Practice Efficiency, Practice Management
Tips for Dealing with Parents of Pediatric Patients
When you’ve got pediatric patients coming into your practice, you and your team need to realize that the parent is the most important person in the parent-child-therapist relationship. If you can’t get that person on board with the treatment plan, you’re not going to be able to make a difference in that child’s life. For that reason, you should make sure that your team has this perspective on the importance of the parent.
Each parent has to have a good understanding of the goals of their child’s care. Your parents’ involvement and understanding in treatment plans have everything to do with your “percent of patient arrival” (also known as “arrival rate”) statistic.
Important Factors in Keeping Pediatric Patients in Care
There are a number of points that all add up to whether or not a parent will keep their child in treatment. Your staff need to be trained to deal with each point.
- You and your staff need to understand all the reasons that families cancel appointments.
- Insurance has to be handled so the child continues to have coverage.
- Benefits must be accurately communicated to the parent.
- Parents need to have money to cover their copay and deductible.
- They need to place a greater value on the care than the money they must give your practice.
As a side note, money in January is tighter than any other time of the year because families are paying Christmas bills. Of course a child’s treatment is important anytime of the year, but in January when holiday bills are coming in, you might see an increased number of cancellations. Parents might tell you that they just can’t afford that deductible or that copay.
If you can find funding sources in your community, you may be able to eliminate that barrier for the family. But before this, you have to make sure families understand the value of care and the progress that the child is making.
Help Families Understand Their Child’s Treatment Time Frame
Parents often need help understanding the length of time it’s going to take to get their child to their goal. That’s often a really hard thing to estimate. Some families might think that their 15-month-old child who’s not sitting might be walking in eight weeks. I’ll explain the reality like this:
“Look, we’re looking at a year or more to get to this walking stage. I hope it’s sooner and I’m going to work so hard to make it be sooner, and I’m going to count on you to work on it at home too. But I just want you to be realistic and I want you to be all in with me. Together, all of us are going to work to try and help this beautiful child of yours, but it’s going to be a year or more, right?”
Your job is to get them on board so they really understand that this is a long-term goal, not a short-term goal.
Getting your parents on board this way is how you control your percent of arrival. Train your staff to be able to deal with all these points related to parents being able to bring their children to your practice and your percent of arrival will improve.
Don’t Forget to Improve Your Skills, Too!
If you’re going to train your staff to be more effective in handling parents as well as patients, don’t overlook your own training. You need to expand your own management skills as you bring your staff’s skills along, too. You can get help from our Lemonade Library. Get logged in and look for Lemonades on team management.
About Diane Crecelius
Diane Crecelius is a physical therapist and founder of a multi-million-dollar, multi-location practice with well over 3,000 visits per week and 200 staff! In the past several years, Diane has worked tirelessly to support Peds-A-Palooza® Community & Conferences and the success of Private Practice Owners. Diane has presented at nearly every Peds-A-Palooza live and virtual conference since the first sold-out conference in 2018. Her extensive knowledge derives from her decades in practice and from being trained and consulted by Survival Strategies, Inc. She uses this training to help Private Practice Owners learn how to thrive and expand while keeping their stress low.
