Q:

I will shortly be in private practice for one year.  I am seeing between 35-40 patients a 
week. Some weeks are great while some weeks are bad.  How do I stop the roller coaster 
effect on patient visits and money coming in?  Any suggestions on new patient ideas?
How can I escape the doom feeling when I donžt have new patients rolling in?

A:

Thanks for the e-mail. I wish I had a magic wand and could just send a signal through the 
internet with great and successful ideas. It takes work and a slow methodical planning to 
generate new patients and more important retain them.

Okay .. do you have a plan and a schedule for the rest of April and May. The plan should 
have ideas and action plans to implement them. If you don't then you need one. Don't 
worry about what you can or cannot not do instead write what you would like to do if you 
could. The act of writing it down activates the possibility and idea process .. it will generate 
some activity. Next .. look at your patient base and determine who is ripe to ask for 
referrals possibly where they work or civic and church groups they belong to that would 
welcome you as a speaker on ergonomics or stress management.  Next .. during the time 
you are not with patients begin to plan ideas for them as if you had them. 

Did you ever determine the demographics of your area .. where you should plant the seeds 
for new patients and where you fertilize and harvest these patients? If not do so . if you 
have no idea what I am talking about then I recommend you spend a few bucks and 
purchase my Smart Start Book ($60) or the Marketing and Workshop Workbooks ($25 
each) to give you ideas and actio steps. The Smart Start Book has practice and PR within 
the same book the others are a repeat of many of the pages from the Smart Start but places 
as a stand along book. You can purchase the books if interested on my webpage: 
www.chirosmart.net there is a banner for them. 

I also recommend during your time without patients or in the evening you visit my 
webpage and check often under Practice Tips for ideas on gathering new patients and 
keeping those you have. There is nothing there that I feel is not worth reading. Review the 
Report of Findings and Consultation scripts it is most important. I'm sure you can spend 
days scrolling down this page on my webpage as well as check under Cyberconsulting. 
This area has Q&A similar to yours and my replies. Scroll down for some Q&A that you 
may also have. There is nothing dated there as every questions applies today.

If you have never attended a Fernandez Seminar in Atlanta and wish to attend the next one 
as my guest for a free weekend call them at 1-800-882-4476. Great ideas are offered there 
and there is no pressure or obligation to join. Many DC's need a coach and he is a great 
one.

I also recommend you send a similar question to the one you sent me to many of the 
mentors found on my webpage under Mentors. These are DC's that are willing to assist 
you via e-mail for free. Gather their e-mail addresses and bcc a few of them and be sure 
they know that you found their address via my webpage. Itžs always good to get some 
other ideas.

Lastly .. if interested reply with a plan for April and May and I'll help you tweak it some. It 
is a  good idea is to start sending e-mails to your patients and community. Gather as many 
e-mail addresses as you can. The e-mail I am sending gives you some idea of what we have 
going here. It costs you nothing but time to do programs like this but can generate new 
patients if planned correctly

I hope this helped

Have a Great Day

Dr. M