The 37 Percent Solution

By Donald M. Petersen Jr., BS, HCD(hc), FICC(h), Publisher

The "CAM No Mo'" article on the front page of this issue informs you that the number of people who have tried various forms of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) has almost doubled in the last 10 years. When compared to the 1990 and 1997 surveys conducted by Dr. David Eisenberg,^1,2 we see an exciting trend for alternative care, but a rather disturbing one for chiropractic.

In 1990,¹ Dr. Eisenberg shocked the medical establishment with his findings: one third (33.8 percent) of U.S. adults had been to an alternative care provider. (At that time, Dr. Eisenberg called it "unconventional medicine.") During that same year, his figures showed that 10.1 percent of the adult U.S. population visited a doctor of chiropractic.

Dr. Eisenberg conducted his survey again in 1997.² He noted that the use of "alternative medicine" (his "new" term) had risen dramatically from 33.8 to 42.1 percent, an increase of almost 25 percent; and visits to alternative care providers had increased from 36.3 to 46.3 percent (a 27.5 percent increase). In short, about one out of every two people had visited an alternative care provider.

Ironically, while alternative care increased a whopping 27.5 percent, the percentage of the population who had visited a doctor of chiropractic over the last 12 months had only increased from 10.1 to 11 percent, an increase more than offset by the number of chiropractors graduating over the seven-year period.

A new survey³ conducted via the internet by InterSurvey tells us what may sound like good news, but it is really bad news: Thirty-seven percent of the U.S. population has "tried" chiropractic, but the number of these people that see their doctor of chiropractic every year is still somewhere under 15 percent.

Think about the survey's implications: If over 68 million people have tried chiropractic, that works out to 1,141 patients per doctor (not including pediatric patients)! Based on these figures, I pose these questions about the chiropractic patient population:

• Do you have 1,141 patients who see you on a regular basis? (Wouldn't that be nice?)

• Does this profession have over 68 million advocates demanding that chiropractic care be covered by every health care plan in the nation?

• Where are they?

• What did we do with them?

• Did we fail to teach them about chiropractic? Are they waiting for their next sore back "episode"?

• Are we waiting for them to call us - or are they waiting for us to call them?

If chiropractors have collectively seen 37 percent of the U.S. population but have kept only about 40 percent of those as patients, what can practitioners do differently with the next one million new patients?

I ask these questions to encourage or remind you to take the necessary actions to educate your patients about the lifetime value of chiropractic. No matter what your philosophy, your patients should be seeing you at least once per year. (For most of us, the appropriate frequency is closer to once per month.) Spines have to be as important as teeth.

"What's My Motivation?"

Let's look at what drives people to your office. The InterSurvey study tells you something that you could pay thousands of dollars to learn from a consultant:

Reasons People Try Alternative Care (including chiropractic)

• Recommendation from friend or family member - 62%

• Traditional treatments not working - 28%

• Complement a health routine - 23%

• Recommendation from a doctor - 22%

• Information from newspaper, magazine or internet source - 20%

This is a simple but important message:

1. Encourage and empower your current patients to refer. 2. Teach people how chiropractic is an integral part of a healthy lifestyle. 3. Network with other doctors of all specialties in your community. 4. Write and submit articles to your local newspaper or community magazines. 5. Establish an informative website.

This survey isn't a consultant talking, but an unbiased survey that is delivering good and bad news. Millions of people are trying different forms of alternative care, however, the chiropractic profession in the U.S. still lacks an effective, coordinated marketing campaign to take advantage of this trend. (This doesn't hold true for chiropractors in a number of other countries.)

I've given you just a few things you can do to increase your patient base and your number of visits per month. It takes extra work, but the trend is undeniably going our way. It's up to you to take advantage of it.

References

1. Eisenberg DM, Kessler RC, Foster C, Norlock FE, Calkins DR, Delbanco TL. Unconventional medicine in the United States. N Engl J Med 1993;328:246-52.

    

2. Eisenberg DM, Davis RB, Ettnes SL, Appel S, Wilkey S, Van Rompay MV, Kessler RC. Trends in alternative medicine use in the United States, 1990-1997. JAMA 1998;280:1569-1575.

    

3. The InterSurvey study was conducted on the web between April 19 and May 3, 2000. The survey is based on a nationally representative sample of 1,148 adults. The margin of error has a 95 percent certainty of being +/- 2.9 percentage points. InterSurvey (http://www.intersurvey.com ) was founded by two Stanford University professors to "combine first-class science with the power of the internet to revolutionize the collection of information on public attitudes and behavior."

DMP Jr.

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