The 7th most commonly mentioned new patient complaint: Feeling rushed.

Like privacy, we each have different perceptions of time. Since many patients think they’re buying facetime with you, visits that they perceive as hasty produce unhelpful perceptions:

Minimized – The patient’s symptoms have become serious enough to interrupt their life to seek professional help, so your brevity may suggest superficiality and that they aren’t being treated with the appropriate seriousness.

“Conveyor belt” – Some patients used this term as well as “being treated like a number” with an impersonal one size fits all cookie-cutter mindset.

Financially motivated – Others suspected the swiftness was driven by profit motives.

Emotionally unsatisfied – The subtext to many of these concerns revealed that they didn’t feel listened to.

A couple of suggestions: 1) Reserve enough time for proper onboarding, 2) speak less, listen more, and 3) be 100% present.

Think graceful swan. Perfectly composed, but underwater paddling madly.


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Bill Esteb, a passionate chiropractic advocate since 1981, brings a fresh perspective to the profession as Patient Media’s creative director and co-founder of Perfect Patients. With 12 insightful books examining the doctor-patient relationship, he inspires chiropractors worldwide as a chiropractic speaker, through his chiropractor coaching program, and consulting. Since 1999 Monday Morning Motivation has been emailed weekly to over 10,000 subscribers, sparking breakthroughs across the chiropractic community.

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