Published: 2010-11-16 20:28:42
Author: Bharon Hoag | ChiroEco | October 2010
Patient education should focus on two objectives: first, to make sure the patient understands his or her condition and what it will take for a return to normal, and secondly, to turn that understanding into additional business and a more prosperous clinic.
Patients who understand the dimension of their problems and the goals and efficacy of their treatment are likely to keep to the schedule of visits and comply with their responsibilities in the healing process and tell others you are the person that got them (and keeps them) well.
And every patient success story represents another testimonial to your value as a healer.
Patient education should be part of every case. It doesn’t have to be a formalized process, but to be effective, it should proceed in stages. It should be conducted on the patient’s level, not the doctor’s. That means that medical and technical terminology is out and a warm, conversational approach is in.
Need to know
Tell them what they need to know in words they understand. Don’t talk in terms of subluxations, Para-Sympathetic, and autonomic during the initial visits. Textbook lingo is appropriate for professional settings, but outside of that context it’s like a foreign language (as it often is).
If you lather your sessions with words and phrases you learned in your years of classes, you likely will find your patients zoning out, listening respectfully but not hearing, and their eyes glazing over. And when you lose the patient’s involvement, you often stand to lose the patient.
Thus, educating patients should place a priority on stimulating and maintaining that involvement. So, don’t talk like a doctor; patients don’t think like a doctor. Emphasize what they need to hear, not what you want to say. And forego scripts that may have been recommended to you in the past.
When they are used over time, they become rote recitations and lose their edge — and when edge is gone, effectiveness diminishes. And whether they express it or not, patients can tell the difference between what’s real and what’s artificial.