“Perhaps these physicians haven’t learned how to incite trust, use persuasion, understand the value of patient satisfaction, promote themselves, or apply the 22 immutable laws of marketing that can make patients love coming to your office for medical care.”
Beyond the fact that physicians normally ignore the possibility of ever losing patients, they rarely take time to survey their patient lists and take notice of how many patients they saw one time and never again.
The patients that I’m talking about are not the ones who moved out of the area, ones whose health insurance restricted them to another doctor that accepted their coverage, or the ones that another doctor referred to you for consultation and returned to their own physician.
Unless you have had an education in business and marketing, you will not have a clue about what patients think about you or that might be unintentionally insulted or fed up with parts of your character that you never seem to see yourself. Many patients stay with their medical doctor despite their behavior that aggravates them on each visit.
Such a patient is a higher risk patient. Medical malpractice attorneys understand that these patients, when injured or improperly handled medically or surgically, are the quickest to
file a lawsuit.
The primary reason a patient transfers to another physician locally is because of lack of trust. Do you truly know if your patients trust you? Most physicians say yes, but based on what reasoning? What are the factors that induce a patient to trust in physicians?
Trust is a factor that marketing research has proven to be a stepwise process. For most patients It takes about six to seven direct interactions with a physician, any business, or person to assure them that you officially can be trusted. You might be wondering why you receive in your mail the same ad or other solicitations, same message, same wording, repeatedly. Why would anyone waste so much expense to keep sending out the exact same message—often using different images, colors, or designs—so often? Eventually, they know some will respond.
First visit patients are always skeptical, short on questions, and appear uncomfortable in behavior/body language. When you walk into that exam room and meet that first patient, it’s not how beautiful or handsome you are, or how you’re dressed that the patient is impressed by. They are testing you to see how you treat your patients. If you treat them well, you both win. If not, then the patient will retest you again on the next visit to see if the issue persists and it’s just how you are all the time.
The secret for winning a patient over instantly is also the secret to convincing a patient that they have found the perfect doctor for themselves, or their family.
The secret is to slowly walk into the exam room, instantly making eye-contact with the patient, smile, walk directly over to the patient, put your hand out to shake hands, and say to the patient, “It’s a pleasure to meet (“see you” for your usual patients) you Mrs./Mr. ________.”
Always say the patient’s name. It immediately “tells” the patient that you have viewed any old records on the patient or have looked up the patient’s name before coming into the room. All people love to hear their own name said to them.
Follow the patient’s name you just spoke with a quick positive comment that fits the patient. I often said to ladies, “You’re wearing very nice earrings” or “You are dressed perfectly for shopping after you leave the office.” Find your own way to ease into a conversation with the patient in some complimentary manner. With men, I used a “weather” type comment.
For your regular patients, seniors like you to use Mr. or Mrs. and use the last name in the greeting. Younger patients usually permit you to use their first name, but you do that by
asking them if it is OK to do. It shows them respect (you’ve added another chevron to
your trustworthiness).
Humor in the exam room has to be filtered down to your personal judgment of whether the patient is open to humor. Many older women do not like humor.
Another chevron of trust can be added if you communicate well with the patient. It’s appropriate both during the exam and after. Most important, I discovered, when doing OBG exams that female patients need to know what you are going to do next, then do it right then. They also want to know what you are seeing that is normal or whether there’s a
problem present.
If you do the exam silently (no talk), tell them why. To my surprise I discovered that ever doctor that examined me listened to my heart and lung sounds with the stethoscope through my clothing, not on bare skin—something that back in medical school I would have been thrown out of the class for doing.
How to use persuasion with patients...
By the time you have practiced for several years, you have treated medical patients that have returned because the treatment didn’t work. Others completely refuse your advice and recommended treatment. Others refuse to have surgical procedures done that you have strongly recommended.
One area of medical practice where many physicians have great difficulty with managing their patient’s healthcare is when patients challenge, avoid, argue, or reject a physician’s advice. And it is the time in a physician’s medical practice where trust is critically important. About the only reason that a medical patient will even consider changing their mind and agree to the recommended treatment is if they completely trust their medical doctor.
The most common reason for patients to refuse a form of medical treatment is because they need to have a detailed explanation and discussion about why the recommendation is the best advice, what the other options for treatment are, what results would be expected, and what might be the complications from the advised treatment.
Knowing that medical practice today requires full schedules of patients crammed together, time is of the essence. Most physicians refuse to get into long arguments with patients about why they advise a certain treatment. Patients now more than ever are aggressive about confronting medical doctors.
Patients in the old days allowed physicians to dictate treatments and seldom had enough courage to challenge the doctors. Back then, doctors were scarcer in numbers, so rather than drive 50 miles to the next town to find a doctor, they went along with whatever the physician said to do. It has all changed because medical patients have become a great deal more knowledgeable about medical treatments, the good and the bad.
Busy medical doctors get around the “discussion” sessions by moving through patients faster, which doesn’t allow patients to ask questions about treatments. More amicable patients just put up with the advice and follow the physician’s recommendations. But they leave the office angry about being left with no questions answered by the doctor.
Unless you don’t mind losing a patient, that over time in your practice would provide you with about $600 to $1000 of income each year, you better stop and answer questions and do better explanations about treatment options. The process of good communications with your patients is what creates loyal patients—if that is important to your style of medical practice
business growth.
Most excellent medical doctors that I have met are resourceful enough to make time to satisfy their patients, especially those who refuse the treatment they advised.
Such an aggressive patient is a higher risk to doctors. A reasonable knowledge about how to persuade patients to comply is worth your time and efforts. It costs you far less to keep a patient than to attract a new patient.
One patient of mine I treated for Trichomonas Vaginitis. Flagyl was a great medication when I practiced. About two weeks later she was back for the same problem. I asked her if she took all the prescription medication the way I told her. She said she did. I gave her the same medication again in the same dose—that in my experience was very effective in curing Trichomonas infection with one treatment cycle.
Two weeks later she came back again—same story. There was one thing that I had forgotten to ask her, “Are you sexually active with a male partner?” Remembering to ask a patient the right questions at the right time is a delicate means of using persuasion without touting your persuasive expertise. As soon as she was cured, he had given the infection back to her again. What patients don’t tell you is usually what makes you look like a fool.
Learn the persuasion sequence with your patients...
Jay A. Conger, in his book, “The Necessary Art of Persuasion,” says that persuasion is the language of business leadership. In a physician’s practice, persuasion enables us to practice at a higher level of medical care and is a repeatable means of satisfying our patients. You learn that very quickly when one of your office staff rushes up to you and tells you, “You’ve got to talk to this patient,
right now!”
One of the best means of learning how to use persuasion is to read a book titled, “Triggers”, author—Joseph Sugarman.
The best lesson that I ever learned about how to use persuasion came from another physician that I worked with in a hospital setting. The topic came up after I had had a loud verbal exchange with the father of an adult daughter, a patient of mine who felt that I had coerced his daughter into approving my advice about her medical care, which he vehemently disagreed with. She was single, about 23, and intelligent.
My associate noticed my frustration and knew about what happened. He proceeded to tell me how he learned to handle patients or others who are so angry that they can’t talk clearly or
think reasonably.
The first objective is that one should approach such a person slowly with eye-to-eye contact while appearing to be gentle, understanding, and concerned, whether you feel that way or not. The first objective is to let the angry person know that you want to know what started the problem so you will be able to help him. You ask him (or her) to recite the complete event and details because you want to help resolve the problem. Then you listen without interrupting them.
The process of having the person describe it all in detail requires them to rapidly calm down enough to tell the story accurately.
The second objective is to ask the angry person exactly what they want done to resolve the conflict. To relate that to the mediator requires the angry person to calm down even more. And during the process, that person’s mind must dissipate the anger enough to think reasonably, so that he can tell the mediator in detail what would satisfy him.
The third objective is to explain to the person what you can do to help him very quickly. By this time the anger is usually minimal because his or her mind is fixated directly on how the matter can be managed to their satisfaction. He doesn’t want to stay angry. He wants to be respected as a person and be treated in a reasonable fashion. Sympathy is key here.
Comment…
We were busy that day and I was running behind in my appointments. This patient was always bossy to the staff and made smart remarks to the staff often in prior appointments. She was a perfect candidate for a knuckle sandwich, but as you know, that activity is a universal NO_NO.
One of my office staff finally reached her level of maximal tolerance and was verbally rude to the patient. It was understandable because the patient really was a pain-in-the-ass.
The bad part was that the patient stormed out of the office and was never seen again. Any outright verbal or physical conflict with a patient means the loss of the patient right then. And such a patient spreads the story across the town over the next week which does not help the growing of the medical practice.
The good part was that the office team was at peace again and the last few patients on the schedule the rest of the day got the most wonderful care and attention from the staff that I hadn’t seen in two years. It’s one of those things you pray will never end—at least the doctors do.
The best part for you is that these "touched-on" factors briefly discussed above can be found in much more detail on my medical website www.marketingamedicalpractice.com where I teach physicians all about, and how to apply, business principles and marketing strategies to their medical
practice businesses.
"Whoever is careless with the truth in
small matters cannot be trusted in
important affairs." -----Albert Einstein
"The process of building trust is an interesting one,
but it begins with yourself, with what I call self-trust,
and with your own credibility, your own trustworthiness.
If you think about it, it's hard to establish trust
with others if you can't trust yourself." ----- Stephen Covey
Requirements for maximizing your medical practice income
1. Good knowledge of medical practice management
2. Having the energy for continuous medical practice marketing
3. Medical practice business planning is important.
4. Marketing for physicians and their office staff is a winning set up.
5. Learn what makes a medical practice business successful.
6. Your medical practice business system is essential.
7. Bothe practice marketing and physician marketing is rewarding.
8. Business success is the objective of all physicians in private medical practice.
9. My business website—www.marketingamedicalpractice.com
----Professional Probe----
"This is a subtle means of persuading drivers
to drive carefully through their town. And it
slyly indicates to drivers about the risks of driving
through their small town by the mention of
having two cemeteries, not one. The more serious
warning about no hospital is the bottom line."
Articles©2013-2022/CGG INVESTMENTS LLC. All rights reserved. #92, 3-16-22
