There is no doubt that between the economy and the call for health care reform that chiropractic is in a precarious position. Perhaps it is time for chiropractors to take some risks in their practice building efforts. One risk that you might consider taking is to make it easier, less risky, for potential new practice members to get under chiropractic care. What are some of the hurdles that we put in place, obstacles that practice members have to get around and that cause people to put off getting into the office either regularly or at all?
The first is cost. Now I know it is not a good time to encourage you to lower your fees but if people are having financial problems, especially in getting chiropractic care perhaps now is a good time to try something different. It surely will not lose you any practice members, and it may bring in enough new people to make up for the lower revenue. Your local McDonalds sells a lot more hamburgers and makes a lot more money than does your local diner that charges $6.00 for a hamburger. That will help you serve more people. If it doesn’t work out you can always raise them again.
How about giving people incentives for coming in regularly, like a monthly or family fee? It is possible to take the whole family to McDonalds twice a week for hamburgers. You could not afford the local diner. (Keep in mind the issue is not quality of your care. If you cannot see more people and give the same quality of care, that is another issue.) How about making it easier to get in the office for the first time? Having a no-appointment necessary policy, extended office hours, and/or no high initial fee will absolutely bring more new practice members into the office. A few may be there just to see what chiropractic is all about and maybe they won’t stay too long but you get the opportunity to expose them to chiropractic and that’s as good as, even better than doing spinal screenings.
How about making your hours more convenient? How many times have you been disappointed that the post office or your bank or some other business didn’t make it more convenient for you as a customer. Don’t be like them. Have hours that work for your practice members or at least most of them. Sure you may have to work a little longer and harder but there are rewards to that. You get to see and to help more people, you get to further the understanding and utilization of chiropractic by more people.
How about finding ways to make your office more efficient, like considering having open hours, no appointment necessary? There are a number of things we can do even in today’s economy to make our practices bigger and better and make the world in general and the suffering public healthier and happier physically and economically. Give it some thought. Email us with your ideas. We would be happy to give you input.