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Lecoq Practice Development

Raising Sign-up rates:

Increasing the number of vision therapy signups: This is the most common objective among our clients. To be able to convert a parent from an uninformed and doubtful candidate into a committed, paid in full vision therapy case is a fundamental skill that every doctor and practice must master. Failure here means low VT enrollment numbers, poor completion rates and years of frustration by doctor and staff. It is also a cause of managed care "muscling" out VT.

What's the solution? Although it's important for doctors to be able to deliver the message during an exam so that patients get the value of and need for VT, it's not enough. In our system, we don't want the doctor to spend time with a patient unless they are already committed to VT. To accomplish this, we focus our training and structure on the staff. If the staff properly identifies and prepares candidates, the sign-up rate is naturally higher. (Set up a free consultation.)

What has people sign up for VT? We find that it generally takes between 1.5 to 3 hours of communication for a parent or adult patient to choose to enroll in VT. What pushes them over the brink is nearly always a combination of several factors:

1) They recognize that the signs and symptoms they're dealing with is probably vision related.

2) They talk with staff and doctor until they are certain that the problem is visual. This is usually a combination of probing, then predictive questions.

3) They dwell on their experience of dealing with the problem (or the child who has the problem) until their experience of frustration, aggravation, sadness emerges. In some approaches, you would seize on this fear to manipulate the patient. We don't like this form of manipulation and instead train you and your staff to simply listen empathetically and help the person get to what's really on their minds.

4) Finally, it's time, in the softest possible way, to invite the parent/patient to take direct action...to set an exam appointment, book a detailed or "perceptual" testing appointment, or to sign up for vision therapy.

R.T.E.C. This approach is what we call the R.T.E.C. Every client we've worked with appreciates that it is not only highly professional and effective, but that it's also very professional and humane. It's all about putting the patient's well-being before all other considerations. The R.T.E.C. gives anyone who uses it the ability to get to the heart of the true emotional issues, the issues with the child or for an adult patient that actually motivates them to say yes to therapy.

Overcoming Insurance Issues: If you wait until the sign-up session before handling this issue, it's very hard to overcome. We teach you instead a structured sequence of communications that handles this issue from the very first phone call. We encourage most clients to use the method to convert to 100 percent private pay. You and staff will learn to use the R.T.E.C. process at talks, during initial patient contacts, during each exam stage and during the sign-up consultation.

Not only that, but you'll also find you no longer have to carry the entire burden of enrolling therapy patients. Your staff will become a powerful source of new therapy enrollments.

Doubtful Dads? When both parents can't come in until the last enrollment conference, it's common for the parent who has missed the previous sessions to be full of doubt (usually the dad). Although we'll teach you how to overcome that, when it happens you'll find that after experiencing the step by step process we teach, the wife will be your strongest ally in helping dad to know VT is a must.

Triage is step one: We will teach you and your staff to detect and prepare all your therapy candidates during a process of triage. Not only will you no longer waste time on patients you "hope will sign up," you'll have patients who expect your therapy recommendation, know what it will cost, the time demands and how each step will work along the way.

Step-by-step-by-step: We'll teach you and your staff our amazing step by step intake and enrollment process. Our teaching method has staff not only become enthusiastic about adopting this "work smart, not hard" approach, you'll also see and hear them work out the details of how to put it in place. Many clients tell us they really liked is that our approach got all staff members excited about working on the same team.

Raise VT completion rates too: One key and exclusive step in our sign-up method is called the Goals Interview. The purpose of this is to identify precisely what patients/parents want from VT. We find that this staff-conducted interview dramatically increases the likelihood that patients will not only start, but also complete their full course of therapy.

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