Blog, Chirosecure Live Event June 12, 2023

Are You Sharing Patients with Dr. Google? Monika Buerger DC

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Hello everybody, it’s Dr. B and Elizabeth too. We’re here to bring you some in the know about how to connect and communicate with patients, or are you sharing them with Dr. Google and I bet you are and you might not even know it. Or you might know it. You probably know it, but let’s go over it. So Elizabeth, we’re gonna give her a little nap time, but she’s gonna be back with us at the end, and let’s get rocking and rolling and give you some good information to connect and communicate with the Google Generation.

All right, let’s go to our slides and check out what we have to bring to you today. In the know with Dr. B and Elizabeth two. And first of all, ChiroSecure, thank you again for giving us this platform, giving us this amazing opportunity to share with the chiropractic community to how to better serve their patients and their communities.

So you’re awesome for always having our backs. So let’s talk a bit about. The dr. Dr. B. Huh? The Dr. Google Consumer. Yes, I know who I am and I know who Dr. Google is. So here’s the dilio. Did you know that Google reports there’s over 1 billion b BA billion searches for health on healthcare related topics?

Per day in this country, that is equivalent to 70,000 searches per minute. Okay? Those are big numbers, you guys. All right. About, and I think it was in 2019, they found that about 89% of those in the United States googled their health symptoms before seeing a doctor. So they’re coming into you prepped, ready and loaded for questions and answers.

But one thing we have to think about is most people don’t wanna hear what you have to say. They wanna hear what they wanna hear, and we’ll talk about that in a minute. So those numbers are big. And they come to you? There’s a term called Cydia Cyber Kadria because after they googled their signs and symptoms, that has set them into a further spiral of anxiety and apprehension.

Okay. When they’re coming into you ready? We have to think about this as a double-edged sword and we’re all getting them in our, we’re all getting patients like this in our offices that are ready. Have a mindset as to what they do or do not have and what. Will or will not work for them.

So we have to keep that in mind when we first meet with the patients and even our ongoing patients, right? Our practice members. So it can be a double-edged sword if we have good solid information out there for them to find. In terms and terminology and at a academic level where it’s easy for them to consume it, they can come into our offices already with some background and some good solid information, which can help us out.

So that means that we should be putting that kind of information out there for them to find. Okay. That’s one thing. Now the backside to that is they come in and they already have, my little fiddle fart is six months old, and I read that he should be able to run backwards and forwards up the stairs already at six months of age.

Yeah, not not gonna happen. They’re reading milestones and all these things. And they’re coming in maybe with some misperceptions. Okay. And the other thing that we’re seeing is they’re coming in with, I read that I might have X, Y or Z, or Tommy has this and this is why he’s not talking.

And I talked to my second. Cousin Martha, who talked to her second aunt on her father’s side that said that they took, they had a friend that took their child to a chiropractor and after one adjustment, Tommy was talking already. So we’ve got all that to contend with as well. And in our profession, we have to think about, there’s so many approaches to chiropractic care, right?

So we all have different techniques and different things that we might offer within our practices. So there’s a lot of education that needs to happen with, my second cousin’s, second aunts friend that had one adjustment and did this, that, or the other, these were the results. So it’s keeping in mind.

And keeping our sanity so we can reserve our energy for those that really that can really serve in their best capacity and in their best capacity. So we’re gonna do a little dig, digital dig and dive in into some what they call psychographics. Ooh, big term basically means what are some of the traits that Con Health consumers are coming in with?

And how can we best relate to each individual consumer so that they get the best care and service from us, and we are not banging our heads against the wall and burning out. Okay, so let’s, ready to rock and roll. So psychographics, basically what we’re looking at is people’s their attitudes, their values, their beliefs, their personalities, and a big one is their lifestyle as to how we can better communicate, and connect with them, really based on what they wanna hear.

Okay. So just, I’m gonna, I’m gonna say that a few times. It’s not so much what the story we have to tell. It’s not so much most of the time about loading them up with in-depth information and research. For us to know the research and to be able to break it down into little tidbits and pieces and interpret it for the consumer is a little different story.

So it’s not so much about that. It’s really connecting on them with where to meet them at, where their beliefs are and essentially what they wanna hear from us. Okay, so there’s five types of health consumers, which we’re gonna dive into. There’s the self achievers. These are pretty a little bit easier for us to connect with, okay?

They strive to go above and beyond to have the best healthcare possible for themselves and their fa their entire families. Okay? So we’re including the little fiddle farts in this because ultimately parents, caregivers, When it comes to kiddos and animals, they’re usually all in. Okay? But again, let’s keep in mind their beliefs, their lifestyle, their personalities.

Lifestyle’s a big one these days. A lot of people don’t have a whole lot of extra time to delve out. Okay. To come maybe, five times a week, twice a day. Okay. For their little fiddle farts, we’ve gotta keep this into context of what they’re able to do and able to handle, meet them where they’re at.

So these self achievers they’re all about self enhancing, self-improvement. They monitor their diet, their exercise they’re willing to take in what it needs, what they need to do to be as as healthy as possible. Okay. They’re willing to acknowledge chronic conditions and what they can do to minimize the effects of those chronic conditions.

So self achievers they can be pretty Intense and hardcore, but oftentimes they like what we have to offer them. Okay, so that’s cool beans as do the balance seekers. Okay? Balance seekers now are more towards the holistic realm of life, all right? Other than die in the exercise. They keep in mind emotional, mental, spiritual components of health, which again, what do chiropractic, right?

Chemical, physical, emotional. Trauma, toxins, thoughts, and there’s more ts than that, but I won’t throw those in right now. But we look at the whole person approach, right? And we know how important these other things are in order to help manifest the most adaptability for that person. So they’re eager to try alternative approaches.

They’re willing to question you, so we should be willing to meet them where they’re at and be able to help. Frame those questions and answer them to their satisfaction. They’re also willing to look at multiple resources to know what’s best for their health, including doing their own research so they can very much be Doctor Google Advocates.

So this can be a little bit more challenging on your end. When they come in and say, what about this, or what about that one thing that I’m just gonna throw out there? Oftentimes we need to step back and keep our egos out of the picture. We can’t know everything about everything, and we’re super, super busy, right?

We’re in practice and maybe taking seminars and you have families and all these things If you feel a bit uncomfortable when they come to you and say I was researching, Tommy should be running forwards and backwards up the stairs at six months of age, and this is why he may or may not be doing that.

We might need to say, I haven’t read that, I haven’t seen that, but I’d be happy to look into that or reach out to mentors or other people in my profession that might know more about this. It’s okay to say, give me some space and time and let me look into that for you. And I’ll be happy to help and see, how much of that we can maybe Explore and might work for Tommy.

Okay? So don’t be afraid of that. All right. Now, these are the tough ones. Priority jugglers. These are often moms. They are willing to put themselves on the back burner for the sake of their family, especially their little fiddle farts. They will undergo care. But it’s really based on their on their time, on factors they can control or not control.

And for us as chiropractors, especially if you deal with in the pediatric realm and deal with little fiddle farts, we know that kiddos are going to manifest and they’re going to at attract grab onto mom and dad’s stress mechanisms and mode. They’re gonna react to mom and dad’s and caregiver stress levels.

So we have found that if we can get parents under care, especially mamas in those ear, in that first year of life, we can help that kiddo. To calm and regulate easier, but it might not be so easy to do when mom is a priority juggler. So keep that in mind. What I really want to try to do here today is just get you starting to think about some of these different personality, health, consumer types that are coming into your office and to not criticize yourself.

If they choose not to seek care or if they start care with you, and don’t follow through with the proposed care plan. We are so easy to beat ourselves up or blame ourselves for that. What do we do wrong? Do we, what do we not say? What do we say? What’s, I wanna be liked, why aren’t they liking me?

All those things that can just bog our energy down. I don’t want you to go there. I want you to understand that there’s different personalities, different health consumers. How can you best serve each one of those? And priority jugglers, you’re gonna see a lot with mamas. Okay, so then direction takers.

These individuals are eager to follow their doctor’s advice. They are going to they, they don’t want to Offend you, upset you. Okay? They trust you explicitly, and they don’t question care plans or what you have to offer. These are direction takers, not generally in today’s world, the most the greatest percentage of people that you’ll see in your offices.

What brings us. To about a third of the health consumers and their personality traits and types. The willful, that’s a mouthful. Willful endures. These are the YOLOs, right? You only live once. Personality types, right? They’re gonna say, yeah, I wanna be healthy, but I wanna do it on my terms, right? You want me to eat better?

Yo Doc, I and my family love to go through McDonald’s every day, and that is our dinner. We want to, we enjoy parties and having people over. We we’re cool about having red dyes and sugar and alcohol, and they want to enjoy life. They wanna do it on their terms and their terms specifically.

And again, this is about a third of the healthcare consumers that we see. So these are individuals that you have to love and let go if you’re a practice that’s cool with they bring their kiddos in on their terms. They’re not a a good wellness based. Individual or family for your practice, right?

Kiddo falls over and bangs their head and three, three weeks go by and they’re still complaining on headaches. I guess maybe it’s time to take you in to see, Dr. Joe, those are the ones that you have to decide. Is that cool for your practice paradigm? Do you have room for those patients in your practice?

I don’t. My practice is very full. So I don’t have a lot of space for those that just wanna call when they wanna call and get in on that particular day or time. So these are judgment calls that you have to make no offense to anybody, but it just depends what you resonate with and what kind of practice paradigm you want.

So these are the five psycho graphic models and personality types of the average healthcare consumer in today’s world. They’re all Dr. Googling it, but they’ll meet you at a different personality b, different level, right? So now let’s have some fun. Let’s look at three of the biggest Googled health topics.

In 20, I think it was 2020 mood, especially after Covid, right? Mood, depression, anxiety has gone up by minimum of 25% across the board, especially in young adolescents. 25% anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation has skyrocketed since covid. So we need to understand, the, these are individuals that are coming into our offices.

Cognition. Cognition is a big one, right? People are getting a little worried about me remembering things. So that’s a big one. And sleep. Okay. Sleep is a big issue, especially in this country now. Mood, cognition, and sleep. What do, what is the potential chiropractic tie? I will tell you, I’ll give you a little sneak peek that all of them have some roots in posture in spinal stabilization, posture, control, and posture itself that is important to us as chiropractors, right?

So we are gonna dive into these, but. Not today. We’re gonna save these for our next three in the nose, and we’re going to break each of these down into easy to understand bites and t tidbits and pieces of how mood, cognition, and sleep are associated with the spine and posture and in and how it starts from in the first year of life.

How pastoral control, pastoral stability, movement patterns, and what we wanna look at in that first year of life that can build. What I like to say when I teach, when I mentor, I like to say we wanna fast forward and rewind. We wanna take a case that’s in front of us. Let’s say it’s a six year old and they’re coming in with X, Y, and Z.

Right? I want to be able to rewind, especially into that first year of life and say, what could have been missed here? What potholes and pivots that this little fiddle fart end up with that didn’t happen in that first year of life, that now are manifesting like X, Y, and Z? And now I like to fast forward.

So that’s my rewind. My fast forward is if. Left unchecked X, Y, and Z might look like A, B and C down the road. So what can I do here and now to help recapture those pivots and potholes that happen in that first year of life so that the train doesn’t re derail down the road? Okay, so we’re gonna have some fun over the next three months.

We’re gonna look at mood, cognition, and sleep. And their relationship to posture, control, and the first year of life. So look forward to us in what meant? We, and we’re in June now. Yes. So in July we will tackle some mood, food and posture and and tied into our chiropractic paradigm. But for now, look at these five types of personalities and start getting familiar with them when they come into your office so that you free up.

Adaptability, you’re not clogging your system. You have more to give. You have more to give to your community, to the patients that you’re serving, to your families. You’re not coming home exhausted and depleted because you’re trying to tell a story or convince somebody why they should be in your office.

Okay, you’re meeting them where they’re at. So until next time, me and Miss Elizabeth Boom are going to bring you some more fun. But keep keep turning the tide, keep saving lives. We need you out there more than ever. And we’re gonna give you some more tools and tidbits next time. And ChiroSecure, thank you again for giving us this wonderful platform and for always having our backs.

We’ll see you in July.