Why Decompression Patients Buy Outcomes, Not Visits

Hey there and welcome back. I'm Dr. Vince Leone, executive producer and co-host of the Practice Builders Podcast. With my partner in crime, Dr. Kyle Pankinen, we deliver proven strategies to help you grow fast, specialize with confidence, and build profitable staff-run practices. Let's go ahead and dive into today's episode now.

Welcome to today's episode of the Practice Builders Podcast. I'm your host today, Dr. Kyle Pankinen. My, uh, co-host, my partner in crime, Dr. Vince Leone, is off today. So, uh, I'm flying a solo project, but that is, uh, exciting. It's good. Nothing wrong with that. I can handle it, hopefully. Although Dr. Vince is, is, is almost irreplaceable, but we'll do our best without him and, uh, try to bring you another Great episode of the Practice Builders Podcast. We love the feedback we get from doctors in the field. I've talked to many doctors that listen weekly. Just talked to one about an hour ago that he listens and he takes notes, and he had some follow-up questions for me today—a one-on-one consult. So that was exciting. And so the podcast continues to grow, and we're. Honored, uh, to bring this to you and that you spend some of your valuable time listening to us. We don't take it for granted or take it lightly. So with all that said, let's dig into today's episode. Today's episode is Why Decompression Patients Buy Outcomes and Not Visits. And really what I'm— this is a very simplistic Very straightforward topic today. That what I want you to get from this is that we want you to be able to connect with our patients at a more visceral, emotional level, going beyond just buying visits in a decompression program or protocol and looking beyond that to buying an outcome, a chance of significant improvement, and then also connecting with them on how this program can change their life and addressing where they are in fear the most. So I have 11 quick bullet points. We're gonna go through them actually quite quickly. And, uh, this will be— we'll just hit it hard. And, uh, hopefully this will be a shorter podcast today, but it'll be impactful. That's the bottom line. So bullet point number 1, patients are buying a future, not visits. In other words, they are thinking about things like in their future of hopefully avoiding surgery. Playing a round of golf without pain, sleeping through the night, or just getting their life back. See, the moment you stop selling treatments or a treatment package and start selling transformation, then your conversions. Your retention and your authority go up. So you gotta just look at that. We have this decompression protocol, we have this program, this package, and yes, this is the plan, this is the course of action, but that's not what the patient is buying. The patients are buying bullet point number true. Patients buy emotion-based, on emotion first before they'll buy objectively. In other words, you can show them their image, their exam findings, and those are important, but they buy more on their emotion. And those emotions are based upon things like fear, Frustration, their level of hope, their identity, and a future vision. See, with, with chronic disc or chronic back neck cases like we see that are good decompression candidates, they are— they're scared. They're scared of surgery. They're scared of permanent nerve damage that could come. They're They're scared of losing independence, of becoming disabled. Chronic low back pain is the number one cause of disability worldwide. So these people, they're scared of losing their livelihood, of having other people— being dependent on other people. They're scared of having to maybe take medication just to control their pain forever. So yours and my job is to connect decompression to the outcome they desperately want. And that's where the rubber meets the road. You got to make that connection. What is this taking away from you? What fear do you have? And then connecting at that level. Point— bullet point number 3, the bottom line is that you are selling a solution, not a, not a package of visits, not a protocol. So an example of how this would go would be telling a patient, based upon your history, your exam, your imaging findings, I think we can Help you, but don't just stop there. I think we can help you— what? Fill in the blank. Avoid surgery. I think we can help you to get back to sleeping through the night again. I think we can help you to walk, get back to walking and taking your walks like you used to do. I think we can help you get back to functioning Better, or being able to sit longer in a vehicle before your leg is screaming at you. That's where you want to get to. So go beyond the point of, I think I can help you, to what specifically you think you can help them with. Bullet point number 4, patients, they want pain relief. But as I've just said, you got to take it to a point further than that. So instead, frame it to things like to drive in a vehicle without leg pain, to be able to sit through church again, to be able to pick up my grandchildren again. So yes, they want pain relief. But they want, they want what that pain relief will get them back, to be able to do some of those things that I just mentioned there. So that's— we just gotta shift our mindset a little bit further based off of just— us doctors are more objective-based, and we need to start thinking in terms of The patient's point of view that this pain is doing to their life. Bullet point number 5, patients want to avoid surgery. So when we're talking decompression with patients, you want to try to do a little bit of emphasis on positioning decompression as the non-drug, non-surgical, conservative Treatment option before surgery. In other words, it's an alternative to surgery because you and I know, docs, that when we're treating these people, we're taking on these these are potential surgical cases, and and but that's our whole goal in doing these decompression protocols is to help people avoid that surgery. And that is also one of the things people are most fearful of. They don't— nobody wants to go under the knife. And so not that you're taking advantage of that fear, but you're, you're utilizing that fear to a degree that you're letting them know that this is, this is the alternative route. This is the, the off-ramp potentially versus the road that you're heading on. Staying in the medical system of pills, shots, and eventually surgery. So we position ourselves as that alternative. Point number 6, patients with chronic pain many times feel they've lost themselves. They'll say things like, you know, I just— I don't feel like me anymore. They feel like they have lost their identity because of all the things that this pain has taken away from them, things that they used to enjoy to do and they cannot do it anymore. Speak to that fear, not take advantage of it, but speak to that. Speak to that and say, you know, we are going to try to help you get you back again. We're going to try to help you get back to doing those things that are most important to you, that make up who you are as a person. So again, we're not taking advantage. We're just trying to connect with these people on a deeper, more visceral, emotion-based level. And as a guy, I struggle a little with that sometimes because I'm more Factual and objective and research studies say. My staff always tease me about that one. You always say that one, Kyle, they say. And it's true, I do say that one a lot. Point number 7, many chronic pain patients have lost hope.

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If you think about it, most of these people, when they come to us for decompression, unfortunately, we're usually not their first resort. They've usually tried what? Physical therapy, pills, Injections. Maybe they've already had a surgery before and they're trying to avoid a second one, or they've been told they need surgery. They've tried probably the chiropractor down the street, maybe 10 or 20 or 30 adjustments. They've tried acupuncture, massage therapy. When they're walking into our door, they are what? They're skeptical. And I would be too. You would be too. And this is where establishing some authority as an expert and providing an alternative that offers hope comes in. This is when you have that skeptical patient that walks through your door, docs, and you are trying to— you know, you think you can help them. But you have to gain some level of authority and trust, and you have to give them some hope. How do you do that? You give them the most thorough history and world-class examination that they've ever had in their life. That's the secret sauce. You, you, you get the patient— most of many will say out loud, I've never had an exam like that before, and I've been to 3 other doctors for this. condition. What has that done? It's elevated you in their sight to, this guy or gal is— this, this, this doctor is better than what I've been to before. This person is an expert. And that drives up confidence. It helps melt away skepticism. And it, it gives them a sense of hope that, oh, I finally hope— I think I found the right place. And that is, that is huge, docs. You cannot skip that step. You can't just have a patient that comes in and, well, I just, I have this MRI here, can you review it for me, doctor? Oh yeah, you got a disc at L4-5 compressing L5 nerve root. I think we can help that. You have to do— you can't skip a detailed history and a world-class exam correlating their imaging findings with their exam findings. You take it to that next level. And I have talked to way too many doctors that, that only use imaging findings to determine whether they're— somebody's a decompression candidate or not. And that is You cannot rely just on imaging findings alone, Doc. That's just, that's just not good doctoring because not all presentations are related to the imaging findings. Sometimes some of their imaging findings are, are not the pain generator, and you examine it, you find something totally different. So when it all matches, that's a beautiful thing, and many times it does. But you can't skip that step, and skipping that step will, will diminish your chance to become that authority, that expert level that they're looking for. Uh, patient point number 8: patients want a longer-term solution and not just temporary relief. Position decompression is more than just a A quick fix or just a package of visits. Picture it or paint it to them as a longer-term solution. It's not just a Band-Aid, it's not a shot, it's not a pill. It's a, it's a potential long-term solution. And there's at least 2 or 3 studies I can think about right off the top of my head that have been done on decompression that shows that It is more than a long-term solution. Probably the longest study I know of, they did a 4-year follow-up on decompression patients, and they found that after 4 years, the majority of them that had responded to their initial sessions at 4 years later had either maintained or even went beyond their level of improvement at the end of their decompression sessions. Well over half of them did that. So another study showed they followed them for 6 months and found that the vast majority had maintained their level of improvement. So a couple of really good studies that showing that this is more than just a flash in the pan or a temporary relief. They actually can get long-term results. So you position Decompression as an— it's an outcome. It's, it's— we're going to try to change whatever it is that is affecting your life, and this is a potential longer-term outcome. Point number 9. This is one that doctors mess up, I think, quite a bit. Don't promise cures or offer Oh, unrealistic expectations or overhype it. Okay. Um, instead offer hope, offer relief, offer getting certain aspects of their life back. In other words, offer functional outcomes. And I always talk to doctors about the 50% rule, which is Every decompression case that I have, I always talk to them about, Mrs. Jones, the goal of treatment is that we're going to try to improve your condition, your pain, by a minimum of 50% or more. Then I go a step beyond that and say, whatever that is that they've identified or you've identified that this pain is taking from them, Their golf, their sleep, their sex life, their work, their enjoyment of relationships, their grandkids, whatever, however it's affecting them the most. That's the goal also. So I always, from an objective point of view, I wanna see you improve by 50% or more on this pain scale, your outcome assessments. I wanna see you get to the end of this and say, Doc, I'm at least a minimum of 50% better. But, but I also can, I can sleep through the night now. Okay. Use that 50% rule, Doc, because a couple reasons. Number one, if you look at, uh, studies on surgery for spine conditions, a surgery is considered a success if a person gets 50% or greater relief. So that's their minimal threshold they define a success. Well, We're treating the same conditions that a surgeon would treat— disc bulges, disc herniations, spinal stenosis, things like that. So if they think 50% is success, so should we. Secondly, these patients, if you tell them that they're going to get— that your minimal goal is 50% relief, and that's what they get, They're satisfied with that. If you told them 50% and they got 80% better, well, by golly, they're really happy with that. But if you say things like, we're gonna take care of this, we're gonna— you're gonna feel so much better when this is all said and done, or, or we can fix this, or we can cure this, you, you've overhyped. You know, when you say— you might in your head be thinking, boy, 50%, but in their mind they're thinking, you said you could really help this. They're thinking, I'm going to be 98% better when this is all said and done. And then when they're only 50% better, now they're disappointed. You see the difference there? So always stick with 50% minimal improvement. That'll keep you safe, docs. And most people that are in chronic pain, if you were able to get rid of half of their pain, that's life-changing for them. And so utilize that 50% rule. It will, uh, it'll make your days in the office go a lot better. Trust me on that one, Doc, especially when you're taking on these challenging cases. And, uh, Like I said, or I want to say that, you know, you get a case of multi-level disc bulge or herniation, moderate to severe spinal stenosis, degenerative spondylolisthesis, and you, you know, or a post-surgical continued pain syndrome. Some of those cases, if you can get them 50% better, that's a very, very Handsome clinical outcome doc. And so don't poo-poo that. That's, that's really good. So use that 50% rule. Point number 10, in the report of findings, spend less time on the diagnosis and more time discussing what's possible. In other words, Going back to those goals outside of just, you know, this is what's wrong. They need to know that because if they don't know what's wrong, they're confused and they have to see what's wrong so that they recognize they need help. Okay? And that you have the answer for that or the potential help for that. Okay? Position decompression as a structured pathway though to reach their goals. That again, whatever that is in their life that this is taking from them, getting that back, that's usually their goal. Our goal, of course, again, is that 50% or more improvement. Okay. Point number 11, the bottom line is that patients don't buy decompression visits. They buy the possibility of getting their life back. And so if you shift your mindset in the— and when you're in your communications with your decompression patients, and for that matter all your patients, you're not selling a program, you're not selling a package of visits. You're selling an outcome. You're selling a hope. You're selling a possibility of enhanced function and better sleep and better quality of life. And although that's what you're selling, docs, and so you need to tap into that. And the biggest thing is to You gotta make that connection on the heart level with them. And I think gals do so much better at this than us guys do, but all of us, we need to make that connection with our patients. It's not just transactional where they're paying you to do a protocol on them. They're paying you and I to change their life. And you gotta figure out whatever that is in their life. That their pain is most affecting and taking from them or interfering with, and then flesh that out and then make that the primary goal of treatment. If you connect with them on that way, your acceptance rate is going to go way up. So if you— if you're excellent clinically, world— great history, world-class exam, Great at reviewing images and explaining it all to them, and we have this beautiful protocol. You're gonna convert some, but if you can do all that plus connect with them at a heart level, an emotion-based level, then you got the total package, docs. And then your rate of conversion is gonna be much higher. Dr. Leone and I always teach that You want to try to at least convert 50% of your potential candidates, but we have doctors that are you know they're up in the 80-some percent range, and that's about where I hang right around that level, 80% or so. If I can get a good candidate and I can work him up, and I can get him to a report of findings. And connect with them in some of the ways we talked about here, about 8 in 10 of them are going to go forward with it. The only reason they won't is if they just flat out, they just no way, shape, or form can afford it. Okay? And those I kind of weed out ahead of time. And I'll go into that at some other podcasts potentially, but Usually when they come back for visit 2, they already know if they can afford or not. And then, so finances is kind of taken out of the way if they're coming back for that report of findings, then it's just sealing the deal and connecting with them. And so, I hope this resonates. I hope that you think about this on a little different level. Probably you've heard some of this before, but maybe this, Just a little different take on it can, uh, help you to better connect with your patients. So thank you for joining me today, your host, Dr. Kyle Pinkerton, for Practice Builders Podcast. Leave us a review if you, if you loved it, a 5-star or some positive feedback. And, uh, we're grateful for our audience, and we'll be back real soon with another episode. Have a great day. Thank you.

Hey, it's Dr. Vince again, and hope you enjoyed that episode. And if you're ready to grow your practice fast with high-value decompression patients, then the Decompression Accelerator could be a phenomenal option for you. This is our 90-day sprint to help you scale with proven systems, staff-driven protocols, and full marketing support, and it's all guaranteed. Spots are limited. Head to www.decompressionaccelerator.com to learn more.