Smooth and professional interactions are the key to your patients seeing success during their treatments. Miscommunication or unprofessional communication can cause major problems for patients and providers. However, proper and professional communication can have immensely positive impacts on both your staff and your patients.

If you feel like the communication at your PT clinic with your staff and between your staff and patients is falling short or feeling ineffective, check out these communication tips.

1) Pause

When you first meet a new patient you are probably scrambling to get their full story. You are probably asking things like, medical history, all about their issue, and any other additional medical information. You aren’t rushing through this to be rude, you just want to help them as fast as you can and line out a treatment plan. But in all of this is a powerful moment. A moment to pause. Pausing allows you to collect your thoughts, the information, and make a plan that makes sense for the individual. View pauses as a way to give your best self to your patients.

 2) Ask Patients Personal Questions

Beyond just what do you do for work, asking them personal questions about what they like, dislike, and what they do for fun helps to develop a deeper provider and patient relationship. This can help you further develop a treatment plan that they love. Many patients get discouraged during treatment because they find it boring, painful, difficult or a combination of all three. Getting to know a patient on a more personal level helps to deepen your rapport between each other which can assist in ensuring their treatment success.

3) Limit the Fancy Jargon

Your patients probably didn’t spend as much time in school learning about human anatomy as you did. Which means the big fancy words may sound scary or be confusing for them to remember. Use layman terms to describe what’s going on, treatment plans, and any thing else that may be useful to them. It’s better that they understand what’s going on rather than knowing an exact textbook name and definition.