Integrating MoneyGenerating "Things" into Practice
PRACTICE MANAGEMENT
Miles Bodzin
DC
As I sit here writing this article, it’s May, and we have been in quarantine since March. This topic was chosen months before all of this craziness in the world. The concept of creating revenue-generating “things” for your practice seems more relevant now than ever.
One has to be cautious when it comes to “things” that you bring into your practice to generate revenue. Most of the “things” I’ve seen in practices are nothing more than shiny objects that distract you from your number one income producer—providing chiropractic.
If the focus is on generating revenue, let’s make sure it’s with “things” that enhance chiropractic and generate a profit. After all, it’s not about who collects the most revenue but about who keeps the most profit.
The most profitable, successful practices all have one thing in common; they’re laser-focused on building patient loyalty. You see, when you have loyal patients, you don’t have to worry about “things” to generate revenue. These are the same practices that have been sailing through these challenging times.
Imagine growing your practice’s annual revenue every year, year after year. That’s exactly what happens when you do “things” that build patient loyalty. When you’re adding new practice members and not losing them on the back end, your revenue increases. It’s just that simple.
To really understand what goes into building patient loyalty, check out the February 2020 issue of The American Chiropractor where I laid out “The Four Pillars of Patient Loyalty.”
If you have “patient loyalty” handled, you can do some additional “things” to generate revenue. They either fall into “things” you can offer to sell to patients or “things” you can do to generate new patients.
Let’s dive in.
Massage as a New Patient Generator
If I told you there was a way to get your phone to ring every day with new people, and it would cost you nothing, would you be interested in that? Of course, you would! Oh, and it’ll generate a profit even if you don’t get a new patient from it. Sign me up!
A very successful revenue-generating, new-patient marketing system for our practice was the massage program. Now, I’m fully aware that I am writing this while massage is currently off the table for most states. Hopefully, massage will be able to be utilized again at the time of this publication.
When it comes to offering services like massage, most chiropractors are doing it wrong. The purpose of having a massage therapist in your practice is not to help with overhead (although it does a bit); not to generate revenue (although it does); and not there for the health benefits (although it does help).
The purpose of having a massage department in a practice is to generate new patients. If you keep that the focus, you will not be disappointed. That is exactly what a well-run massage therapy department can do for your practice when set up correctly.
In the simplest terms, this is how it works:
You’ll have a team of massage therapists as employees being managed by a department leader (usually the office manager). Each MT will work up to 15 hours per week. Seven days a week, you have two shifts a day offering massage. In my practice, I had as many as seven MTs on staff at a time.
The intention is to always have open appointment times so there’s availability when new patients call to book appointments. The idea is to make sure you can get them in for their massage appointment as soon as you can.
By the way, people are looking for a massage in a clinical setting like your practice. So when you market the massage to your communities, be sure to capitalize on that. If you market the massage like a “spa,” you will be no different from every other massage location.
Now, for the most important part, most massage therapists already know how to refer to chiropractic care, right? You will need to train your MTs to better recognize the need for chiropractic. So when they’re providing massage, they will recommend that the patient receive a chiropractic evaluation if necessary. This will be part of their job description.
Our experience with this was the following:
• The revenue generated from massages covered all the costs of running the massage department.
• We received calls nearly every day from new people wanting massage.
• 15 to 20% of the massage clients were referred for chiropractic.
• If we got 30 new massage clients, we ended up with five to six new patients.
• Those who did not come in for chiropractic were at least exposed to the practice for any future chiropractic needs.
Even if they are not ready to start taking advantage of chiropractic care just yet, it plants that seed. In doing so, our office will definitely be the first office they think of due to the exceptional experience we created for them.
Gift Cards as a New Patient Generator
Selling gift cards can do a lot for your practice and business growth for several reasons:
• Let’s start with the most obvious. They’re being purchased as a “gift” for someone. That “someone” is likely going to be a new patient coming to your practice.
• Gift cards are known to boost loyalty and, on average, result in customers spending 20% more than the value of the gift card.
• They also serve as free advertising and are often seen every time the recipients open their wallets.
• Switching from paper gift certificates to plastic gift cards often increases gift card sales 35 to 50%, not to mention reduces fraud.
• Gift cards can be loaded with “promotional value” (by an admin or user with permission), which can be used in a variety of ways.
Selling Supplements to Generate Revenue
Like massage, nutritional supplements are a natural (no pun intended) fit for the chiropractic practice. Whether you have a very detailed approach and offer many options or choose to take a simpler approach with a small menu of supplements, you can make a profit.
Each month’s payment would include their adjustments for the month along with their supplements.
In my practice, I chose to take the simple approach. I had many chiropractic patients who also wanted their supplements added to their monthly wellness care payments. Each month’s payment would include their adjustments for the month along with their supplements. When necessary, I would add a few immune-boosting products as well.
Really, the key for generating ongoing revenue from nutritional supplements is to build them into your care plans and ongoing wellness care. That way it’s all automated.
Marketing your Massage, Gift Cards, and Nutritional Products
There’s no point in doing any of this unless you execute a marketing plan for each of them. For massage, we had a lot of success with coupon advertising. For example, we did things like ValPak or ads in the local paper. Again, the theme was “massage in a clinical setting.”
Gift Cards were marketed in the office to existing patients as well as with email marketing campaigns. The nice thing about email campaigns is that it allows you to include a link for the recipient to make the purchase online. By the way, the gift cards were being marketed as a way to sell massage as well.
The bottom line with all of this is simply when doing “things” to generate revenue for the practice, make sure they’re not shiny objects that will distract you from chiropractic. Make sure they support the primary mission of providing chiropractic, and you and your patients will be well served.
Dr. Miles Bodzin, Founder & CEO of Cash Practice® Systems speaks internationally on the topic of client retention, and his company offers web-based software for chiropractors to streamline their practices. The Cash Practice® Systems, which includes The Wellness Score®, Cash Plan Calculator®, Auto-Debit System® & Drip-Education® Email Marketing System, have helped thousands of chiropractic offices collect more cash in their practices, skyrocket their patient retention, and reduce their dependence on insurance. Learn more at www.CashPractice.com or call 877-343-8950.
