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Hey, this is Dr. Erik Kowalke. welcome to September crazy that we’re here already. I’m a chiropractor in Grand Rapids. I run higher health care practice, and I also run a software company skin that helps chiropractors. Their practice, more convenient and efficient and communicate with their patients a lot better.
But this is Look To The Children’s Show. We do the first Thursday of every month and sponsored by ChiroSecure Dr. Stu Hoffman. We use ChiroSecure in our practice and it’s awesome. And so do thousands of other chiropractors. And we just thank him for investing in shows like this. And if you follow ChiroSecure, you get so much content that’s relevant that you can use that helps you be a better corporate.
Protects you and everything that you do, and I’ve invested so much in. So thanks to the ChiroSecure for all that you do for this profession. And for hosting shows like this, but if you’re new to Kira to look to the children’s show the point of this is to give you some real, tangible information that you can use to take back to your practice this week or today, even in relation to kids and families, and just get better at seeing more kids and more.
So for today, I want to get in to the speed of change. If you have been living in the world in the last two years, you know that everything is more convenient than ever now. If you look at Amazon prime, you can filter by stuff that you can get. In the same day, I was buying a USB-C cable this morning and I bought the one that I could get today, which seems crazy to three years ago.
You didn’t know you could get something in it. And 20 years ago, they didn’t even know if you could buy something online. We buy everything online. So you talk about Amazon prime door dash. You can get lunch delivered to your door from just about anywhere. You have the food delivery, places that deliver all your groceries, or you can go pick up your groceries just about every grocery store you can pre-order ahead of time drive through.
And they just put it in your car. What else? Starbucks? You can order through their. Now and pick it up online. So there’s two factors here. Not only is it everything super convenient delivered to you, but the experience ordering it is convenient. And so this is where that these companies have gotten really good as the amount of time it takes for you to buy something.
And then the amount of time it takes for them to deliver it. Has gotten so condensed. And I’d say if you were to draw a graph, for the last decade, eight years, it was like increasing inconvenience in the last two years. It’s like the hockey curve. It’s just gone off the charts and even the stuff you buy online.
Now, if you use apple pay, you don’t even have to enter in any of your information. You just double click on the side and look at it and it’s paid for, and it’s ordered and it’s being shipped. And that’s just our world that we live in. So I think it’s important for us as chiropractors, to look at everything around us and adapt to our environment and stay up to pace with how everything else is changing, because if we liked it or not, it’s what our patients are expecting in their life, because one of the biggest hindrances into lifetime family wellness care, if we’re talking about what we really want for families and kids is for them all to get checked for Suboxone.
And to have them live a life without nerve interference. And in order to do that, when need to see them on a semi-regular basis, whether that’s once a month or twice a month or once a week, depending on how you run your practice. It has to be convenient for a parent to bring their child in. This is probably one of the biggest reasons, most practices, including your own.
Aren’t seeing more kids and families is because I just can’t get them there. That’s crazy. Kids are starting sports. Now at four years old, five years old, like competitive dance, competitive soccer, like around us. That’s just the case. Kids are getting held back in school so that they can play a grade level of sport, but they’re a year and a half older than the other kids in their class.
And then they can compete at a higher level. All that means is they’ve got practices every night of the week. They got games or traveling all over the country. This is life that we live in. And you have to be thinking about how do I run my chiropractic office? Is it convenient? We’re going to go through some steps today just to see if you can come up with ways to make your practice more convenient.
If we just start at day one day two if you have an hour, day, one process. It has to be broken up into smaller sections, either moving the person around or splitting that up. So if you’re doing the old school where you come into a room and you just sit down and educate them for an hour, it’s not going to work anymore.
It just scares people away. Their first experience isn’t convenient. In fact, it’s so against everything else that’s in their life. Then they walk out of there, even if they, even if you’re like, they’re awesome. They’re totally going to start. They never come back. And they’re like, I don’t know what the heck has happened in there.
I was in there for an hour. Like I’d never do anything for an hour in one place. So if you break it up in their waiting room for five days, They’re getting a tour for five, 10 minutes, like walking around your facility. They’re in one room for five, 10 minutes and they go over here and they get an exam.
Then they go get x-rays and they come back over here. However, that process is, I can just tell you five to 10 minutes is about the maximum time you’re going to maybe 15. If you’re going through a health history and their super. That you’re going to hold their attention and still provide a good experience in a room.
So just break down your day, one day, two process, walk through those different areas and steps and just see if there’s ways that you can move them around or adapt to make it more convenient and then make their experience better through that. The second one is online forums. If I walk into a place in 2022 and they hand me a clipboard and I have to hand fill out the form of a pen it feels like it’s just super outdated.
It just doesn’t happen very much anymore than I have to fill that out if I have to fill out online forms, but it doesn’t help pre-fill it out for me, or it doesn’t give me an option to hit pre-fill my name and address. It’s super annoying. I’ll do it, but it just takes me an extra minute longer.
And unfortunately, a minute seems like a long time. If you’re sitting there on your phone or your computer and it’s loading for 300. That’s annoying. People are like, why is it loading for three seconds? 15, 20 years ago, we had dial up internet where if you could download something, and go to work for the day and come home and it’s downloaded.
That was awesome. Now it’s three seconds and it’s not working. It’s too much. This is why we have to adapt as chiropractors and business owners and we have to make their experience. Great. So online forums, you need really good online forums. You need them to be auto filled out. They need to be saving the patient’s information.
This is an online forums where they have to print them off and hand, write them and then scan them back in and send them to you way too many steps. It’s not that convenient. The experience is bad. It’s gotta be fillable, mobile friendly, online forms that you can fill out that come to you directly, that you can do paperless in the office.
Now we’re using iPads and ninja in any exam rooms. So we don’t even have to print the paper off. We can edit it. All right in there, we use all those forms through sketch forms. It syncs to our EHR system works super well. Third one is scheduling. The scheduling has to be convenient. This is where the patient wants to see what times are the busiest and what times aren’t as busy.
If you just think what would be the best experience for you, the busy chiropractor you had to go to an appointment you would want to see was three o’clock super busy. ’cause in my mind. I know I have to get my kids to this, or I need to go do this by three 30. Do I have time to go get adjusted or not?
If the average time it takes me in that office is 20 to 30 minutes. I know I’m going to be pushing it. So I’m going to look for a 2 45 normally in today’s society. Let me just say this normally. Patient would just call the office and talk to whoever’s at your front desk and they’d be able to work through that scenario and be like I got this at three 30.
Can I get in? And can I get out by three 30? Yep. Mr. Jones, I’ll get you out of here by 3 27. Get your appointment awesome. The reality is, and today people don’t want to do that. That’s an inconvenience for them to call. They want to electronically through an app on their phone. Do the same thing without calling you and talking to somebody cause they can do it on the app, on their phone while they’re working while they’re taking care of the kids or something and not take the time away from that to call you just the fact of the matter.
So you need to be using a scheduling app that shows them busy times that are more efficient for them to get. The times that worked for their whole family. So it seeks if they have four kids, it shows on the times that work for the four kids. If there are different types of appointments, if they have a massage or this, do those appointments, work with your appointments, all that needs to sync real time.
It can’t be a request. You can’t be a, send us an email and we’ll figure it out for you. It’s got. Real-time directly into your booking EHR system from an app on their phone. That’s convenient for them. This is where you just you’re copying what the Amazon primes of the world and the apple pays of the world they’re doing is they get you the product quickly, which is efficiency in your office.
You get the service done quickly, but paying for the service in ordering the service through the app online is also really easy. So you’re doing the same thing with scheduling, and getting in to provide them. So if your service is really efficient in the office, but your scheduling isn’t, that’s purchasing your product to get in.
So they’re not even coming in for you to provide their service, even though you have an efficient process of the service, if you get me. So there’s two parts. That you need to copy Amazon and apple and everybody else what they’re doing to chiropractic offices, the scheduling, and giving them in the office and the appointment reminders and the text messaging.
People aren’t using email, they’re using text messaging. 90% of people are going to open the texts within two minutes. They’re use push notifications. If you have an app on your phone can we use this getup for our company? Does all the scheduling, the push notifications for appointment reminders, prompting them to fill out the paperwork.
If we don’t get people that show up with other paperwork. It’s not convenient for them. It’s not convenient for us now that we have the process in the system, it just doesn’t happen anymore. And if it does, that’s wow, what’s happening? What did we miss in the process? They don’t not show up to their appointment.
So we’re seeing 400 people in a day and we have four, four to six people that no call, no show four to six. So 1% I think no show and don’t call us or reschedule through the app or somehow let us know. So if you don’t have an app scheduling system, what’s happening, is there no calling, no showing, but they already knew previous prior in the day that it couldn’t come in, they just did call you because it’s not convenient for them.
So they thought they would get ahold of you at a different time, but you weren’t open. Cause it was lunchtime. So then they tried calling you and they couldn’t get through or they just didn’t call you at all. So then they ended up no calling. No. When, if you would’ve gave them the ability to reschedule that appointment in the morning or move the appointment, it would open the slot up in the afternoon, early enough for somebody else to get in that slot.
So right now you’d look at your schedule and 25 30 people on the schedule. There’s probably a good five to 10 of those that aren’t going to come in and they already know they can’t come in and you just didn’t make it convenient for them to tell you that they can’t come in. So you’re expecting them to come in, even though you shouldn’t be expecting them to.
And traditionally, we would just create a system where we would find them or discipline them for not showing up and charge them a fee or something. But then what happens is that really you’re just driving your volume down. Cause then they’re like don’t schedule me at all. Cause I don’t want to get fine.
And my life is crazy. And I don’t know if I can come in, I’ll just call you. We all know I’ll just call you means I’m not coming back or I’m not going to stick to my recs because I don’t have time to call you and you don’t have a better way for me to get. So it’s just a ripple down effect that affects your growth and your impact as an organization.
And I’m telling you if you want to be growing in 2023 and 2024 and beyond you need online apps scheduling, I guess there’s a difference online scheduling is where you’d log into a browser. It’s better than nothing, but an app scheduler is what’s going to get you to continue to grow and retain people with great retention.
And long-term. PVA moving into 20, 20 forward beyond. So it’s really important that we’re doing that. Number four is adjusting days. So when you have people coming in for the service, you don’t want them waiting. The office experience. Time needs to be 20 minutes or less. So that’s five to seven minutes in the waiting room, 10 to 15 minutes in the adjusting room.
That should be the standard of excellence. Your whole team is trying to get. And you don’t really want them to go right to the adjusting room, because then at times they do have to wait as longer and that throws off their experience. You need a consistent office experience. Ours that we shoot for in our clinic was 20 minutes, five to seven minutes in the waiting room.
10 to 15 minutes in the adjusting room gets them somewhere between 18 and 22 minutes. Total office experience, time to walk in the door, walk out the door. So why this consistent is important is because the busy dad or mom that’s bringing their kids. Or even the busy person that’s got stuff scheduled, they rely, they come in and you see them in 15 minutes.
The next time they come in, they’re scheduling it in their mind with their day on. It’s going to take me 15 minutes. So I can schedule this meeting with this person or this coffee date with that person, or I’m going to bring my kids to here. And if it takes 30 minutes, because you spent too long with the patient right before.
That makes their experience bad. They’re like, it took twice as long as it normally did and I can’t do this anymore. So then next week when they look to schedule, they’re like, I don’t have time to come in, even though you’re like, it only takes 15 minutes. No, it’s 30 last week. I think it’s going to take 30 again.
I’m not going to come in. So every time every shift that you have long wait times your office experience. Longer than what you consistently do. You’re going to see a decrease in volume the following week. It’s just, that’s how it is. So that’s how you make sure your office experience. Time is consistent five to seven minutes in the waiting room.
10 to 15 minutes in the justice room is really important. And then just look for ways to help people make it easier. So we used to print out calendars for people when they make their appointments and they put them up on their fridge and they would come in all of those visits. That’s just doesn’t happen anymore.
You need to think of ways to make it more convenient for them, put yourself in their scenario. Everybody’s life is different. So this is where the human touch of a CA comes in play and you can combine human element and the automation element together to create a really great experience. For example, I leave on Thursday after my appointment with my kids and I’m like, I don’t know if I can come in next week.
They’re starting school. I don’t even know what their schedule is. Baseball. Hasn’t released a schedule. I really can’t make an appointment because I don’t know what. Like, all mr. Jones, let me put a reminder in here. Do you think you’ll know by Sunday night, what your week looks like? Yeah, I’ll probably know by Sunday night.
I think they’re going to send it out on Saturday. Great. I’m going to send you a text message on Sunday night to schedule appointments for this week for your family. And you can just go ahead and go ahead. Another schedule if I don’t see any appointments on Monday, I’ll follow back up with you with a phone call.
Okay, great. I’m expecting now you. So they just jump in. If you have a software system, like a SCAD system that we use, we can just set up a text message, send this message to bill Sunday at 4:00 PM. And he told bill, Hey or Jones, Mr. Jones, bill Jones. Let’s call them Monday. I’m going to call you so he knows I better schedule it Sunday night when I get that text message otherwise they’re going to call me on Monday and I don’t want them to call me on Monday.
So they’re going to do it or you say, all right, Mr. Jones, I’m going to put you in for Tuesday. Let’s put you in for Monday night. If it doesn’t work, go ahead and jump on this. Get app and move that appointment to Tuesday or Thursday. On Monday morning when you know that it can’t work. Awesome. That’s so easy for Mr.
Jones. He doesn’t have to call you. He doesn’t have to look at multiple appointment schedules. He just sees Monday nights are going to work and he’s looking at schedule Thursday night would work jumps on the app in one click. He can see Thursday. He can see red, yellow, green. Busy times, not so busy times for his kids move.
Boom. I’m coming at four 30 on Thursday done. When I show up or the CA shows up on Monday. They say, oh, Mr. Jones moved his appointment to Thursday at four 30. Great. He followed exactly what we did. We made convenient for him. It’s better for us now because now we know he’s, he moved it. So we don’t have to think he’s coming in and have a no-call no-show or move his appointment manually.
So he’s got thinking ways that your team can communicate and use automation to make that process more efficient in your office and scheduling probably the biggest one. Yeah. That’s the hindrance from them getting in the second one is the office experience, time inside the clinic and thinking, now you can incorporate, promotions that you do to keep them busy.
If they’re in the office and the wait times a little bit longer, maybe that’s the day you turn on a trigger to text them, right? When they arrive that you guys are doing this special donation for kids school supplies, or you have a dinner coming up and you want to promote. You want to, you’re promoting your health talk campaign into businesses locally.
Like the days that the wait time is longer, that’s when you start promoting stuff and you’re seeing, you can get out behind the front desk and say, Hey, you just got a text message about this thing that we’re doing and talk to them about it. It makes that five to seven minutes, or maybe 10 to 15 minutes go by a lot quicker than them just sitting there.
Like. Thinking, man, this is twice as long as it took me last time. So I’d encourage you to brainstorm with your team on all of this. If you want more of the resources that we do, this is what we focus on. Big time in our clinic, 1600 people a week. We see and runs this automation process for us and patient experience for us.
You can find us, that’s get that life or reach out to me in or Dr. Erik D R E R I K. That’s get a life and I can send you guys some of the stuff that we do at higher health. Around specific office experience, but dive into whatever system you’re using, software system automation tools that you use and start to automate this stuff to make the experience great, but always be thinking convenience, because if you’re not people on equitably are thinking this practice is the convenient, the chiropractor isn’t convenient.
I’ll leave you with one last story. I was going to share this and my wife told me not to, but I took a picture of my. At the dentist in the dentist chair, a couple of weeks back. And the dental hygienist came in and she started cleaning my teeth. She asked me, what I did for a living. And I told her I was a chiropractor and she says, oh, I was going to a chiropractor, actually had an appointment this week and I just couldn’t make it.
And they just don’t make it. And I’m not even making this up. And she said they don’t make, it can be. For me to come in and I never know my schedule and I was asked to call and they’re never open when I could call them. And when they’re open, I’m working. So I can’t call them and it’s not convenient. So I just sent him an email and told him I’m not coming in anymore.
And I’m like, I should interview you or something. Cause I’m literally talking about this exact same thing in a couple of weeks. So just know people in your community are saying the same thing. What is it that you’re hearing there? And hopefully you’re hearing this and you’re being proactive and you start taking this back to your practice and just making it better and making the experience better because we know we need to, because people need chiropractic care and we need to just be good business owners and business people in order to make the experience in our offices.
Great. So we can. Chiropractic here and we can reduce subluxation or communities, the kids cause we know they desperately needed, especially in the crazy times that we’re in. So hopefully you got something out of that and take it back to your practice and make it more convenient. But don’t miss Thursday for Dr.
Monika Buerger. She does the third Thursday of every month. Look to the children’s show. She’s fantastic and awesome. These are quick 15 to 30 minute shows. So make sure you set your reminders and listen to these on a monthly basis, I’ll be back the first Thursday in October with look to the children again, I’m Dr.
Erik Kowalke, thanks to ChiroSecure Dr. Stu Hoffman for all they do for this profession and hosting these shows. And we’ll see you again in October.
Today’s pediatric show to the children was brought to you by ChiroSecure. .