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Hello, and welcome to Empowering Women in Chiropractic. I’m your host, Dr. Cathy. And today we are going to talk about the four new types of patients that you are seeing right now. And I want to preface this by saying you’re still seeing a lot of the same problems, a lot of the same symptoms and complaints, and a lot of, a lot of the same healthcare challenges. But now you’re seeing a lot of new emotions due to your community, living through this information overload for the last 20 months of this pandemic with no foreseeable end in sight. So the four types of patients that you’re seeing right now, people are coming in and they’re confused. They’re scared, they’re angry. And they are untrusting of what’s going on. And what’s being said, so let’s talk about that because you’re confused. Patients are the ones that listen, everybody’s being bombarded with the same information, whether it’s from the TV or the radio.
If they’re driving, listening to commercials that are talking about, let’s get back to normal living by doing X, Y, and Z, let’s all pitch in and do this thing. That’s going to help us get back to our normal way of life. You want to go to a concert, you’ve got to do these things. So people are confused because they’re looking at all this information that they’re getting from the TV and the radio and their coworkers, or from their employers. And they’re really not sure what’s real. What’s legit. What’s true. So they’re confused. And they’re scared because they see big time people like these professional athletes and these Olympic athletes that are refusing to do, what’s expected of them because they want to continue on performing at their great levels of athleticism. So now people are starting to be afraid. Do I trust the government? Do I trust my doctor?
Do I trust my coworkers? Do I trust the people that are running my child’s school? And they’re angry because we’ve been told this has 15 days to flatten the curve. And it’s been in 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 coming on 20 months. And of course now with flu season, because we don’t call it fall, right? We have to call it flu season. Now with flu season kicking up. Now they’re talking about how all these variants are going to start closing things again. So they’re not trusting what they’ve heard from the politicians. They’re not trusting what they’ve heard from the media. They’re confused, they’re scared, they’re angry. They’re stressed out and they’re turning to you. Thankfully, they’re turning to you, but they’re turning to you with physical issues that may have an emotional component behind it. So first and foremost, are these people more complicated to help than people in the past?
And I want to, yes. And I also want to say no, because in the past, we’ve unfortunately lived through nine 11 or we’ve had the Oklahoma bombings and we’ve had different type of dangerous activities that have really shaped the course of our country, or we’ve had Katrina or different hurricanes at different floods that have shaped the course of the country. And people have lived through some of this fear, some of this emotion, some of this bombardment of information, but nothing like what we’ve experienced for the last 20 months where the whole world seems to be engulfed in the same narrative. So while people are coming in, still having neck pain, back pain, headaches, or their children, aren’t able to focus in school or they want optimal performance for their child athletes or for themselves. It’s a little bit more complicated because one of the things we’ve always talked about in chiropractic is thoughts, traumas, and toxins, right?
How stress is not just what we think of, but it also comes in the shape of chemical, physical, and emotional stresses. And our communities are dealing with so much emotional stress. So many thoughts stresses right now, and then add on top of it, the toxin. So while they may be coming in complaining about neck pain, back pain, headaches, whatever it is, carpal tunnel syndrome, whatever symptom brought them into your office, understand that there may be a huge underlying emotional component behind it. So it may not simply be a structural issue where there is a subluxation impinging on a nerve creating a problem down the line of that nerve pathway. There may be an emotional component to it that is reinforcing like a negative feedback cycle. That’s just keeping them stuck in this trauma situation, in this symptom based experience that they’re having right now. So there’s more to their care because there’s more to their issues.
Why are they coming in? We need better screening tools right now. We need some new screening tools right now to try to understand not only who they are and what they’re coming in for, but why are they seeking out your care? Why right now, have they chosen chiropractic? If that was never a choice for them before, why now have they sought out natural healthcare when maybe that wasn’t even on their radar screen before? So understanding what they’ve been through, what they’ve tried, what they’ve been doing, what has been working, what hasn’t been working, how long the problem has been there, did it start after March of 2020? Or did it start before that? Or has it been an ongoing, you know, slowly building up process in the last month or two months or three months. So understanding what’s bringing them in and why they’re choosing chiropractic now can help you gear your conversation more appropriately toward their specific needs.
And remember, each person is an individual. And even though we can sometimes lump people in and say, well, these are the headache patients, or these are our scoliosis patients, or these are our athletes looking to optimize their performance. Each person is unique and each person is individual. And what happens when they leave your office is unique and individual to their situation. So everybody always comes in with their own list of lifestyle challenges, but right now, understanding those and what’s driving them to your office will really help you develop a care plan that is tapered toward them, really tailored toward getting them the care that they need and the outcome that they desire. So that is going to require you to really dig deep into your communication strategies and make sure you’re developing new, better, and more improved, more empathetic communication strategy. So you want to be welcoming.
You want to be inviting and you want to help deliver information to them. One of the things I’ve always taught is attraction. Education retention. You attract them in, you educate them and you keep them as a patient. And now more than ever, they’re getting so bombarded with so much information that they really don’t know who to trust and who to believe. And sadly, you may be lumped in that category. They may not know if they can believe you. They may not know if they can trust you. And now is not the time to word vomit all over them. Now is not the time to impart your 20 years of wisdom and education and knowledge and experience onto their shoulders in one visit. Now is the time to slowly, gradually ease them into a better understanding of health at a pace that works for them. Cause first and always, they have to get to know you then like you and then trust you.
And you want to build that rapport. You want to build that relationship with people because they may be the kind of person who has always trusted the media. Maybe they always trusted their favorite news reporter. And now they feel like their news reporter is selling out. Or maybe they always trusted a personality that’s on TV or a celebrity that now is giving different information than they’re used to seeing from them. You know, a lot of people have turned their backs on famous celebrities like Tony Robbins because of his change in stance. So there’s a lot of confusion for people. And if you understand that, make sure you’re not adding to it. Don’t bombard them with your thoughts now is not the time to bombard them with every single thing that you feel and believe to be true or everything that you’ve researched or now is not on day one.
The time to bombard them with everything about vaccines and you know, the vaccine adverse events research system, or, you know, a reporting system or Barlow Fisher, which I love absolutely. But day one may not be the time to give them that information. Now’s the time to kind of welcome them in and say, you know what? They found us. They’re choosing us, let them, let us welcome them in, let us give them the information they need right now for what they think they need, because they may be coming in thinking this is a neck pain, back pain, headache, carpal tunnel, radiating pain across the shoulders, whatever, whatever they’re coming in for, meet them there. Now’s the time to put on your empathy hat and meet them there and say, you know what? I’m glad that you’re here. Let’s find out what’s going on. Let’s get to the underlying cause and determine what we can do in this office to help you.
Right. I always loved that. Doctor said, used to say, I have found what I believe to be the single underlying cause of all or nearly all of your health concerns. We can fix them right here in this office. And that is such a powerful mindset to have. It may not have to be the statement that you use with your patients, but it should be the mindset that you have, that we are here to serve. We are here to help. We’re here to find the cause and correct, right. That’s our job to detect and correct the vertebral subluxation, right? Locate, analyze, and correct. There were tables, subluxation. That’s our job, but we don’t get to do that. If we blow people out the doors with this, you know, strong stance that right now might not be the proper time to do it on day one, because of that fear, because of that emotion, listen, the emotions are running high for everyone.
You’ve seen it on the roads. People are less tolerant driving. People are more anxious that they’ve gotten more anxiety right now. They’ve got more, um, drive to get things done and you know, and they’re just, they just don’t understand. They’re so confused. And so many people are so angry right now because they’ve missed out on weddings or funerals or graduations or scholarships to sports. So there’s a lot of anger. There’s a lot of fear. What if I take this? What if I don’t take this? What if I could lose my job? What if I lose my job? And I can’t provide for my family? What if I’m forced to do something that goes against my religious beliefs or my political beliefs or my research or my science or my understanding, or my choice for my body, right? My body, my choice, people have that fear of how am I going to put food on the table?
How am I going to care for my family? If I’m forced to do something in order to maintain my job. And that level of stress is adding up and adding up, it’s piling on their shoulders and it’s compounding any issues that they’ve already had and making the problems worse. So I want you to dig deep into your empathy side right now, because the better we become at welcoming people right now with open arms and meeting them, meeting them where they are and bringing them to a better understanding of health. The better we become as a profession at getting people to understand the chiropractic paradigm, getting people to understand that the needs no help, just no interference, getting people to understand that God made the body. I move the bone, right? God heals the body. I moved the bone or, you know, the power that made the body heals the body, whatever chiropractic sayings really resonate with you.
This is the time to get people into your office so that they can experience life without subluxation. And we’re going to have a better opportunity to do that when we hold off on some of the more, um, strong thoughts that we believe in, and trust me, I’m not one to tiptoe through the tulips. I’m more like a bulldozer through the China shop, but when they first come in day one, now’s the time to embrace them and welcome them in and gradually ease them into a better conversation. You’re going to find that if you do this right now, if you don’t vomit on people, if you welcome them into your office, if you take the time to get to understand what it is that they’re coming for, why they’re choosing you now at this junction in their life, and you really gradually ease them into a better understanding of health and function and how the body heals itself, then you’re going to have the opportunity to spend more time with them.
You won’t blow them out the door after one or two or three visits, but you’ll have them coming back in for two or three weeks and four and five months. And you’ll have more opportunities to educate them, which is where you really build that know like trust relationship, which is what leads to referrals. And if you look at your practice right now, you should be seeing your existing patients sending in referrals. I have a long-term patients that have worked and work to try to get family members in or grandchildren in, or their daughters and their, their son-in-laws and, or have worked to try to get their parents in. And it’s been a slow process, but lately it’s been easier because lately their family members, their coworkers, their friends are looking for answers. They want to start knowing what is real, how do I really help my family stay healthy?
How do I help express a greater level of health? What can I do to keep my immune system strong right now? What can I do to keep my body healthy right now? And what can I do to prevent long-term complications? If I do get sick, or if I am exposed to a virus and people are seeking out those answers right now, and you have them, you have the answers. So I encourage you. And I urge you to be that voice of reason, being that welcoming place, where they can come to you and they can turn to you, or they can turn their referrals to you in a time when people really are confused, they really are scared. They really are angry, and they do not trust the information that they’re getting from the media, from the politicians, from their coworkers, from their employers. So understand this in the old days, we always talked about how you should avoid talking about politics and religion.
And I know sometimes that holds true and sometimes that does it, but in your office, when people are seeking you for help, they’re seeking your care. They’re turning to you to help them and their families get healthy. Now is the time to just deliver great adjustments, great information education in small doses, so that they can digest it and come back and ask you more questions and just be that welcoming person that says, this is a place where healing occurs. If you have challenges having these conversations, or if you want to get better at your communication skills, I invite you to join me. As I partner with the league of chiropractic women to host our next round of the writers and speakers bureau, where we’ll be teaching over the course of six weeks, how to really hone in on your communication strategies on your desired topics and your desired conversations that you’d like to have, whether that’s one-on-one with a patient or as a, a, um, doctor’s report for your, for your base of patients, your new patients, whether you want to do that in your office, out in the community, or whether you want to get on a big stage or a big platform, such as a webinar or a podcast, and really deliver a message that matters to you.
If you’d like help with that, we have a fabulous group of women coming together for our next round of this writers and speakers bureau will be, we will be teaching you over the course of six weeks, how to really craft a message that matters and deliver it to the people that need to hear it in a way that resonates and engages them so that they benefit from your information and want more from you. So if you’d like to learn more about that, that’s at LC women.com or you can reach out to me personally, through Facebook at Kathy Woodland Colby, but listen, your patients right now are seeking out your care. They’re sending you referrals and they’re sending you people who are confused, scared, angry, and untrusting. So let’s not feed into that, but instead let’s be that person that they can turn to with confidence that you’re going to not only deliver the goods and help them get better, but help them understand more about their body and their health women, ladies chiropractors, we are so gifted at our ability to nurture and care for people.
Let’s let that show through right now and shine forward for your community to see. And I promise you that you will start making that positive impact on your patients and your community and their friends and family members, so that we can really start turning this back around and leading people to a better understanding of health. I want to thank you so much for joining me today. And as always, we welcome you here at ChiroSecure to join us for empowering women in chiropractic and go out there, do a great job, change your corner of the world, and you will make a difference as you serve through your compassion and serve others to a greater level of health. Thank you so much. I look forward to seeing you next time.
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