How Chiropractic Offices Should Follow Up

Following up after each appointment is an essential component of patient retention. When you let patients know that you're thinking about them, you'll build stronger relationships that encourage them to keep coming back. If your office struggles with communication, here's how chiropractic offices should follow up with patients after appointments.

Why Should You Follow Up?

Some chiropractic offices assume that their patient relationships start and end with in-person appointments. While it's true that you should maintain a professional distance, low communication may drive people away and lead to negative reviews. You may struggle with patient retention for the following reasons:

• Patients forget about their appointments because you don't send reminders.
• The lack of communication gives your clinic a cold, uncaring vibe that drives people away.
• Patients have no reason to choose your clinic over your competitors, so they go elsewhere.
• No information about the cost, treatment plan, future appointments, or aftercare makes people reluctant to return.
• Prospective visitors don't get a follow-up call when they leave a message, leading them to call another clinic.

Fortunately, you can avoid these scenarios by learning how chiropractic offices should follow up with patients after appointments. This helps you retain existing patients, attract new guests, and earn positive word-of-mouth that's essential for operating a successful business.

How Do You Follow Up?

When your patients check in, invite them to share their contact information. This may include their phone number, email address, and home address. Make sure you get their permission to leave messages on their answering machine while they're away.

With this information, you can follow up with guests in the weeks between their appointments. They won't always respond, but they'll hear your messages and appreciate that you're thinking about them. Plus, you'll have their contact details on hand for emergencies.

Best Practices for Following Up

Send Personalized Messages

Robocalls are infamous for leaving generic, pre-recorded messages. When you hear the robotic voice, it's easy to dismiss the caller as a scammer or a company that doesn't value customer service. That's how your patients feel when your office sends a bland follow-up message--and personalization is the key to adding the human element that you're missing.

When your office reaches out, make sure you're sending each patient a personalized message that references their current situation. Sometimes, this is as simple as using their first name when you send an appointment reminder. Other times, you'll acknowledge milestones, recommendations, advice and anything else that makes your guests feel heard.

Whatever the case, it's important to write your own messages and make genuine phone calls instead of relying on AI and computerized voices. Many people know how to detect AI-generated writing, and artificial text sends the message that you're too busy to care about your guests.

Stick to a Schedule

As you learn how chiropractic offices should follow up with patients after appointments, it's important to stay consistent and adhere to a schedule. Otherwise, you could accidentally call one patient twice in the same week, then forget about another patient for months. Add follow-ups for each guest to your office calendar, and make them part of the daily routine.

Use Preferred Communication Methods

Phone calls or emails might be more convenient than other communication methods, but they don't work for everybody. Ask your patients to choose their preferred method when they submit their contact information. This increases the chance that your follow-ups will reach their intended recipients, and you'll have written permission to reach out.

Don't Just Send Appointment Reminders

Appointment reminders are a great way to keep your patients on track. However, if that's the only communication that your guests receive, they might feel like you view them as a cash cow, not real people who need medical attention.

Try experimenting with different messages, such as:

• Birthday, sympathy, and holiday cards
• Email newsletters with tips, news, and updates
• "We've missed you!" letters for patients who disappeared a while ago
• Personalized exercises and aftercare tips
• Friendly check-ins after appointments
• Testimonials from satisfied patients

You don't need to reach out every day--after all, you're a professional, not a personal friend--but try sending messages about once or twice a month. Review your bookings to see if you've retained more patients, then adjust your communication as needed. Over time, follow-ups will become a regular part of your routine.

Streamline Your Communication System

A messy workflow is one of the biggest barriers to speedy follow-ups. When your office loses track of calls, routes callers to the wrong people, and doesn't have answers for important questions, your prospective patients will fall through the cracks.

Review your current workflow to look for issues, such as outdated software, confusing instructions, and gaps in your office's training. You could even try placing a call to see how your office handles it. Afterward, take time to remove barriers and make sure that everyone's up to speed.

If you have workflow issues but don't know where to start, try reaching out to a communications company, such as PrimeVox. We'll use advanced technology to streamline your system and make it easier than ever for your staff to reach out to patients.

Invest in Automation

Many chiropractic offices miss out on potential guests simply because they didn't follow up in time. People don't want to wait for pain relief, and if they don't get a response within a day or two, they'll call another clinic.

Unfortunately, you can't expect your secretaries to work 24 hours a day. However, you can invest in communication features for patient follow-up, such as automated responses and text alerts, that provide answers in seconds.

With automated responses, your callers receive a message when you're not in the office. This message may include your office hours, contact information, and other details that assure them that you want to keep in touch. As a result, they'll know that your clinic is open and accepting new patients--you just can't come to the phone right now.

Text alerts are another popular feature. When a guest reaches out and nobody takes their call, your team gets a text message letting them know they have a call waiting. This reduces the number of patients that accidentally go overlooked, creating a better experience for everyone.

Upgrade Your Communication System

Ultimately, your communication system is the key to staying in touch with your patients. PrimeVox offers advanced solutions, such as instant call routing, voice transcriptions, automatic text notifications, after-hours responses, and streamlined handoffs, that take care of your patients and respect their valuable time.

Since we work with medical professionals, our services are 100% HIPAA-complaint. We use encryption and multi-data center redundancy to protect your patients' medical information and adhere to federal laws. Our team also provides 24/7 live support so that you're never alone when dealing with a glitch or an outage. Best of all, our setup process involves no downtime.

Reach out to PrimeVox to get pricing details for clinic communication plans. We look forward to developing a personalized solution that builds stronger relationships with your guests.