Patient Communication That Works and Builds Your Practice

Have you ever had a patient that sits through a whole report of findings and looks at you with the deer in the headlights look? It's obvious that they don't really understand the treatment program that has been implemented and your communication is off target.

If your patients do not have have a full understanding of their treatment program and why it's important to follow through with care, they'll soon be dropping out of your office or visiting one down the block. The good news is if we learn some basic communication tools and utilize them in our report of findings we can prevent this from happening.

Many times the patient presents to your office in pain and all they hear from your report of findings is that you can help them. They don't hear how long it's going to take or even how much it's going to cost. If in our capacity as physicians we use some basic communication tools with our patients we can eliminate this problem in our practices forever.

The number one communication tool that we can use in our office is paraphrasing. Paraphrasing is simply stating back to the patient in your own words what you thought you heard them say. Whenever I'm paraphrasing with a patient, I always start off with the phrase "so what you're saying is" and then I speak back to the patient in my own words what I thought I heard them say. This accomplishes three things:

1: The patient knows that you've listened to them. This is important because many of the patients that we interviewed felt that their doctors didn't really listen to what they had to say.

2: It gives the patient the opportunity to correct you if there's been a miscommunication.

3: The process of paraphrasing helps to build rapport with the patient.

If you want patient communication that works start paraphrasing today and watch your practice grow!