Before you know it, it’s tumbled out of your mouth again eh?
“See how you go John,” you say with a smile.
He’s had 3 treatments for shoulder and neck pain and he’s far better than when he first booked in to see you. He has much better range of movement and is no longer in pain. He’s off the anti-inflammatories that he was living on for too many weeks.
But you do know that that isn’t the end of it, don’t you? You know he’s not going to change his routine. You know he sits for prolonged periods at his ergonomically challenging desk. You know his posture is poor and his habits are even worse.
Make no mistake, you know he’s going to be back, just like Arnie!
But is he booked in for a maintenance treatment? Nope.
Now there’s two schools of thought on this:
- Responsible health care says prevention is better than cure
- It seems money grabbing to be booking in a patient who is currently healthy
But looking at the longer term, you know he’s highly likely to need your help again. But he’s busy. He’s going to forget. He’s going to be back on the pills for quite a while before something pings in his head and he remembers how great you were last time.
Meanwhile he’s probably gone on for a couple more months than necessary, putting up with uncomfortable and aching joints. Had he been booked in for a maintenance treatment, things would never have got this bad.
And that is the mistake!
You see, in his mind, you are the expert. And he’s right of course. You are the expert!
So if you say “see how you go” he will trundle off happily and forget about you.
But in John’s shoes, I would far rather hear, “This is likely to reoccur in around 4-6 months, so why don’t we book you in and catch it before it makes you miserable again?”
And this is where text reminders come into their own of course. Because at least he has the opportunity to cancel or defer the appointment if it’s not needed.
But as part of reducing the pain of your community, this will go a long way to really looking after them and giving them great service.
We want our expert to guide us firmly
We don’t want wishy washy ‘see how you go’. We want expert guidance as to the next step. We want to know that we are in safe hands. We want to know that our future self is taken care of by booking in a treatment right now.
Then it’s not left to chance and it’s not put at the bottom on our never ending ‘to do’ list.
We look up to you as our Osteopath. We trust you to make the right call. We know you will never rip us off or over treat us.
So do your patients a favour and book them in right now. Then you can say ‘Thanks and see you in September’
And the by-product of such good service is that you are also building a strong and sustainable business. Make no mistake about it…
