Elevate Patient Experience with AIDET: Key Tips | Podcast Ep. 206

Hello and welcome to the Evidence Based Chiropractor. I AM your host, Dr. Jeff Langme. Today we are going to tackle one of the most important topics that revolves in and around your practice and that is patient experience. We're going to break down some tactical tips, some things that you can implement and utilize to, to improve the patient experience as people go through your practice. Because it matters a heck of a lot. It matters for your referrals downstream, it matters for the outcomes. And it also is if you have a practice, you should have the best practice you can. And a lot of that revolves back to what is the patient's experience as they go through your process, as they go through your systems, and as they achieve the health goals that they have set out for. So we're gonna tackle that and more on today's episode. We are breaking down patient experience and we're gonna break it down in a few different fashions. But I'm also gonna focus on a framework of, I guess, patient communication. That's called aedit. And when I say aid it, I mean A, I, D, E, T, it's an acronym. We'll go step by step through that. But this was a very important part. If you've been listening to the Evidence Based chiropractor, you know a little bit of my history, you probably know that I practiced on my own. I practiced as an associate. I had my own practice in Providence, Rhode Island. Then I came down to Tampa, Florida and I've been a part of two large scale multidisciplinary groups, one hospital based group and one outpatient ASC or surgery group. Totally different vibes, totally different architecture from a business standpoint. But one thing was in common and that was a relentless focus on, on patient experience from front end to back end. And sometimes I think with us as chiropractors, we do a great job with patient experience overall. We see that in our patient satisfaction numbers. However, we don't really focus on the details. And I'm gonna make an argument that the devil is in the details. So when we go through patient experience, it really encompasses everything from that first phone. I mean, even before the first phone call in some respects. How are people perceiving your practice online? If they're looking you up, what are your reviews look like, what does your website look like? But most importantly, and where we'll focus today is what is their experience like in the office from that phone call and somebody picks up in your practice, through the examination and evaluation process, through the care and treatment, and through every interaction until they are discharged from active care and either come back when they need it PRN or they move on to a maintenance plan depending upon their goals. This is important stuff to consider and a couple things I'll just throw out there at the beginning of this conversation are, you know, really, do you have, and these are just food for thought. Do you have a relentless focus on them? So I see a lot of practices out there that are really focused on, wow, look at our credentials, look at the special technique that we do. Nobody cares. What they care about is, can you give them the benefit they are hoping for? They have a challenge. They're calling you to take care of the challenge. They 99.9% of the time they don't really care how you do it. They are just looking to achieve their goal. Are you inspiring that? Are you focusing relentlessly on that individual and how you can help them, if you can, if you can help them get where they want to go. Second aspect that's food for thought is ask questions, not just an OPPQ or ST during your examination, but really get to the heart of the matter understanding what is it that made them pick up the phone or send an email to come into your practice? OPP qrst typically we fall into a history. We understand what got injured, but it doesn't tell why they're in your practice. For many people, pain on its own is not necessary. People live with pain all the time. 30% of individuals, between 30 to 40% of individuals are in chronic pain. We see that in the research. But but not all of them are seeking care all the time. So pain alone is not necessarily a great indicator that they're gonna come into your practice. So you might be thinking, well, what the heck is. It's the inability to do the things that they love. What is the life impact that they are dealing with? When people deal with pain, but when they stop being able to do things that are important to them now, they start to take action. So are you getting a crystal clear expectation of that and even one step farther, is everybody else in your practice crystal clear on that? We'll talk about handoffs when we get into the ADIT model in a moment. Because it's so, so important. Especially if you have multiple people in your practice and it's not just you, but asking questions and understanding the life impact, what is this individual hoping to get back to? What are they hoping to achieve that is crucially important? An extreme version of this would be somebody that maybe just wants to play one round of golf every other week and and they can't because of a low back issue versus a professional golfer who wants to get out there. That's their livelihood and career. Many times we can infer that those are two extremes, but there is nuance. Do you understand the true life impact of every single individual in what they're dealing with when they come into your practice? Absolutely critical from a patient experience standpoint because everybody on your team should also be aware of that. Whether it be your X ray tech, whether it be your rehab personnel. Understanding and being able to say, hey John, great to meet you, my name is Jim, my role here is xyz. I understand you've been struggling with Y and you hope to get back to doing Z is so, so important. Think about that. If you walked into another provider's office and they knew who you are, what you were struggling with and what you were hoping to achieve and, and preloaded every conversation with that. It decreases fears, it decreases anxiety and ultimately that leads to improved outcomes in your practice. So if you're listening to this as an evidence, informed, evidence based doc, you care about outcomes and a lot of this goes into patient experience. Don't think it's only about the technical aspects of what you do. There absolutely is an experience portion of this. So let's dive into ADIT a little bit. Cause I think this framework is really, really important. And as I said at the top, the ADIT formula is A I D E T and it's a simple framework. I've utilized it for years and I've been very successful utilizing it in terms of breaking down barriers with patients, understanding where they're coming from and really streamlining processes. So A is acknowledge, acknowledge, greet the patient by name, make eye contact, smile and acknowledge the family or friends in the room. As we just said, we walk in with a smile. Hey John, My name is Dr. Langmead and I am here as we'll talk about in a moment with I. Then we'll introduce and say where we're going. But acknowledge. Hey John, I am glad to see you in our practice today. Acknowledge the individual by name. Super, super important. The I component. Introduce, introduce yourself with your name, skill set, professional certification and experience. So I is introduced. My name is Dr. Jeff Langmaid. My job here today is to XYZ very clear, very simple. Now we'll put those two steps together. You know. Hi John, great to meet you. I'm happy to see you're in the practice. My name is Dr. Jeff Langmaid and today we are going to do an examination in history to understand Better where we can find benefits for you in your life. It's a little sloppy as way I put that together, but you get the point. Acknowledge and introduce. The third part about this is duration. Give an accurate time expectation for the tests, the physician arrival, and identify the next steps. So duration, is the person gonna be sitting in the room one hour, are they gonna be sitting there 10 minutes? Identify the duration. We'll come back to that in a moment. Explanation. Explain step by step what to expect next. Answer questions and let the patient know how to contact you. So explanation. What are you there? What are you going to do? And then finally the t. Thank you. Thank the patient. You might express gratitude for them for choosing your facility, your office, and thank the family members for being there to support the patient. So I'll kind of put this together in the context and framework of how I did it, reviewing imaging in a surgical center. Cause that was where I utilized this the most. So I might walk into the room and say, hey, John, great to see you. I'm glad you made it down to our practice today. My name is Dr. Jeff Langmaid and over the next 15 minutes or so, we're gonna go through a few things. Number one, I wanna make sure I get a good understanding of where you're at, health wise, and why you chose to come in today. Number two, we're gonna take a look at this imaging and identify what the challenges might be. And number three, I'm gonna give you a plan of action to get your life back. I wanna thank you for choosing us. Now let's dive in so you can see right there. I'd hit all of it in less than 20 seconds. I acknowledged the patient, I introduced myself, I gave an expected duration, I gave an explanation of what we're gonna do, and I thanked the patient. Very simple framework, but when you start to preload all of your conversations in this context, the patient experience dramatically changes if somebody walks in. I'll take it to the other extreme, right? Somebody walks into the room. Not you, of course, but somebody walks into the room. Hey, how's it going? Kind of backed, turned to the patient. Doesn't really make eye contact. Okay, give me one second here while I finish this note. Scribbles down something. Okay. So it looks like you're, you know, this is just a wildly different experience. Patients sitting there saying, you know, did I make the right choice? Am I in the right place? What's this guy or gal's problem? So being really mindful of how you step into the room, using something like an aided approach, acknowledge, introduce, explain the duration, explain what you're up to. And thanking them is critically important to again setting people at ease, number one, which is always a good thing to do. It also is a great way to improve your patient compliance and improve your clinical outcomes. That's really why and how this was developed is so people understand who you are, what you're doing and how you can benefit them. Right. Get getting back to the top of our conversation. All of your patient experience should be relentlessly focused on the patient. Why are they in your practice? What are they hoping to achieve? What questions can you ask to dig and understand that more? And then the technical portion comes into play as far as them helping them get where they want to go. So I hope this has been eye opening. I'm not sure how many people are familiar with the the Aid IT protocols. If you have any questions on this whatsoever, feel free to follow up with me. Jeff the evidencebasedchiropractor.com I hope there was at least one or two gems that you can take out of this today implement in your practice to kind of streamline things. And also I'll say one more thing about the ADIT protocol. This is not Dr. Exclusive. So this is something that all of your staff can and should be utilizing based upon who they are, what their job title is and and what they are doing with and for the patient. So this is not physician specific. This is something you could train your team. I would recommend actually that you train your team up on so that every step of the process a patient is experiencing somebody who understands who they are, what they're dealing with and the patient knows how long is this going to take? What is this person going to do for me and what are the next steps? If you can set up your patient experience like that, you, you are going to have a lot more referrals and you're gonna have a lot of people raving about your practice because it is going to absolutely stand out from the crowd because there are so many different types of practices out there. And specifically every time I visit practices that are outside of the chiropractic realm, I see gaping holes in their patient experience. Quite frankly, it's terrible in most places. Chiropractors are better than many of these physicians to start. But I want to empower you to refine your processes and be the absolute best in your community. And one way to do that is use the ADIT protocol. So I hope you have a fantastic week in practice and I will talk to you soon.

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