Offering such modalities as heat therapy for use in the home can give your patients the extra tools often needed for a full recovery. One of the keys to increasing the efficacy of a home program is education. When a patient is well-informed of the benefits of particular treatments, they are much more likely to adhere to the program or participate in home therapy.

Historically, heat therapy has been an integral part of medicine for centuries; these deep-seeded roots will make educating your patients on the health benefits quite simple. There are many resources available today outlining the benefits of heat therapy. Many people already use a form of heat therapy in the home or are aware of some of the advantages of heat therapy.

You can sum up the physiological and therapeutic effects of heat therapy to patients in one simple statement: "Heat therapy is an excellent tool to continue your treatment at home. The heat will create a soothing feeling, reducing your pain and relaxing all those tight muscles or spasm. The increased blood flow will help to carry away any inflammation and bring nutrient-rich blood to the injury site. The heat will also give the muscles and connective tissues more elasticity and allow you to get more out of your stretching routine."

Instructing your patients to use a form of heat therapy before starting their exercises is an effective way to get them thinking about home-use products. Providing the same form of heat therapy in the clinic that you can offer over the counter is a priceless form of marketing. Finding a product that will work in the clinic as well as in the home can greatly increase you success in selling to your patients. In my experience, when a patient uses a modality in the clinic and learns they can afford to have the same professional-quality modality at home, they are 50 percent more likely to purchase the product. In fact, I have noticed that DCs using the same product in the clinic that can be used in the home actually receive weekly requests for the product.

Providing the same service in the treatment rooms as you offer over the counter is also a great way to get the staff involved. Since heat therapy can be used on many patients prior to manual therapies, the patients have an opportunity to preview the product. The staff can follow up with questions about how your patients like using the product. This also leads into inquires about what the patients have at home.

Another great selling point is that these products are not a recurring expense. Heat therapy products for the home are considered durable goods and can be used year after year, making them good health investments. And because heat therapy is not necessarily tailored to one specific person, the entire family can benefit from having home-use heating pads.

After your patients have experienced the soothing, relaxing benefits of the product in their treatment, they are easily reminded in the reception area. The marketing material can be small and conveniently located in the lobby or at the reception desk.

Revenue Potential

Home-use heat therapy products are an excellent avenue for increased revenue in the chiropractic market. Close to 100 percent of your patients will or have at some point in their lives used heat; I would go as far as to say close to 100 percent of them also enjoy the benefits of heat therapy. Heat therapy is a multimillion-dollar business that is steadily growing with the aging, yet still-active baby boomer generation. As our population and the field of chiropractic medicine continue to grow, so will the market for home-use heat therapy products.

In my experience, current chiropractic sales of heat therapy products appear to depend on the volume of practice and the use of consumer-available products within the clinic. For example, a solo chiropractor who sees patients five days a week and uses a traditional hydrocollator can expect to sell 1.5 home heat systems a week, on average. The resulting revenue will be around $1,600 a year. In comparison, a DC seeing the same number of patients, but using the same product in their clinic that they sell to their patients ,can expect to sell 4-5 home-use therapy packs a week, on average. The revenue from this model can be $4,000-$5,300 per year.

Marketing yourself and your clinic is an important aspect of a successful practice. The sales of home-use heat therapy product can help you to spread the word and attract new patients. Some products offer services such as custom printing or custom tagging. This will allow you to place your clinic name and contact info on each heating pack you sell. This will not only remind your patients to call for follow-up or new appointments, but also help get your name to family members and neighbors.

Key Product Features

Remember three things when looking for heat therapy packs to sell to your patients:

• Does it provide safe and accurate temperatures?
• Is it affordable and convenient to use in the home?
• And most importantly, is it of high enough quality to be used in my clinic?

Brock Rutherford is a certified athletic trainer and president of Therapy Innovations LLC. He has over 14 years of clinical experience and has spent the past six years researching, developing and marketing heat therapy modalities. For more information, contact Brock at www.therapy-innovations.com.