The initial consultation is often the most important interaction you have with your clients. Not because you will achieve everything you need to achieve with your client, but because this is the time you will set the management up for success by developing rapport and educating your clients of the ongoing plan.
The following are some suggestions around how you might conduct an initial consultation with your client and where your AxIT may fit in.
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Initial client welcome (develop rapport with your clients)
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Subjective interview (initial history taking to develop ideas around what the client presentation actually is)
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Finish questioning with the two most important questions.
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What are your goals for coming to see us today? (give you the detail you need to refer everything back to).
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What are your expectations from coming and seeing us today? (gives insight on where you might need to meet the client in your service delivery)
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The initial appointment spiel: Designed to help onboard the client to the objective assessment process after the subjective history taking is completed.
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“At [business name] we like to use the latest assessment technology including the AxIT system with the people we work with so we can measure the true cause of why you’re here. We set numbers on your strength and power (flexibility, endurance, balance if possible) so we know exactly where you are at right now, and can track your progression to [goal], that way we know that we are on the right track and not just guessing with your health. Does that sound good to you?” (always finish this to get an affirmative answer from the client).
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Perform an initial assessment of the client as you would usually.
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Perform initial AxIT testing to introduce objective assessment and AxIT. Usually best to perform 1-2 tests in the initial session based on the movements that will likely show a difference from side to side. This is often a great time to utilize the Push-IT device as it can be used quickly and conveniently.
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Explain findings, and educate clients on what is going on. The more visuals you can use here the better.
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Perform intervention, often this will help reduce sensitivity if your client presents in an acute phase.
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Retesting of AxIT tests where there was a big discrepancy or deficiency, allows to show tangible improvement based on intervention and gives the opportunity to pump up for a “WOW” moment
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“Ok [name], so as you can see from the data here you were only generating X amount of force when we tested you previously when then did [intervention], and as you can see things improved X percentage. How great is that! That tells me [how does the intervention relate to the plan] so we need to keep doing more of that to help you achieve [goal].”
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Set out a management plan with the client going forward. A usual plan may be scheduling 2 appointments a week for the first 2 weeks of management. After the initial phase is completed booking in a Super Session Assessment is followed by a Programming Session scheduled for days after and then a Programming Session Review 1 week after this. Follow up for the first reassessment 4 weeks after the initial programming session and or engage in after-based services/packages.
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If the client presents with a sub-acute presentation that has been around for a long period of time and they have already sought treatment in the past without success you may skip straight to the assessment to show your point of difference and engage them in a new process.
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“Ok [name] so from what we’ve identified the issue we are dealing with is [why they are here]. Usually, this issue takes X amount of weeks to address so what we need to do is see you 2 x a week for the next 2 weeks to work on that with you which will give you the best chance of success in which I am going to [interventions etc].
However, you also told me that your main goal of coming to see me today is [goal]. This might take a little longer to achieve. Based on some of our objective assessments today I found [refer to findings on AxIT]. What we really need to do is also set a time when we can do further investigation of the root cause of [why they are here] by measuring the strength, power, and flexibility, etc etc of other areas that might be involved. That way we’re not guessing with your health. We can set you up with a plan to address the underlying issues and measure your progress to know that it’s effective. That sounds good, doesn’t it?
Let's put those times in for you now”
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Hopefully, these scripting ideas around how to conduct your initial consultations can give you some insight into the importance of objective assessment to set your clients up for success.