Clinical Solutions Blog

Every clinic owner that I talk to always talks about getting more doctor referrals. So that’s exactly what we’re going to do today - talk about the ins and outs of doctor marketing.

With my first new startup in Vancouver, I built a 2500 SF clinic next to a super busy medical practice, spending over $300,000 to build my clinic!  

At my clinic, I had physiotherapists, chiropractors, and massage therapists.     

The medical practice next door had 8 doctors and were seeing an average 400 patients per day. Within 6 months, my brand new clinic was getting 25 new patient referrals per week from their practice - and it only grew from there!

As you read what I am about to share, keep in mind that I am NOT a physiotherapist but I was still able to get the doctors to trust my clinic with their patients.

Today I’ll be sharing my secrets on doctor referrals that can help you.

I’ll share:

• The mindset of a doctor and how they think when it comes to referrals 
• How many MSK referrals you potentially can get from a busy doctor
• And 19 step-by-step secrets to gain a never ending stream of patient referrals from doctors

Let’s go...

Updated: July 24, 2019

I recently attended Darryl Yardley’s training webinar on The Top 7 Reasons Why Clinicians Struggle To Sell Products and How To Fix It - if you click on that link you can watch the webinar instantly.

Look, I’ve been in the rehab business for a long time. I built a alot of physiotherapy and chiropractic clinics over the past decade. But, no matter how long you’re in business, there’s always something more to be learned.

For instance, even though I feel I know quite a lot about product sales, and I’ve been to several of Darryl’s webinars before, I had an amazing “ah ha” moment at Darryl’s most recent webinar.

The “ah ha” moment was the realization that physiotherapists and chiropractors are not taking advantage of getting therapy products reimbursed by their patient's extended health plans. This is a crazy realization because it costs you nothing and it costs them nothing!

Patients have a range of products available to them, all of which are covered by their health care plans. You just have to tell them about what they can get because they don’t know.

Of course you’re not just going to do it for the sake of doing it. But as a clinic owner or clinician, it’s in your best interest to offer “complete care.” Since patients see you once or twice per week, their complete care may include compression garments or knee braces to assist in their recovery. And you can take advantage of their insurance coverage to help them get what they need — now that’s superior care!

I want to share what I learned at Darryl's webinar because it can help you improve your business:

We'll cover:

• Why you can charge more for products
• Extended health benefits explained
• 3 types of insurance coverages to pay for products you recommend to pattients 

Are you ready to make patients happier and watch your practice soar?

Of course you are, so let’s dive in so you can learn how to get the right coverage for your patients...

Scott Marcaccio and Vinh Pham are the founders of Myodetox, a rapidly growing rehab brand and business. 

In a short number of years, Scott and the Myodetox team have built a leading brand that has expanded into five locations based in Toronto, with the goal to expand their brand into Vancouver and Los Angeles in 2017, ending in 10 locations in 4 different markets.

You’ll be surprised to learn that one of the main drivers of their brand is social media, where Myodetox boasts 33K+ Instagram followers – which along with their social media savvy therapist team creates over 20 million weekly impressions on Instagram!

You’ll also be surprised that this all started when the clinic was small, with just a few therapists, where they invested in branding and marketing tactics that would seem counterintuitive to most clinic owners.

Today Scott is here to share his secrets to building this leading brand.

You’ll learn:

• Where the inspiration came from
• The steps to take to develop a successful business partnership
• The importance of core values and culture
• Business mistakes and lessons learned
• Branding and marketing tips to set you apart from the crowd
• Also you can watch my youtube meeting with Scott :)  

Plus, Scott will reveal how their mission to change the quality of care will affect the entire industry worldwide.

Be inspired by the Myodetox story...

I recently ran a vancouver workshop that was a huge success. In fact, it was sold out!

We did have a limit of 60 clinic owners attending and we had more than 20 clinic owners on our waiting list. The workshop was about keeping more patients (patient engagement) and getting more patients (with digital marketing).

My goal with these workshops is to help each clinic owners make an additional $10,000 per month. At the recent workshop, we had so much interaction, interest and questions that we ended up going well over the 2.5 hour planned workshop, finishing up beyond 10 pm!

I thoroughly enjoyed meeting up with all the awesome clinic owners from a wide variety of niches - pediatric, neuro, sports, rehab - from small clinics through to large multidisciplinary clinics.

This business workshop was sponsored by Physiotherapy Association of British Columbia (PABC). Since the workshop was split into two sections, what I’m about to share today is part one (patient engagement strategies), then coming up soon I’ll share part two (easy digital marketing tactics). 

Today you’ll learn:

• How to work smarter rather than harder
• Why 20% of patients drop off after just 3 visits and how to fix it
• How fixing patient engagement will boost your revenues by 30%
• 7 practical tips to get started with increasing your patient engagement

Yes, we’ve got a ton of great stuff to cover. So, let’s get down to business...

According to Strive Labs, 20% of patients drop out within three visits and never come back again. That's a lot of new patients self discharging, patients you’re never going to see at your clinic again. And a lot of lost revenue, too!

Patient engagement is something most clinic owners need to focus on more. And one of the challenges I hear clinic owners talk about is how poor new grads are with patient engagement.

This is to be expected, after all, they are just fresh out of physiotherapy or chiropractic school. From the patient’s perspective, they often look young (in most cases), they look and act inexperienced and they may not talk in a confident professional manner.

This dramatically impacts new patients who are calling your clinic. For instance, when a caller asks, what does the front desk say? The new patient caller wants to feel confident that your service is going to help them so if you’re telling them they are seeing a new grad with less experience, might have the perception that they are getting inferior treatment at your clinic.

But, there are easy ways you can fix this so your new grad has confidence and so do your patients.

In this post we’ll cover:

• The pros and cons of hiring new grads
• Ways to improve patient engagement
• A simple script for your front desk and new grads
• One simple technique to make every new patient a raving fan

 

Have you or your practice been sued by a patient before?  

I have and let me just say, it was a brutal experience. This happened a while back now, when I use to own alot of physiotherapy wellness clinics. In fact, it happened to me twice. And it’s something I would never wish upon anyone.  

The first time I was sued was when a patient claimed to get burned from a hot pack during treatment. The second time was also another burn injury after interferential current therapy for treating pain. Crazy thing was one of the lawsuits was a lawyer who was a patient and it scared the crap out of the new grad physiotherapist we hired.  

While none of us ever want to be faced with a lawsuit, the reality is, it can happen. And when you think about it, it can happen to any modality including shockwave therapy, ultrasound or laser at your clinic. It can even happen with a dysfunctional hi-low table - so stay away from buying cheap beds, and cheap equipment for that matter, please do!!! It's just not worth the lawsuits.

 

 

Let’s talk about some of the things you need to be aware of and how to protect yourself as best you can, including:

1. Two things you need to get patient consent for
2. Two types of insurance you absolutely need    
3. How to comply with regulatory obligations
4. Two steps to protect yourself through informed consent

 

A new patient comes to your clinic. You may not realize it, but absolutely everything counts!

What does their first impression say about your clinic, your service?

Do you have a messy waiting room? Is your front desk team flustered and short with their communications? Are your clinicians on time or late with with their appointment? 

Like I said, absolutely everything counts!

People make judgements within seconds of meeting, seriously, you have like 30 seconds to make a great impression and research shows that first impressions are hard to change. And in clinical practice, those first impressions go beyond the front desk and into your treatment room.

Being that I’ve worked with countless clinic owners, I know that in most clinic’s 40% or less of patients graduate from their treatment plans. That’s A LOT of lost patients and revenue. It seems to be a major struggle for clinicians to get their patients to commit to a care plan.

One of the major problems is that the clinician rushes the assessment and spends way too much time doing, and talking about, the diagnosis. Number one, the patient wants to feel cared about, so you need to get the patient to trust you and believe you are their best solution to their health problem. Number two, as a clinician you need to tell the patient exactly how long it will take and get them engaged and accountable to your treatment plan.

 

It’s called being patient-focused. It’s also called being focused on exceptional patient experience.

And here’s the thing: “Almost 9 out of 10 consumers say they would pay more to ensure a superior customer experience.” ~ Helpscout

So, we’re going to solve this problem so you can boost your graduation rates and here’s what we’re going to cover:

• The CarePath Framework - 8 steps to a kickass assessment
• How to get a patient to trust you within the first 5-10 minutes of contact
• How to plan effective treatments that patients will commit to
• How to get them to book the entire treatment plan on the first day
• And much, much more

After you read and implement these steps, you will never have a problem getting your patients to graduate from your treatment plans. And more importantly, for you that means you'll spend less revenue on attracting new patients, while increasing your revenue and referrals through existing patients.

Sounds like a winning situation right? It is!

So what are we waiting for...

Selling products. As a clinic owner you’re probably well aware that products could help increase patient incomes and boost your revenue's by 10%. But, you've tried selling products before and there always seems to be obstacles.

For one, your prices are more expensive than the big chain stores or pharmacies. This alone can make it difficult to get your clinician's to sell product or include that as part of their treatment plans. Then there’s the issue of having to choose the right product and make sure it sells. Let's face it, the last thing you want is a room full of inventory that sits there collecting dust.

I’d like to share:

• Why you need to introduce product to boost patient outcomes
• 3 reasons why you can charge more for products
• What price you should markup your products
• How to choosing the best products to sell
• How to sell more product at your clinic

 

If we told you the most popular holiday destination of choice is Hawaii, would that surprise you? Can you guess what the next top destination is?

We recently hosted our very first Beach Getaway Contest  and it was great to learn about all the different places people want to go for a holiday. So much fun. :)

We held the contest to show how THANKFUL and GRATEFUL we are to our customers and #Clinicaccelerator blog subscribers.

We appreciate how challenging and overwhelming it can get when working in a clinic, which is why we thought a holiday wish should be granted. 

We appreciate the honor of being able to serve front desk teams, clinic owners, and clinicians. We're always trying to find creative ways to show our appreciation. We recognize the hard work that goes into running a clinic and taking care of patients all at the same time. 

So, THANK YOU for being AMAZING!

And of course, thank you for your participation. It's great to see everyone have fun taking photos with friends, colleagues and family members.

The competition has ended so let’s announce the winner… 

 

You want to start a physiotherapy clinic or offer physical therapy services at your clinic but when you look around, you know that competition is fierce. There are new multi-disciplinary clinics opening up on every corner and nearly every practice seems to be offering the same solutions. Last time I checked in Vancouver and Toronto, there is pretty much a clinic every couple of blocks away.

Seriously. Everybody is claiming to fix back pain!

What's really scary is that even Dr Ho is claiming to fix back pain, all with his tens machine products! And the thing is, they don't have to deal with the college of physiotherapists when it comes to promoting services, they are simply earning revenue from selling products. And you know what? They are selling lots of product!

If you’re considering opening a physiotherapy clinic or offering these services, you need to be thinking BIG. Will you offer just a stand alone service to your patients? Will you embrace the trends of having a diversified wellness clinic that offers all the services including physiotherapy, chiropractic, massage therapy and personal training? Will you include a range of products to enable more complete care for patients?

Yes, there are a lot of things to think about.

In this post, we will teach you how to start a physiotherapy clinic from scratch or to launch  physio service inside your existing chiropractic or massage therapy clinic.

We’ll cover:

• A business model that works best
• How to startup a physiotherapy clinic from scratch
• How to add this new service into your chiropractic or massage clinic 
• How to collaborate to build a wellness and business model that shines
• Tips on building your practice after launch