How to Handle Patients During the Holidays

Key Points:

• Despite the festive holiday season, your patients may be stressed and irritated during this time of year. 
• Empower your staff to stand up for themselves when patients are rude or even hostile. 
• While it’s a stressful time, the holiday season can also be one of the most successful seasons for your clinic.

When it comes to running your chiropractic clinic, the holiday season (Thanksgiving through the new year) might seem like business as usual. But there are actually a lot of factors to consider differently around the holidays, including how you approach your patients. 

Join me in this Q&A answering commonly asked questions around how to approach your patients during the holiday season, including handling difficult or disgruntled patients, how to instruct your staff to deal with these patients, and how you can make the holidays special for both your patients and your staff during this time of year. 

Q: Why do we need a different approach for patients during the holidays?

A: Over the last 10 years of running my practice, I’ve figured out that the holiday season isn’t all joy and warm fuzzies for everyone. Some patients can be downright mean during the holiday season. At the least, most people are busier than usual, stressed over family gatherings and finances, worried about making the holidays special for their kids, and so on. 

It’s a very stressful time of year, and many people end up cutting out things they think aren’t necessary. Unfortunately, chiro care is often one of those things. On the flip side, many people have money left in their flexible spending account (FSA) and they want extra appointments to use up their funds, or they’ve met their health insurance deductible for the year so they want to take advantage of that coverage before the calendar turns over. 

Sometimes patients will panic and cancel all of their future appointments because they realize they’re spending too much during the holidays. Sometimes patients’ credit cards get declined at the front desk, and they get flustered or irritated with our staff. It’s important to know that these things happen during this time of year, and you have to prepare yourself and your staff to handle these issues calmly and confidently. 

Q: Does the holiday season change how much time you spend with patients?

A: In short, no. You should still spend an average of 8-10 minutes per adjustment, and up to 15 minutes MAX! Chiropractors at Simply Southern Chiropractic Center really try to stick to spending under 10 minutes with each patient in the adjustment room. Patients may be in our office for 25 minutes to an hour, but the time spent with the doctor needs to stay under 10 minutes ideally, even during the holiday season.  

Often, patients will bring in holiday treats for the doctors (and sometimes) and they want to tell us what they brought. In these cases, I do take the time to listen to them and make sure to say “thank you.” Even when people drop off these things at our front desk, I’ve trained my staff to let me know right away so that I can say thank you, otherwise it will get lost in the business of the day. Don’t let your staff get in the habit of accepting the treat that was intended for the doctor and eating it up before you can even see what it is! Make sure they let you know right away so you can say thank you.

It’s so important to follow up with these patients and express your gratitude, not just because it’s the courteous thing to do, but also because expressing gratitude cements that relationship with the patient. Consider that patient as your clinic ambassador — if they’re taking the time to make and leave you a gift, they are probably very happy with their service and highly likely to recommend your clinic to their friends and loved ones. There’s no better marketing strategy than that. 

Q: How do you instruct your staff to handle disgruntled or rude patients during the holidays?

A: When it comes down to it, you should have already hired the right people to work in your clinic, and they should know how to approach a patient who is being rude or disrespectful. But what I tell my staff is that they never have to put up with rude people during the holidays or otherwise. Disrespectful or hostile behavior toward staff is not acceptable. You should be calm and respectful, and never attack someone’s personal character, but you can push back on a rude patient. 

If the behavior escalates, I tell my staff to let myself or one of the other doctors know, and we will handle it. I have no problem throwing a hostile patient out of my clinic to protect my staff and our other patients. It is NEVER worth losing a good staff member over a disgruntled patient. Lose the patient, it is much harder to find good staff and keep them. Remember, your staff is always watching and listening to you — you have to back them up or you will have serious problems with staff retention and company culture. 

It’s also worth noting that you will probably have backlash from some of these patients, even if you throw them out of your clinic. They’ll leave a bad Google review, or badmouth you on Facebook, or any number of things. But you have to stand up to bullies and do the right thing. You cannot live in fear of a bad review. These things happen. As long as you’re doing everything you can to run a great clinic and provide excellent care for your patients, you’ll win out in the end.