Hello and Welcome!
Below is your assignment for the first week of class.
Discuss and agree on an answer to this question: What is the biggest challenge for new chiropractors starting their own practice? The 1st person in each group will post the answer on the blog. This assignment is worth 2 points. Each blog assignment is due the Monday after it is assigned. This week you should have the blog posted by November 7th at 5 pm.
The hardest part about opening a clinic from scratch is a difficult question due to the miriad of difficulites. First and foremost the most difficult thing with all start up practices is establishing a patient base to support the start up practice and pay the impending bills that begin to mount quickly. That brings us to another topic of finacing and billing. We are taught to adjust and may naturally have the people skills to bring people in the door but billing, billing is the key to survival. If done improperly will leave you broke or in jail. Both sound like fantastic options that one should possibly stear clear of. It may be a excellent idea to hire an outside source in the form of a manangement group or mentor to help guide you through the murky waters of icd-9's and CPT codes. If one can master getting people in the door and bill them correctly you may stand a chance in the competitive marketplace that is chiropractic.
ReplyDeleteThe biggest challenge to any chiropractor starting their own practice is the actual act of starting and expanding one. We need to forget about the building and equipment because people can predict how much that will cost and analyze what they need and how much money they will spend. I believe, the most difficult aspect of starting a new practice is creating a patient base. Has anyone spoken to people about chiropractic lately and about how chiropractic can affect people's health? Most students I have spoken to say "no I haven't and I will start speaking to people when I get home." Well the truth is to start practicing now with educating the public and answering any potential questions people might have about chiropractic. Another thing that is important to do is to get yourself out there and create a patient base to grow on. We as future business people need to be involved in the community and get our names out there to be successful.
ReplyDeleteWhat isn't challenging about starting a new practice? As a new business owner there are so many things to think about, such as: location, employees, marketing, and most importantly patient recruitment and longevity. In order to handle these challenges, one needs to do some research. By looking at demographics you can come up with a location that is best suited for your practice and what type of clientele you are more likely to deal with. Researching to find out what is the best way to market to the clientele you want is very important in having a booming practice. One should look at a variety of practices to gain ideas of “what is” or “is not” working. By gaining these insights, one can implement them into their practice. Be diligent in evaluating your employees to make sure they are the most qualified, professional, trustworthy and are right for your practice. In conclusion, do your homework by visiting and talking with other chiropractors and business owners on how to overcome these challenges. By doing these things, opening a new chiropractic practice may not be as challenging as it seems.
ReplyDeleteThe most challenging thing in my opinion is that act of tying all the loose ends together. I plan on opening a practice right after Palmer, and the more I look into it, the more I realize I forgot or did not realize I had to account for, and most stressful of all, pay for. I honestly believe that we got a good education and can figure out how to be good, if not great doctors, but its still a lot to wrap your head around. Figuring out where to start, what to specialize in and what you will need to get it going is the first step, that plus figuring out how and who will pay for things. Who do you hire? How do you advertise? How do you make yourself looked better than the guy down the road? How will I treat my free-loading friends? We think that the hardest part of getting a practice started is getting through that first 6 months and grow. If the seeds are planted properly at that point, then you should be able to eat for the rest of your career.
ReplyDeleteThe biggest challange for a new chiropractor starting his or her own practice is getting their practic established. One the DC has set up their practice and staff, nothing matters until they aquire patients to take care of. Making your practice known within the community as a positve and trusted source of health care can take time and work to establish.
ReplyDeleteGroup 6 believes that the most challanging aspects of starting a chiropractic practice is in the begginging is determining the city/town that is not already over populated with chiropractors. Once you find a city/town the next challange will be to find suitable location to open your practice, followed by building a business plan that will allow you to acquire the capital needed to open the doors. The next challange facing the chiropractic practice will be building a patient base that is adaquate to keep the doors open and to start acruing profit.
ReplyDeleteThe most difficult thing about starting a new practice comes down to two large details in our opinion. First, is developing a patient base because you are so new, and many patients will view this as inexperienced. Along with this, many chiropractors may lack the self confidence that patients need from their chiropractor in order to feel comfortable. Second is financing a new office. Where do you get a loan, especially with so much debt already? How much money do you truly need? Should you hire people right away so you appear more professional or should you run your front office and manage patient care at the same time? Both of these topics are decisions, surrounded by many questions of insecurity and indecisiveness and in our groups opinion, the most difficulty thing about starting a new practice.
ReplyDeleteWhere to begin.... The biggest challenge? I dont think one challenge can be said to be the hardest for everyone. I think people when starting have difficulties in different aspects and that may be due to a myriad of reasons. I think the list of challenges could go on forever. But I think most people run into issues with is filing paper (Tax,LLC,LLP,Corp) without a good lawyer this can be very difficult. Also Money would be the top issue with most people I would imagine. And that could just be handling the money you do have. The first year is crucial and needs to be handled with care this will set the tone for your office for some time to come. Overall many aspects can be a struggle but its important to keep in mind that in the end it will be worth it.
ReplyDeleteGroup 9 had similar thoughts to pretty much every group that's posted so far. 1. Again, how do you get a loan with a struggling economy and over a 100k in debt with many of us having little credit or collateral to back our name. 2. Getting patients in the door. I trust most of us can keep some patient retention with our charm and intelligence but actually getting patients in the door when they may or may not have insurance and rarely want to be proactive about their health is going to be the challenge. I believe we will all find our niche to that problem and unfortunately, if we don't, good old Darwinsim will work out the rest. Honestly, I think what it bouls down to with all of these concerns, and the list could go on and on, is that the margin for error is small and the consequences significant. We will always learn and fine tune our skills as a clinician, but as a business person, we need to know the ins and outs day one and be on top of our game. That is very intimidating and overwhelming without experience, but it definitely can be done.
ReplyDeleteI think the most difficult part of starting a practice is getting those first few patients in the door. Word of mouth advertising is a large part of any medical practice and not having your name out there is detrimental. Even after getting people to walk into your office, you have to impress them enough that they suggest other people come to see you. You also have to be in a good location because so many people don't have time to drive more than 30 mins out of their way just to see a chiropractor. If your practice is in an out of the way area, you won't get those first few patients to come in.
ReplyDeleteGroup 11 thinks that there are more than a big challenge in opening a Chiropractic office. First of all as new graduates we do not really have experience on the field which could be an issue on having new patients, for that reason we have to be specific on the services that we are offering, being unique in what we do to attract people to our office.
ReplyDeleteAnother concern is the possibility to have a loan that can cover the necessities we have to open the doors. A solid business plan can be very helpful to get the founds we need to start our own practice.
We want to mention the importance of looking for used equipment instead of new one. Minimizing the original investment on equipment and other office materials will help us to help us to successfully survive the first years of practice with a minimum debt to pay.
Lastly, find the right office philosophy that defines what we are, targeting a specific population, our vision statement all these define who we are and what we do. Also choosing the right staff for your office it is all an art, therefore it is good to have some training before, deciding the king of company, and if we want to rent or buy the office space. On the other hand, being confident on what you do, following the states rules, and applying the education that we had at school could secure our career.
There are so many challenging things involved with starting a practice. The first major challenge is getting financed to start up a practice, especially with the economy the way it is currently, along with our large school debt. Also, another major challenge of opening a practice is just getting patients to know us as the doctor and want to tell other people in the community to come into the office by word of mouth.
ReplyDeleteThe biggest challenge to opening a chiropractic office is patients. Sure, there is the laborious tasks of business plans, marketing, patient education, and the like but what really matters is the patient. Patient education is the most difficult part of opening a business because we as students live an an artificial environment in which we are aware chiropractic is not simply taking care a neck/back pain with a "crack" but to the general popluace we are. Im sure everyone is well aware of the phrase "patients dont care how much you know, until they know how much you care", a cliche I know, but it is the complete truth. All of the initials and titles after your name will help bring patients in but what keeps them coming back is your passion and dedication to their well being and health, not simply a check.
ReplyDeleteGroup 13: We feel that this question is hard to answer definitively. Each graduate will leave the college with different strengths and weaknesses. As a result, each person is going to struggle in different areas of starting their practice. Each group member foresaw different major struggles that they will face, and we feel that this principle is the reason why. That being said, we do feel that there are some more challenging problems than others when beginning in practice.
ReplyDeleteFirst, we feel that it will be a huge challenge to set a good foundation for the practice. This includes meeting legal requirements, setting up a corporation properly, hiring staff, setting up office procedures, etc. The largest problem involved may be obtaining the needed business loans, however. Students usually graduate with high debt and low cash. As your business loan is largely based on individual credit, this is very much not ideal for obtaining a business loan and presents a huge obstacle to obtaining the proper funding.
Second, transitioning from extern to primary care provider is likely going to be very challenging as well. Developing the confidence to be responsible for another person’s health and work with other health care providers to do so will be quite intimidating. The Palmer clinics see a lot of relatively healthy people. These people are also quite often sold on the principle of wellness care and continue to come in often regardless of symptoms. In most other places, the patients will likely have a different mindset and will usually be seeking pain management. This will make it challenging to feel confident in creating care plans that will best benefit the patient under those circumstances.
I think the hardest part of start up is getting the funding for the start up cost of your new practice. Unless you won the lottery or your family is rich, you have to rely upon loans from banks that already realize that you are in school loan debt of 100,000 dollars or more. This makes loan officers a little worrisome to granting a large loan to new DC's. We have learned the ability to adjust and diagnose but we have not learned the business aspect of the practice unless you already own your own company or utilized the business center's seminars. We need to learn how to keep our practices afloat while growing our new patient base. I agree with other peoples opinions on what is difficult for new DC's starting a practice but start up loans are very difficult to obtain without knowledge on the subject.
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