I remember this conversion coming up in college as a chiropractic student. In class we were talking about some of the different ways people practiced and how different people charged their clients.
One of the lecturers said those who don’t pay, don’t stay!
He explained that to mean when people did not pay for care, that they would almost never be good clients.
I found this hard to believe, and often (especially when I first started my practice) gave people in financially challenging places some free care to help them out…
Sadly after doing this for about 6 years!!! I realized it simply does not work. When I gave clients care for free, they would very rarely be committed. They would not show up to all their appointments and would not follow up on the ‘homework’ exercises at the same level. I even offered cheaper care as an option too – that also had a negative outcome.
What can I say… Human psychology is interesting.
People tend to value what is more expensive. There have been lots of studies done to prove this.
ALL my clients who managed to pay when they struggled (some really have struggled, but saved $5 a week for 6 months if needed!, used credit cards, used savings, others had family help etc) but these people had a different commitment! A greater hunger to make the change.. and they did.
Comparing the two were chalk and cheese.
I simply won’t give care away for free anymore. It simply does not help the person who is seeking it. I am occasionally open for an exchange – I had one lady who cleaned my office for me as a trade, one homeless man once traded me Bread he got from a Baker at the end of the day 🙂 – and by the way – the bagels were AMAZING!!
But I won’t give it away for free… Saying that, if the person is hungry for help and really has no money… My suggestion is to start with going to the library and getting a loan of my book 🙂 that will cost you nothing and if you put the work in, will change your life.
Putting money aside, what I would love to say is that I believe the biggest factor in someone’s success in helping them break out of anxious patterns, is a strong desire for something new! and with that a commitment to make it happen. But I will talk more about this in another Blog 🙂