As I sit here writing this article, it’s May and we have been in quarantine since March. This topic has been chosen for MONTHS before all the craziness in the world. The concept of creating money generating “things” into 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 #1 income producer– providing chiropractic.

If the focus is going to be 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.

And 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 the “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, there are some things you can do in addition 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 and new patient marketing system in practice was our 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 all wrong.  The purpose of having a massage therapist in your practice is not to help with overhead (although it does a bit).  It’s not there to generate revenue (although it does).  It’s also 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.  And 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 hrs 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” or the like, you will be no different than every other massage location. 

Now, for the most important part– most massage therapists already know how to refer to chiropractic care.  Right?  With your MTs you will train them to better recognize the need for chiropractic.  So when they’re providing massage, when necessary, they will recommend that the patient gets a chiropractic evaluation.  This will be part of their job description.

Our experience with this was the following:

• The revenue generated from the massage covered all the costs of running the massage department.
• We received calls nearly every day from new people wanting massage.
• 15 – 20% of the massage clients got referred for chiropractic.
• If we got 30 new message clients, we ended up with 5 – 6 new patients.
• Those who did not come in for chiropractic at least got 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 that they think of due to the exceptional experience that we create 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, resulting in customers spending 20% more than the value of the gift card.
• They also serve as free advertising and are often seen every time they open their wallets. 
• Switching from paper gift certificates to plastic gift cards often increases gift card sales anywhere from 35% to 50%, not to mention reduces fraud.
• Gift cards can be loaded with ‘Promotional Value’ (by admin or user with permission) which can be used in a variety of ways.

Learn more about our Cash Practice Gift Card Program

Selling Supplements to Generate Revenue

Like massage, nutritional supplements are a natural (no pun intended) fit for the chiropractic practice.  Whether you do a very detailed approach and offer lots of options, or, you choose to take a simpler approach and offer a small menu of supplements that anyone would benefit from, you can make a profit.

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 to 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 in doing 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 in 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.

Original article was featured in the August 2020 issue of The American Chiropractor.

Check out our other articles!