Answering Service Case Study: Appointment Setting Services Help Chiropractic Clinic Grow

By Peter Lyle DeHaan

Doctors Martin and Trish Resnick started their chiropractic clinic two years ago, this May. After earning their doctorates they moved to Alexandria, Virginia where they opened their clinic. Their mission was to promote health and wellness through natural, non-invasive techniques.

Newly married and fresh out of graduate school, they were eager to build their practice. They began on a tight budget—too tight to hire support staff. Dr. Martin and Dr. Trish took patients on alternate days. While one attended to patients, the other took care of administrative issues, answered the phones, assisted in X-Rays, and marketed their business.

“For the first three months or so, it was really exciting,” Trish recalled. “Then we realized that doing clerical duties ourselves, such as answering the phones, hurt our image as professionals.”

“We were just starting out and counting every penny,” Martin laughed. Skeptical of the cost, he looked for an answering service to relieve them of juggling calls and patients. He also hoped to pick up some afterhours calls their answering machine missed. “It was quite affordable, especially compared to hiring a receptionist. But what really surprised us was they could set appointments, too.”

The answering service used an online appointment-scheduling portal so both the answering service and the Resnicks could access the same scheduling database to set and change appointments. The answering service scheduled patients whenever they called, 24/7, and the Resnicks scheduled follow-up appointments after they saw a patient. The process was smooth.

Then after a casual comment from a busy patient, they began offering Wednesday evening appointments, too. “That’s when things really took off,” Martin said. Soon every Wednesday night was full—for both of them—so they added Monday evening and eventually Fridays, too. They scaled back their slow midweek morning schedule to balance out their workload.

“It was working great. We had a full schedule,” Trish said. “But the no shows were killing us.” She mentioned her frustration to the answering service. The service suggested a solution. They began making appointment reminder calls to patients the day before each appointment, as well as sending reminder texts one hour prior.

“Our no-show rate dropped to near zero,” Martin said. “It was amazing!”

The answering service handled all of this. “I can’t see how we would have grown like we did without them,” Trish added. “Our answering service freed us up to give our patient’s the one-on-one attention they deserve. That’s the part of this job I love—helping people stay well.”

 

Peter Lyle DeHaan is a freelance writer from Southwest Michigan. Contact us to learn how a telephone answering service can answer your calls 24/7 to better serve your customers