Technology for a new millennium for anyone interested in spreading the chiropractic message.

July 2000

We encourage you to forward this newsletter to other chiropractic colleagues.
Please visit our Web site at www.nowyouknow.net 
Our email address infoage@nowyouknow.net 

In this issue:

• Now You Know Offers Rest of Year Free Program

• Uses for Email In a Chiropractic Office

• Internet Can Improve Physician-Patient Relationship

• What Internet Stuff Do We Recommend?

• Internet Tid-Bits

• Now You Know News

Now You Know Offers Rest of Year Free Program

Now You Know is offering a great deal for new subscribers to either our web site service, our email newsletter service or both.  Anyone subscribing to either or both of our services , pays the initial setup charges and one quarter of their service, will receive the rest of 2000 for FREE!  This means up to three free months of service!  If you are considering one of the NYK services, the sooner you act the more free time you get.  Each day you delay means one less free day of Internet presence for your office and chiropractic.  For more details you can call us at 678-570-7750.

Uses for Email In a Chiropractic Office

In case you are wondering what good email could ever be in your office consider these:

• A new patient email sent to new patients the same day they start care thanking them for trusting you with their health.

• Birthday emails, Anniversary emails, other special occasions.

• Thank you for referral email sent to a patient who refers someone else into your office.

• We Miss You emails sent to patients who miss appointments or who have not been in for care in a while.

• Specific situation emails.  These are emails that cover certain subjects that come up from the patient like when they feel better, or worse.

• Re-examination update emails.  How about sending patients emails after they have a re-exam to affirm your commitment to them and their health.  Be careful here not to discuss their specific condition unless you are certain only they will read the email.

• Special office announcements or events.  Maybe you are having a "Kids Day" or open house.  Email is a good way to let your patient base know what you are doing.

After reading this list you may say that it is much more work than you want.  But keep in mind you can create most of these emails once, save them and have a staff person fill in the names and specific information for each email.  Your patient base is your greatest source of new patients.  Why not communicate with them more effectively and more often than you are doing now?  What do you think the result would be?

Internet Can Improve Physician-Patient Relationship

The above headline came from NEW YORK, Apr 27 Reuters Health.  In that article Dr. Daniel Sands discusses "informational asymmetry" as being dead. This means that no longer do patients know far less than their doctor about their health situation.  Dr Sands recommends to his MD colleagues that they embrace the new technology because he believes an educated patient is a better patient. Sands also recommends e-mail as an effective way for physicians to deliver information to their patients.

Probably the most telling part of the article was the closing where a warning was issued to the medical community.  This warning should also not go unheeded by we chiropractors. The article closes with: "Physicians who resolutely refuse to join the Internet revolution may find that patients begin to "vote with their feet," healthcare consultant Dr. Stan Bernard, president of Bernard Associates, cautioned. About one-third of patients who use the Internet indicate that they would change their physician if he or she "would not interact with them" online."

What Internet Stuff Do We Recommend?

Quite often we get questions from chiropractors as to what email programs to use, what ISP (Internet Service Provider) to use and other such questions.  Let me say that I do not have any stock in any of these companies (although I wish I had gotten some years ago), but here are my recommendations.

• ISP: High speed all the way baby!  If you can get yourself "Broad Band" from your cable company or "DSL" or "ISDN" from your phone company, go for it.  The faster the connection speed the more enjoyable your Internet experience will be. I do not recommend AOL because their email is not in the same html format that everyone else uses.  This means that you do not  always see email the way it was originally sent.

• Email Program: Microsoft Outlook 2000.  This program is by far the best at handling large email lists, multiple ISPs, and all sorts of situations that you might ever use in a chiropractic office.  This is a larger and more versatile version of Outlook Express which comes with Windows programs.

• Internet Browser: Microsoft Explorer version 5.  Although Netscape is very good, and due to come out with a new version 6.0 (can be downloaded at: http://www.netscape.com/download/previewrelease.html?cp=djusea),  that may be one-up on Explorer, as of right now I like Explorer as a standard.  Features are good, and it comes with Windows anyway, unless the Feds have anything to say about it.

• Web Publishing: Microsoft Front Page 2000.  No I am not a Microsoft salesperson, but I do know ease of use and Front Page is for those who want to try their hand at self publishing and do not want to learn code, or are not that keen on an entirely new program.  Again, more features than Front Page Express, (which is included in the freely downloadable Internet Explorer Suite), Front Page gives a good combination of features with user friendly procedures.  There are programs that will blow it away with dazzle, but you might need a year to learn them.

Internet Tid-Bits

For that shrinking number of chiropractors who may still believe that they may not need to be involved with the Internet, we offer these statistics.

• By 2000, 50% of all Americans will use the Internet daily. 

• A recent study showed that 66% of all Americans would like to vote on the Internet. Source: www.internetvoting.com 

• US companies generated US$301 billion in revenue last year from online-related goods and services. (University of Texas study)

• In the past year, the number or people using the Internet to help them shop has increased to 40%, up from 25% a year earlier, according to initial results of a J.D. Power and Associates survey

• Health issues, not weather or stock reports, are a major reason people now log on to the Internet. (NY Times August 1999)

• A survey of 10,000 physicians released in May of 1999 by Healtheon found that 33% had used e-mail at some point to communicate with patients, a 200% jump over the year before.

• 101 million adults in the U.S. -- roughly one-half of the U.S. adult population -- had used the Net by mid-99. More than 61% of home Internet users go online every day -- often several times a day

• Health care e-commerce is set to rocket from $6.4 billion in 1999 to $370 billion in 2004, according to a study by Forrester Research Inc

Now You Know News

Now You Know Web Site Gets Redesigned Look: If you have not visited for a while, please check out our redesigned site at www.nowyouknow.net. Our new home page has new graphics for our services and products as well as some special features. Holding your mouse over our pictures or buttons brings up a pop-up explanation of that link. Also easier to find are our subscriber pages, our free classifieds, information on our free giveaways, and our new "Free Stuff" page with links to freebies for chiropractors. Take a few minutes and look us over.

Free "My Mission For Today" Poster Now Available: NYK is giving away  5000 beautiful and inspirational color posters with the daily affirmation, "My Mission For Today".   This poster features the inspirational message over a red and gold sunrise.  These posters are absolutely free!  Is there a catch? Nope, all you have to do is get it from us in person at one of our many seminars or shows.  We do not mail these posters.  You have to see us to get one.  Check our web site under Free Poster to see the message and what it looks like.

Dates for the NYK "The Internet Practice" Seminars Filling Up!  One of the hottest topics in chiropractic today is how to use Internet Technology to grow your practice.  Well, we have the answer.  Our programs are given through various Councils and groups and available dates are going fast.  Several noteworthy dates are: Palmer Lyceum August 10 - 12 in Davenport, ChiroPediatric University, On The Road on Sept. 14 - 17 in Atlanta, and New Beginnings Sept 21 - 24 in Eatontown, New Jersey. We will also have a booth at Saturday Night Live in Knoxville on August 5th.  For more information on these dates and other dates please check our web site under "Our Seminars".  If your group is interested in hosting such a program please contact us.  To see further information on these programs please visit our site and click on "Our Seminars".

Web Sites with NYK Have Over 120 Consumer Pages!  Every Subscriber to NYK web sites automatically gets links on their site to over 120 pages of solid principled articles on chiropractic and health.  These articles are the most timely way to inform your patients about a chiropractic lifestyle.  All of these articles come from our highly acclaimed email newsletter service.  To see what patients think of these articles check our web site under "Patient Responses" to read just some of the thousands of emails doctors receive back from their patients after receiving the NYK email newsletter.  When reading these please remember that these patients believe their doctor wrote these newsletters.  Our Email Newsletter service is designed to look that way.

To find out more about the Now You Know services, please visit our Web site at: www.nowyouknow.net

Now You Know has even created a free CD-ROM that explains some of the NYK services.
For a free CD-ROM or any other information, please contact us at:
email nowyouknow@nowyouknow.net ,
call us at 678-570-7750
Now You Know at 3450 Velma Drive, Powder Springs, GA, 30127,

Please forward this newsletter to another chiropractic colleague.