1. Not enough delegation
Fundamental to chiropractic practice management is the need to delegate. Of course, it can be difficult to let go of responsibilities and tasks that have developed into your personal habits over time.
However, if you want your clinic to flourish and grow into your dream practice, then you need to make sure that your staff members are doing their job effectively. This means giving them assignments based on their strengths so they can maximize their potential in the workplace while also ensuring that they have enough downtime between tasks where they can recharge their batteries at home after work.
You should also give yourself some space from certain tasks so you can prioritize more important ones instead. You might not feel comfortable delegating everything right away due to an inherent fear of change or relinquishing control over certain aspects of your business. But remember that delegation isn’t about shutting down what makes up the essence of who you are as a person—it’s about allowing other people to take on more responsibility than just being another cog in the machine (and yes—this will mean getting away from some things).
This is where creating a clear business structure and organization comes in handy. You will be more confident delegating responsibilities based on their respective functions. This could mean assigning someone else with more technical expertise than yourself on computer systems maintenance duties or having someone else manage social media accounts while you are focusing on services and patient care.
2. Not enough accountability
Accountability is the first step toward setting goals and efficient chiropractic practice management. You must hold yourself accountable for your actions and ensure that your team members are doing so as well. You can accomplish this by setting goals as a team and working together on meeting them, along with reviewing missed expectations, teamwork and communicating the vision of the practice every month.
Again, a clearly defined business structure and organization can really help make you and each of your staff accountable. When everyone knows their roles and responsibilities, it’s easier to get things done and they get done more efficiently too!
3. Neglecting or overdoing your marketing
You’re neglecting your marketing or you’re overdoing it.
As a chiropractor, you need to be promoting your services and online presence. You can do this by using social media for customer engagement and creating an email newsletter with interesting content to attract new patients.You can also do paid ads to reach more potential clients. In-person marketing like spine screenings and lunches are also additional ways to bring in more leads to your business.
Are you doing all these (and then some) for your practice? Or maybe you are barely doing anything, marketing-wise, that is.
To get the most out of your marketing efforts, no matter how small they are, is to make sure your practice is ready to accommodate the influx of new clients. Once you have an efficient workflow, you can now start testing which marketing strategies work best in helping you achieve your dream practice.
4. Not tracking your numbers
In order to improve your chiropractic practice management, you need to track your numbers. If you don’t know what they are, how can you tell if they’re going up or down?
Here are four key things that chiropractors should be tracking on a monthly basis:
• Number of new patients in
• Day 2s (Report of Findings)
• Patients closed
• Patient visits
If you are not tracking your business performance, there is simply no way for you to know if your business is performing well, barely breaking even, or doing pretty bad.
Back in 2021, we were hitting great numbers in our monthly collections. However, towards the end of the year, the numbers dipped. Looking into it, we discovered that last minute cancellations were not filled back up with patients in the waiting list or those with appointments further out but want to come in sooner; hence, there were missed patient opportunities.
We were only able to dial down on the main reason because we were tracking our numbers. We knew where to improve since the numbers showed us exactly how to do it.
5. No financial plan
A financial plan is an integral part of your chiropractic practice management.
You need to know where you are financially, where you are going and how to get there. No excuses.
The most common reason chiropractors fail is because they do not have a financial plan or they have an incorrect one. This is often because they either never had one or they did but it was based on wishful thinking rather than reality.
Working your way to building your million-dollar dream practice must be founded on a sound financial plan. If you have been tracking your numbers, setting business goals and creating a financial plan is going to be easy.
A million-dollar dream practice translates into the magical 83,333 number. This means you must be able to collect at least $83,333 monthly to hit the million dollar mark. From there you can now calculate how many new patients in, Day 2’s and patients closed you need every month.
You will also be able to forecast the operational needs that will go into running a million-dollar practice. You may even have to take a look at your care plans – are they priced competitively?
6. Quality of service
Thing is, you may have the structural organization, marketing strategies, and financial monitoring and planning in place and yet your business is far from being the dream practice you want it to be.
The best thing a practice can do is to look inward and evaluate the quality of their service. If you are not receiving referrals or positive reviews, it’s time to reevaluate what is going on at your office. Be humble and open to learn how you can better serve your clients.
People value the quality of service they receive above everything else. If they feel better, chances are, they’re going to keep coming back. They will happily tell family and friends—even strangers—about the high level of care and excellent service they experienced from your clinic.
Understanding what you have been doing wrong in your chiropractic practice management is the first step to achieving your dream practice. Sometimes, we all need to take a step back and view things differently in order to take two steps forward.
Did the list resonate with you? Are you feeling stuck in realizing your dream practice? Learn more about my Dream Practice Model.