Have you ever listened to what your PCCs say when offering appointment times?
Maybe you’ve heard them ask: “When would you like to come in?” or “What works for you?”
Both of those questions hand control over to the patient, leading to a less-than-optimal outcome.
Scheduling patients effectively is crucial for clinics
When we’re talking evaluations, what ends up happening is this:
The potential new patient, who isn’t necessarily ‘ready to commit,’ schedules an evaluation appointment next week or the week after.
You might think, well, okay, they got them scheduled. You’re not wrong, but here’s the thing…
Scheduling patients with too much time between initial contact and the initial appointment allows potential patients to:
- Take more pain meds, so pain and inflammation diminish, and the potential patient having less pain, thinks their problem is handled.
- Or they find another place to go and don’t bother to tell you.
- Or they just forget.
And each of these leads to:
- patients who didn’t get the care they need
- other patients who couldn’t get in for the care they needed and deserve
- empty spots that aren’t filled because they cancel last minute
- and clinical staff who aren’t treating during that 45min to 1hr slot
All this makes the practice less efficient because every empty new patient spot means we’ve lost an entire plan of care before we ever had the chance to help that patient.
And it means your PCCs have more work, and you’re going to spend more in marketing and promotions.
When the PCCs use those questions while scheduling patients, it also causes problems.
Because when you ask someone when they want to come in, you’re basically telling them to pick what’s best for them.
That’s like setting a kid loose in a candy shop. And that patient will only want the times that work for them.
And WHAT IF you don’t have the time they want? What happens then?
Well, scheduling patients is like asking someone what they want for their birthday then buying something else. You’ll let them down, and they will be upset and less trusting.
Talk about losing control – THIS is the ultimate loss of control.
The patient will be less likely to work with the PCC to get scheduled.
And it will lead to scheduling patients when they can get in at the time they want.
Our responsibility as a practice is to ensure that patients have an optimal experience and get the care they need to recover.
That also means we’re responsible for ensuring they maintain their prescribed visits per week and that our PCCs have a way of scheduling patients and managing them effectively to get them scheduled and arriving for care.
Training your PCCs helps them by scheduling patients and arriving for their prescribed plan of care each week.
They need this, and so does your practice.
I’ve created training that will show your PCCs WHAT to say and HOW to say it. And I cover the most important areas that affect their ability to handle patients.
They’ll learn how to:
- Control the conversation with every patient
- Convert more potential patient leads to scheduled AND arriving new patients
- Discuss the cost of care and handle objections to time and money
- Schedule out the full plan of care and make sure patients are meeting their weekly prescribed visits
- Prevent same-day cancellations and no-shows before they happen, and handle them if they do
- Master schedule control and scheduling patients, so the practice starts the day with a full schedule and maintains good efficiency. This way more patients get the care they need and deserve to quickly and effectively meet their goals
Stop trying to do it all alone. The Front Office GURU Training Academy® offers training at your fingertips.
You can get started immediately; there’s no waiting.
(I even walk you through how to set up a study space and a schedule for training.)
