When you first start a practice and you have some early success it’s common to stop doing the things that made you successful in the first place.
Usually one of the first things to go is progress exams. But progress exams are absolutely crucial to a healthy practice. Doing consistent and effective progress exams can help you in many ways including:
Doing consistent progress exams with every patient is one of the most effective ways to do retention marketing. Along with digital, internal, and external marketing there is another type of marketing for the upper cervical practice that is not talked about regularly and that is retention marketing to retain the patients you already have. It is much easier to keep a patient than is to get a new patient. Therefore, your team should be focusing on retention-based marketing on a daily, weekly and monthly basis.
Progress exams are an absolute pillar of effective retention marketing.
They are also an excellent time to build the social proof of your practice.
If you have read this blog for a while or listen to our podcast you will hear us talk about social proof all the time.
Social proof is proof to others that your practice gets great results. This is generally generated through reviews and testimonials.
Google continues to be the most important platform for Upper Cervical Chiropractors. 92% of all searches on the Internet are done on Google. There are 8.5 billion searches done on Google each day.
At some point a potential new patient will interact with you through Google almost every time. Whether they are referred into your office or generated through your digital marketing or other internal or external outreaches.
So making sure that you look great on Google is definitely a priority for all Upper Cervical Doctors.
You can never have too many Google reviews. The key with Google reviews is to consistently get them. Your star rating is very important but the consistency with which you get reviews is just as important. If you haven’t had a review in a year than that is suspicious to potential new patients and will decrease their trust in you.
In some big cities Yelp is important and could be even more important in some specific areas than Google but in general Google should be the priority. Facebook reviews are becoming less and less important.
How can you know how important yelp is in your area?
Google “your practice name” and “your name chiropractor” (i.e. San Diego Spinal Care and Dr. Bill Davis chiropractor) and see where the yelp website lands in the search results. If it’s near the top then it may be important in your area.
But regardless the priority should always be Google 1st.
When you do a progress exam and the practice member has gone significant results since beginning care it is the ideal time to ask for a Google review.
But you have to have the right process in place order to remind the patient of how much progress they’ve made and give them an easy way to leave you a Google review.
By consistently doing a progress exam with your patients every 10 to 12 visits you will keep them engaged in their healing process and their overall progress. Patients forget how unhealthy they were when they started care. Progress exams help them to take a realistic look at how far they have come and is a great opportunity for you to remind them of the potential benefits they will receive from continuing care.
When doing a progress exam is important that you obtain both subjective and objective findings. To get the subjective I recommend the progress exam include a form for your practice member to complete that asks them questions which help them reflect on all the ways that their body has changed since they have been under care.
Such as:
Questions like these that are focus on quality of life and activities of daily living are crucial for the patient to see the global impact that upper cervical care is making on their health and life.
I also recommend that the doctor perform objective evaluations to measure progress. You want to especially repeat any tests that you did initially during your 1st exam so you can compare objective changes and be able to show progress to the patient.
The combination of the subjective and the objective during the progress exam can be a very powerful combination in promoting patient retention, ongoing compliance, and referrals.
A good progress exam should be:
When it becomes evident during the progress exam that your patient is beginning to get results, it is important for you to help them put their results into words so they can tell others about their story.
One of the best ways you can do that is by having them complete a Google review before they leave the office.
This will help them to organize their thoughts about what has taken place in their body since they began care while at the same time improving your ability to attract more patients from the Internet and convert a higher percentage of referrals.
At the end of your visit after you have completed the progress exam and reviewed the results with the patient you should say something like this…“Mrs. Smith it’s fantastic how much improvement you have seen since starting care here! I’m sure you been telling lots of people about your results…”
Then just wait a few seconds and see what they say. They will either say “yes I’ve been telling ________ about you”. If they mention a specific person then this is the time to give them a certificate of health or some other type of a referral offer so that they can get their friend or family member in to see you.
If they don’t say anything or they don’t mention anyone specific by name this is the best time to ask for the Google review. Say something like this… “Mrs. Smith I’m so excited for you…would you do me a favor before you leave today?”
Always ask them to do you a favor 1st and see what they say. 9 times out of 10 they will say yes one may ask “what’s the favor” :-). But regardless you say something like “well you know Mrs. Smith we love helping people like you get well and we’re trying to help as many people in our community as possible so will you take a few minutes before you leave today and leave us a review on Google?”
Almost everyone you ask like this will say yes. Now it’s just a matter of making it as easy as possible.
Our clients have a tool with our dashboard that allows them to send a text or email to a practice member immediately with a link to leave you a review. You want to make sure you have something like this in place to make it as easy as possible for them to take action right away.
Another way that you can teach them to testify is by having them do a video testimonial. Once again this will highlight in their mind how far they have come. Their video testimonial will also allow you to reach more people who need your help when you distribute and promote it online.
If you can develop efficient ways to obtain online reviews and video testimonials during progress exams, it will pay off for years to come.
If you want to learn more about getting good video testimonials read this article How to Get a Good Video Testimonial for Your Upper Cervical Practice.
Another important benefit of doing progress exams is to identify issues with a patient before it gets worse. For instance, you may have a patient who is frustrated with care and they don’t verbalize that on their visits but when you give them a subjective feedback form to fill out they finally tell you about their frustrations. You can then address this with them and possibly adapt your plan in order to help them get the best results possible.
The last way that you can use the information gathered during progress exams is to inspire and train your team. Share the subjective feedback forms and objective progress exams with your team during weekly team meetings to remind all of you about the importance of the work that you’re doing and the impact you’re making in the community.
And make sure you are regularly reading your Google reviews and watching your video testimonials during your weekly staff meetings.
Getting consistent Google reviews every week is a crucial part of the top upper cervical practices in the world. Progress exams are an ideal time to get a Google review but there are variety of other ways that you can get reviews from patients including quarterly contests, patient appreciation days and much more.
Make sure you are setting goals with your team for Google reviews and executing on your plans as part of your weekly staff meetings.
Need help?
Schedule a quick time to chat with us about getting more Google reviews for your practice with our Upper Cervical Awareness SEO Program.
