TCM- What it takes to make it in this business

[Guest guest]

I've been in practice for over 8 years and was self-sustaining almost from

the beginning. I did my outreach to referral sources prior to graduating

from acupuncture school. I attached my practice to an acupuncture-friendly

chiropractor who'd been in practice for 20 years and was literally having to

turn people away. In addition to her referrals and prior to actually

practicing in her clinic, I worked in a massage clinic with 5 massage

practitioners with another recent acupuncture grad. We both benefited from

the referral sources in that clinic. The chiro I work with has this

philosophy: Provide good service and patients will come. She's never done

one bit of advertising. I have done very little and see about 32-38

patients per week working out of 2 rooms, 3.5 days per week. I really don't

want to work more days or have more patients than that because I want to get

to know these people and spend time with them. I have very low overhead

and do everything myself including laundry, reception and billing. My land

line telephone is on a permanent forward to my cell phone so that patients

can reach me 24/7 if need be.

 

 

 

I've kept stats on where my new patients come from and at this point 70% are

from patient referral, 10% from PPO lists and 20% from other practitioners

(other acupuncturists, chiros, MDs and massage therapists).

 

 

 

In the first 3 or 4 years, I did about 6 speaking engagements per year.

These were in adult community education settings, healthfood stores and high

schools (on " career day " ). Personally, I love public speaking so for me

that worked. However, if you are not a public speaker, DON'T DO IT! I've

sat in on a couple of presentations by colleagues and they more than likely

scared people away. You know if you have the " gift " of public speaking or

not. Other than that, I've done little advertising. The first few years

I had a small yellow pages ad. It was productive in the beginning (perhaps

4-5 new folks per month), but as the area became more saturated, fewer

referrals were seen from that source. And quite frankly, I enjoyed my

yellow page ad referrals far less than those who were word-of-mouth.

 

 

 

If I had to rate the importance of qualities one must have, I'd say:

 

 

 

1. Be a " people person " . Know your patient, their spouse's and

children's names, their job, etc.

2. Know your medicine and respect it.

3. Keep yourself healthy and fit.

4. Be available by phone 7 days per week (I cannot stress this enough.

You don't always have to answer the phone, but you can check your messages

frequently and GET BACK TO PEOPLE WITHIN 30 MINUTES).

5. Keep your overhead as low as possible.

6. Refer to another acupuncturist who may be better than you are at

certain conditions. Your patients will respect you more, and others will

refer to you.

7. Focus on expenses, income, details of the business when you are NOT

treating patients, and focus only on patients when you are with them during

clinic hours.

 

 

 

The interesting thing is that I don't think that how much a person knows

about OM has a direct correlation to success in the business. Almost all

of my patients who have not seen success (or much success) with a particular

condition will refer to me and/or will come back themselves for treatment of

another condition.

 

 

 

Just my 2 cents.

 

 

 

barb

 

 

 

_____

 

Chinese Medicine

Chinese Medicine On Behalf Of Andrea

Beth Damsky

Saturday, October 29, 2005 8:32 AM

Chinese Medicine

demgraphics now timing

 

 

 

 

Hi All-

 

 

 

I've heard it takes 3 to 5 years for ANY business to become self-sustaining.

To those of you who have been in practice longer than this - has this been

your experience, or something different? I also heard it takes 2-3 years

for an acupuncture practice to get to the point where you no longer need to

do massive outreach - ie., all new patients come from referrals. And too,

I've heard that this occurs after you have 200 patients in your database.

Any comments?

 

 

 

 

 

Acupuncture & Chinese Herbal Medicine

 

753 N. Main Street, Suite C-1

 

Cottonwood, AZ 86326

 

(928) 274-1373

 

 

 

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