Ways To Enhance Your Chiropractic Patients’ Treatment Experience

From the time your patient walks through the door until the time they leave, you want to create an outstanding treatment experience. The greater their experience, the more likely they’ll return for another visit, tell their friends, leave you a good review, and become an avid fan of your practice.

So how do you create a strong patient experience that will keep your customers coming back and bringing their friends?

1. Offer online appointment scheduling.

People don’t want to pick up the phone anymore to make appointments. It can feel like a waste of time—for both the patient and the receptionist. Instead, give them the option to schedule their appointments fast and easy right on your website.

Your patients can select their doctor and see available time slots, and they simply click “confirm” to schedule their appointment. They can even create an account with your business, so they can keep track of recent appointments, doctors, medical history, and notes.

Certain scheduling software also offers email and text alerts. This will send the patient a notification with the time and date of their appointment, so they never forget or lose track. This helps reduce no-shows, so you are better able to serve the greatest number of patients (which further streamlines the customer experience).

2. Minimize wait time.

Patients report that waiting in the lobby is their least favorite part of visiting a medical professional. If you can reduce the time spent in the lobby, you can minimize those nervous or anxious feelings that start to build up before their appointment. This also shows your patients that you respect their time, which they will appreciate.

Minimizing wait time means you need to understand the flow of your office. Some time-saving methods to try out:

• Allow patients to fill out any necessary forms before they arrive at the office through a secure online portal. This allows them to get right in the room when they walk in the door.
• Create a late arrival policy and stick to it. For example, if a patient is more than 15 minutes late to their scheduled appointment time, they will need to reschedule. Make sure that customers are well aware of your late policy with all of your marketing, literature, and correspondence about appointments. This ensures patients won’t be late, while also allowing you to be consistent about sticking to the late policy.
• Use an iPad check-in system for faster administration purposes. Look into other technologies that can also update your system.
• Bring patients into a room within a certain number of minutes. Even if they have to wait in the room, they’ll be glad to be somewhere private.

3. Update the lobby.

If you can’t reduce wait time to zero, you want to make the time they spend in the lobby enjoyable. This will be their first impression of your office, so you want to make it comfortable.

Start by ensuring that your office is organized, clean, and professional. Try an exercise where you and your team walk into the office with a fresh pair of eyes as though you were a new client. Is there any clutter? What draws the eye first? Are sign-in instructions clearly marked? Is the space warm and inviting? Overall, how does it feel?

Those are the basics for a strong presentation. But it’s the small details that will take you to the next level. In your lobby, you should consider providing:

• Free WiFi
• Charging station for phones
• Coffee, water, and mini fridge with healthy snacks
• Sanitary massage chair

These little luxuries go a long way. People remember the extra touches, which can help them relax and de-stress before their appointment.

Also think of these details as marketing strategies. For example, patients will be surprised and excited by a massage chair in your office, so they’re likely to share pictures on social media and tell their friends about it.

4. Use technology.

Patients want to know that their chiropractor is updated with the recent treatments and practices. Utilizing technology throughout the treatment experience shows that you are a cutting-edge office that is constantly updating and innovating. It also tells your customer that you care about their experience. Plus, technology can make your processes and operations systematized and efficient, which can further lead to a better customer experience.

Examples of technology you can use:

• Sign-in tablet kiosks
• Tablets (tethered to waiting chairs) with preloaded magazines, games, chiropractic information
• Electronic health records system (EHR)
• Patient portal (accessible at-home)
• Imaging and treatment tech

Check out these 50 must-have tech tools for chiropractors.

5. Keep the office branded.

Most of your competitors’ offices likely feel stiff and sanitary. It feels like a doctor’s office rather than a spa. You want to provide a unique, comfortable, and branded experience from the moment your patients walk in the door.

Create a space that feels like the physical embodiment of your brand. The style, material, and color should all reflect the kind of brand you promote. For example, if your mission is to always provide the most cutting-edge treatment, you might want a modern style office with unique technology equipment. If you focus on holistic wellness, you might use natural materials and earthy colors.

Focus on the details. Even the music you play in the office should be branded. For example, the cutting-edge office might play pop music while the holistic plays soothing nature sounds.

What makes your brand unique? Use that brand differentiation when designing the layout and design of your space. This will attract, engage, and retain your ideal target audience.

6. Keep the energy positive.

People make decisions—including purchasing decisions—based on their feelings. If they have a positive feeling in your office, they’ll start to associate those emotions with your business. These feelings partially come from the physical space of the office, but it’s especially translated through the people in your practice.

You want everyone from the receptionist to the chiropractor to the cleaning crew to be caring, welcoming, and positive. This energy will transfer to your patients as well.

This means you need an upbeat culture for your employees. The basics of creating a positive culture include:

• Strong leaders that lead by example
• Ongoing training and development (like team podcast-listening sessions)
• Team goals and outcomes
• Brand mission and statement that permeates daily activities
• Effective hiring practices
• Efficient communication processes

Remember that change starts at the top. If the chiropractor or owner walks in with a smile, the others are likely to smile in tandem. Be the face of positivity for your brand.

7. Focus on patient education.

Your patients want to take control of their own health. They want to understand where their pain is coming from, and they want actionable steps to fix it. They’ll appreciate you providing them with a system of education that can take their health to the next level.

There are three main ways to give your patients the tools they need:

• Provide a “resource wall” filled with brochures, flyers, and information about different structural disorders, pain relief treatments, massages, holistic medicine, prescription medicine, and more.
• Offer pain relief products for purchase, so customers can control their pain at home. Learn more about the benefits of having a pain relief product retail section in your office.
• Personalized treatment and therapy sheets for patients to take home to practice exercises, self-massages, or posture alignments.

Conclusion

Improving the patient treatment experience is critical if you want to grow your chiropractic practice. The experience in your office will be the foundation for the patient-chiropractor relationship. If the patient has positive associations with their treatment, they’re more likely to come back and recommend you online and to friends.

Differentiate your business by focusing on the patient experience start to finish. Give patients control of their health, so they’ll start feeling better. When they start feeling better, they’ll have your practice to thank.

How do you make the patient experience engaging and interactive? Give us your tips in the comments below.