The Four Essentials For Pediatric Practice Success
By Stuart P. Warner, D.C., and Theresa M. Warner, D.C.

Pediatric office procedures begin with the mindset for seeing children, and this central theme must permeate every aspect of how you run and organize your office.

It encompasses what the office looks like, the staff you hire, new and established patient procedures, health talk schedules, special events and other aspects. By mastering four essential aspects, you can begin to develop a successful chiropractic pediatric practice.

Staff Protocol

Hiring: Choosing the right person for each type of environment is an integral aspect of running any office. Fundamentally, this means that you and your staff must agree on the basic premise that you wish to build a large pediatric practice.

For the pediatric practice, it is crucial to choose staff members who love children. The front desk staff must have a high energy level to keep up with the children, yet a warm, soothing personality to hold a crying baby. It is important to evaluate your current team to make certain that they possess these characteristics. If they do not, it may be necessary to shift them to another office position or to replace them. This is one of the most important things you can do to create a fabulous pediatric practice.

Remember that your staff makes all of the initial contacts, greets patients and schedules visits of the practice members. In most cases, your staff will spend more time with your patients during any given visit than you will. The staff can ensure that stories and testimonials are passed between patients, and they should be asking for referrals.

Staff meetings: Weekly staff meetings are an essential component of any successful practice. They allow your staff to keep up with the daily transactions, scheduling, new and updated procedures, special events, new patients and other matters. All staff, including yourself, should have responsibilities and suggestions to discuss at each meeting. These can be divided among your staff according to job responsibilities.

Weekly reports should include items such as updates on the new patient log, the status of the lending library, the current month’s parties and/or special events, chiropractic philosophy and practice procedures. The meeting should give all staff members the opportunity to speak so that they can contribute their ideas and opinions.

New Patient Procedures And Clinical Competency

Pediatric patient procedures must be in place for all new and established patients. The protocol begins with the initial phone call and continues when the patients arrive. Having the right forms is a must, beginning with the family sign-in form and the pediatric history form.

History: Having a pediatric history form is absolutely necessary. It not only ascertains all of the essential information, but it also simultaneously projects the correct image and message to the parent. To clarify, what would your established adult patients think when they bring in a 6-month-old child, and your staff hands them the same form to fill out for the child as they filled out for themselves?

Exam: New patient procedures continue with your exam, which begins with the discussion of the history form. If the child is old enough, it is important to communicate with the patient directly and to address follow-up questions to the parents.

Then, you obtain information for the pediatric exam form. Clinical competency in examining infants, toddlers and children is of the utmost importance. You must have non-invasive diagnostic tools, such as the Insight Subluxation Station, which will allow you to evaluate and regularly re-evaluate each pediatric patient.

If you are relying on orthopedic and neurological tests to tell whether the child has a subluxation, there will be many subluxated children walking out of your office. By utilizing a well-balanced chiropractic exam, you will feel confident in determining care plans and maintaining lifetime care patients.

Office Appearance

The appearance of your office is another an important component of pediatric office management. Creating a family environment that invites children into the office is essential.

You can transform many elements in your office to make this happen. The first thing to do is to evaluate the safety and warmth of your office. A good rule to remember is that anything you provide for adults, you also provide for children. Thus, if you have adult chairs, you should have child-size chairs; if you equip your office with adult adjusting tables, you should also have pediatric adjusting tables.

This rule applies to everything, including videos, books, snacks, posters, picture boards, testimonials, coat racks and magazines. Develop a "kids corner," a special area (usually located in the reception area) that is just for children. Within this area, you can provide toys, games, teddy bears and other items that children will enjoy. It is important in everything you do to make the children feel special. After all, they are patients, too.

Marketing And Referral Strategies

Patient Referrals: The best type of marketing for your pediatric practice is patient referrals. Referrals can, and should be, encouraged every day, not only at the front desk and but also at every stop throughout the office.

One of the best ways to encourage this process is to secure testimonials by asking patients to share their children’s chiropractic success stories with one another. This works best in an open adjusting suite, but it can be accomplished equally well in the reception area, or by inviting a parent into the adjusting room to share with other parents.

This type of contact is most reassuring, especially to new patients who may be unsure of their decision, or who are getting outside pressure to discontinue care. It can give a mother the confidence to bring in her new baby, or for parents to continue their child’s care even if the symptoms have persisted. You can give the best report of findings of your life, but it won’t compare to a mother simply saying, "Don’t give up. It took my son a little longer to respond as well, but look at him now." Nothing is as powerful as the words of another parent in the same circumstance.

Your patients are ready and willing to participate, since they had the same questions and concerns when their child began care. When people receive great results, especially after many previous trials and tribulations, they want to spread the word. They may just need to be encouraged. If you are not able to get the two sets of parents together in the office, you may want to make a telephone list together with several of your best families. Secure their permission, and list the parents’ names, the children’s names and ages, and their pre-chiropractic care conditions. You can give this list to all new patients for them to contact.

Marketing: To effectively market your pediatric practice in your community, you can go well beyond newspaper ads, radio or TV. Although these are great tools which can have widespread impact, the truly successful office will reach beyond these avenues.

We have developed marketing events, such as Kids Day America/International™, to permeate the community, have a lasting impact, and grow a pediatric practice, and you can annually host it in your community. Host regular Parenting and Pregnancy Bootcamps© to educate your town and patients. Reach out to other health-care providers in your area, and begin establishing rapport and referrals through programs like the Health Practitioners Outreach Program©.

You can become involved in other children’s events during the year, such as an annual Summerfest or a Halloween parade. You may want to host a Baby or Kids Parade. Be bold and persistent and you will create a huge impact on your community and grow a magnificent practice in the process.

Conclusion

We can evaluate and improve daily office procedures in many ways. If you keep the children in mind when you are evaluating office procedures, you will quickly attract more children into your office.

As you grow your pediatric practice, you will also have to adapt your procedures to accommodate more capacity and to plan for the future. Nothing is more rewarding than watching the next generation improve their lives through regular chiropractic care.

About the authors: Stuart P. Warner, D.C., and Theresa M. Warner, D.C., Life College graduates, are noted chiropractic pediatric seminar presenters who manage a practice composed of 60 percent children under age 7. They are co-founders of the World Children’s Wellness Foundation and Kids Day America/International, a spinal screening program for children, and their company, Future Perfect, Inc., offers pediatric products and education materials. Inquiries may be addressed to them at 3201 Bridge Ave., Point Pleasant, NJ 08742; call (732) 295-5437; or fax (732) 295-1166.

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