154: The Lifetime Chiropractic Patient

154 Lifetime Chiropractic Patients - Transcript

Attendees

Dr Michael Perusich, Troy Fox

Transcript

This editable transcript was computer generated and might contain errors. People can also change the text after it was created.

Troy Fox: Holy cow. I got Junk in my throat.

Dr Michael Perusich: It's because you live in the North Tundra.

Troy Fox: Yeah, pretty much. I mean and it snowed 10 inches, and I'm sure there's some sort of. Permafrost bacteria probably growing and it's reached my lungs at this point. I can't see my way out. those of us play golf, how your golfing buddies are they've already messaged me today. And so it's thirty four degrees. They're still snow on the ground. And of course I get a message at one PM. Hey, I'm on the First Tee. Where are you at? And I'm like

Troy Fox: Yeah, I'm at home where it's really nice and warm but that happens.

Dr Michael Perusich: Yeah.

Troy Fox: It happens. No matter the weather. This Banner will go on until our very expensive quarter a whole golf game continues because we play for big bucks. I…

Dr Michael Perusich: There you go.

Troy Fox: we're chiropractors. I mean, these two aren't but I'm loaded to the hill. So we play for a quarter. Yeah.

Dr Michael Perusich: I love it. I went outside this morning. And by the way, it's 85 degrees here. It's beautiful and…

Troy Fox: I hate you. Yeah.

Dr Michael Perusich: I know We must have had some wind last night or something because there was palm tree debris all over my yard. So I'm out there at Sunrise picking up palm tree debris.

Troy Fox: And I'm supposed to feel sorry for you because you had palm tree debris.

Dr Michael Perusich: Yeah, yeah you are.

Troy Fox: I don't have any palm tree debris. I can't even say that much.

Dr Michael Perusich: Here's the funny part. I noticed I've got a palm laying on my roof. And so I got to get up there this weekend and pull that down. right

Troy Fox: I will even act serious about two seconds. Don't hurt yourself. Yeah.

Dr Michael Perusich: Thank do you think we should do a podcast?

Troy Fox: Hey, that's not a bad idea that think we probably got a couple things to talk about. I'm sure. Yeah.

Dr Michael Perusich: Let's do it.

Dr Michael Perusich: All right, everybody. Let's dive into today's topic. I'm your host Michael Perusich. This is my guest host Dr. Troy Fox Troy and I always like to have a little banter as we're diving into these things. So Great,…

Troy Fox: yeah.

Dr Michael Perusich: something that I've talked about a lot. Is and I'm gonna let you introduce this but I'm gonna Tee It Up a little bit something. …

Troy Fox: All right.

Dr Michael Perusich: I've talked about a lot is the importance of Patient communication and it's not just communication. It's really getting patients to drill down on their understanding. Of the reason they're in your office.

Troy Fox: Yeah.

Dr Michael Perusich: and you had a perfect way of putting that.

Troy Fox: Yeah, so my question is to everyone is what you're asked of patients. meaning what are they there for? I mean

Dr Michael Perusich: I look I just love that approach. I love that thought process. What is your ask,…

Troy Fox: Yeah.

Dr Michael Perusich: and I really want to drill down on this as much as we can't say Royals.

Troy Fox: Yeah. I love it.

Dr Michael Perusich: I really want to drill down on this because I think this is incredibly important and I know you and I both in our practices. We're always big on making sure patients really understood why they were there and it wasn't just to feel better. We're not how we practice it was to create patients…

Troy Fox: right

Dr Michael Perusich: who understood the Chiropractic lifestyle. As our good friend Patrick puts it which I think is appropriate.

Troy Fox: Yeah. Yeah, I mean that's the absolute bottom line and you can't be afraid to share that with patients. If you're afraid to share your thought process. You're not going to end up with the practice of your dreams because you're not going to be the practice will run you instead of you running the practice.

Dr Michael Perusich: Right, right. Yeah the whole idea with your patient communication is to help patients. Not only understand why they need to be there and they understand it to the point where they would want to be there and they want to be there for the right reasons. That's what helps you grow your practice.

Troy Fox: right

Dr Michael Perusich: It's not the stream of new patients coming in the front door. It's the closed door on the back that's retaining patients in the practice and watching your upv grow. People are probably going what the Hecks the upv.

Troy Fox: what's a upv? is that some sort of STD? No.

Dr Michael Perusich: I hope not. no, your upv is your unique patient visits and…

Troy Fox: 

Dr Michael Perusich: If your client of ours a Kat's Consultants, how important that is. We talked about it all the time, but that's the important.

Troy Fox: Yeah.

Dr Michael Perusich: So let's dive into this. What is your ask of your patients all about?

Troy Fox: Mm- Yeah, I think this is one of the most important topics is practice transforming. I just carded one year on a practice that I just bought not too long ago and we have to use former President Obama's terms. You're gonna fundamentally change this practice. Maybe some of you think that's great. If you're Obama fans some of you weren't Obama fans and thought he fundamentally changed things in America for the worst. But the point is you have to have a plan going in.

00:05:00

Dr Michael Perusich: That was not a political message.

Troy Fox: New not at all that you have to have a plan going in and when you have a plan going in then you have to communicate that to your patients and if you're afraid to communicate to your patients what your values are and where you feel like they should be in practice. Then you're not in a position to drive the practice forward in my opinion.

Dr Michael Perusich: Right, And what we have to be proud of what we do is amazing. I mean what we've learned how to do it just our hands and even if you're an instrument adjuster it starts from your hands. What we can do for people and…

Troy Fox: Yeah.

Dr Michael Perusich: help them create a healthy lifestyle for the long term without drugs and surgery is absolutely amazing. So Understand that the power you hold in your hands is incredibly important and we should always be proud of it. And I sometimes see doctors who Aren't proud of what they do. And so because of that they're very sheepish about their communication with patients and they don't really give much or any of an explanation.

Troy Fox: or they completely lack communication. Yeah.

Dr Michael Perusich: Right, right. So, we have to understand that patients come to us to lead them to some result that they want. But there's also an opportunity to talk to patients about what happens after they get the results. So what's the result? okay a lot of patients come to our practices first in pain.

Dr Michael Perusich: here's a little Jewel for everybody. Not everybody has to come to a chiropractor in pain to get started and I'm just gonna let that roll around in your head a little bit. Because we're always chasing the pain patient. and there's a whole other group of patients out there that if you know how to do it you can get them in your door and they're great patients. But anyway, that's another podcast.

Dr Michael Perusich: my train of thought there, but

Troy Fox: I think you might have a seizure.

Dr Michael Perusich: that was before the show. But when you are giving that patient a better deeper understanding of what's happening, and I'm not talking about a Spinal Care class. I'm not talking about a 30 minute report of findings and a spewing everything every piece of knowledge you ever learned in chiropractic school and patients. I'm just talking directly to the patients about what their condition is. How you're going to help them get over it and how you're going to help them keep it at Bay and by the way have some other benefits too we have to have that longer conversation with our patients

Troy Fox: And I might add into that the patient understands to the point that they drive care and I don't mean they drive care is then they're gonna call you when they want an appointment, but they drive care from a standpoint of when we talk about the things that we want to do long term.

Dr Michael Perusich: right

Troy Fox: We're both in agreement I go.

Dr Michael Perusich: right

Troy Fox: This is what you want, Yeah. That's what I want. Okay, then here's what we're gonna do. I will see you in X number of weeks and we're

Troy Fox: A follow-up and we're going to continue to do that that will be our Perpetual schedule and less something changes with your health care. Yep. That's exactly what I want to do. They at that point understand where I'm coming from and obviously we're not sharing all the details with you. we can't give you everything right you might actually have to call and work with us a little bit to get some of that but the truth the matter is it's like you said it's not a 45 minute Spinal Care class. That's not what we're advocating. It's not a report of findings in office and…

Dr Michael Perusich: No.

Troy Fox: to you where the patient out that we've seen those finally they just go.

Dr Michael Perusich: right

Troy Fox: Yeah, I'm gonna do whatever you say. Yeah, because it's like an interrogation at a police station for 12 hours later. finally I did it was me.

Dr Michael Perusich: Yeah, it kind of.

Troy Fox: Yeah, and so we're looking for something that we get patient understanding and we do it no matter just a few minutes and I will tell you the other secret is there's More than one way to do it meaning that we're going to be debuting something here in the near future…

Dr Michael Perusich: if there is

Troy Fox: where we're going to give at least four different examples of how we all reach that goal of patient understanding for term for them to understand why they need care long-term and not just the short-term pop and go fix and…

00:10:00

Dr Michael Perusich: yep.

Troy Fox: that is so important, but it can be done multiple different ways. My verbiage is not going to match Dr. Purush. Verbiage which is not going to match anyone else's verbiage that we have do reports with us.

Dr Michael Perusich: Right now it's the basic structure. You put your own words to it. I want to go back to something. You said a minute ago We're the doctors. We lead here patients come to us to be their leader.

Troy Fox: Yeah.

Dr Michael Perusich: But what Troy's talking about? I'm going to give you an example because I saw this phenomenon happen in my practice. I would tell a patient. I'm just making up an example here, but I would tell a patient. why don't you come back in four weeks, that's probably pretty good Cadence. And then every time those patients came in I would ask.

Troy Fox: Yep.

Dr Michael Perusich: When did you start feeling it again? And they would always say about a week ago great, but't next time we come in in three weeks. And when they come in in three weeks I'd ask. When did you start feeling it? yesterday Great. Let's try two and a half or even two weeks.

Dr Michael Perusich: And let's finally get ahead of it. And then here's what happened when I would get them just ahead of the symptom coming back. what they would tell me. Doc. Can I come in every week?

Troy Fox: Mm-hmm

Dr Michael Perusich: Holy cow. Talk about a practice Builder. They're telling me they want to come in every week. That's what Troy's talking about ways talking about they wind up directing. Hair and they want to come in more frequently.

Troy Fox: They didn't understand when you told him four weeks. They had no understanding of what they were supposed to feel like at four weeks. Am I supposed to feel fantastic am I…

Dr Michael Perusich: right

Troy Fox: but most people just go. he said four weeks and…

Dr Michael Perusich: right

Troy Fox: then when we asked the question, how did you feel at four weeks? it came back about a week ago or it came back a day ago or whatever at that point. That's the time to fine-tune care. they're gonna be some patients that just are adamant. I'm gonna come in every month. Hey, maybe a financial thing and you know what? They're gonna come in once a month great,…

Dr Michael Perusich: That's fine. They're still directing care.

Troy Fox: but when we get to that point of where they start telling us, what doc I think it makes sense and I had one this morning that dialed back from three weeks to two. She said I just feel so much better when I come in every two weeks. Why not? And I said absolutely…

Dr Michael Perusich: Yeah.

Troy Fox: why not and you're in charge, I have two rules for my patient you're in charge and Rule Number Two we work together as a team, which allows me the ability to tell you what I think you need to do without there being any harm. Nobody gets upset about it. Nobody says, he's trying to make me do blah. No, we work together as a team so I can tell you I want to see Every day for the rest of your life and you can look at me and go you're crazy. I'm not going to do it. I will however come and see you once every two weeks or whatever. Yeah, I mean, but you should be in that situation tients where you're a trusted advisor. And then what happens when you become a trusted advisor, they start bringing everything to you. Sometimes stuff that you have to direct to other providers, but they'll literally start bringing everything to you at that point when they trust you.

Dr Michael Perusich: Yeah. yeah. We had all kinds of patients that wouldn't go anywhere else until they came to us first and…

Troy Fox: Yep.

Dr Michael Perusich: I had a major light bulb moment when it was very early in practice. So this was a long time ago. I'm not gonna say how many years but I had this major light bulb moment when a patient said to me and just looked at me a serious as she could be And said do you get adjusted?

Troy Fox: wow.

Dr Michael Perusich: Think about that we're chiropractors. Do we get adjusted? my gosh all the time. But here's the thing our patients don't know that.

Troy Fox: Yeah.

Dr Michael Perusich: And so Here's how the conversation went. I remember this it was yesterday. I said yes, I get adjusted every week. And her come back was then. Why did you tell me four weeks? Patient just educated me.

Troy Fox: Yeah. Yeah.

Dr Michael Perusich: And it was at that point I realized. what we get adjusted more often my gosh Marissa it got adjusted every day. Almost so I started having my staff.

Dr Michael Perusich: Talk to patients and say hey, how was your adjustment today? I love my adjustment. I get adjusted every week every Thursday Dr. Perusich on if we need an extra one during the week. He adjusts us and that started turning patients around with their understanding and their thought process about the Cadence if you will especially in maintenance about the Cadence of those adjustments,

Troy Fox: And you can look engage your patient as well because sometimes you say I get adjusted every week and sometimes your patients got a deer caught in the headlights. I could never do that and you can gauge that but there are other patients that do look at you and…

00:15:00

Dr Michael Perusich: true

Troy Fox: go. you get adjusted every week. maybe I should get adjusted a little more often.

Dr Michael Perusich: Yeah.

Troy Fox: I've heard that several times too. Because again, we've put them on sometimes that cookie cutter three or four week. It's okay. Let's move out to three weeks and see how you do and then you just kind of get stuck there. Because it's like I feel pretty good. Okay, so we're just tuning you up today. Yep. And so we adjust them and then you have that conversation and they hear that they go. I wonder if I'd feel even better. Or I'd feel and I talk about function too because it's not just about whether you feel good.

Dr Michael Perusich: Yeah.

Troy Fox: It's whether you function How are you doing? When you're at your job? Do you make it through the day without any issues? Do you make it through the day and you feel that you're functional that you're not starting to tighten up or it doesn't have to just be pain, but listen to your body and sometimes patients will be like maybe I can and I've had some that come back and go. my gosh, I do so much better at work when I get adjusted every couple weeks. So yeah, there is the talk that you're having with patience, but here's the key. we've stepped skip forward but here's the key my ask of patience is through them to change their Paradigm because if they don't understand Wellness or maintenance care, how do I get there? Because if I'm a patient that walks in the door had one yesterday. Hadn't been seen in pretty close to a year.

Dr Michael Perusich: Yep.

Troy Fox: We got to talking and I said, so how often are you getting adjusted and I live in a small rural area where people are driving 30 to 40 miles to come see me so sometimes I hear about once a year. And I'm like, whoa, really? What benefit do you expect to get from getting adjusted once a year? That's my first question.

Troy Fox: And then we go from there and we talk to a point of where we actually discuss what happens in the human body. what happens over a lifetime of detrimental care to your spine what happens and then we start talking about what could we do to sure that up a little bit an insurance policy for save for you? It doesn't mean you're not going to have an acute episode. But what can we do to sure this up for you?

Dr Michael Perusich: right

Troy Fox: And I'll guarantee you the majority of the patients that you talk to if they have any inclination at all of getting Chiropractic Care once the light bulb comes on and they gain the understanding They go doc. What do you think about this or all I'm gonna go up front and get scheduled for this right now and then we go from there to Perpetual scheduling and all the other cool things that we do that, I had a patient today come in I said, hey if we got your next appointment set up yet. Yeah, I went ahead and set up for all of 2024 already. So you end…

Dr Michael Perusich: Yeah. Absolutely. You absolutely should be doing that.

Troy Fox: and you know, why? Because that patient wanted her preferred time she wanted her preferred time and…

Dr Michael Perusich: Nope.

Troy Fox: she doesn't want to have to stand at the front and polar calendar. So there's so many moving parts to this that we could talk for weeks. But it's that Paradigm s How do we get a patient in a matter of two to three minutes to understand and I will give you a little hint. It's not about telling the patient less and dumbing down what we do with patients. They have Dr. Google. Right. So they're already reading this.

Dr Michael Perusich: Sure.

Troy Fox: It's about being very specific and using your spinal anatomy and your neural Anatomy to get patients where they need to go. But doing it in a way that they understand it so I don't dumb it down at all.

Dr Michael Perusich: Yep.

Troy Fox: I actually get into some very in depth things with my patients, but I do it in a way that they look at me and go. Whoa. Nobody ever told me that that makes perfect sense why we need ongoing care. at that point and the thing is what I just done for that patient is I've created not a lifetime patient for my practice. Here's what I get out of this and this is what's important to me. And this is why I'm here and why I do what I do for you guys. And for my patients, here's what I get out of this I get a patient that actually has a functional spine that has a good chance doesn't mean it's always going to happen because we've had patients that have had blowouts that are on maintenance care. my gosh, it's not very fun when it happens. But if they understand the wise in the house, they're going to understand this. They created an insurance policy to not just Ensure.

Troy Fox: But to have greater odds that they're going to be functional at 75 80 years old. And that's really the whole goal.

Dr Michael Perusich: Yep. It's the whole goal. Yeah.

Troy Fox: And when you're 30, it's harder to see than when you're 50 or 60, but they can see it as well and I will say that a lot of my 30 year olds are super smart patients that when I lay it out. Here's what you need to do long term. They go absolutely I'm gonna do it. They are very conscious about making sure they don't end up like their parents, it is…

00:20:00

Dr Michael Perusich: Yeah, and it's not and…

Troy Fox: what it is.

Dr Michael Perusich: it's not hard to point these things out very quickly to patients, too. and…

Troy Fox: Yeah.

Dr Michael Perusich: so we're asking them to make a paradigm shift to go from treating symptoms to lifelong care that has True Value in keeping them away from developing symptoms or…

Troy Fox: Yes.

Dr Michael Perusich: at least as much as possible. so

Troy Fox: I'll give you one little tidbit that I use with patients. I tell them you can change the tires under your car put new shocks on it and change the oil and you're still going to have a water pump go out. It just happens.

Dr Michael Perusich: Yeah.

Troy Fox: I mean, as we age there are going to be things that fail and even with the best care our cars still times sometimes require more than maintenance. Sometimes they require repair. It is what it is and paste.

Dr Michael Perusich: Exactly. Yeah in the human body's really no different than your car. we can handle a lot more miles than your car most of the time…

Troy Fox: No, no.

Dr Michael Perusich: but …

Troy Fox: Yeah. Yeah,…

Dr Michael Perusich: we still need maintenance.

Troy Fox: absolutely. So those are just a few of the tidbits folks that we're throwing out your way. And I know some of it's a little disjointed. It's not like you could have got your notebook out. That's Midwest right there. You couldn't have gotten your notebook out and even written down. You've got a couple of tidbits out of what we talked about today, but there's an actual road map to do this. So Dr. Bruce talk about that for a minute…

Dr Michael Perusich: Yeah.

Troy Fox: because we have covered weeks and weeks worth of what we go through with our clients in a matter of 10 minutes maybe maybe 20 we talk a lot. Yeah.

Dr Michael Perusich: or maybe 20 got to see Troy and I sit and have a conversation with barn napkins.

Dr Michael Perusich: That's the best. Yeah. So these are the kind of things that we help clients with. patient communication is this Kind of lost art. So to speak just a little bit. as chiropractors we get very focused on techniques and learning techniques and learning new therapies and all those things help us get better and better patient outcomes. I love that stuff. But we can't lose sight of…

Troy Fox: 

Dr Michael Perusich: how to properly communicate to patients because if we have all these fun tools and toys and adjustment techniques and all those kind of things. If we don't have any patients coming in the door. if we're not building a practice of work constantly under the gun of having to get new patients all the time that unless you're in your first year or two of practice that's different, but

Dr Michael Perusich: if you've been in practice, two, three years or longer, you should be really hitting the groove of retaining patients and retention happens with proper patient communication. So drill down on What are you asking patients to do because it's inside there is your language if you will because remember Troy said we all have a different way of presenting it but it comes from the same platform. So if you want to learn more about what that platform is, if you want some help in creating better retention strategies in your practice and better communication track tactics not only for you, but also with your team. When it comes to conversations with patients, that's what we do. As well as just about everything else you can think of for helping you manage your practice and become more profitable so go check us out at cats consultants.com.

Dr Michael Perusich: All the great things that we do subscribe to the podcast if you haven't already we appreciate you listening to these but also check out a lot of the free stuff that we put out. You can go to our website.

Troy Fox: 

Dr Michael Perusich: There's all kinds of downloads and things on there like us on Facebook. We're on Instagram. We're on tiktok. We're on

Dr Michael Perusich: I don't even know what else is out there. How about that? But go check us out. You can even have a chance to come to some of our Live Events. We do these amazing virtual seminars. you didn't have to leave your officer your home and you can do them with your team. So we do a lot of team building stuff because stocks speaking to you right now. It's not just about your staff need to be your success partners. And when it comes to Patient communication, they need to be mirroring what you're saying. That's one of the things that we teach them. So who You ask me what we do and it's like ask me what time it is. I'll tell you how to build a watch.

Troy Fox: That is so true. But sometimes we get that position. we start pulling at threads when we talk about different topics.

Dr Michael Perusich: I thought you're getting ready to shadow puppets or something.

Troy Fox: I was but we'll save that for the next podcast. We'll turn off all the lights and do shadow puppets, but Yeah,…

Dr Michael Perusich: I'll wait for that one.

00:25:00

Troy Fox: exactly, but we pull so many threads and we talk about things. That's why sometimes having somebody to work with can drive you in different directions because we're not this erratic every day. We're just trying to get a lot of information to you, but we can push you down One path at a time. So you actually Master each one of those Mastery is a big thing that Dr. Perusich I both talk about because it's very important in your practice that you try to achieve mastery.

Dr Michael Perusich: Absolutely, I think Jason and Travis Kelsey should have us on their podcast show sometime. I think we could match banter with them.

Troy Fox: Absolutely.

Troy Fox: I think so, too.

Dr Michael Perusich: All right, everybody. We as always appreciate you listening to the podcast and Thanks for checking us out. So from all of us here at cats consultants and the KC CHIROpulse Podcast. We appreciate you listening. We'll see you next time.

Troy Fox: 

Meeting ended after 00:26:03 👋