subject: Chiropractic Marketing Tools - Know Your Numbers [print this page] Chiropractic Marketing - The Hidden Truth In Your Numbers
Most doctors NEVER really analyze the make up of their practice. I can befuddle them with the first few questions I ask. They are managing their business and money blind-folded.
As analogy, consider a totally different business, something like a hardware store.
If youre the number-cruncher for Lowes or Home Depot, you look at where your sales dollars come from, but even more important where your profit dollars come from.
How much from seasonal vs. year-round merchandise, from paint vs. garden tools vs. appliances, from different brands and product lines, from different aisles and shelves, and on and on.
You crunch all these numbers to create a clear, understandable picture of the business. Then you use the information to drop some products, add others, re-arrange how merchandise is allocated shelf space, inches of space in ad circulars.
Now back to your practice. If I were a very sophisticated analyst, maybe that guy who does it for Home Depot, here are some of the things Id want to know about your practice:
For the last 6 or 12 months, how many Medicare patients, how many from HMOs, how many cash patients, how many low back, how many headache, how many condition by condition, male vs. female, age brackets, and sources Yellow Pages, newspaper, referrals, and every other means used.
Id look at the gross dollars for each one in the matrix. For example, low back/Yellow Pages/insurance vs. low back/Yellow Pages/cash. Id want to know which were best, which worst.
I have, at various times, in seminars, in one on one discussions, offered $100.00 cash to over 300 different doctors, the $100.00 bill to any one who could produce such analysis. So far, I havent parted with even one portrait of Ben Franklin.
Does all this sound tedious and boring and complicated?
Maybe, maybe not. But if you feel like youre working too hard for your money..if youre not orgasmically happy with your own net take home pay..if you arent gaining a lot of financial ground from year to year..the answers to your why?.but how can this be? questions are all hidden in these numbers.
You see, most doctors just come to work. They see patients pretty much any patients who they can get. They create and deposit gross. They hope, if theres gross, therell be enough net. They NEVER track, look at or use the kind of numbers that rule other kinds of profitable businesses.
Worse, most will argue and insist they just know whats going on in their practice. But if and when these statistics are actually gathered up and examined, the reality of their practice and what they think their practice is two different things.
