How To Make The Best Use Of Your Clinic Space

The standard answer would be to have an associate or salaried member of staff using a room with back to back appointments twelve hours a day six days a week.??

However, if you aren’t at full capacity, then the question comes down to what is going to give you the biggest return on the space (cash), with the least risk to the operation of the business.

In a separate document, I show dimensions of how an Accu SPINA can go in its own single room, a larger dual-purpose room or an open clinic space which might be a gym or studio area.

I’ll start with a look at the dual-purpose room as this is a common option.?

DUAL-PURPOSE ROOM

You have a room which is large enough for a standard treatment couch and an Accu SPINA.

Typically clinics use such a room for some form of manual therapy.?From physiotherapy to massage or they rent it out to different practitioners on either a half day or full day rate.

If I assume an average 30 minute “manual” treatment, 10 manual treatments would be five hours use for the room, leaving between three and five or more hours underused time.??

Questions to ask:?

? How much do you make from those sessions per month?

? How easy or how long will it take to fill the diary with these treatments?

? What is the realistic potential or how likely is this?

? How much will the marketing cost to achieve that?

? Assuming you build the numbers, how vulnerable are you to having to start again if the person working there leaves?

With underused capacity in a room, an Accu SPINA and specialist spinal rehabilitation programme gives you the opportunity to make more from the room.

The IDD treatment is billed as a 45 minute session.?Five IDD sessions is 3 hours 45 minutes of clinical time per day.?This shows revenue for ￡75 per IDD treatment:?

That said if I take five sessions a day at ￡70 (USA average $150) per treatment, this would equate to an average of ￡350 ($750) a day extra revenue, or ￡7,000 ($15,000) a month.?

For most clinics this is interesting.?Of course, your treatment volume may be lower than this initially but even half of this amount would generally be desirable, especially with the potential to grow.?It is worth considering that this is a significantly greater income and overall business growth catalyst than just renting rooms to third party practitioners.

HALO EFFECTS

The additional consideration for the clinic owner is what we call the “halo effect”.

We want clinics to be seen as the Go-To Spine Clinic.??

When you have a treatment which helps an underserved category of spinal patient, it stands you out as a centre of excellence.??

Thus as you develop your clinic over time, especially as you add some marketing of the new service, you can attract other patients because they see your clinic as an expert centre, as a place where they can get help.??

With a dual-purpose room, every patient coming in for manual treatment will see and be impressed by your technology.?This can have a powerful word of mouth effect, which combined with general expert positioning over time, can have a significant impact on the business as a whole. Halo effect.

TREATMENTS

Patients with unresolved disc problems and sciatica need a programme of care.?The challenge for some treatments, such as massage is that many patients only come for appointments intermittently.?Some will come once a week but on the whole patients might have one or two massages only.??

With the IDD Therapy spine programme, patients have a course of treatment of up to and sometimes more than twenty treatments over a six to eight week period.

Whilst a patient might pay ￡50 for a massage, an IDD patient pays ￡70+.?And whilst one massage patient might spend ￡100 or possibly ￡150, with IDD Therapy a patient may spend ￡1,400 or more.??

This is why it pays for clinics to invest their marketing in those services which have a higher return on investment, namely to patients with more complex needs who by their nature require more care.?Such a focus also reinforces the clinic’s expert status as the go-to clinic for musculoskeletal problems.??

This is good for the clinic of course but and importantly, it is also good for the therapists.?If they are self-employed, an IDD patient having a course of treatment means that they can get many more sessions and thus higher monthly income.?Plus as the clinic gets busier overall, they can earn more.

If you have salaried staff instead and they have diary gaps, the block of IDD treatments is extra profit for the clinic.?After all, aren’t you still paying wages for those treatment gaps? Thus, it’s a win-win.

SINGLE ROOM

Some clinics have smaller rooms.?If your treatment rooms are booked out every half hour for example, then you probably don’t need a new service and you might be getting more revenue from the space than if you had IDD Therapy.

But clinics do have single rooms which are underused.??

We have clinics who have installed Accu SPINA in what was a storage room.?Others have put up partitions in reception areas using a stud wall to create an extra treatment space.

When the patient is on the Accu SPINA, they relax and many go to sleep.?So the size of the room is less important because ultimately, it’s all about the patient getting better.?You can of course make any space feel premium, pleasant and relaxing. After all, patients aren’t coming to see you for a nice view from the window.

GYM / STUDIO

There are clinics who have gyms or studios. Depending on the space, there is often an underused area with the footprint to have an Accu SPINA.?

That treatment area has the potential to earn significantly more profit for the business with IDD.

A gym is of course an ancillary service to the musculoskeletal treatments a clinic provides.?

This is a consideration for you as a clinic owner if that describes your set up.?Is there a piece of equipment you rarely use that is taking up space where a specialist spine service would add infinitely more value??

If not, then the specialist spine programme probably isn’t going to be a fit for you.?But having one Accu SPINA can be interesting if it works alongside your gym / studio.

Classes – some clinics put on classes.?Having classes can generate patients for a clinic.?If you have a full timetable of classes e.g pilates, the question you might consider is how much profit you make from providing the classes in the studio??And how many new patients do you get from having people come to classes?

Not many clinics have a full class schedule and if half the income goes to the class instructor, the question is how much money are you actually making from the space??￡1,000 a month? ￡3,000+?

It might be that the classes suit you and how you want to work, in which case if this is your only available space, then the Accu SPINA wouldn’t be a fit for you.

But if you are only making a modest amount per month from the classes, you could orientate the space to a dedicated spinal rehab centre and have a reciprocal referral arrangement with a local class instructor. The direct and indirect revenue from the spine programme would make this an interesting solution for some clinics.

EXPANSION

In the midst of considerations of space use and a possible spinal specialism, you may have an interest in getting additional equipment in your clinic, shockwave, new couches, a gym etc or you might be eyeing a move to bigger premises or even opening additional clinics.?

If you have space, know that clinics use the profit from their spine specialism to provide the capital to make those investments, which in turn serve to reinforce and grow the brand positioning, increase revenue and the value of their clinic business.

SELLING UP?

Well not yet I trust.?But I return to the opening point about space usage and what you want for your clinic in the future.

In the future you will typically have three principal options. 1/ Work until people carry you out because you love what you do so much 2/ You stop working in the business and have someone run it for you so that you take an income from it 3/ You sell your business.

If you want an income, the business will need revenue streams not dependent on you working all the time.?The spine specialism can contribute to that.??

When you come to sell your business, of course you want the most you can possibly get for it.?What would an extra ￡20,000, ￡50,000 or more ($50k, $100k+) on the sale price of your business mean for you??At a minimum, a year doing all the things you have not done because you’ve spent your whole life working.??

Thus it is important to consider the buyer and why they would want to buy your business rather than just start their own . And importantly, how much would they be willing to pay for your business.??

Having a long past patient list is good, but key to maximising the sale value of your business is having a strong brand identity, high annual profits, revenue streams not dependent on you and having physical assets in your business.??

These important factors combine to give you the maximum possible sale price for your business.?

Author: Stephen Small, Clinic Development Director

Steadfast Clinics Ltd

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