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Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of Dr. Vince Presents, and today's episode is how to improve your patient retention. And I am your host, Dr. Vince Leone, founder of DC United, creator of the Practice Accelerator. And if you're enjoying these videos, please subscribe, right? You'll get a little notification, a little ding that says, hey, new video here, and I do these every week. Also, if you'd like some more free training on practice building, go to leoneconsulting.co, and I have there what's called the DC Micro MBA, awesome little free video training course to improve mindset, systems, money, all that good stuff. So let's go ahead and dig into how to improve patient retention. And number one, before we even actually get into the whole thing, is just be kind to yourself. We are in practice. A lot of times docs will get kind of beat themselves up about their stats or, you know, new patient numbers or the patient visits or, you know, their retention numbers aren't what they should be or what, you know, everyone else says they should be. We're in practice. That means we are continuing to practice, continuing to try to improve. So just the fact that you're interested in focusing focused on it is good enough. And by the way, some people will drop out of care. That is just gonna happen. No one's gonna have 100% retention rate in terms of following care plans. And a lot of people talk, well, what is a good retention number? They talk 36 visits or 96 visits. Look, I don't really wanna say there is a perfect retention number. In my opinion, first of all, you know, why should we track retention? It's not so that we can have good stats or have, you know, increased revenue in practice. It's that people are following through on care and getting the results. That's the most important thing. If you're getting sick people well, then you will not have a problem in practice because they're going to tell their friends and family, you know, that they had a really good experience, that you delivered on your promise, etc. So that's why we're focusing on this, is really for patient outcomes. So that's why in terms of a number, that doesn't really make sense to me because everyone's different. Everyone practices different. CBP, they have people come in literally like, I think, in the neighborhood of 90 visits over the course of 12 months. Well, that's not for everybody, right? So if you say, well, just give me a number, Dr. Vince. What's a good retention number? You know, I would say somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 to 30, but that's not over the lifetime care of a patient. That would be over like 12 months. So first of all, or not first of all, but next, why would someone drop out of care? And I think, you know, there's kind of probably 3 main reasons. Either they got better earlier than expected. Good. They are not getting as— they're not getting the results as quickly as expected. Not good. Or they don't really have the trust in you. Okay, so let's kind of dive into each one of those individually. So if someone got their results earlier than expected, so you put them on a care plan, say 24 visits, and they're all better after 12 visits, well, first of all, that's great. I mean, that's— Good job. Job well done, doc. So one awesome opportunity for referral, right? Because when people get results that are better than expected, that's an Phenomenal opportunity to ask for a referral. Give them a card, write them a letter, do something, give them a gift card. Like, jump on that. Recognize that's ding, ding, ding. That's a golden opportunity. 2, if they are on a care plan and they're, you know, say there's 12 visits left, you know, instead of, say, you know, writing them a check for the difference, you can offer— now they may want that. Like, if they're on a care plan, they may want to do that. They may want You know, reimbursement for those numbers. But if they don't, you can offer, or before they get there, say, hey, you know, you've done so well, man, and I do not want you to slip back into where you were at prior to coming into my office. So what I would suggest is let's put you on a maintenance plan, and then we'll take these visits. You're already paid, and we'll do them every 2 weeks or 3 weeks or 4 weeks, whatever, you know, whatever you think. You're the doctor. And then spread those visits out. And they're like, oh, bonus, you know, I got 8 weeks of care, or I got 8 months of care, or 5 months of free care, you know, free care. So that's the earlier scenario why someone would drop out. And if you don't address it, right, you have to address it. And so you got to jump on that. If someone's basically getting down to, you know, they're pain-free, they're recovered, get on that. Get them in the exam room and, you know, do an impromptu re-exam. Then the next one situation is if they are not getting better. As quickly as expected. And so this kind of comes down to 2 issues. One is education, right? Because not everybody's going to respond as quickly as they would like. You know, the body, as we know, is, you know, it's not like popping a pill. They're not going to get better in a week. And so this kind of— it comes down to education because you've got to lay the foundation that We shouldn't be expecting that, you know, and that can be done in the report of findings. It can be done on the first, you know, couple visits, and it can also be done in, um, in this step here that we'll go over in a second. So it's an education issue, okay? And then finally, why they may drop out here is, um, they may lack trust in you, okay? This happens a lot with younger doctors, you know, just coming into practice because They don't always have— now, some docs do, but most don't have that, you know, absolute conviction that they can get this patient better. You know, when you've seen 1,000 patients with that same condition, you have conviction that you can get that patient better. If you've seen 10, you're not going to have that conviction, right? So that's a trust issue, and that comes down to, again, education, developing a strong relationship with the patient in the consultation, exam, and report of findings. So that's a whole other topic, but I'm just telling you, if they're dropping out and it's not one of these, it's a trust issue. They don't trust you. They don't feel like they're in the right place. They don't feel like they're in good hands. So you have to examine your consultation, exam, and report of findings. Okay? So what do we do? What is our action plan to improve our patient retention so patients get the care they deserve and have paid for and the results that they deserve? So first, I recommend care plans. Now, not everybody is into care plans. You know, some people say, well, we'll see you for a couple weeks, twice a week, and we'll just kind of see what happens. I don't like that for the primary reason is that who's steering the ship? Who's the captain here? Who is the leader? Who is the expert? That's, in my opinion, that is not what an expert says. In my opinion, I've seen thousands of patients and they've had mild, moderate, severe conditions, and I can drop them into a care plan That 95%, they're going to get better in that timeframe. So care plans are awesome, in my opinion, and they help with retention because when patients prepay for care, they're going to follow the money, right? They've invested in you, so they're going to most likely follow through with care. So that's a great first step, is if you're not using care plans, implement care plans, prepay options, get them To invest in their health and invest in you. Next, how to increase retention is make sure that the patient has a new patient letter. You know, I have a 3-page letter that goes out to every new patient. Now, it's— I don't rewrite it. It's a stock letter, okay? Of course, we personalize it with their name. I sign it in blue ink at the bottom. But that's a new patient letter that explains a little bit about me, about my office, how we work, What we should expect from the body, how quickly we should expect results, all those types of things, laying the foundation. And guys, if you think that a patient's going to get that letter and see or think that, oh, this looks like a form letter, geez, how dare this doctor send this to me, blah. No, I mean, I get compliments on this all the time. Doctor, thank you so much for writing that letter to me. You are welcome, Mrs. Jones. And so, um, Highly recommend that. If you're not doing that, every new patient after they sign up for care should get a new patient letter that outlines all those things: who you are, what your office is like, what they should expect from care, how long they should expect to, you know, or until they should expect results, all this type of stuff, what they should be doing at home, you know, icing, all that type of stuff. Put it all in there. So that's your new patient letter. Then, now some guys are still doing spinal care classes, and that's great. Some doctors don't want to do that, they want an alternative to it. I would recommend Shooting a virtual spinal care class. Put it on YouTube. Give it— make it a 10-minute video or a 20-minute video. You at your best, you giving the basics of chiropractic and what they should expect. Everything that would go in a spinal care class for a new patient, put it on a video, put it on YouTube, and then email it to them or give them a link in the new patient letter. I mean, you have tons of options, but drive them to that new— and then ask them, hey, did you watch the video yet? On their subsequent appointments in the first week or 2. Bug them until they watch it, guys. It's 10 minutes out of their life or 15 minutes out of their life. Impress upon them how important it is that they watch that video, okay? And that's gonna start the education process. Then we want to go, we're gonna get their— we're getting their email, right? So it's on all your new patient intake forms or whatever. So you got their email, that's pretty standard these days, right? Get their email, drop it into your CRM. So your CRM is your customer relation management tool. So AWeber, Mailchimp, ActiveCampaign, whatever. Create an autoresponder of, say, you know, 5 to 10 emails, basically reiterating all the stuff that you did in this virtual spinal care class, right? Because you're going to tell them all the stuff about chiropractic and what they should expect and what they should be doing and what they should not be doing in these emails. And I would recommend spacing them out every 2 days over the course of 2 to 3 weeks. And guys, play with this. I mean, this is your opportunity to speak to your patient one-on-one. So, and if you need help with that, help on that stuff, just email me. It's not that difficult. So you want to use autoresponder on your CRM to communicate. And then finally, no-brainer here, guys. Give outstanding care. Not good care, Not great care, not excellent care, outstanding care. You got to do it because people— I mean, the bar is just set really high these days. People— there's just a lot of options and everyone has expectations. They want a phenomenal experience, okay? And if you can deliver that, if you can educate them, if you can get them better sooner rather than later— and that's not a requirement, by the way. I mean, if you get them Well, within your care plan, then you look like, hey, you did exactly what you were supposed to do. In the process, you got to deliver, you know, a really good experience, you know, and so that comes with, you know, your CA and what your office looks like and smells like and, you know, all that good stuff. But the point being is deliver an outstanding care experience for the patient and they'll keep coming back and they'll tell their friends and family. And if you do all of this, Your retention will improve, and your patient outcomes will improve, and your referrals will go up. And guys, this doesn't cost any money, okay? This takes time, effort, and a desire to implement, but it's not money. So if you're not doing this stuff, go ahead, take some notes, write it down, start to implement. I know you can do this, guys, because— I've done it. And this will lead to increased revenue, okay? Because when people drop out of care, you lose money, which is not cool. Okay, so if this was valuable to you, you know, either hit thumbs up on the video, subscribe. And again, if you want more training, if this is like, oh, hey, that Dr. Vince, he kind of knows what he's talking about. There's more free training at leoneconsulting.co. You can go sign up there. It does cost you something. It costs you an email address, and I'll continue to talk to you, and maybe someday you'll buy something from me. Who knows? I won't be twisting your arm. It'll all be good stuff, but start with the free training, okay? Anyways, hey, hope you enjoyed this video. I'm Dr. Vince Leone. I hope this was valuable for you. I'll see you next week. Take care.