We are currently reflecting on where the people you serve are at in their journey relative to chiropractic. We are visiting the various types and suggesting a few thoughts on how to develop and graduate the type to the next level.
Last week we spoke about the Prospects and this week we look at…
Patients
This person surrenders himself or herself to your care. This is a passive style of care. The person sees himself or herself as subservient to you and your superior knowledge and status.
In this phase of their care journey the person will be testing you and your abilities to produce results. Their model of both your and their roles are very limited and they will compare it to other models they know (often not fairly as other models may have a different intent eg using a drug to numb a symptom as compared with a chiropractic adjustment to vivify a person). Their outcome is usually around you fixing their problem as quickly and as cheaply as possible.
To move a person through this stage it is important for you to realize that this is a trust building stage that requires that every expectation that they have be exceeded.
Ensure that when you facilitate the exceeding of certain clinical expectations (eg. Not only does the back pain go but their bowel works better) that you point out the correlation and association and get them to explain the why.
This is the stage of care in which the person starts to get the immensity of the role that you and chiropractic play, not only in their problem but in their life.
