From: Dr. Margolies Follow Through This is a key phrase in marketing and public relations. How often do you have a creative idea that hangs on the vine never able to ripen because no one took the time to cultivate, nurture and harvest it. This is the death of a creative idea. You probably have closets full of these too full to pry open. In order to be on top of these ideas, whether gathered at seminars, classes, or even from these humble e-mails, you must have someone responsible for „follow through.¾ If you¼re a typical „mom and pop¾ office with just you and a CA, the responsibility must be shared. If you have an active office with multiple staff, then delegate a specific person(s) to „manage¾ these programs whether internal or external. As within my book and class (page 45), I am a proponent of logs. These forms allow you to date and classify a program and follow it through. The person or persons responsible for follow through, via these logs, have a means to track the program and see that each facet is attended to. Lets look at an example: At your next staff meeting decide on an internal program to generate reactivation of previous patients .. by the way this includes student clinic patients as well. Lets have a staff meeting now: „The program for this month is reactivation. In order to recapture these previous patient¼s who dropped out for one reason or another, we¼ll have a three prong approach. First, we¼ll create a log of those we¼ll be sending material to and follow up with a phone call. Mary, be sure to look through the „drop out log,¾ (page 101) and determine which patient¼s we want to encourage returning to our office. Be sure this new log notes their last visit date; their symptom; if there was a reason they dropped out, and the number of visits they were with us, especially if these were than 15. (This should be noted on the drop out log). Next, we¼ll print up an office newsletter and mail it to these people .. be sure this is all done within three days. (Have a firm timeline). After this, we¼ll wait three days and start the phone campaign. Mary, be sure this is all completed, every patient called, within a two week time frame. Now, let¼s set aside some time for practicing the script: Hello is this John? yes, John, this is Mary from Dr. Margolies office, the chiropractor .. do you have a minute. Great, Dr. Margolies asked me to call. It¼s been sometime since your last visit. I¼m looking at your chart and your last visit was over six months ago. In fact, you were here only six times, and it¼s noted that you were concerned about migraine headaches and chronic neck pain. How are you doing? Well we¼re always concerned about our patients. It¼s noted also that you were concerned about finances, unfortunately this is a common reason people discontinue the care they need, would you agree? You should have recently received our office newsletter, did you receive one? No, let¼s see if I have your correct address ... (even if you never sent one .. this is a way to get your foot in the door and the purpose of the call), well, let me tell you a little about it. One feature within this newsletter was a Patient Appreciation Week. This is a twice a year program we offer our patient¼s. During this week you have an opportunity to share chiropractic with your family and friends (give them the options), maybe those at work, church, or at other civic functions .. to receive a chiropractic evaluation, usually worth $100 (place a value and expiration date) at no charge, compliments of you our patient. By the way, this is also a time for our patient¼s who have not been in awhile to return for two complimentary visits. This is a great opportunity for Dr. Margolies to evaluate your spine, as well as discuss any of your concerns. I think this is a great idea. This program expires (give them a two or three week period). I think it¼ll be a great idea for you to take advantage of this .. can I set up your appointment? Great .. also, are there others that you know that will benefit from this evaluation .. remember, most folks have no idea about the value of chiropractic and this week is a great opportunity for them .. is there anyone you know of? Okay, I can go on forever on this, but you get the idea. Any active action step with continued internal and external marketing will open the flood gates of people innately desiring care. They just have an educatioinal block .. This script, written quickly for this e-mail, is just a start. Use you own words, create your own excitement, and train your staff well. But, most important FOLLOW THROUGH!!!! Dr. M