THIS IS DR. MARK RADERMACHER FROM TPMI CHIROPRACTIC PRACTICE MANAGEMENT, WELCOME TO YOUR TPMI HOT TOPIC OF THE WEEK.
When you think of chiropractic practice management consider this: There was a call a couple of days ago from a client, and he was genuinely concerned, even worried. He was describing that his concern and his worry were based on this concept of the agony of repeat. When asked to describe the agony of repeat, he went on to say, “well, really if you think about it, we’re only teaching patients the same thing over and over and over again”.
SO DOCTOR, WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE TEACHING?
And, what is that? He went on to say, “well, we’re teaching about chiropractic”. And anything else? “Well, we’re teaching them about health”. And is there ever anything else? He went on to respond in the realm of chiropractic practice management what else there is to consider. “Well, it’s certainly teaching them about the impact their pain or complaint has in their life”. And might there be one more topic “teaching them about their pain and their problem and specifically how that impacts different aspects of their life”. The comment was made, all right, just hold on, you just mentioned about five different topics. And, really, if you start picking apart any one of those topics, the definition of health, how many different ways can you discuss and describe and define the definition of health?
HOW MANY TIMES DO YOU HAVE TO HEAR SOMETHING TO REMEMBER IT?
Thankfully, in the world of chiropractic practice management, there are many, many different ways, different stories, comparison case studies, contrast case studies; you could go into using their experience, their pain and complaint their historical challenge with health to help them understand health and the lack thereof. The point being this: this doctor’s concern was really the agony of repeat, and when you consider what goes on in communication and memory and teaching and learning; take yourself back to school. How many times did you have to hear certain things in math class before they made sense? In English or science, or before you remembered something that was repeated in history and then explained from different perspectives until finally, there was a perspective that you thought, well, I get it. That makes sense. Now I understand. It sometimes takes a number of different perspectives before the information clicks in an individual’s brain.
IT'S HARDER TO REMEMBER WHEN YOU ARE IN PAIN.
These people are patients, and especially early in care, many of them are in pain. It’s more difficult to listen. It’s more difficult to learn and remember when a person is in pain, but it’s more than that. You take some of the best students and they’re not in pain necessarily and they’re focused and they’re really trying to learn they’re trying to get the knowledge and the grade; you realize they are there for everything. And you teach them enough information and they can’t remember it all; people who can would be the true exception.
IT'S ALL ABOUT PERSPECTIVE.
Therefore, through the studies in chiropractic practice management it’s been proven that repeating even the same information from the same perspective might make the difference in someone being able to learn. That has nothing to say about your method of teaching. In other words, you could choose the teaching method of lecturing. Just telling, information to someone. Or, you could take the better approach, the alternative, and that is to teach someone something by asking questions. Studies in chiropractic practice management have proven that this method changes everything, the more customized and specific the questions become, the more personal, the more impactful to the patient.
ASK “REALLY GOOD” QUESTIONS.
And their answers usually parallel the level, or as a doctor, your level of specificity and customization. Meaning, think about perspective. Think about how hard it is to remember a lot of information. Add this to the equation. Your style of teaching, it was, as was just mentioned, more the Socratic approach that works the best most often. All of this is easily learned in the TPMI chiropractic practice management program.
PAINS IMPACT ON LIFE, IS VERY REAL.
But also, think doctor, think about the fact that this is information, when you’re talking chiropractic and health, when you’re trying to help them understand the impact in their life, and the only way to do that is to ask them the right kinds of questions, because they’re not thinking this information commonly or otherwise. But doctor, you must remember, you won’t intuitively communicate in this manner, you need to learn this in TPMI chiropractic practice management.
DOCTOR, YOU MUST CREATE AND CONTROL THE DIALOGUE.
This is information that is uncommon to these patients. In other words, they don’t see this, hear this on the news or read it in a magazine or online. They don’t meet up with friends and discuss this sort of information. Whereas they could, some people really do, meet up with certain people and they talk about mathematics or physics. They talk about science or history. They talk about religion or politics. They talk about all kinds of subjects. None of them really completely foreign, or they wouldn’t be talking about them. But when it comes to what you are teaching, this is all new to them. If the average person understood what you understand, doctor, in regard to health and chiropractic, they’d be knocking on your door 24/7 they would stand outside your door, down the sidewalk, lined up. Proof in the pudding, that’s not happening, is it? Which means this is subject matter, not one, but many pieces, different subject matters that the average person just doesn’t hear, understand, or remotely think about. For example, if you ask the average person; do you have control over your health?
WHO’S RESPONSIBLE FOR WHAT?
TPMI chiropractic practice management did this study… almost nine out of ten will say, “no”. “How would I have control over my health”? And listen to the two pronouns. How would I? Have control over My? Well, it’s your body, right? But, you see, they don’t think like that. The last thing you want to worry about is the agony of repeat in teaching patients, unless you’ve made the terrible mistake of memorizing maybe a handful of one liners, you know, silly one liners.
AVOID ELEVATOR TALK…BUT KEEP IT SIMPLE.
Silly one liners don’t mean anything to the average person, maybe to some chiropractors, because there’s enough depth of knowledge and understanding in most chiropractors’ heads running around. For example, a chiropractor might understand hard bone on soft nerve, or foot on garden hose or something silly, like those one liners. But as a doctor, you need to learn and develop communication skill through TPMI chiropractic practice management. If you have a condensed point, a sentence or two, and you just keep repeating it to your patients because they are good points, they’re quality points. Just like the definition of health in a medical dictionary might be, “100% of your cells functioning 100%, 100% percent of the time” so to you that might mean a lot because chapters and volumes and books and classes and, professors who talked about this sort of thing come to mind.
DON’T BECOME A SILLY BROKEN RECORD.
Bits and pieces even come to your mind. But when you have these condensed, repeated, one liners, and maybe only a handful of them on top of it, that could easily become the agony of repeat. If you’re really attempting to teach and you’re using some of the tools, better yet, all of the tools that are taught in and through TPMI chiropractic practice management, you’re not going to bore these patients.
DO THEY REALLY KNOW WHY TO STAY?
In fact, most patients quit because they don’t know why they should stay. Why don’t they know? You didn’t successfully teach them, or you haven’t for a while, and they forgot. Therefore, as a true teacher, you have nothing to worry about, doctor, in regard to the agony of repeat. If you’re going to take some shortcut, a condensed, handful of favorite one liners, you will fail and that will produce a disgusting agony of repeat for the patient.
THE EASY WAY VERSUS THE HARD WAY.
You’ve got choices doctor; One is easy, and it fails. One is enjoyable and very fulfilling, and it succeeds…this choice is the TPMI chiropractic practice management approach. You get to choose. Have a great day.
TPMI…Chiropractic Practice Management, at its best.
