Patient churn isn’t inevitable (PIN #22)

Practice Independence

For many rehab therapy practices, patient churn feels inevitable. Like a natural part of doing business. 

But it’s not. 

Practices themselves are actually a big part of what causes churn. And it all starts at the front desk.

Let’s dive in.

Stay informed, stay innovative.

On Today’s Rotation 🏅 

• In the Spotlight: If you want patients who stick around, you need the right people at your front desk.

• Clinical Intelligence: Age-old question, AI product launch, huge mistakes.

• Indie Insider: $2,500 could be yours.

• Pulse Check: It’s your time to shine.

In the Spotlight 💪

When it comes to the front desk, rehab therapy practices are hiring the wrong people. 

And it’s costing them big time. 

Jerry Durham knows this from experience, both from leading his own practice and advising others on front desk training as CEO of The Client Experience Company.

He shares that practices tend to hire for the front desk with “the face of the company” in mind. 

They hire customer service representatives who are caring and approach interactions as a “yes-person.” While this creates a positive atmosphere for patients on the surface, it leads to major downstream problems for practices.  

Their instinct to accommodate requests means they aim to schedule anyone who calls, regardless of whether the person is actually a good fit for the practice’s services. 

The practice ends up with a loaded schedule (and a potentially very long waitlist). But they also have to deal with frequent: 

• Cancellations

• Drop-offs

• Incomplete treatment plans

Practices find themselves in a situation that Durham calls the “death spiral.” They maintain waitlists of paying customers while scrambling to fill last-minute cancellation spots, leading to delayed or lost revenue. 

Meanwhile, providers suffer from burnout given that they see a high volume of patients who shouldn’t always be there in the first place.

Salespeople > Customer service representatives

A rigorous qualification process is critical. 

So Durham argues that practices need salespeople answering phones, not customer service representatives.

But watching his first two sales hires fail despite stellar track records showed Durham that simply hiring salespeople isn’t enough. They also need to be trained to do the job well.

In our latest playbook, we share Durham’s proven process for hiring and training front desk employees who drive business growth. 

You can get it here.

Clinical Intelligence 💡

• Which one is more important for healthcare businesses: patient acquisition or retention?

• Conversational intelligence provider Marchex just launched a new AI-powered platform. It could transform patient acquisition and marketing. 

• Check on your front desk. They might be making six major mistakes.

Want to learn more about Indie Health?

Indie is on a mission to improve the quality of life for rehab providers and their patients by combining technology with world-class rehab therapy. 

Click here to join the waitlist. We have limited spots available!