I am going to divert a little from my usual fare of how to improve your chiropractic billing, coding, documentation and collections and focus simply on how to improve your business. Specifically, I would like to share with you some of the BEST ways I have observed in building, growing or tweaking your business for maximum results and profitability.
What gives me the audacity to think that I know it all – or even that I possess the keys to such a secret kingdom? Could it all be a case of poetic license? For those of you who were fortunate enough to have not majored in literature in college, keep reading so I may explain (with immediate apologies to my former English lit and writing professors who need a jug of Maalox to get through this awful sentence structure).
The First Rule of Branding
The first reason I can claim to write about this topic is that I am writing about this topic. And since these are my fingers dancing across the keys and not yours, I am afforded some sort of grand position of being able to say what I want. While that sounds rather snotty, snooty and not very much like a good reason for authority, there is a kernel of truth amidst all this candy corn: the “rules” of marketing permit one to create an image for the public based (in some cases) more on how you wish to position the product or service you are selling, than actual fact or truth.
You will find interesting examples of various “kings” or “queens” or “goddess” of pop, rock or some cultural phenomenon that have simply branded themselves with these titles. Slogans mentioning such things as “good hands” or “trying harder” or “America’s #1 ___” were not necessarily latched on to their respective owners because they were an accurate descriptor or even the result of some national poll. They were the brilliant genius of some marketing team deep in the bowels of their corporate hideouts.
Chiropractic is no different. Witness the host of chiropractic gurus who lay claim to the titles “marketing maven,” “new patient generator,” or other such puffery. You will soon find that these monikers were not thrust upon them by legions of adoring fans, but were more likely tagged after a few pints of Guinness with their buddies that thought it sounded like a good idea.
To come to my first long-winded point, you get to create the perception of who you are to your community. And lesson #1 is the chiropractic MBA program should be that you need to create a perception of who you are to your community in order to distinguish yourself from your fellow chiropractic brethren, from MD’s, PT’s and anyone else that could potentially steer your clients elsewhere. My point is not to create some hypercompetitiveness among chiropractors. In fact, our techniques and methodology vary so much, the strategic chiropractor has little reason to worry about his neighboring chiropractor(s) at all.
Don’t Simply Follow the Herd
This brings me to my second point regarding chiropractic business success. You must position your clinic strategically and approach the marketplace from a clear position of strength. There is a reason that my business name is The Strategic Chiropractor. It revolves around the fact that I aim to teach chiropractors how to better their practice in a deliberate, methodical, planned out – strategic – ways rather than the haphazard or one-size-fits-all slop that pervades our profession.
And so it saddens me when I hear chiropractors moaning that there are too many DC’s in their town. All this tells me is that they have failed to distinguish their business from other chiropractic businesses in any meaningful manner. In reality, they probably never thought about what makes them different than any other form of health care either. Like it or not folks, the days are loooong over when you can throw up your shingle, open your doors and expect patients to waltz in.
Similarly, just doing what every other chiropractor is doing with the latest marketing gimmick or purchasing the hottest new piece of equipment will not necessarily equate to success for you either. This is why so many of you have expressed frustration with chiropractic coaching programs which serve you little in the way of tangible practical value but offer a platform for some crusty chiropractor to tell you how great he was (note was, not is – many haven’t practiced for 10+ years) and in order to build your practice, you must mimic his greatness. Furthermore, how can the same ad possibly work in every city and town across the country or the globe without diminishing its uniqueness or effectiveness? Not to mention that it may not even remotely match your personal style.
Strategic Planning IS Required
The opposite of all this is to formulate a strategic approach to how you will run your business. Unfortunately, this is not as glamorous as doing an infomercial, but it doesn’t automatically eliminate that idea either. It may not require you to run an ad that will simply “kill” but if the return on your investment pans out well, proper strategy may absolutely incline you to run such an ad.
You see, thinking strategically about your business requires time and effort and planning rather than slapping something together and seeing how it works, regardless of the message it may convey. The strategic chiropractor realizes that he must consider the consequences of running a cheap or free special, slightly shady advertising or shoddy billing practices and weighing them with the “penalties” of success or failure.
I say “penalties” of success because the wrong ad can bring in the wrong patient. Chiropractors who simply to try increase their numbers without consideration for the type of patients they are bringing into the clinic run the risk of having a busy practice that can’t possibly be a profitable one. Perhaps worst of all is a doc who has built a successful practice that was not really a good fit for their personal style or goals. In other words, they have trapped themselves and now are miserably comfortable in a financial fortress of their own making. So, yes, there can be penalties associated with the “wrong” methods to achieve success.
The Penalties of Failure
Certainly, there are also “penalties” to consider for failure but they are not always what you think. Most docs imagine a practice that never gets off the ground or dives into the toilet as failure. While this may be accurate, the failure may be due to a lack of planning. Serving the wrong market. Thinking that the location makes patients show up. Failure to differentiate.
While these will produce failure, there is a darker underbelly that we need to avoid as well. It is failure to adhere to laws, rules and regulations. The clinic that has fraudulently billed, the doctor who uses false advertising or the chiropractor who doesn’t bother to document his services properly are also failures in a sense. But these docs not only fail themselves, they leave their stain on the rest of the profession as well and make it worse for the rest of the good, honest, ethical and law-abiding doctors to practice in their tainted communities.
Every day, I get news items on chiropractors who are being fined, jailed, disciplined, or put on probation for various infractions that all revolve around the fact that the chiropractor failed to engage true strategic thinking about their business. It could happen no other way.
After all, is it a sound business strategy to double bill the state work comp program for $11,000 in excess services when the penalty is 5 years in jail and/or a $20,000 fine? Is appearing before your state board to defend your ad that claimed that a certain treatment has a 94% effectiveness an effective and strategic use of your time? Are you paid well enough that you want to write reports to justify all your treatments because your documentation was so shoddy? Is it a good business strategy to “build it and they will come” when you don’t really know what “it” is that you are building nor can you define who the “they” is that will come?
The Best Chiropractic Strategies for 2010
While I may be able to employ poetic license to get you to read an article that promises the best business ideas for 2010 and then delivers something slightly different, your patients and community may not tolerate such a slight of hand trick. But that is exactly what many of us are doing when we utilize poor advertising methods, non-existent business planning, substandard documentation, slippery billing practices and other short-sighted methods that are aimed at producing patients and income.
When it comes down to it, the best chiropractic business and practice management strategies for 2010 are quite simple to understand, but challenging to navigate. In my opinion, they would include the following:
- The best business strategy for 2010 is one that will take you beyond 2010. Never do anything that goes against your long term goals to achieve short term gain.
- The best practice management strategy is one that reflects who you are and what you are trying to achieve. First, that pre-supposes you have a strategy in place and aren’t just practicing in practice. Second, it necessitates that your strategy fits you well and isn’t one that some coach slapped upon you. DC’s who memorize scripts or engage in marketing activities that don’t match their personality are doomed to failure or uncomfortable success. One of the reasons you own your own business is to exercise creative control, not to don someone else’s leisure suit from the 70’s to see if it works for you. Finally, this best practice management strategy also implies that you know who the strategy is for. You cannot serve everyone and you don’t have the budget to advertise to the world either. Instead, you must define your niche of the chiropractic market and serve it well.
I have yet to see a business fail that has employed the above two ingredients. Now that you have the recipe, add some of your own seasoning to these ingredients and create your own chiropractic success!
If you are a little uncertain of how exactly to mix these ingredients together, perhaps it’s time you get some experienced assistance. While I don’t claim to be an expert chef, I have seen enough in the way of chiropractic success to be able to spot a recipe for success or disaster. Quite frankly, some of you are leaving so much money on the table due to your billing and coding procedures that profits are just around the corner – if you only knew which corner to turn. Others are playing with a house of cards due to their substandard documentation and risk their entire business and livelihood with each claim you submit. And then, there are some of you working much too hard in a business model that is not sound or doesn’t fit — honestly, you just need to work smarter!
Should an objective opinion about your practice be something that you are open to, fill out my Practice Analysis Questionnaire, send it in and I will be glad to provide you with a no charge, no obligation review of your practice and how you may be able to improve your results.
Until then, keep cooking!
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