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Determining which health services you will offer helps define your practice for you and your staff and helps define it for the public as well.
Like in the restaurant business, the list of services (menu) effects overhead, profit, staff and function. Most of all, it effects your focus on your overall goals. Do you know which services are used the most in your practice? Do you know which services are most profitable? Look at old fees slips or run a report from your billing system to see. Knowledge of top services usually reflects your true interests in practice and helps you decide what equipment is the most important. Cut Your Losses and Fat Chiropractors are notorious for having equipment and supplies lying around that are seldom if ever used. This clutters the office and often requires office space that is not necessary or could be used for something more important. It is not uncommon to get some equipment that you were excited about at the time only to find that excitement faded. Now the equipment is just taking up space. But, instead of passing it along or getting rid of it, you keep it around just in case. It is like the food that spoils while you are waiting for someone to order that specific dish. Cut your losses. Sell it. Give it away. Throw it away. In addition to knowing what services are most utilized and profitable, defining your menu also helps with staff training. Training is easier and there is less to keep up with. The likelihood of error is decreased as staff is seldom called upon to do something they are not familiar with or have never done. A more specific example may be selling supplies versus performing an adjustment. From a business standpoint, the cost of performing a chiropractic adjustment is a fixed cost (your education and perhaps cost of your adjustment table). However, when you sell supplies, you have to purchase those items and deal with issues such as shrinkage (people stealing your items) and inventory management. With the above examples we are not recommending reducing everything down to bare bones as much as we are recommending defining your style of practice. However, the two go hand in hand. Some things will naturally be eliminated in the defining process. Stream lining usually means cutting the fat to some degree. If selling supplements or supports are important for your standard of care, then by all means sell them. Just know your numbers so you can make effective decisions for your practice. In summary, whether it is in the services you provide or the marketing of those services, maintaining the KISS philosophy is vitally important. (For those of you who don't know what that is, it is: KEEP IT SIMPLE-Sweet Heart.) Don't unnecessarily complicate your practice by continually adding services, products to sell, or complicated protocols. What we do as chiropractors is amazing. Sometimes less is more and keeping your focus to a few items will grow your practice much faster. Dr. N. Ray Tuck Jr. is the chairman of the American Chiropractic Association Board of Governors.
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