Dealing with the pain of rejection

Dr Tea:   0:01
Owners of a direct care practice are more likely to experience higher job satisfaction than the insurance based practice. And it's no wonder why direct care is independent of insurance. Patients pay the doctor directly for their expertise, the doctor gets full autonomy in how they care for patients and how they get paid. They have chosen this path with a love of medicine. This is the direct care way.

Dr Tea:   0:24
By listening to this podcast, you may even start to believe that you too can have a successful direct care practice. Come listen with an open mind as I share my personal journey and how I pivoted from an insurance based practice to direct care right in the middle of the pandemic. And the valuable lessons along the way. This podcast may be the very thing you need to revitalize your medical practice. I'm your host, owner of a direct care podiatry practice Dr. Tea Nguyen

Dr Tea:   0:52
So you're ready to make that offer your very first cash offer to a potential patient? And then they say no. Or they say, Let me think about it. Or let me talk it over with my spouse. And isn't it painful to get a rejection on your first offer, or even your 100th offer? In this episode, I'm going to share some tools that I use to deal with rejection. And it's really impossible to avoid the negative feelings of rejection. But it isn't so much the tools that I share with you here isn't really about avoiding those rejections as much as knowing how to recover from them.

Dr Tea:   1:34
The feeling of rejection does have its benefits, right? It alerts you to pay attention to something, but its purpose is meant to be momentary and even protective. So for example, if you have the sensation of pain, pain with your hand, put on a hot stove, that pain is intended to be a reflex so that you pull away rejection pain, same thing, there's a reason there's pain. But you need to figure out how to pull away and bounce back the first time a patient rejects your offer, or your package or even your service, it's going to sting. And it's probably going to continue to sting. As you continue to make offers, the only way to avoid it is to never make an offer. But if you never make an offer, you don't make a sale. However, the more you understand why the other person didn't buy why they rejected the offer in the first place, then you're in a better position to negotiate. They may be saying no right now, at this moment. But that's not indefinite.

Dr Tea:   2:35
They can change their mind later. And think about it. How often was something offered to you? And you said no, the first time maybe the first couple of times. But when you finally needed it, you said yes. So look at the offers you provide on a continuum as a point of negotiation. And this is how you're going to deal with the pain that's associated with the rejection. You don't want to sit in pain, and use it as an excuse to never give an offer to never again, put yourself out there to help somebody who truly needs your help. That's not what you want to do with that information. That pain is really a lesson. And the more you encounter them, the more you deal with them, the faster you'll bounce back, trust me on this one.

Dr Tea:   3:17
So how quickly you recover from the pain of rejection has to do with how much experience that you've had. And the weight of that circumstance, a differentiator of world class leaders and athletes is really their ability to recover from a negative emotion, like the goal that they didn't meet or the pain of perceived failure. So how do you apply what world class athletes do in your private practice so that you can start feeling centered again and continue to offer your services to people who need it.

Dr Tea:   3:48
This is an easy four step process on how to deal with the pain of rejection. Number one, when you're in business, and especially in a direct care practice, you'll just have to expect rejection to come, rejection will come in the form of an objection, they won't take on your offer, they won't buy as soon as you offer it. But if you expect that it makes it really easy to deal with it, it's when you come blindsided or it's unexpected that kind of stops you in your track, right. But if you expect that it's just a part of your business of any business, whether you're a cash practice or insurance based, people are going to have their objections, and that's really on them. It doesn't have a whole lot to do with you. People will prioritize where they want to spend their money, but it's not really your duty to tell them where to spend it. It's only your duty to tell them what you have to offer. And then let them decide if that's how they want to spend their dollars. So just expect that process of rejection or objection to your offer to be part of the routine number two, now that you know to expect it, plan for a response maybe when you offered it Your service or a product, they didn't really get it the first time, maybe they didn't understand what the value is to invest in their own health.

Dr Tea:   5:08
And so plant for the response, what are they often saying, a really common thing patients will ask is, is this covered by insurance? So you should be ready on responding to that I have a couple of things in your back pocket to respond to does insurance pay for that. So for the services, I provide the preventive ones, the non surgical options, the injectables, a lot of these are not covered by insurance. And I tell them exactly that. Because if you don't tell them that it's not covered by insurance, then they'll think that it's covered by insurance, and they'll go somewhere else, and they'll be disappointed somewhere else. So you might as well give them all the information that you know, so that it helps them make a decision.

Dr Tea:   5:48
Something you can say is insurance doesn't cover this service, whether it's here or somewhere else. And they may even say why not. And you don't have to make up anything at all, you can just say, I don't know, you can call your insurance. And just leave it at that we should never have to justify why insurance do things the way that they do. It's, it's on them. It's their business, we have our business, which is to help patients, give them information so that they can make an informed decision about their health care. Another response is something like I have to check with my spouse. And instead of saying, Okay, fine, that sounds fine. You might want to start digging deeper, like, Oh, what is it that you want to ask your spouse? Do you think your spouse would want you to get better? You came in here for a reason today. Do you want to address that? Now? Do you really want to wait to solve this problem? When I can just do it for you here right now? You want to get curious as to where they are, because sometimes they're hiding behind their spouse, or they're hiding behind more questions simply because they they don't want to say no directly to your face. And so they're gonna want to be nice about it.

Dr Tea:   6:54
They don't want a confrontation, they really want to escape you probably at some point, right? And you probably want to escape them. Because it's awkward to sell sometimes, especially in the beginning. But if you get into the place of curiosity and wonder, you know, out loud, say, Hey, I wonder if I answered all of your questions. Do you have anything else that needs clarification? Just pause and take a moment and dig a little bit deeper as to why they are hesitating. You can even ask them? Is there a reason that you're hesitating? This seems like a straightforward solution for the problem you came in for. And you know, what I learned is that patients don't always share with you when they're confused. They may nod their head in agreement, but they may not really understand the full scope of the value that you offer.

Dr Tea:   7:41
So make sure that you always circle back to well, you came here for this particular reason, I have a very easy, very quick solution that's nonsurgical to offer you right here, would you like to take that on? So that's really number three is getting curious to understand where they're coming from, and realize that if it's not a yes, it's an objection. It's a point of negotiation. And you don't have to be pushy about this at all. If you truly get curious as to why they're saying they want to ask their spouse clarify with them. Is it the money? Is it the time? Are there some things that are unclear that you need to know more about before you leave the office, some people just leave and they Google stuff, and then they get confused, and then they never make another appointment? So just make sure you take the time to answer their questions clearly, and succinctly.

Dr Tea:   8:30
And then number four, on how to deal with the pain of rejection is keep practicing, I ran across a story online about this gentleman who was putting himself in these situations, to feel the rejection, because he said the more he got rejected, he was hoping that he would build a thicker skin and that they were hurt less. And I don't know if this story is real or not, I didn't really dig into it. But I just thought the story The concept was very interesting. And there is some truth to that the more you expose yourself to something that is painful, the more you can better be conditioned for it. So there is some truth to that experience. The more you experience, the objection, the more you experience and expect for those objections, you just become more skilled at dealing with it. And that's the whole point is to know how to deal with those emotions, those feelings that are negative and turn them around and get curious about it so that you can start moving forward and helping your patients with their treatment plan.

Dr Tea:   9:28
There has been many instances where patients say no or they don't want to or or it's too expensive, you know, they'll say anything, but then they'll come back later. There's been many instances where I have patients who say no for a variety of reasons they want to go check back with their in network doctors, something that's covered by insurance, whatever it is right, but they come back. I've had several patients tell me that they stopped seeing me when I opted out went somewhere else and was dissatisfied and some have even said I budgeted to be able to see you I saved money to see you. Because that's how important your care is to them. So always leave the door open for future opportunities. It might be a no now, but clarify, give them the information and then let them marinate in it. leave that door open because you never know when they're going to come back. So what do you do from here? Start making those offers, start seeing how people respond when they are not saying a yes. What are they saying create the template and practice them. That's all I have for today. I look forward to being with you next week. Take care.

Dr Tea:   10:33
Thank you so much for being here with me. If you enjoyed this episode, don't want to hear more. Please like, share and subscribe. So more people like you can have access to another way of practicing medicine, that direct care way. Let's connect find my info in the show notes and send me your questions. That might be the topic for future episodes.

Dr Tea:   10:53
And lastly, if you remember nothing else, remember this be the energy you want to attract. See you next time