How to Execute a High Quality Foundational Assessment

Overview

Here is part two of our Foundational Assessment two-part series. Last week we talked about the overall importance of the Foundational Assessment and how to talk to your patients about it. This week, we're going to be talking about how it should be executed. 

Before the Assessment

The first step of the Foundational Assessment actually comes at the end of the Discovery Call. After the Discovery Call concludes, if a patient is interested in continuing treatment, they first have to pay for the Foundational Assessment. To protect your business from losing money, it’s important to collect payment before you take any further steps. Once they pay for the Foundational Assessment, then you should send them a welcome email where their next steps are outlined.

Their first step is that they will need to register with your Electronic Medical Record. Once they are registered for the EMR, then they'll be prompted to fill out their medical history, their symptom questionnaire, their surgical history, and any other information you may need. Once they have completed that piece of it, then you will be notified as the provider, and you will review their chart. What I typically do for every patient is go through their history and make note of any information that might be useful during the assessment. I also start to fill out their diagnostic code. Once I have reviewed all of that, then I upload the bloodwork that I would like to see prior to their appointment. The patient then will go and get their blood tested, and once you get the results, you can begin to schedule the Foundational Assessment appointment. Waiting until you have the results is important because it means that you will actually have the information you need for the Foundational Assessment before you get there. 

During the Assessment

When the time comes for the actual appointment, you should have it set up in a way where you can clearly display information to the patient. If it’s a virtual appointment, you could have a second monitor that you share the screen of, or, if it’s in person, you could have a big screen in the room that you could use to display their information.

What we use to show the patient their information is the Living Matrix. The reason I use the Living Matrix in addition to Cerbo, the EMR that we use, is that the Living Matrix software allows us to present the information in an aesthetically appealing way that is also easy to understand to someone without experience in the medical field. It also makes the patient feel as if their treatment is designed specifically for them, and isn’t just some impersonal one-size-fits-all approach.

Once they sit down for the appointment, I start by giving them a broad overview of what’s going to happen, and then I fill in the details later. When going through this assessment, it’s important that it’s not just you monologuing to them; it should be a conversation. It’s absolutely critical that the patient feels that they’re heard and that you truly understand their issues.

After going through the actual 90-minute appointment, you should have at least gone over what they should expect in terms of recommendations. You don’t have to have them fully written out immediately, and that gives you time to fully organize your thoughts and not operate under a time crunch. It’s also important that after the Foundational Assessment you schedule their appointments with a health coach and a therapist. These appointments should not be for the same day as the Assessment, since that will likely just leave your patient feeling overwhelmed. The follow-ups should probably be within three to five days of the Assessment. The follow up with the health coach will mostly focus on what different lifestyle changes they could make to improve their life, and the one with the therapist will be addressing how they feel about these major changes they’re making to their life and just providing support and dealing with the ramifications of this shift. 

Moving to the Membership

If the patient doesn’t choose to immediately move on to a membership after the Foundational Assessment, we’ll send them email reminders asking whether they’d like to continue. For two months after the Foundational Assessment we’ll continue reminding them intermittently, and if they choose to go forward, we’ll send them their advanced kits and other things they’ll need for the membership. If they choose not to move on, we give them a discontinuation of care letter to make sure they have a proper handoff to their primary care physician.

Within the Incubator, we give you the tools to execute this seamlessly. We give you all the emails, the charts, the communication, the tracking, everything like that, because we want to ensure that you can operate as efficiently as possible. We take care of the communication so you can focus on what’s really important, the appointment.

I hope this was helpful for you, and if you want to talk about this more, you can set up an appointment with me anytime! Click the link below to do so. 

Schedule and Appointment with Linda

Hope you are having a great day, and thanks for reading!