Dream Practice

Most of you know me as a pretty digital guy, always on the cusp of the latest in technology.  The new office we are building right now is completely digital…well almost.   Let me explain.

One of the first things to go digital in any office is always the scheduling of patients.  It just seems so easy to put them into a computer and be able to recall them at any time.  It is also easier for collecting stats and most important if a patient calls in asking for when their next appointment is, it is easy to look up.  Right?  Well maybe…

I come from the school of thot that believes that the practice of Chiropractic, or any other business, is really just a gymnasium of the soul.  In other words, most of our success comes from between our ears, it is mostly in our head.  Therefore, the perception of anything becomes everything.

When you look at the schedule on a computer screen with the small lines and the 10-11 pt font, your immediate thought might be, “Whoa we’re busy.”  Busy simply because there is little white (or negative) space. Busy turns into a perception that we can’t handle anymore.  Therefore New Patients might get pushed out.  Regular patients might get told that they have to wait until next week.  Even worse, the team becomes afraid to answer the phone.  The perception blocks the growth.

The Dream Schedule Book

I am a huge fan of the enormous over sized appointment book on the front desk.  The dimensions of the book are 2′X2′ and my book is pictured below.  This was actually last Wednesday’s schedule. If you were working at the Front Desk, answered the phone, and were trying to fit a family of 4 into the schedule below you would probably not be alarmed and quickly schedule them in.  If a new patient called in you wouldn’t think twice about scheduling that person into the schedule.  If someone asked you how the day was going you would probably answer, “Well we’re steady.”  In other words you would not block the growth of that schedule in fact you will even try to pack it in more.  Nature abhors a vacuum.

How many patients do you think are on the schedule? First guess at the number then count. There are actually a lot more patients on their than it looks right? The power of perception.

Onward and Upward
Dr. Darren White