Have you ever stopped to think what chiropractic business model you are using?  When you first set out in practice, did you write up a formal business plan that spelled out exactly what your business is about; i.e., your mission statement?  Or did you quickly put up an office, hung your sign on your shingle, and did what everyone else was doing:  yellow page ad, spinal screenings, mailers, joining civic/networking groups, and so on and practiced aimlessly to the point where you are today?

If you are like a lot of self-employed chiropractors, you pretty much used “conventional” strategies to set up your office.  Maybe you did an associateship at an established chiropractor’s office; or was a member of one of the chiropractic consulting companies like Singer, Fernandez, Gibson, WLP, or other.  If it worked for you, and you were able to refine your business operations to the point where you are running a profitable, low-stress practice, then good for you– don’t change something that works.  But if you are running into problems, it’s time to re-think your business model.

I believe that, for chiropractic business models, it’s not “one size fits all.”  It’s more like “different strokes for different folks.”  There are chiropractors not too far from my office who have large, busy, high-overhead practices with multiple doctors and employees.  And they seem to be doing well.  Now, I don’t know what the owner(s) go through mentally; I don’t know what goes on behind the scenes.  But it appears that they chose this model because that’s what they wanted to do, and what they are capable of doing.

For me, personally, I am in a one-doctor office, about 1,680 square feet.  I share my space with an acupuncturist, who pays half the rent.  I work 2.5 days a week, Mondays, Wednesdays and half Fridays.  I have a massage therapist who fills in the gaps when I’m not there.  I trained him to do physiotherapies like heat/ice, laser, and manual stim.  He is also skilled in active release technique, deep tissue, and lymphatic drainage.  I inform my patients at the very beginning that he is part of the staff and may do their treatment on some days.  This frees up my time so that I can do marketing for my business as well as engage in other revenue generating business activities.  This, in essence is time leveraging, something I strongly advocate for chiropractors.  You make money while away from the office, and generate more money doing other things.

So, back to the topic:  choose the business model that suits YOU.  KNOW your strengths and weaknesses; your beliefs toward chiropractic; and your short and long-term goals.  Before you write these down, be REALISTIC about the REQUIREMENTS for reaching this goal; for example:

• the amount of time it will demand from you
• the number of employees you will need to manage
• the amount of patients you are willing to see
• the amount of physical activity you can handle in a day
• the amount of time you wish to spend per patient, on average (5 min, 30 min?)

Then, there are advanced goals; for instance, perhaps you wish to build up a very large practice and sell it later.

The bottom line is, realize that there are multiple chiropractic business models and it is important to know yourself in order to pursue the right one.

Dan Perez, DC