What Does It Take to Create a Successful Chiropractic Practice?

Some chiropractors are happy working in a large clinic and collaborating with their colleagues while following the managers’ instructions. Others believe that they would be more successful if they opened their practice and have a full share of the profits. However, running a successful chiropractic practice is not as easy as determining a treatment plan for a patient.

For this reason, we have decided to start sharing a series of articles that teach you how to organize and manage a successful practice. Running a business brings many satisfactions, but also means taking on a lot of risks. You will be investing your capital. And if you are not as successful as you plan, you will not have the safety blanket of a monthly salary to fall back to.

How Do You Start Planning Your Future Practice?

Before you invest a single dollar, you need to have a few clear elements:
•    The location of your practice
•    The size of market for your services
•    A business plan.

For chiropractors, location is everything. You are providing medical treatments to people who suffer from various painful conditions. Thus, they need:
•    A chiropractor close to their home
•    Facilities they can easily reach by car
•    Ease of access for people with mobility issues.

The size of the market for a successful chiropractic practice must stay the same (or even grow) for the foreseeable future. The best areas for chiropractors are residential neighborhoods of professionals, who are working long hours at the office or retirement communities.

As for the business plan, you can find various templates online and use them to evaluate how much money you need to invest in your chiropractic practice, and how soon you may expect to start seeing profits.

Key Elements for Running a Successful Chiropractic Practice

Most chiropractors who are now running thriving practices say that they focused on the following aspects:

1. Setting SMART Goals

SMART is an acronym that stands for:
•    Specific – define clearly what you want to achieve
•    Measurable – define the parameters against which you will measure your success
•    Achievable – do not go for unrealistic goals, start with smaller ones
•    Timely – set a period in which you should reach your goals.

Thus, a SMART goal is getting 10 returning patients during the first three months of running your practice and making at least enough to cover your business and personal expenses in this period.

2. Creating a Brand Image

A brand image is essential for any business, including a successful chiropractic practice. The brand image tells people what you stand for: your mission and values, and how they expect to be treated once they step inside your practice.

Your brand should resonate with your target patients. For example, some chiropractors specialize in treating athletes, while others focus on pregnant women or the elderly. In each case, the brand image of the practice should reflect the needs of the respective patients.

3. Reducing Overheads

Any business has many types of expenses that are not directly connected with your core activity. These are called overheads and consist of:
•    Administrative expenses
•    Cost to hire an accountant
•    Cost to hire an HR specialist
•    Cost to hire an account specialist.

For a budding business, these extra costs are crushing, so you need to figure out ways to keep them under control. You cannot dispense with these activities – they must be done – but there are efficient and cost-effective ways to cover them. Outsourcing and using software suites that allow you to cover these activities without being a specialist are among these solutions.

4. Establishing Internal Controls

How do you know that you are running a successful chiropractic practice? You need to have some benchmarks to evaluate your activity and that of your employees. For example, you need to determine thresholds for monthly revenues and evaluation checklists for everyone working for you.

You don’t have the time to oversee everything at every moment. And you should not do that – it is called micromanagement and it is counterproductive. However, everyone must know that they are accountable for what they do.

5. Finding and Keeping in Touch with a Mentor

Every entrepreneur who is just starting needs a mentor. In your case, a mentor is a successful chiropractor who is running their practice and who can help you figure out solutions to various difficulties.

Finding mentors is not hard. Look at your network and identify the professional you truly admire and want to emulate. Have an open discussion with them and, most certainly, you will get a positive answer.

Running a successful chiropractic practice is hard work, but rewarding. We can help you reduce overheads by using the Digital Patient Chart chiropractic software for practice management, billing, patient communications, marketing, and more!