The Powerful Benefits of Chiropractic Business Coaching

Growing a business doesn’t happen overnight. It’s a commitment and a journey that not only increases your revenue, but it should decrease your stress and improve patient outcomes. As with so many other things in life, this isn’t a journey to make alone. Chiropractic business coaching helps you achieve your goals, keeps you accountable and consistent, and gives you an unbiased view of your practice and your goals. 

Why Seek a Business Coach?

The traits that naturally make you a great chiropractor might not be the traits that naturally make you a great business person.

A chiropractic business coach is someone who has mastered the chiropractic business as well as patient care itself. They help chiropractors fulfill their dreams of caring for patients and building a great business. 

If you set the same goals every quarter and every year but are frustrated with the lack of progress toward the goals, a business coach can help. They identify the activities that are getting in the way of your success.

If you hear complaints from patients about the office practices or their treatment and no matter who you hire, the problem persists it’s time for a little coaching. 

Through chiropractic business coaching, you discover what you aren’t doing, what you can do differently, and what you shouldn’t be doing at all. A coach will challenge you, teach you new skills, and bring a fresh perspective to your business. 

Every coach measures their success by the success their clients achieve.

What Coaching Entails

A coach does more than just help you create goals, they help you with a strategy to reach your goals. Then they help you decide what must be measured to track progress toward your goals. With a coach, your broad goals are broken down into much smaller and achievable pieces. 

Your business coach brings clarity to muddy waters. The scope of coaching may focus solely on business goals, but more likely business and life goals will be intertwined. Depending on the state of your career, an exit strategy might be the ultimate goal. 

Within business goals, you’ll look at goals for staff, the growth goals in terms of patients or billables, and the scalability of current services offered. If your life goals include travel or more time with family, your coach will help you balance those goals with business goals. 

Benefits of Having a Coach

A business coach brings something to the table you can’t possibly provide – a fresh set of eyes and an unbiased view of your practice. 

The coach is only invested in helping you succeed. Coaches aren’t constrained by limited thinking. Business coaches don’t say, “we already tried that” or “that won’t work with our staff” because they bring a new perspective. Sometimes, you just need to see what you are doing through the eyes of another person. 

Business coaches bring a broad range of experiences to your practice. They’ve usually worked with practices of various sizes and at different stages of the cycle of the business.

During start-up, your coach helps you establish your office and staff, and start thinking like an entrepreneur. If your practice is established, your coach can help you grow and scale with a focus on the efficiencies and effectiveness of your systems and the addition of new revenue streams. 

Through coaching, you’ll:

  • Gain better focus on patient care by learning what to delegate and to whom you should delegate.
  • Improve staff and patient onboarding workflows and create better employee training experiences. 
  • Diversify and add revenue-enhancing services and products that enhance patient care. 

Coaching Comes in Different Forms

Not all coaching looks alike. It’s important that you work with a coach that fits your business and personal style. You’ll want coaches that have practiced chiropractic medicine personally.

For example, Doctors Forster and Horowitz with Nutri-West New York have helped many fellow chiropractors improve revenue by diversifying the services and products they offer. They hold seminars that qualify for continuing education credits to help practitioners improve patient care and outcomes. Through their dedication to informing healthcare practitioners about the importance of proper nutrition, they help grow practices and improve lives.

If your main goal of coaching is to build your practice, schedule a consultation with Nutri-West New York. Find out how Doctors Forster and Horowitz have helped other chiropractors improve their cash flow and build the size of their practice.

How to Grow a Chiropractic Business: It’s Not What You Think

Many articles on how to grow a chiropractic business focus on marketing approaches that tap into new markets and new customer segments.  That is one approach to growing your chiropractic business, but it requires you to become as proficient at marketing as you are with chiropractic care. Or, sink money into marketing consultants and professionals and hope for a healthy return on investment.

Nutri-West New York suggests there is another approach. And it’s the approach that many successful practitioners are using to grow their chiropractic businesses. Why not grow your business by concentrating on your existing client base?

New Services and Products

One of the most effective ways to grow your chiropractic business is to offer new services and products to existing patients. These clients are people with whom you have already established a relationship and they trust your judgment and recommendations. Gaining trust is a huge hurdle in growing any healthcare-related business, so capitalize on the trust you have already earned.

Additional Services

Are you trained in Bio Energetic Synchronization Technique (BEST) or Applied Kinesiology (AK)? If not, why aren’t you?

Through BEST you add a new tool to combat patient pain and restore balance in your patient’s body. Master BEST and use gentle touch to resynchronize the magnetic field in your patient’s body in addition to osseous adjustments. 

With AK you can identify nerve signal delays or misfires that prevent muscles from functioning optimally, as they should naturally. If you work with athletes, AK will allow you to focus on all muscles involved in the movement, not just the muscle or joint that hurts. Through AK, all of your patients will benefit from better and faster results, something they are sure to share with everyone they know!

You don’t need to be an acupuncturist to utilize pressure points and meridians in your healing repertoire.

When you add additional services, you increase the methodologies at your disposal to fully treat a patient. This means patients get the full range of care they desire while under your care without seeing another practitioner. 

Additional Products

Did you know that 77% of people want to take nutritional supplements, but most of them have no clue where to start? They visit the health food store, supplement store, or the big box stores and stare agape at the overwhelming choice of supplements. They don’t know what their body needs because their healthcare providers aren’t doing their job and identifying their deficiencies. These people want to improve their health, and they don’t mind spending money, and yet no one is helping them. 

Helping these people meets their needs grows your chiropractic business. Through blood testing and muscle testing using Applied Kinesiology you can uncover nutritional imbalances and deficiencies, recommend the proper supplement regime, and monitor the results. 

Instead of recommending an all-purpose multivitamin (although Nutri-West offers those) you can tailor the patient’s supplementation program to their specific needs. And, as their needs change you can change their regimen accordingly. You add value by increasing your offerings to existing patients and as a result generate additional revenue.

Account-Based Marketing

Account-based marketing is used extensively by business-to-business sellers, but it has practical applications to grow a chiropractic business.

With account-based marketing, you use account (patient) data to tailor marketing messages to the client.  

Once again, you will be fishing in your own pond. But, you know these “fish” and they trust you. This makes them more receptive to your message.

For example, do you treat women during pregnancy? If so, your office should use outbound marketing such as emails and newsletters to check in on Moms a few months after birth. Stress the importance of post-partum adjustments in restoring pelvic balance and strength after pregnancy. New Moms often are plagued by sciatica and may not think to turn to you for help.

Is someone under your care scheduled for surgery? Chiropractic care can play an important role in their rehabilitation. Your ability to mobilize muscles and improve blood flow can help patients return to normal life and activity post-surgery. For example, taking Complete Glutathione can help as a powerful antioxidant, immune nutrient, and detoxifier.

Increase Revenue by Expanding Your Level of Treatment

Talk to Nutri-West New York about how you can grow your chiropractic practice by offering new products and services.

When your patients experience improved outcomes, they’ll spread the word and before you know it, you’ll be overwhelmed with a waiting list of referrals.

If you aren’t sure where to start, book a free consultation. You’ll receive one-on-one counseling from a chiropractor that knows what it takes to grow a practice because they’ve done it personally.

There’s More to Chiropractic Healthcare Than Cracking Backs

Recently, Dr. Jamie Forster addressed members of the Applied Kinesiology Club at the Northeast College of Health Sciences (formerly New York Chiropractic College). The seminar was ostensibly about the examination, diagnosis, and treatment of concussion and the temporomandibular joint but students learned much more. They were exposed to a new mindset in chiropractic care – a more holistic approach that improves patient outcomes and doctor satisfaction.

Treating the Entire Patient

Dr. Forster used the example of a patient presenting with migraine headaches to get students thinking about treating the entire patient. 

In this case, the woman had a history of sports injuries as well as an auto accident. Much to the surprise of many attendees, Dr. Forster shared that he orders bloodwork on most new patients. 

Where many chiropractors only focus on the neuromuscular and skeletal systems, Dr. Forster stressed the importance of treating the entire patient. This includes, but isn’t limited to:

  • Osseous adjustments
  • Applied Kinesiology
  • Nutritional counseling
  • Supplementation programs
  • Exercise and lifestyle guidance
  • Muscle and clinical testing to aid in the differential diagnosis.

Instead of a narrow focus on neuromuscular and skeletal systems, the successful practitioner includes organ function and the emotional state of the patient. 

In the instance of the woman with migraines, with the use of Applied Kinesiology and muscle testing with supplements, Dr. Forster was able to make a diagnosis that others had missed.

Audience Reaction

The message clearly resonated with the audience. According to Daniel Whytte, a student in attendance, “That diploma says Doctor of Chiropractic, and the word doctor comes first for a reason. Chiropractic adjustments are a tool, Applied Kinesiology is a tool, and you need to use every tool you have available to improve the health of your patients.”

Dr. Forster connected with the audience by encouraging participation. In the words of Whytte,” Dr. Forster engaged the audience and kept us alert. Some seminars they just talk at you, but Dr. Forster kept attention by drawing students in with questioning and rewarding with incentives”.

Improve Your Level of Care and Grow Your Practice

Are you ready to enhance your approach to chiropractic healthcare and grow your practice as a result?

Nutri-West and Nutri-West New York support continuing education for any licensed practitioner in the seven states of New England. Drs. Forster and Horowitz are ready to help become a full spectrum natural healthcare provider.

Earn CE credits or just expand your understanding of a specific topic.

Sign up to take advantage of Nutri-West New York’s in-person and virtual seminars. Topics range from nutritional effects on blood chemistry to a primer on more effective neuromusculoskeletal assessments.

When you treat the entire body, you’ll increase your effectiveness as a practitioner and change the lives of your patients for the better. You’ll enjoy the satisfaction of serving your patients to the best of your ability and generate more referrals as a result.

How to Create a Cash-based Chiropractic Practice

You entered the chiropractic profession because you want to help people. That’s admirable. You convert your knowledge and training into services that improve the health and quality of life for your patients. That’s what you do. You want to be paid for your services. That’s only natural.

Your chiropractic practice is a business, and you need to make decisions based on what is best for the health of your patients and your practice. Many chiropractors depend on reimbursement from insurance companies as their only source of revenue. Unfortunately, these insurance-based clinics often lose patients once the benefits run out. If insurance covers 12 visits, the patient will only visit 12 times. 

What do you do if you are insurance-based, and a patient doesn’t have insurance? Have you ever caught yourself making decisions and care recommendations based on patient coverage?

You can avoid these situations by operating a cash-based chiropractic practice. It’s a different business philosophy and requires a different business plan. Here is how to create a cash-based chiropractic practice. 

Why Operate On Cash Versus Insurance Billing

An insurance-based chiropractic practice may spend 30% or more of its resources trying to collect from insurance companies. You may even need to hire the services of a lawyer from time to time just to get paid. Those are resources that take away from the patient experience. 

A cash-based practice still requires you to maintain documentation as far as Electronic Health Records (EHR) are concerned, but documentation for patient reimbursement from insurance companies should still be available if needed by the patient from your front office. So, your billing and accounting are a bit more streamlined.

Your cash flow improves because you are paid for services when they are rendered. There’s no waiting for insurance to pay their portion of the cost. Managing your healthcare revenue cycle becomes simplified.

Cracking Backs Won’t Cut It

You must realize that if you decide to transition to a cash-based chiropractic practice, you must do something completely different from your competition. Simply offering osseous adjustments like the other DCs isn’t enough. To stand out, you’ll need to be perceived by your patients as a whole spectrum healthcare provider. You may need additional training in new areas of care, but it will be worth it for you and your patients.

Expand your practice to include:

  • Cranial adjustments for improved respiratory health
  • Neuro Emotional Technique (NET) for improved emotional and stress responses
  • Bio Energetic Synchronization Technique (BEST) to correct biomagnetic imbalances
  • Lab Diagnosis to identify nutritional deficiencies
  • Radiographic diagnosis capabilities (X-Rays, MRIs, CT-Scans)
  • Rehab for sports-related injuries including exercises, stretches, IASTM and ART
  • Applied Kinesiology to correct imbalances in meridians and treat nutritional excess or deficiency
  • Functional Medicine to promote wellness and identify root causes of disease
  • The use of acupuncture points in your treatment plan.

In a nutshell, you need to be providing more extensive care with services patients can’t find elsewhere.

Produce Results

When people are in pain and when people are ill, they will find money to pay for treatment. People place a high value on their health and don’t mind paying for health care. 

With your expanded repertoire of care, patients may only spend a few hundred dollars with you whereas they might spend thousands on deductibles and co-pays with other providers. It’s not hard to make economic sense of the cash model for your patients that are concerned about money.

People want results. And when you deliver what helps them, they will deliver referrals in return. 

Results are what people talk about around the dinner table, at holiday get-togethers, and on their carpools. Believe me, when people have health problems, they talk about them. When they get relief, they talk about that even more. Many times, they are asked how they are doing. You do your job and help them out and they’ll be quick to mention it.

Always Be True to Yourself

Be a living example of the benefits of living a healthy lifestyle to your patients. When your patients see your energy levels and your passion, they’ll be more than happy to pay cash to achieve the levels of health you enjoy.

Talk to a Cash-Based Chiropractor

Talk to the Chiropractors at NutriWest of New York to discuss the possibility of becoming a cash-based chiropractic practice or just get information on how to grow your practice

Make plans to attend a NutriWest seminar. We can help you earn your continuing education credits as well as grow your business.

How to Hire Associate Chiropractors to Expand Your Practice

When it comes to expanding your chiropractic practice, nothing beats hard work. But hard work can only get you so far. After all, there is only so much you can do in a single day, and there is a limit to the number of days in a week. To see more patients, you need more eyes and hands. You need associate chiropractors. Now, everyone has heard the horror story of the associate chiropractor coming in and then departing in a couple of years with half the patients. 

It doesn’t need to be that way. When used as part of a larger strategic plan, hiring associates to grow your business can be effective. But it must be part of an overall growth plan. Here is how to properly hire associate chiropractors to expand your practice.

Why Hire Associate Chiropractors

From the very start of the process, you need to clearly define the outcomes you expect before you start adding one or more associate chiropractors to your practice.

Are you stretched thin and looking to grow your practice? Are you looking for coverage to expand the days and hours of operation? Is this part of a strategy to open another location?

Maybe this is part of a long-term exit strategy. Maybe you want to offer a service or technique you don’t currently provide. 

Whatever the reasons, identify them and then strategize outcomes. In doing this, you will have a clear idea of the nature and direction of the relationship with your associate chiropractor.

Think of your practice as a train in a station. Trains leave the station going in all directions. Riders pick trains based on the direction they are traveling. You must be able to identify the direction your train is headed to pick up the riders that want to travel your route. That’s how you avoid the horror story.

 Starting with the why is crucial to the next step in the process, identifying the who. 

Picture the Person

Once you know the goals, then you can begin the picture of the ideal associate chiropractor. You’ll use this persona as the yardstick against which you will measure every applicant under consideration. 

That’s because you’ll be recruiting based on your strategy and not hiring based on a job description. See the distinction?

By creating a detailed picture of the perfect associate chiropractor and burning this image into your mind, you’ll recognize the ideal candidate, no matter when or how you meet them.

So carefully consider the perfect associate in terms of:

  • Hobbies
  • Work hour preferences
  • Likes/dislikes
  • New grad or seasoned professional
  • School attended
  • Medical philosophy and 
  • Favored chiropractic techniques.

For example, if you want to extend your hours later into the evening, you don’t want to hire an early bird as an associate. You need a bird of a different feather – a night owl. 

Define Expectations

Once you know the why and the who, define the expectations you’ll have for associate chiropractor performance.

For example, what role do you expect them to play in the practice? Will this person participate in regular team huddles or quarterly practice performance reviews? Do you expect them to speak on behalf of the practice or work with the marketing team?

Which patients will they see and how many patients do you expect them to see during a regular shift? Do you expect the associate to network and bring in new patients?

Will the associate report to you or the office manager? 

Center your expectations back around the big “why” of adding associate chiropractors to expand your practice.

What Do You Bring to the Table?

Now, it’s time to take an honest and hard look at yourself in the mirror. What do you and your practice have to offer an associate chiropractor?

If your ideal candidate is a young graduate looking to get experience, you’ll need to serve as a mentor. Are you up to the task?

If this move is part of an exit strategy, have you built a practice with real economic value?

Recruit versus Hiring

Are you going to hire a body or recruit an associate?

If you see your associate chiropractors as team members and not just a member of staff, you’ll want to invest in recruiting efforts. Recruiting the right associate will lead to better outcomes, even if it takes longer.

If you hire associate chiropractors to expand your practice, you create a pool of applicants and pick from the best of the pool.

When you recruit associate chiropractors to expand your practice, you have a persona as a guide and search for the person that matches the persona. You aren’t comparing applicants to each other; you are comparing applicants to the persona. Where you recruit depends on the persona.

Other Ways to Grow Your Practice

Hiring Associate Chiropractors isn’t the only way to expand your practice. If you are interested in learning how to grow your chiropractic practice, how to create new revenue streams, or how to convert to a cash practice, talk to the successful chiropractors at Nutri-West of New York. Schedule a consultation with Dr. Jamie Forster or Dr. Jason Horowitz and discover how they’ve combined improving patient outcomes with increasing their revenue and growing their practice.

How to Hire for a Chiropractic Practice

Whether you are expanding your chiropractic practice or just getting started, you can’t do it alone. It takes a team to run a practice and a team is only as good as the team members. 

The characteristics you need depend on the job that is to be done. However, no matter the role it’s important to hire people who will fit the role and the team. 

Here are a few tips on how to hire for a chiropractic practice so you get the right personality for your team.

Front Desk

Your receptionist is responsible for greeting patients, answering phones, and making appointments. This person must have the heart to serve others. 

Much of the patient’s perception about their office visit will be formed based on their interaction with your front desk personnel. This is the place for an even-tempered person who excels at multitasking. They should have no problem greeting every patient with a smile and smile while they politely but firmly collect co-payments. Since this person is responsible for onboarding new patients, they should also be able to enter new patient demographics and insurance information into your computer system. 

For many chiropractors just getting started, a spouse fills the role of front desk operator. Before considering asking a spouse to do this job, think about how a working relationship will impact your relationship at home. Don’t sacrifice one for the other. 

Clinical Assistant

Think of your clinical assistant as your office manager. This is the person you trust to help you grow the practice and manage the business on a day-to-day basis.

Your clinical assistant can be the contact point for your speaking engagements and networking events, your marketing guru, and the professional who identifies efficiencies in back-office procedures. Rely on your clinical assistant to stay abreast of new technologies to improve patient outcomes as well as identify new sources of revenue. 

Your clinical assistant frees you from time-consuming activities so you can concentrate on caring for patients. 

Look for a person with the skills necessary to grow a brand and help you establish and maintain a culture of excellence in the office. 

If you are just getting started, you may only need the services of a clinical assistant 20 to 25 hours a week. As the practice grows, the need for a full-time employee will grow as well. 

Insurance and Billing or a Better Way

Essential to a healthy chiropractic practice is a healthy revenue cycle. Many chiropractors rely on the skills of a well-trained, skilled, knowledgeable, and detail-oriented insurance and billing clerk and the good graces of insurance companies to keep cash coming in.

Frankly, if you accept insurance payments the financial health of your practice literally depends on the ability of this team member to get insurance companies to pay claims that are often initially denied.

Instead of hiring a billing clerk and investing in software, you might outsource this job. But you’re still left at the mercy of insurance companies and must wait 6 weeks or more to get paid. 

Instead, why not operate on a cash basis to eliminate the hassle of dealing with insurance reimbursements? You may still need an accounting clerk to send statements and post payments, but you’ll end up making more money on each patient you see. And you won’t wait 6 weeks or more to get paid. 

Don’t think it is possible? Contact Nutri-West of New York and set up a consultation. The chiropractors at Nutri-West of New York have years of experience operating a highly successful practice on a cash basis and can show you how to do the same.

The Importance of Job Descriptions

Before you start gathering resumes and taking applications, make sure you can identify the role the employee will play.

Create job descriptions that are more than just a list of tasks to be performed. A job description should clearly identify the roles and responsibilities of the team member as well as how their success will be measured. 

When reviewing applications, resist the temptation to compare applicants to each other. Consider the job requirements as a measuring stick and compare applications to this standard. 

No successful chiropractor operates alone.

Knowing how to hire for a chiropractic practice allows you to surround yourself with the team you need for success. 

How to Expand a Chiropractic Practice

How to Expand a Chiropractic Practice Using New Revenue Streams

Traditionally, when you want to expand a chiropractic practice, you step-up marketing to bring in more patients or open a satellite office to serve a different geographic location.

But there’s another approach to expanding your chiropractic practice: expanding your practice by creating new revenue streams. You continue to operate your chiropractic practice and treat patients, but at the same time, you increase your offerings.

This allows you to serve additional markets and gain exposure at the same time. If you are interested in how to expand a chiropractic office by creating different revenue streams, explore these 5 possibilities. 

Support Corporate Illness and Injury Prevention Programs 

Did you know that 34 states have regulations or voluntary guidelines for workplace illness or injury programs? Chances are you are in one of these states. Generate a revenue stream by filling the needs of these companies to create and maintain corporate illness and injury prevention programs. 

Create online courses that help companies stay in compliance and keep employees healthy and safe.  You may also develop workbooks, brochures, and other educational materials to support illness prevention programs. 

Become an OTI Training Center. These organizations are authorized by OSHA to deliver education in safety and health to workers and supervisors. 

Companies in all states are interested in employee wellness. Employee wellness programs cover topics such as smoking cessation, office ergonomics, as well as diet, nutrition, and fitness.

Private Label Exercise Gear

You probably already recommend exercise, yoga, and meditation. Why not private label the gear your patients need to meet their goals in these areas?

Offer exercise equipment and gear such as resistance bands, balance training aids, stability balls, kettlebells, yoga mats, jump ropes, and more. 

Many companies offer private-label gear that’s perfect to sell in-house. Don’t just recommend that patients perform movements to increase mobility, flexibility, or strength – offer them private labeled resistance bands to get the job done.

Promote fitness, improve patient outcomes, and increase revenue by adding a new stream of revenue with privately labeled fitness equipment. And remember, every time your patients use their gear around others (such as a park or apartment/condo fitness center) they are advertising for your practice.

Expand Your Services

Partner with an acupuncturist, physical therapist, massage therapist, radiologist, or occupational therapist to expand the services offered by your office. Bringing these services in-house brings in new patients that might not otherwise be exposed to your practice. 

You’ll also improve patient outcomes. For example, you can focus on diagnosing, osseous adjustments, and wellness while a physical therapist focuses on rehabilitation and recovery. 

Start by researching your state’s laws regarding professional affiliations. In addition, you’ll want to consult with an attorney to stay on the right side of the Stark law. These complementary healthcare providers may operate as employees or independent contractors. 

You may even want to add the services of a personal trainer. 

Scout your talent carefully and consider referrals from local universities that offer physical therapy massage therapy, or even music therapy programs. 

Even if you don’t bring in new practitioners, you can expand your chiropractic practice by offering muscle testing. Invest the time, money, and energy in Applied Kinesiology training and expand the services you personally offer. 

Rent Unused Space

Do you have an area that’s not being used? If you leased space with an eye for expansion that hasn’t occurred, rent your extra space to a massage therapist or acupuncturist, or if you think outside the box, a small yoga studio.

A small yoga studio needs as little as 200 square feet to operate. You’ll want to establish a separate entrance so classes can be held apart from office hours. But renting any extra space to a yoga instructor can bring a steady stream of people who are interested in wellness right into your offices. 

Not only is this a great marketing effort, but the rental income provides an additional revenue stream. 

If you lease your facility, check your lease for restrictions or rules for subleasing your space. 

Offer Nutritional Supplements

Offering nutritional supplements allows you to create dietary supplementation programs on a personalized basis. Your patients get the exact nutritional, herbal, and glandular supplementation they need for their unique wellness needs. 

Instead of sending patients to big box stores, multi-level marketers, or eCommerce stores that sell supplements of questionable quality or efficacy, offer them supplements that meet your exacting standards for quality, purity, and potency.

Supplements are an important part of any wellness regime and not only represent an additional revenue stream, but they are also a recurring source of revenue as well.

Talk to the Chiropractors at Nutri-West of New York and find out how to expand your chiropractic practice through the sale of nutritional supplements. 

Think Outside the Box to Expand Your Chiropractic Practice

These days, it pays to think outside the box to expand your chiropractic practice. Look for additional revenue streams, creative marketing, and strategic partnerships. 

What Kind of Chiropractor Do You Want to Be?

Recently, Dr. Jason Horowitz of Nutri-West New York visited with students at the Northeast College of Health Sciences, formerly known as New York Chiropractic College.

He asked the attendees to carefully consider what type of chiropractor they wanted to be upon graduation. Then he challenged the students to become full spectrum, natural healthcare providers.

The Full Spectrum Natural Healthcare Provider

To achieve optimum patient outcomes and build a successful and profitable chiropractic business, the clear path forward is in providing a full spectrum of services. This includes a minimum of:

  • Osseous adjusting
  • Applied Kinesiology
  • Nutritional counseling
  • Supplementation programs
  • Exercise and lifestyle guidance
  • Muscle and clinical testing to aid in the differential diagnosis.

Just imagine the patient loyalty and referrals you would garner by using every tool you have available to improve the health of your patients.

For example, a patient presents with a complaint of continuing pain in the arm. Instead of relying solely on osseous adjustments, you perform muscle testing and identify weaknesses that could be tied to dysfunction in the pancreas. You order blood tests that confirm improper glucose levels. 

Now, in addition to adjustments, you add nutritional supplementation and counsel the patient to make some dietary and lifestyle changes including more exercise. When you re-do your blood tests in several months, not only does the patient feel better, but their bloodwork looks better too.  You’ve done more than resolve pain, you’ve improved the patient’s health and quality of life.

That’s the powerful healing potential of a full spectrum natural healthcare provider. 

The Students React

Clearly, this challenge was a new way of thinking for some students. According to Chris Singh, a student that attended the lecture, “Dr. Horowitz really told us and showed us what it is like to work in chiropractic care after we graduate. The school gives us a solid foundation, but he brings years of knowledge and experience in the field for more than 20 years. I know whether I open my own practice or work in another’s clinic, I’ll be using Applied Kinesiology and supplements 100% in my practice.”  

Chris plans to work with mixed martial arts fighters after graduation and now sees how fighters can benefit from neural supplementation to fight inflammation. 

Ready to Change Lives – Including Your Own?

Are you ready to make a change in your approach to chiropractic healthcare?

Nutri-West and Nutri-West New York support continuing education for any licensed practitioner in the seven states of New England and getting you one step closer to becoming a full spectrum natural healthcare provider.

Earn CE credits or just expand your understanding of a specific topic such as functional methylation.

Sign up to take advantage of Nutri-West New York’s in-person and virtual seminars. See what seminars Nutri-West is offering across the country. 

When you offer full spectrum natural healthcare, you’ll increase your effectiveness as a practitioner. You’ll change the lives of your patients for the better. As a healthcare provider, you’ll get the satisfaction of serving your patients to the best of your ability and generate more referrals.

How to Sell a Chiropractic Practice: What You MUST Know

Whether you are retiring or making a career change, selling your chiropractic practice takes time and can be stressful. It takes careful preparation to realize top dollar. You’ll want to rely on the services of professionals to guide you every step of the way. This high-level view of how to sell a chiropractic practice will outline the steps from start to finish. 

Get Your Business in Order

Every broker and potential buyer will want to pore over your financial statements. Make sure your balance sheet and income statements are current. If you haven’t filed your tax returns for the prior business year, it’s time to get that done!

Not only do you want your financial statements to be accurate and current, but you also want to show that your practice is growing and profitable. Consider expanding services or adding new revenue streams. If you aren’t already offering nutritional supplements, talk to Nutri-West New York about how to grow your practice before you put it up for sale. Buyers look for the strong cash flow that supplements and additional services generate. 

If you use your company accounts to pay for personal expenses, it is time to stop that practice. It’s a good idea to keep company and personal expenses separate. Co-mingling expenses muddies the financial statements and the financial health of the practice. 

Strategize With Your CPA

Even when you are in the “considering it” phase of selling your practice, you should strategize with your accountant.

Chances are, you’ve previously been following a strategy that minimizes income to reduce your tax liability. That might be appropriate when you plan on owning your practice long-term, but if you are even thinking about selling, you need to develop a new strategy with your accountant. 

Potential buyers and their lenders will want to go over your tax returns. Your tax returns and current financial statements are the basis for the sale. Don’t be surprised if the broker wants to look them over too. Everyone wants to see the practice earning revenue and paying taxes on the profit.

In the three years before your practice comes up for sale, you want to show as much revenue as possible. That could mean implementing a new tax strategy.

Review your Lease

If you rent your office space, you’ll want to review your lease. Buyers and their lenders are looking for long-term leases. So, see how many years remain on your existing lease.

You’ll also want to review clauses about the assignment of the lease. If you sell the business, can the buyer assume the lease, and will you be released from liability?

If you aren’t comfortable understanding the lease language, ask your attorney to review the lease as well. 

Interview Brokers and Review Valuations

Once you’ve got clean financial statements and know where you stand on your lease, it’s time to begin interviewing business brokers.

You don’t want to try to sell your chiropractic business on your own. A business broker with extensive experience selling medical care practices and chiropractic practices is well worth the commission you will pay.

Brokers approach business valuation from different points of view. The most common methods of valuing a chiropractic practice are the income approach, market approach, and cost approach.

Income approach

This approach either capitalizes current earnings or cash flow, or discounts future earnings or future cash flow. It focuses on calculating the present value of the future benefits the new owner will receive.

Market approach

This valuation approach assumes that your practice will sell for about what other practices in the area are garnering at a sale. Of course, if there is limited activity, the data set will be small, and the valuation will be difficult. This approach looks at the average sales price and compares your practice to the practices that sold. 

Cost approach

The cost approach looks at the value of the business assets. Assets include furniture, fixtures, medical equipment, office equipment, and goodwill. With a chiropractic practice, goodwill is one of the most important assets. A thriving practice depends on good relationships between the practitioner, office staff, and the patients. 

Hurry Up and Wait

Depending on your location and the economic conditions in your area, your practice may sell in as little as six months, or it may take a year or longer. It may never sell. 

A healthcare-related practice in a highly populated area will generally sell faster than one in a rural area.

Continue business as usual with a focus on maximizing your revenue streams and profit while your practice is up for sale.

Consider When to Notify Staff

Telling staff that the practice is up for sale is a sensitive subject. You’ll want to get advice from your broker.

You don’t want to notify staff until you have a serious buyer with qualified financial backing. Inform staff too soon, and they may become anxious about their future and seek employment elsewhere. Buyers are looking for a practice with long-term staff. If you wait until the practice sells, the staff will feel bitter. This can harm the relationship with the new owner.

Opening your practice required careful planning and strategizing. Selling your chiropractic practice requires the same.

How to Start a Chiropractic Office

Are you ready to graduate and wondering how to start a chiropractic office? Or have you already graduated and are now considering the next step in your professional life?

Starting a chiropractic office and entering the world of alternative health care doesn’t look the same for every person. Here are four approaches you can take.

Start from Scratch

Opening a new practice was the traditional route chiropractors followed for many years. However, it isn’t easy, and it is expensive. Getting your business off the ground requires you to focus on the business and not on treating patients. Here are the general steps to follow. 

Start by developing a business plan. If you aren’t sure where to start, our guide to developing a business plan for a chiropractic office is a good place to start. This plan should help you solidify your mission, vision, and values that provide the foundation for your alternative practice. 

Next, you’ll need to find an attorney and set up your business legally. Most professionals recommend against operating as a sole proprietor because it leaves you legally liable for debts incurred by the business. These days, many practices operate as LLCs or PLLCs. You must also find an accountant that works with healthcare businesses. 

Secure your license and malpractice insurance before proceeding further. 

As part of the planning process, you’ll need to identify a location for your new chiropractic office. Look for space with high visibility, accessible parking and ground floor location. It probably won’t be an office building, and that’s okay. You’ll also hire contractors and designers familiar with creating comfortable health care spaces to plan and build the space out. Remember, this might be your work area, but it must primarily conform to patient needs and tastes.

Before you get much further, it’s time to finalize that business plan and secure financing. Starting costs will be at least $100,000, and you’ll also want working capital. Check out our article on how to secure financing for a chiropractic office.

Once you have money, it’s time to build out, purchase equipment, and hire your staff. Take care in selecting your staff. You are building a team for success. Before hiring, list all the tasks that must be performed and then decide what you will do and what you will delegate. Hire the people that free you to pursue your passion. 

Hang on for the ride of your life. Starting a chiropractic office is rewarding, frustrating, exhilarating, and a ton of work. But you’ll be building something of your own. 

Buy an Existing Practice

Instead of starting from scratch, you may consider buying an existing practice to start your chiropractic office. 

People retire or leave their alternative health care practice for other reasons regularly. If you buy a thriving existing practice, you may get more for your money in the long run. Instead of using the $30,000 you’ve saved to start a business, use that money as a down payment to buy from an existing practice. Buying a practice with a steady stream of existing patients is buying an established revenue stream. It already has forward momentum. It’s up to you to just keep it moving forward and growing. You’ll still need to create a business plan and secure your lending. But the office, equipment, and staff will already be in place. 

Share an Office with Other Professionals

Want to strike out on your own but don’t have the resources to start an entire stand-alone practice? There is a growing trend for chiropractors to share space with other healthcare professionals.

Consider joining forces with massage therapists, acupuncturists, physical therapists, and athletic trainers. These professionals may have room in their clinics for you to set up shop.

This arrangement is a win-win for professionals because it allows you to share expenses. It also benefits patients by giving them multiple options to meet their wellness needs.

Consider Starting as an Associate

Maybe the best way to start a chiropractic office is to work for someone else first. Think of it as getting paid to receive on-the-job training. When you serve as an Associate Chiropractor at another office you learn the business before starting your own business.

This helps you improve your skills in chiropractic care by working with a mentor. You’ll also see what’s involved in the day-to-day operations of a successful chiropractic practice before branching out on your own.

Working for others provides an opportunity to learn back-office functions such as billing, insurance, accounting, marketing, and office administration.

If you are concerned about earning less as an Associate Chiropractor, remember when you start a practice from scratch, you’ll often be the last person paid.  While you learn the ropes, you may make more and bank more towards starting your own office.

If you take this route, be wary of any non-compete agreements the hiring chiropractor may ask you to sign. Signing a non-compete could lock you out of the market for three years.