Rhino University EP4: Financial Presentation
Hi Rhinos, Dr. FJ Schofield here, in this video I'll be going over the 2nd part of the ROF, the Financial Presentation. This is by the far the most messed up part in the Communication Process; right there with the consultation, it’s so important. If you do a bad consultation you’re screwed, but if you mess this part up, even if you have an awesome consultation and great ROF you shoot yourself in the foot with the Financial Presentation
The Consultation your building rapport, building the trust, building your authority and positioning yourself as the expert so they know you can deliver, they trust you and now you’re going to clearly lay out the plan so they know: what you’re going to do, when you’re going to do, how they’re going to benefit and how much it’s going to cost them.
Everything is clearly laid out and you want to remove all the pressure from the situation, as I mentioned in the last Rhino University video on the R.O.F., letting people know it’s okay to say No. It’s so important to alleviate the pressure. You can relax; it can be a nice friendly conversation. You don’t need to use any fear or any manipulative tactic to build value – But you do have to cover some important & necessary things.
Step 1: Review Doc’s Recommendations.
If your CA is doing the Financial Presentation,
“Dr. FJ is recommending 3x a week for 12 weeks.”
As a doctor, we’ve already gotten agreement on care. That’s so important – you have to get agreement on the care.
Step 2: 3 responses to care
Next you’re going to go through the 3 responses to care. 30% get better, 30% stay the same, 30% get worse – whatever your clinical stats tell you about your patients. If you’re new in practice, many say 30, 30, 30 until they know their own breakdown. Once you’ve been in practice for a while you have a pretty good idea .Just go through it all.
You want to draw it all out, don’t use the printed sheets for this. Years ago I was handwriting everything out making it super simple and then I stopped because no one was doing it. I started using a print out - it’s super complicated with all these numbers and stats and all that was happening was I was confusing patients like crazy.
My SIL was working for us at the time and she just said “you need to go back to the old way, just write it up, make it easy”
You want this to be as simple as possible and as easy to understand as possible. You always want to bring it down so it’s easy to understand. It’s fine when you’re going over XRays to use some doctor lingo but then you have to break it down and explain it to them. This shows you authority but then also easy to understand.
When you’re going through the 3 responses to care there are few things I like to teach our patients. I like to use an analogy to make something unfamiliar, familiar. A lot of times what I’ll say is that Chiropractic is a lot like braces for your spine, the same as an orthodontist uses wire to keep your teeth aligned, we’re using our hands and xrays to keep your bones in alignment.
Your body is going to go through different healing times, draw 3 different lines of responses. As you’re going through this, we want to see you “add their want” more often. Get back to their motivators and wants – this is where you want to focus them and how you build value ethically and the right way. This is also how you motivate them because coming in 3x a week is a lot – that’s a big commitment.
2 weeks in, I like to go back and remind them what our purpose is, of what their goal is. So getting into the wants and using analogies.
Step 3: Features
This is where you value load.
We’ll adjust you – this is how long the adjustment takes, what techniques will be done (again, this is where you differentiate yourself). Go through and explainwhat everything is. All the details about therapies, traction. All about the rexams, what to do with ice, stretching, exercises and we then give them a handout about retracing.
Value loading all things you're going to do for them. If there’s a progression, talk to them about it. People love progression. After the 1st month we’ll be adding in this, the 2nd month we’ll start doing this. They can feel the progression.
Just like a personal trainer - they take photos, measure and do a fitness test, this allows you as their client to see the progression. Otherwise we forget just how much we’ve come. Same with your patients, show them progression and how they’re getting better. Get really detailed with their wants. “Okay you want to walk, what does that mean? What can you do now?” “I can only walk a block right now before I need to take a break and sit down” then a month later “okay, so a month in and you can walk 10 blocks, wow! That’s wonderful you’re getting better!”
Consistently monitor their wants and be really detailed about their quality of Life Limitations (QL). Write down all the features in list form and details about them - whatever it might be, write it out.
Step 4: Cost
Now you want to start going through the cost – I strongly urge you not to hide it. I know a lot of people encourage you to give a big number and then not explain it, but they also have a lot of complaints with the board and insurance audits because patients don’t know what they’re paying for, they have no idea. Don’t deal with the extra stress and just tell them upfront.
"So we’ll do an office visit that includes the traction and adjustment– this is $45 (or $50 or $95 or whatever you’re doing)"
"Then we’re going to do a re-xray and that’s this much."
Just tell them up front how much it all costs.
Then you have to give them 3 options
- Per visit – They can just choose that, pay per office visit
Never over promise-
"Have people’s lives been changed in 1 or 2 visits, sure, but that’s not the majority so we’re going to give you a few adjustments 2 or 3 times per week for a few weeks. If you’re not improving I don’t want to waste your time or money because this is all symptomatic here, we’re not doing any xrays or post xrays or indepth evaluations, so we won’t really know if we’re actually fixing anything or not. We’ll go a few weeks, if things are getting better great, if things aren’t looking how I’d want them, we’ll wait till we can do more in depth care."
I don’t over promise! I’ve taken care of patients at their level of understanding and I haven’t lost a patient. I build up that foundation of referrals and reacts by taking great care of them
- 1 time payment
Make sure you connect with your state and see what kind of payment plans you’re allowed to do. You can do the 1 time payment and circle the discount they’d get by taking care of it all upfront and the total.
Discount the non-covered services you’re doing and what it comes out per visit.
A couple things to remember about psychology – people will more likely pick the middle option. Whether it’s money, visits, care, commitment and even spatially. When you focus on 3 objects, it’s easier to stay focused on the one in the middle. So when it’s time to make a decision more people are inclined to choose the middle option. Make the middle option with the largest discount making it as persuasive as possible. I’ve found that in my practice, my patients more often than not do the middle option
- 3rd option is payment plan installments.
Some people do commitment plans, per visit/1 month/ 3 months, but again, then most people will chose the 1 month. So I wouldn’t do that, either do per visit (option 1) or they commit for the full 90 days (options 2 & 3).
You either get the commitment and do the full plan or you hold off and wait.
Depending on what you’re allowed to do, you can do care credit too.
You want to start with your most expensive option and come down. Same with longest care option.. healing times, "soft tissue can take a year or more to heal and muscles take about 90 days" this helps to make the 90 days feel like less.
Step 5: QUESTIONS
Did everything make sense?
Step 6: What’s your close?
"What works best for you? Which do you prefer?"
Sit quietly, wait for them to respond. Don’t rush them, give them the time to think, just let them be, allow them to make their decision and then go give them the best adjustment.
Put this to work and you can have a super successful cash based practice.
You don’t have to have insurance and you can do really really well, you just have to be really skilled and get great results.
Get your marketing dialed in, bring in QUALITY new patients, get your team well trained, get your communication up to par and give a really good adjustment.
You have to be really good at delivering quality adjustments.
There are no shortcuts, you have to devote the time to being a master chiropractor, then devote your time to great marketing, great communication and a really well trained team then honing and sharpening your mindset constantly.
You get all that together and you’re going to have a rocking practice, you're going to have a lot of fun, help a lot of people – you’ll be charging like a Rhino!
Until next time, Keep Charging!
