Patient Attendance And Compliance – Set To Get Worse?

by · 2nd December 2015

5/5 - (1 vote)

Comes a question last night from a PT Entrepreneur in my *paid for* Facebook support group:

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“Paul… my biggest challenge lately has been attendance and compliance with therapy. We have a high “chronic pain” population.

I heard somewhere that if the patient cancels often, they they are not valuing our therapy. That has stuck with me. I (and my staff) are working hard to make our clinic more of an “experience” as opposed to just coming in and doing exercises.

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My answer??

There’s SO MANY ways to stop this I’m not sure where to start…

Oh yes I do. It’s here:

“It’s NOT the patients job to see the value in therapy”.

It’s OUR job to MAKE them see the value.

How do you do that?

Easy.

Patient Attendance And Compliance - Set To Get Worse?
Go right back to the interaction you have with them at their first phone call…

…start by spending twice (maybe three times) as much time as you originally did to ensure you asked the right questions to determine you’re a good fit…

And if you REALLY wanted to do it right…

…take it even further back by inspecting the “message” you have on your website.

Do you even have one??

If both of those things don’t clearly align with THEIR values, they won’t care.

And, unfortunately, it really has nothing to do with asking people to “sign their life away” at the first evaluation.

Getting people to sign ANOTHER agreement after the evaluation to “commit” to your care plan is just a way to cover up POOR communication and influence skills – and often frightens patients more than motivates them!

(Do you like signing for things? – nor do they!)

But here’s the thing:

The problem of getting people to show up for sessions is only going to get harder – and will be soon preceded by the REAL problem of actually getting people to show up at a PT clinic at all.

Want to know why??

We’re moving into a completely new economy.

It’s called the “collaboration” economy.

There’s a pattern emerging of companies teaming up to “cross provide” a better, more efficient service that may mean a lot of companies will get overlooked.

(Like smaller sized PT clinics).

An example?

Hospital Systems buying out doctor offices to access their data base and streamline services.

Those bigger hospitals can afford to run their PT clinics with an average visit of 3-4 sessions because they’ll make their money if and when that client needs something more costly and profitable – like surgery.

They play a long ball game.

How the world does business is evolving all the time.

And, I happen to think it’s “great”.

It makes it harder and harder for my competitors who won’t want to keep up…

Who spend more time “massaging their ego” than figuring out new ways of streamlining processes to make a bigger profit, DESPITE of the changes.

Over to you…

How will you deal with the changes??

And, do you want to know the the easiest way to stay ahead of your competitors and get the life you want from growing that business you’ve got??

Here it is:

“Get in a “peer group” of people so desperate to NOT to be held back that they’re prepared to pay for (with real money) – and then take action on – advice that they’re being given from people living the life and running businesses, they secretly want”.

It’s THAT simple.

And, usually much cheaper than the $100,000 you likely spent to get through PT school.

Go here next to beat them to it and ensure you’re never short of a stream of patients at your clinic:

– Click Here to Subscribe to Paul’s Marketing Tips Email List >>>

Sincerely,

Paul Gough

About Paul Gough

PAUL GOUGH is one of the top Marketing and Business Coaches in the physical therapy industry and his Systems are helping clinic owners all across America run more profitable clinics. He is a published Author, Newspaper Columnist and before his stunning success in business was hired by top professional soccer teams. HIS SUCCESS STORY is one that inspires many pt's around the world - at the age of 26 Paul QUIT a high profile job in professional soccer to begin his own clinic. He had NO money, NO business or marketing skills and NO experience - and yet now owns and runs 4 pt clinics and has a proven track record of growing a physical therapy business from 0 - $2m in record time.
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