would suggest to all of you is that if you don't have this already, start to build a network of practitioners in your area. And the key thing I found is that don't do what most people do, which is go there and go, yeah, here's all the people I can help. I never network with anybody, trying to say to them, here's the business you can send my way. I always do it the other way. And in all honesty, most of the practitioners I work with, there are more referrals coming from me to them than them to me. That's fine, because the value that my care brings when I've referred out to somebody is so much higher. We have had patients referred to us specifically because. Oh, you're the practice that works with the Pilates instructor. Right. People really, really value that because they don't get it anywhere else. And the number of patients who I thought couldn't afford it, who'd mentioned financial concerns when I brought that up, actually went, yeah, you know what, that would be great, I'm going to do that. I'll find the money, whatever it is. It really surprised me because they can't get it anywhere else. No one else is really doing this, even the nhs. They might see all these specialists, but there's no joined up thinking they're all working in their silos there. So if you can offer that, if you can actually co manage in a way that says, don't worry about trying to play messenger, don't worry about you having to tell the Pilates instructor what the chiropractor said, because they'll get it all wrong and they know that and they hate it. Don't worry about that. I will talk to them, I'll let them know what we've had. We'll have a shared plan there. Then another point, we might bring this person as well, if you're happy to, you know, you can let them know that foreshadowing is coming. Sorry, you can foreshadow that changes are coming, but this is somebody who we might bring on a bit down the line. I'm letting you know now, but we can have a discussion during the time however you want to do it, but have the discussion early on. Don't be reactive, be proactive and you would be amazed enthusiasm you get from a lot of patients. So if that sounds like it could be useful to you, I thoroughly, thoroughly recommend you give it a go. Those of you had quite a few people asking lately about when the next iteration of the Happy Project will be opening that's coming soon. I've got some very exciting stuff to share because there's a bunch of other projects I've been working on as well and I'm going to share them with some really cool, really exciting stuff. Really excited to share that with you. So keep an eye out the next couple of weeks because I'm going to be releasing some new information on that and show you how you can get involved and actually how you can do it for the lowest investment ever. I wanted to make this affordable for everybody anyway, keep an eye out for that. Any questions on co management, do let me know. It's definitely a skill. Took some practice and some time for me, but I promise you if you can do that, you'll be offering a service that they can't get anywhere else. And it's really such a wonderful, gratifying way to work. So give that a try and I'll see you soon for another video. Take care.