When you discharge a patient, I hope you don’t say, “We really appreciate your business!” and leave it at that. I have a simple ‘last visit & follow-up system’ that I use to encourage word-of-mouth referrals and positive online reviews. It’s quite simple and will be easy for you to implement as well.
I’d like to say up front that I do not wait till the patient’s last visit to start encouraging them to think of others that may benefit from my services. However, this post is about my actions around a patient’s Discharge so I will focus on that.
The last visit with a physical therapy patient
During the patient’s last visit, I make sure to say and discuss a good number of things. I genuinely thank them for trusting me with their (or their child’s) care, and I let them know that it was a pleasure having them in the clinic. I tell them that they should never hesitate to call or email if they ever have any questions or concerns about their musculoskeletal health or fitness. I remind them to mention Carter Physiotherapy whenever anyone they know complains of pain or injury.
I also let them know that I like to keep in touch with my patients and occasionally check in on them to see how they are doing. In this way, it doesn’t seem so out-of-the-ordinary if I occasionally call or email to make sure their hamstring strain or rotator cuff injury is still pain-free. This last statement also serves to open them up to receiving an email that I send within a day or two of discharge. That email says something along the lines of:
Dear ____ ,
It was a pleasure working with you in my clinic and I deeply appreciate you trusting me with your care.
The biggest compliment and “thank you” I could ever receive is the referral of someone you care about. Of course, many people search online before deciding on a service, so if you feel compelled to let others know about your experience, please go to my Google Places profile and leave a review. Click on the link and look for the red button that says “Write a Review.” You will also need to give a star rating by clicking the little row of stars. (1=lowest, 5= highest rating)
If you ever use Yelp.com, please post the review there as well.
Thank you again for your trust, your business, and your time. It means more than I can say.
All the best,
Jarod Carter PT, DPT, MTC
Followup after that last visit
I must admit that I just recently started sending this post-discharge email with links to my review sites, but I can already see that I will have many more online reviews over time due to this practice.
As mentioned above, I continue to touch base and follow up with my patients periodically. I maintain a quarterly email newsletter, and I also call or email to check in at 2-5 months post-discharge. In doing so, I occasionally have patients schedule another treatment or two if any pain has returned or if something else has begun bothering them.
Are there any things that you do at/after a patient discharge that I haven’t mentioned above? Please share your methods with us in the comments below.
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Well done Jarod, we can all benefit from this advice
Thanks Eric! I’m looking forward to seeing you guys in June. I’m gonna give a short talk to the S1 class between beach naps 🙂
Another good one…! Thanks Jarod
Hi Jarod, very well written! You might remember that I have a practise in cork, Ireland and that we have a self referral and cash based system in Ireland as insurance companies only reimburse partially. If I do get a patient through a doctors referral however, I always write a report back to him regarding the treatment. They understand better how you’re working and are more inclined to send more…Mind you, I don’t include business cards or similar, that’s seen as too pushy!
The Irish system sounds wonderful! Thank you for bringing up the note to the referring Physician. Over here I believe that in most states we are required to send discharge letters to the Physician, so I forgot to add that in the post. Very important to do.
jarod,
great post. I can’t think of a better way to keep in the forefront of your patients mind.
Can I assume that you have put this and 2 or 3 month follow up emails into an autoresponder?
I haven’t gone the route of an autoresponder because I like to fashion the email to ask specifically about the issue we treated. I may also ask about some other component of their life or a loved one they mentioned was having a pain or problem. So after discharge I could go into my email management system (constant contact) to write and schedule the email to go out in 2 months, but because of all the steps it takes to do so, it’s actually faster for me to just set an alarm reminder on Google calendar and shoot them a quick email when it goes off.
Jerod,
Thank you for your excellent content and the sharing of your practice. It is a breath of fresh air to know of others who also explore and create the cash pay practice.
Thanks for the google calendar alarm tip for sending our follow-up emails. As a one person operation, I continually seek strategies for organization and time management.
You’re very welcome!
Brilliant Jarod. I love the organization of this template.
Out of interest, do you know what your strike rate is from these follow-up emails?
Cheers,
Ben