Category Archives: chiropractic practice building

Chiropractic Promotions for the New Year

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Seems like every office we talk to or visit these days is busy – crazy busy – with patients and computers and Christmas.

But the New Year is approaching – fast. 2012 only has 12 months and the first one starts in just about two weeks. And then, before you know it, it’s February and you are wondering what you should be doing for marketing and getting the word out about your services.

 

So as not to be left behind, you should begin the New Year with a strong marketing strategy.

 

Below are some fast tips to help get you started:

 

But first… PROJECT X-3. We are finishing adding the final components into our new 2012 program, temporarily called the Project X-3. This is just the working title and we will be announcing the new program soon with all the details. It is designed to help lift you and your practice onto and into a whole new level of prosperity and fulfillment in the New Year.

 

**Schedule Patients Now. Health Never Takes a Holiday. Poster. If you are active with PM&A, you can also find a customizable version on our Members site, along with other promotions under “monthly promotions.”

 

**External Referral Sources and Event Locations. Make a list of every location where you participated in a promotional type of event. Include any business or professional that sent you a referral or helped you in some way. Then, make sure you send each a card or a gift, or just stop by and wish them well and that you look forward to continued relationship with them in the New Year.

 

**Marketing Meeting. Schedule a thorough marketing meeting soon, maybe right after Christmas. Spend a couple of hours making a list of what has worked and what you want to do and then schedule these things over the next several months. One example we recommend is:

 

**Be an Authority and Educate. People want health care information.  This is proven by the fact that 80% of Internet users search for health information on line, according to PEW Research.  8 out of every 10 people at some time are looking for health information when they go to the Internet. That is significant.

…2 ways to do this is to schedule workshops and health “awareness weeks” for the New Year. People want to know the latest. This gives you an opportunity to teach. Yes, you do have to do your homework and it takes time. But it is time well spent because as you study and prepare, you will find that you will become motivated about your subject. Besides, at least 1/3 of your presentation can be your spinal care class, so this saves you time. These types of community education programs or services not only help you generate direct new patients, but give you an excuse to promote your office and services. Sample Poster Clients can find many more customizable posters and fliers on the Members site under: Marketing Materials/ Community Education.

You can find more ideas about upcoming promotions to start your New Year here. Link

 

Best wishes for a high volume 2012!

 

Ed

Zucchini’s and Chiropractic Businesses

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Home grown zucchini's

It has been a good summer.  The crops are coming in.

Growing a practice and developing a business is much like farming. It takes nurturing, care, and just the right about of help at the right time.  A plant can seem to be dormant while underground its roots are growing and getting strong.  Sometimes practice improvement seems to occur slowly even though we may be working hard.  It could be that that you are just developing the “root” system before your practice is more productive.

Your practice follows natural laws – it has its own innate life force.

Just like a zucchini does.

You have to trust in your own goodness as you do in the power that made you and gave life to your patients. That Power — it also runs through your office and eavesdrops on your thoughts and intentions.

You have to smile about the truly awesome benefits your patients and you receive with chiropractic, which we all too often overlook.

It’s not about insurance or money or policies and procedures or schedules or management or marketing or meetings – which we all can use at the right time to the right degree. In the end it’s about the help we provide and that help should not be separated from the love in which it is given or the joy that it produces.

There is truly a lot to celebrate.

It’s a good procedure to look for and have many celebrations with your patients and those you are close to. Don’t be shy about it.

Keep nurturing your practice and it will continue to produce happy patients.

Chiropractic Practice Bottlenecks: How to Increase Capacity by Removing Hidden Barriers

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The theory of capacity management, as developed by Eli Goldratt and explained in his books, including the best selling The Goal, discusses the theory of constraints as applied to a manufacturing environment.

The same principle applies to chiropractor’s business. According to Goldratt, “Capacity is the available time for production.” A bottleneck is: “what happens if capacity is less than demand placed on resource.”

Bottlenecks can be hide anywhere in an office.  For example:

  1.     Peak Periods. Between the 4-6 pm slot, where there is extra traffic, extra staff or increased capacity is not provided.
  2.     Paperwork. Old forms that are redundant.
  3.     Poor scheduling of patients: (not cluster booked, not booking for NP paperwork)
  4.     Doctors waiting for therapy patients. (No CT or therapy after adjustment)
  5.     Front Desk doing insurance and scheduling at each visit (no MAP and PIA)
  6.     Not enough exam rooms
  7.     Clutter in front desk/insurance area
  8.     Quitting time. After a long day, all staff and doctors are looking forward to leaving and really don’t want extra patients to call or come in. Patients are inadvertently discouraged to come in extra, bring in friends or family , or call in during the last hour.
  9.     Backlogs. Undone reports from the two summers ago, partially completed projects, cluttered desks or office space, all discourage more an increase in production. You only have so much mental capacity, and if it gets frittered away on projects that are not completed, you will have “too many irons in the fire” to add any more. Finish what you started, and make room for more.
  10.     “Difficult people“. Some staff, or patients, will seem to drain you of your energy, or consume too much of your time trying to keep them happy.

Warning: Too much capacity can also be a barrier.

A) Personnel. A staff that has to make up work can retard production. Happy staff are productive staff, and the opposite is also true. Unhappy staff will not make for happy patients. This will also suck up the doctors time to try to remedy his “staff problems.”

B) Space. Too large of a space can disconnect the staff from each other and the patients and minimize the synergy.

 

Exercise – Getting Rid of Capacity Restraints and Bottlenecks.

Make a list of any bottlenecks in your office. Start by considering the flow of patients, of paper, and anything that slows it down or gets in its way. Consider patients waiting, paperwork waiting, any times of the day or days during the week where there is a slow down or back log. You can organize it into four categories:

Physical space
Personnel
Procedures
Difficult people
Incomplete projects

Once you have listed these, give yourself 30 days to fix all these capacity restraints.

NOTE: Bottlenecks can sometimes be difficult to locate, and even more difficult to remove.  Need help: Give us a call. (414) 332-4511