Thanksgiving is when your patients talk about their backs. Give them something to hand over
Your patients will sit with family who complain about the same neck and back pain. A 30-day referral plan for a chiropractic practice before the holidays.
Your patients are about to spend a long weekend with relatives who complain about their backs. Somebody's uncle will mention his sciatica over pie, and your patient will say "you should see my chiropractor," and then nothing will happen, because the uncle has no name, no number and no reason to call on Monday.
That conversation is the best referral you will get all year, and most practices leave it to chance. Here is how to spend the next 30 days so it ends with a booked new patient instead of a nod.
Week one: decide who you are asking
Not every patient will refer. The ones who will are already telling you so. They thank the front desk by name. They brought a spouse in once. They left you a review without being asked.
Pull a list of patients who are under active care or were seen in the last 90 days and who said something good in the last few months. For a practice seeing 120 visits a week, that list is usually 40 to 80 names. Mark the ten who send you the most people already. Those ten get a personal word from the doctor, not a card on the counter.
Also check one thing before you start: your state's rules on referral rewards. Many states, and federal rules for Medicare and Medicaid patients, limit what you can give someone for a referral. A thank-you note is always safe. A gift card or a free visit may not be. If you are not sure, skip the reward and keep the ask.
Week two: make the referral easy to carry
People do not remember URLs at a dinner table. They remember a card in their wallet or a text they can forward.
Make two things:
- A plain referral card. Practice name, the doctor's name, the phone number, the address and one sentence: "New patients are seen within the week." No coupon, no fine print. Print 250. The cost is usually $30 to $60.
- A forwardable text. Something a patient can send from their own phone in ten seconds: "This is the chiropractor I go to. They are good about getting new people in fast. [practice name], [phone], [link to your new patient page]."
Then decide where the link goes. If your website does not have one clear new patient page with insurance, first-visit price and a booking button, fix that first. The website essentials guide lists what that page needs.
Week three: ask out loud, the week before Thanksgiving
The ask works best at checkout, said by a person, the week before the holiday. Keep it short:
"Are you seeing family for Thanksgiving? If anyone there has been dealing with back or neck stuff, here are two cards. We can usually get new people in the same week."
Then text the forwardable message to every patient on your list the Monday of Thanksgiving week, with one line on top: "If anyone at your table this week needs a chiropractor, feel free to send them this."
Keep the doctor's ten best referrers separate. The doctor should mention it in the room during the adjustment, in their own words. That ask lands differently than one from the desk.
Week four: be ready when they call
A referral from a relative is a warm lead with a short memory. If the uncle calls on the Monday after Thanksgiving and gets voicemail, he will not call twice. Plan for the calls:
- Open three or four new patient slots in the first week of December and tell the front desk they are for referrals.
- Set up a missed-call text-back so anyone who calls during an adjustment hears back within minutes. The missed calls guide covers the setup, and the calculator shows what a missed new patient call is worth to you.
- Ask every new patient "who sent you?" and write it down. In January you will know which patients refer, and you can thank them properly.
Why reviews still matter for referrals
A referred patient still looks you up. The uncle will search your name before he calls, and what he sees decides whether the referral sticks.
The median chiropractic practice in our data has 15 Google reviews. The top quarter has 78 or more, and 20% have none at all. Ratings are high across the board: the average is 4.8 and 92.1% sit at 4.5 stars or better. So a good rating does not set you apart. A steady stream of recent reviews that mention specific problems does. If your count is near or below the median, add a review ask to the same checkout conversation. The review guide has the wording, and the benchmark report shows where you sit.
What this costs
A box of cards, a few texts, and two minutes of the doctor's time per patient. Compare that to a new patient from Google Ads, which the Google Ads guide puts at $80 to $300. If the plan brings in even four new patients, it has paid for itself many times over. If it brings in none, you are out about $50.
The holidays are also when schedules thin out, as the slow season plan explains. Referred patients who start care in early December help carry you into January.
The short version
Pick the patients who already like you. Give them a card and a text they can forward. Ask out loud the week before Thanksgiving. Hold slots open and answer every call the week after.
If you want the referral texts and missed-call setup done for you, the free 14-day trial covers any one service, no card: text or call (385) 213-7449.
Steven has spent the last several years running growth campaigns for local service businesses, chiropractors among them, and builds the benchmark datasets on this site from public Google listings. About the editor