Is Patient Centred Profitable

Hey, guys, it's Chris from Patient Centered Training. And today's video is a little bit of a different topic. Rather than talking about communication strategies and the sort of things I would normally cover here, I'm actually going to talk about something different. We're going to talk about profitability and whether being patient centered actually makes good financial sense. Now, if you're like me, you're probably wondering why I'm covering that sort of thing, because it's not the kind of thing I go over. I'm not really a business coach or that sort of thing. I'm not particularly interested in that side of things. And I'm also aware that for a lot of us, there's this inherent kind of conflict between our financial incentives as practitioners. We often get paid the more somebody comes in for treatment and what's really best for the patient, which is getting them better as effectively and quickly as possible and not unnecessarily treating them. And the few of us, fortunately, it's not many, but the few of us who are in this more for the business and more for the money than for helping people, obviously they tend to put that first, and that can lead to some unethical practices that I'm absolutely not okay with. I'm not condoning. So don't worry. This is not me talking about, here's how to get more money from your patients. But I do want to talk about whether it makes good business sense, because ultimately a lot of we're all in business. We all have bills to pay. We've all got to keep a roof over our heads. And if we can't pay the bills, we can't help anybody. If the business closes, it doesn't matter how good we are with our hands, we're not going to help people. And also, it's one thing that if you're just starting out in practice, to believe that, well, I'll never make loads of money like those unethical people. You know, there's a bit of a ceiling I'll hit. I'll only be able to earn so much. It's one thing to think that, okay, I might hit a limit one day. It's another thing if you're already in a successful, busy practice and you're seeing lots of patients and you're worried that you're going to take a hit. And I often get this with people who are in very busy practices. They want to get better results for their patients. They want to put their patients first. They want to learn more about this. But they're Worried that what I'm going to recommend they do is going to eat into their profits. You know, they think, oh, am I going to have to spend much longer with patients? Am I going to have to cut down the number of patients I see per day? These sorts of things. And it's a common concern. And ultimately it's going to be a very tough sell for me to talk somebody into doing things that's going to reduce their income. Now, the reason I wanted to talk about this today is an email landed in my inbox this morning. It was particularly interesting. It was from a colleague who studies a lot and he researches on empathy and the effects of empathy in patient centered care. And he sent me a link to a study. It's a review of whether being patient centered is actually good for business. Because especially in the wider healthcare world, if we want to try and convince bigger health centers and hospitals and NHS to take it up, there's got to be a financial argument there because there's only so many resources they have. But it's really interesting for us as well. And I was quite surprised by the results. It was really nice to hear that some of the stuff I've been suspecting is true for a while was actually borne out by the research. So, in fact, one of the things it was a tagline for one of my seminars I ran more recently was, you know, it's about advanced communication, patient centered care, whatever it was. But the tagline was better results, more referrals, fewer complaints. And those are kind of the top three benefits I saw for practitioners. Both myself and the people I work with would find this to. And that's born out of my experience. But ultimately that's anecdotal. I'm kind of asking people to take my word on it. And all I can really say is, yeah, trust me, I have seen this. And the three things that came out of this study, the three main advantages in terms of business sense were patients stuck with the course of care for longer. They didn't disappear early, so they got better results. Also, they had more recommendations and reviews and referrals. The number of complaints dropped, which obviously cost businesses money just to deal with, never mind the fallout. So actually, the three benefits they found in this study are the three things I've been recommending people do this for. For a while. It was the exact same three, which is really cool to see and it's really lovely to find out. Not just that the researchers say the same kind of thing, but we've actually hit the same three points there they also highlighted that it was really the physicians, the clinicians, the doctors and nurses who had the biggest impact on that. Obviously, if you're a practice owner, you have say over the whole thing. So it's not just what things are like for the patient in the room, but it's how are they treated outside, how are they treated on the front desk? What's the messaging they get, what are the procedures they have to go through, what are the protocols? But if you're working in somebody else's practice, whether you're an associate or you're renting a room, it can often feel like you don't have as much control over these things. And maybe you and your boss don't see eye to eye on what would be best for the practice patients, and you can't control all of that. But what they did find was that the biggest impact on the patient's perceptions by far were the clinicians. So whether or not you can't control the marketing that's out there, or you can't control the procedures on the front desk, that sort of thing, you still have the biggest say as to whether that patient feels that trust. Ultimately, the trust with you in that room is what's generated there, and that's what's going to generate the majority of those benefits, too. So is patients. Patients ever get profitable? Yes. There doesn't have to be this sort of false dichotomy of, oh, I either make a lot of money or I sleep well at night. I'm not saying you have to go out and make a lot of money. I'm sure a lot of you are making a good income. You're happy with that as well. That's great. But the message I want to get is that you can align your financial interests with the patient's best interests. It doesn't have to be an either or. It doesn't have to be you accepting a sort of artificial limit or you feeling like, oh, if I made more money, that would mean I'm not patient centered, I'm not money centered. But we deserve to be rewarded for what we do. We have to make an income. And too often I see practitioners who want to be patient centered, you know, artificially putting a limit and assuming that people who earn more than they do are obviously not doing it ethically. And it's one thing to put a limit where you're happy with, but a lot of these people, deep down would really like to earn a bit more money if they could. They just think they don't know that they can't do that ethically. And the answer is that's not true. And I feel for those people because what often happens is they can then build up a little bit of resentment and then people tend to get a bit jaded and a bit fed up and they're frustrated with all these patients who don't understand. And work becomes a slog, it becomes a grind, something to get through rather than something you get to go and enjoy, which isn't something that this study looked at so much. But I've seen this for a long time. The research bears this out for if you practice in a truly patient centered way, not just you ask your patients what they'd like, but you really get the philosophy practice is so much more rewarding for you. My job satisfaction really shot up. I'm a second gen chiropractor. I love chiropractic. I've always loved what we do. But when I really got this, that job satisfaction kicked up a whole year and it stayed there for years since then it wasn't a temporary boost like we all get after a seminar sometimes. It's been sustainable. So basically, to cut a long story short, yes, you can practice in a patient centered way and make a good income. It can be both. It doesn't have to be either or as well as you just enjoying life and your practice much more. So hopefully that's been reassuring for some of you. If you're kind of worried there is this choice you have to make at some point, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this though. Comment, drop me an email, get back to me however you like. If you want a bit more guidance on this as well, something I've been doing lately with a friend of mine, Rob Pape, who's a mentor of mine as well, is we put together a little mentorship program. It is the least expensive way to work with either of us by far. It's ten pound a month. You can stop after a month if you like and you can get access to us, you can ask us questions, we can go through, help you tricky cases or situations and you get access to all the recordings as well. So other people's questions we can all learn from each other. It's very inexpensive CPD and like I said, it's cheapest way that you can work with either of us at the moment. I won't go through it all. I'll pop the links for anyone who's interested below. But yeah, as always, any questions let me know. Otherwise I'll catch you soon for another video all right, take care, guys.