How To Keep Patients Coming To Your Therapy Clinic
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[00:00:00] How do you get patients coming into your clinic and how do you keep them coming to your clinic? Those are two completely separate problems. I already addressed. How do you get patients in another video? So go back and check it out if you didn't see it, but let's talk a little bit more about how you Keep them coming because you don't want patients only coming once and then not coming back, right?
My name is Wong. I'm an occupational therapist and certified hand therapist and over 10 years ago I started my therapy clinic and five year five years ago. I started hand therapy seekers my online company As a therapist, majority of the time people are coming to us and they need more than one visit. I work with so many people who have chronic issues that have been developing for years and years and years and one visit isn't going to fix it.
I have people who come to me after surgery, after major surgery, sometimes they come to me after they've been somewhere for several months and then they're still looking for better results. And so we [00:01:00] know as therapists that This isn't a one and done type of thing. You know, we're not here for, you know, a good time.
We're here for a long time. Can I, can I say that? Um, so let's talk about how you can actually, what you need to do to keep your patience. So how you keep your patience is, is really based on that very first phone call that you get and how you speak to them. Now, if you're by yourself, you're going to have to learn how to ask great questions, find out what's going on and really resist, resist the urge to help them on the phone, right?
Resist the urge, but you want to, Essentially set expectations. If you have someone that you have that can help you, um, take the first phone calls, you know, I have that program in my OT business corner program where I have the scripts and all that training and stuff like that. Cause this is what I do in my clinic.
I don't really try to answer the phone no more. Um, the phone rings and I'm like, Oh, I'm not touching it. [00:02:00] No, I'm kidding. Um, but you know, everything really comes down to that first phone call, and I'm going to go into detail on that one a little bit. First phone call and what you say in the first evaluation is huge in terms of keeping your patients or letting them just leave.
Then the third thing is what you say at 50 percent of the plan of care and 75 percent of the plan of care. So let's dive into a little deeper in terms of your first phone call. So your first phone call is really important and your first phone call is really important because you're setting up expectations, right?
Um, so first phone call first call and the reason why it's so important is because you want to ask questions You want to ask the right questions? You want to really get clear on what their problem is
clarity on problem and the clarity on problem You know believe it or not as therapists. We're so used to being like This is an [00:03:00] evaluation. I need to measure range of motion and I need grip strength. No. The first problem is, um, what is it stopping them from doing? Right? Most of my patients, they can't sleep.
They can't drive. They can't do their normal functional activities. But what bothers them the most? Like what bothers them the most, right? And so there's a series of questions that you can ask in order to really get to the bottom line Um, and then you want to give them some certainty in terms of the steps what happens next Right steps what happens next so Uh, depending on how you have it set up like for my clinic, um I have two options for them.
You can start, um, an initial evaluation. You can just come on in an initial evaluation or what we do is we offer a free discovery visit. A free discovery visit is just an opportunity for someone to come in, talk to me, ask some great questions, um, and just [00:04:00] get more clarity and certainty about like can, can I help them?
So they get to come to my clinic and they get to look around and be like, Is this for real? Like, you know, is this place different or is this place going to be the same as like every other place I've been to? You know, because people don't understand therapy. People don't understand therapy. When someone's looking for a shirt, right, they know, you know, they might know that they want a shirt.
But they don't know if they want a loose fitting shirt, a tight fitting shirt, uh, a shirt of that's pink or a shirt that's blue. Do they want V cut? Like they, they don't know, but they can go and they can look at shirts and then they can try on the shirts and they can say, Oh, well, this one fits me really nice.
And the color's good. You know, the price is right. I'll get that. Right. But when it comes to therapy, people cannot. They cannot go and look at things. They can't barely even try it [00:05:00] out, right? So Discovery Visit allows them to come in and they're kind of like looking and they're trying it out. So they're coming in to look at like what Huang is going to say.
And I get to go in and look what they have going on. And I can get clear on if I can help them, right? And what they're willing to do for it. They have to be willing to do something, right? We don't give injections. I don't do surgery and even that needs therapy. I don't have some magic pill so What I want to know is are they willing to go through the steps with me, right?
If you want to get better, I can I can move you into an initial evaluation When I am allowed to touch you and push on you and take you through my treatment You We'll be able to see what, we'll be able to see [00:06:00] if you respond, we'll be able to see what helps to make you better, right? And because I'm able to do that, after that, I will then recommend my plan of care.
From that, then I will recommend my plan of care. Right? So in that first phone call, I am basically asking some questions, clarifying the problem, and then I'm going to give them the steps. Now, the steps might be a discovery visit, like I was saying to you, a discovery visit. From that discovery visit, they can go into initial evaluation and then into Right?
I'm going to give you two examples. One example was a phone call I took. And, um, he actually had, he was post surgical. He was really frustrated with something. He was, he had gone to some other [00:07:00] therapist and he just wasn't getting the answers that he needed. So he's like, well, is therapy going to help? And I'm like, yes, therapy helps.
I have helped. Many other people with your exact problem. I don't know if it's going to help for you because I need to actually have you come in and see me, try the treatment out, see what's going on with you, and then I can give you my proper recommendation. Now I have two options for you. You can come in for free, but I can't do any treatment for you, right?
I can just look at it. We can talk. I can answer your most pressing questions. Obviously you're skeptical and you're, you know, afraid to spend the money, right? You're afraid to spend the money. don't know if it's going to work or not, but over the phone, I can't tell you cause I haven't seen you. I haven't done anything to you, but I do know about this type of injury.
I have treated this before and I've gotten really great results for people. Right? So now when [00:08:00] they come in, well, he actually was like, so Screw the discovery visit. I want a first evaluation. Great. I look forward to seeing you on day X, blah, blah, blah. We're going to do an evaluation. I'm going to take a look at where you're at.
We're going to do some therapy cause you're actually getting treatment today. And then I'm going to give you my full on. honest recommendation, right? Can therapy work? Or do you need another surgeon? What's your most pressing question? Right? Sorry, at his initial evaluation, I asked that I was like, what, you know, you drove all this way, you want the therapy, What is your most pressing question that you have for me that you want to know that I can provide you to make this session worth your time and effort, right?
And he was like, I just want to know, is therapy going to work? And I was like, I know that therapy is going to work for this finger, no, for this finger, this finger, this finger. Um, and I know that [00:09:00] I can get you X, right? I knew I could get him X. He wanted X, Y, and Z. Right? I want X, Y, and Z. He had a flexor tendon, scarring, and all the works.
And I was like, I can get you this. You want no pain, less pain? I can get you that. You want more motion, better motion? I can get you that. You want this tendon not to be so stuck? I I'm not sure I can get that for you because you're coming in at this time and it feels already stuck. Here's the thing.
Therapy can help you with all of that and we have to give this a go anyway because nobody's going to touch you and do another surgery right now regardless. Do you see my confidence that's coming out? I mean, I didn't speak to him like that, but I came out with confidence. I came out with knowing my shit.
I came out and the thing is, is like, you know it too. It's just that sometimes you're afraid to say the thing that you know. to share your perspective on what's going [00:10:00] on, right? And, you know, if you can't share that, and if you can't be honest, then, then people feel your energy. Like, I know it's a little woo woo, but people feel your energy.
If you cannot exude that kind of energy, um, where you're confident about what you're saying, then, you know, they, won't believe you. And I think that it takes a certain amount of confidence and if you don't have it, fake it. We've all done it before, right? You know, so fake it until you make it. Uh, but, and it's because, it's not because you're being dishonest.
It's because you know deep down inside it's there. You just don't have enough practice and that's why it's not coming out yet. Because I can tell you when I first started on this journey, I knew my shit. I just didn't know how to express myself in a way that makes sense. And it takes practice. [00:11:00] It takes messing up, it takes practice, and it takes getting it right.
And once you get it right, you're like, Oh my God, so that's how it's supposed to feel. That's how I'm supposed to do it. And then you feel it and you're like, Oh, I can do that again. So he told me, Yes, based off your, you know, You know, and here's why, listen people, my teachers in my class all the time, explain your why, tell them why, um, and I teach this immensely in my program because we have to get down into people's personality types and I can tell, you know, you have to learn like When someone needs something for you, you can learn what it is, right?
So some people are like, I don't need to know the ins and outs. Just get me better. Right? I love those people. But then you have some people who are more analytical. The guy that I was working with is a chiro. So he's like, I know some stuff about some stuff. Uh, but interestingly enough, you know, don't make assumptions that people know everything [00:12:00] that you know, they don't.
Like he doesn't know about surgeries and he doesn't know about post surgical stuff because chiros tend not to work with those. Right. And I. I, you know, I didn't even think about that. But you know, they, if they're a patient, they're not thinking about the profession. They're, you know, but he was like, I don't know why this doesn't make sense to me.
So I just explained muscles, you know, I explained anatomy a little bit. I explained some muscles. I explained a little bit about what's going on with the scars. This is how scars work. You know, and this is y you're stuck the way you're stuck. But we can get you X, Y, and we're gonna see about Z, but here's, you know, we're gonna see about Z.
So you make. Your recommendation. Oh my god. I'm here writing all this stuff and you can't even see it. I'm making my recommendation. Let me see. I'm making my recommendation, right? I'm making my recommendation and I told him you're gonna need about this many visits, right? You need this many visits. And you have to do this, [00:13:00] right?
So it's, it's not just me doing all the work. This is not a done for you program, right? This is not a done for you program. This is a do it with you program, because in order for you to get better, we are gonna do it together, right? And so, um, those essentially are your steps, right? So I made the recommendation.
He purchased the package. He was like, I believe this girl Huang. I believe she could help me. Let's go first call. Oops. First eval. Right? So we did the eval. I created the plan of care, right? Here comes your followup convos. Here's your followup conversations that are going to be really important in order to [00:14:00] keep your patients.
So if, if you're giving us 12 sessions to try it out, This is, I know this is going to be at 12 sessions, we're going to be able to achieve this, this, and this, right? So, at week, you know, after the first week, I, oh, so you came in like this, now after the first week, we're here. So that's just like, what, three visits, right?
Keep doing it and we're going to get X, Y, and Z. So you're kind of spelling out the sentence. You have to take somebody on the journey. They don't know what you know. I'm constantly telling my therapists. They don't know what you know. And I don't care if they're already a therapist. They don't know what you know.
And you have to spell it out. So usually when I'm working with someone, I tell them, because this is my methodology, right? In order for us to see results, [00:15:00] right? We're looking for results. And we're looking for some results to see that therapy works. If you do therapy and you don't see nothing, feel nothing, then therapy is not working.
That's not your thing. That's not the thing we need to do. You probably need further medical intervention, right? But in the first visit, in the first several visits, we should be able to see some results. If we can see some results, we can, we know that we can keep going. For Right, we can't get all of them.
We're looking for Incremental improvement listen write that shit down. We're looking for incremental improvement And you as a therapist you need to know what that looks like So I told them what we're looking for is we're looking for while you're in therapy. We improve your emotion You're not going to be able to keep it.
That's why you have a home program That's why you gotta do some stuff at home. And this is my recommendation for [00:16:00] frequency You Now, while there's methodologies, I usually tell people, I want you to do it every two hours, just like it's less than a minute. I find one thing for them to do, one thing, maybe two if they're pretty good.
If you can just do this one thing, then the next time you come, we're going to get that part better. And when you come, we can either keep doing the same thing or upgrade you and do the next thing. Keep your programs really easy and very easy. Like, uh, very clear for them, right? I want you to do it every two hours.
But if you can't, it's okay, as long as you do it. Obviously, the more frequently you do it, the better it is, right? There is a good and bad to it. If you overdo it or are overly aggressive, it's gonna set you back a little bit. So, we gotta find the sweet spot for you. So, you have to find So, this is all, like, part of your therapy.
This is part of your communication. This is part of your education. This is part of the package, right? [00:17:00] But you're essentially helping to set them up. And so I usually want to see results by three to four weeks. Let's say if I'm looking to avoid surgery, if I'm looking to avoid surgery, I'm going to see results by three to four weeks.
And within three to four weeks, if you're, if you're coming in and doing what I need to do here, and then you're going home and you're doing what you need to do at home within three to four weeks, we should see a difference. And then I'm going to tell you. my recommendation, right? So your follow up conversation is really, really important for that.
Um, and then you have to just be, you have to be honest about what you're able to do, what you're not able to do, right? I'm able to help you get this far and you then, I got him that far and then he had to really make a hard decision. Do I want more? Because he got greedy like I'm not gonna lie. Most people get greedy.[00:18:00]
They're like, I'm willing to get 50 percent 75 percent better You get them even close to their goal. They're gonna become real greedy. And you know what like I want more Okay, what does more look like? So every step of the way you're having these You know, follow up conversations that make an impact on someone's ability to make their decisions, right?
You're basically you're influencing them. You're influencing them in a good way. I don't make people's decisions for them. I, I help guide them based on my set of questions, you know, what they want ultimately and what they're willing to do. Right. If I'm working with a patient and I talk to him about the benefits of non surgical or Surgical I'm going to explain both sides of it.
So that's what I personally do But this is a system that I really teach my own therapist. Like how do we keep our patients? I'm spending a lot of money a lot of dollars to be able to bring people to me It's also a lot of time right put a [00:19:00] time to you know, there's a time cost to everything you're doing There's You know, years, hours that, that, you know, I've been working on and so I'm spending a lot of that and I'm bringing them in and my therapist and my team need to keep them.
If you're a solopreneur, you have to do all those steps in order to bring patients in, to be able to keep patients, right? You get patients, you keep patients, and then you build up your little pile of money so then you can hire someone to then come and help you so you don't have to do everything. Um, yeah, so that's how you keep patients.
This is my very simple method. It's like three steps, but there's also little steps inside. And if you want more of the details and you want to work with me more, uh, the links are below for you to grab the details of my program. Until next time, thanks for watching.
