Chiropractic Business Plan: A Model for Your Clinic

Highlights

• A chiropractic business plan is a vital part of growing a successful chiropractic practice.
• To create a successful business plan, consider elements like the services you offer, your priorities, and your ideal client base.
• Your chiropractic business plan should include metrics tracking, a mission statement, and an executive summary.
• The right chiropractic EHR can help you follow your chiropractic business plan and help you grow your practice.

Developing a chiropractic business plan is essential for running a successful chiropractic practice. To create a well-rounded business strategy, review the basics of writing a business plan and focus on chiropractic elements. By crafting a thorough and practical business plan for your practice, you ensure the continued growth and success of your chiropractic business.

Every Business Plan Is Unique

There is no one right way to draft a business plan, according to the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA). The organization acknowledges that every business owner should craft a unique business plan that matches their industry and objectives.

For this reason, you don’t want a fill-in-the-blanks, cookie-cutter approach to creating a business plan for your chiropractic practice. Instead, consider your objectives and write a plan that helps you meet your goals.

For example, if you are writing a business plan to obtain financing for your practice, create a well-organized, well-argued document that doesn’t leave potential lenders with questions. You want them to understand your vision for your chiropractic business.

Whether you use an SBA business plan template or design your own, the information must be unique to your practice. This is especially important if a bank or other lender is unfamiliar with the chiropractic industry.

Business Plan Basics

Drafting a plan that meets the unique objectives of your chiropractic practice is essential to growing your business. To write a well-researched and informative business plan, consider the following elements of business, including your patient demographics, the services you offer, and your chiropractic brand identity.

Actions To Build a Successful Practice

When writing a business plan, consider the development stage of your practice. If you are just starting your practice, you’ll craft your entire business plan from scratch. This means you’ll need to think about all areas of your practice and envision how you want to operate.

If you already run a successful practice and desire further growth, review the current processes work and those that don’t to determine where to make changes.

Determine If You Will Offer Additional Services

Offering various services can distinguish you from your competitors. Every chiropractor offers chiropractic manipulation, but most practices also offer additional services such as massage, nutritional supplements, and lifestyle coaching.

As you draft your business plan, consider what other services you provide or if you plan to add new options such as hydrotherapy, yoga, or acupuncture. If you want to add services, consider how you will integrate them into your practice. Putting these goals in writing helps you build a roadmap for a continually evolving practice.

Identify Your Client Base

Identifying current and potential clients is crucial to a successful practice. Knowing your patients’ needs and expectations helps you tailor your services and grow your patient base — research potential client demographics to identify the client base in your area.

You can find market demographics through your local Small Business Development Centers (SBDC) branch. Typically, the SBDC has free advisers available to help with business plan development.

Think about how to market your business and core services to your patient demographic. Also, consider how to market integrative therapies, such as supplements or massage, to a broader audience.

Consider holding informational sessions for the community, participating in community activities, or investing in extensive conventional or social media advertising to help your practice grow and thrive.

Identify Yourself, Your Business, and Your Team

A summary of your educational and business background and that of your top employees is a critical part of a business plan. If you’re appealing to lenders, they must know who you are and what you stand for when reviewing your plan.

Identify yourself, including your professional experience and expertise. Include information about your practice staff as well. Avoid large amounts of biographical detail, but include what your team members contribute to the business. If your practice is new, insert your team’s prior experience in your business plan.

Identify Practice Areas

A crucial element of your business plan is identifying your specific practice areas. For example, if you intend to focus on a particular area or service like sports medicine or nutrition, specify this in your plan. Alternatively, if you plan to focus on general family chiropractic, make this the focus of your business plan.

While identifying your practice areas, consider how you will attract clients who need your specialty services.

Determine Priorities

A practical aspect of creating a business plan includes determining your priorities. Your priorities depend on what stage your practice is in, so make a detailed list of your top priorities to accomplish them step by step.

For example, finding the right business location is a priority when starting a new practice. However, as your practice grows, your priority may change to bringing in another chiropractor to help with your workload. Adjust your priorities as needed and keep an ongoing list to know where to focus your energy.

Outline Your Goals and Strategy

When a lender, or anyone else, reads your chiropractic business plan, they must come away with a clear idea of your goals and the strategies you will employ to meet them. If you have a goal in mind but haven’t yet developed a strategy to meet it, consider options and include them in the business plan. Creating a business plan forces you to come up with concrete ideas.

Crunch the Numbers

Make sure you include current and projected numbers in your business plan. Report current gross revenues and projected revenues for three or four years. Provide background for these numbers, including the current number of patients, average visits, and pricing and packages.

As you gather your data, consider your current collection rate. Think about possible solutions for improving claims reimbursement and payment collection, such as switching to a completely integrated chiropractic EHR.

Determine Financing Needs

Putting your financial needs on paper is one of the primary purposes of a business plan. Determine which areas you need to invest in, and formulate a budget to help assess your projected expenses and income.

List your current financial state and describe where you plan to be in a year. Ensure the entire business plan, especially the financial section, is rooted in reality and backed by research-based calculations.

Chiropractic Business Plan Specifics

Your chiropractic business plan should include all the basic elements, such as a mission statement and near- and short-term projections. However, your plan should also include industry-specific factors.

Your chiropractic business plan should include everything relating to your business, including:

• Plans for leasing or buying equipment and software
• Renting or purchasing an office
• Estimated staff salaries and benefits
• Marketing and advertising budgets

Track Your Metric of Success

In your business plan, include information on how you judge the success of your practice. These metrics include how many patients you intend to treat annually and how much revenue you expect from each visit. Make sure to address how you will track these metrics, including financial reports, billing statements, and practice management software that provides insights on patient retention rates.

Create a PowerPoint Presentation

Complement your chiropractic business plan with a PowerPoint presentation consisting of several slides that hit the highlights of your plan. Use photographs of your practice to give viewers a personal glimpse into your business.

The PowerPoint presentation will provide an easy-to-digest way to share the information in your business plan. Your PowerPoint can function as a decision-making tool to inform lenders and loan officers.

Executive Summary

After you’ve compiled your chiropractic business plan, compose an executive summary, outlining all the major points in the document. Place your executive summary at the beginning of your business plan.

Its purpose is to give readers a quick overview of your plan so that they can grasp the basic concepts. Include a brief description of what a chiropractor is and how you conduct your practice.

A well-written, compelling business plan will present your practice as a promising venture. Before submitting your plan to a lender, show it to a successful business colleague or mentor for critique and review.

Once your chiropractic business plan is complete, it’s a living document. Conduct an annual review to see where you fall short or exceed your expectations and update your plan as necessary.

ChiroTouch Can Help

Successful chiropractic practices need a strong business plan, but even the best business plan can’t make a practice succeed if they don’t have first-rate chiropractic EHR software in place.

ChiroTouch offers completely integrated EHR software to support every aspect of your practice. ChiroTouch offers providers a modern, user-friendly platform to make practice management simple and efficient. We provide multimodal support to help you and your staff utilize ChiroTouch’s innovative features.

Resources include:

• Interactive chat
• A searchable knowledge base
• On-demand tutorials and videos
• Context-sensitive help
• Blogs and webinars

With ChiroTouch, you have access to automated insurance and billing as well as online and POS payment processing. This automation helps you keep track of your practice’s cash flow and meet the goals you outlined in your chiropractic business plan.

For those who plan to start cash-only or paper billing practices, ChiroTouch Core steamines billing with ledger, invoicing, and receipts automation, as well as integrated payment processing for subscriptions and care plans.

ChiroTouch Advanced is ideal for practices that plan to use electronic insurance submission. With this option, you can meet goals set forth in your business plan with billing handled through a single vendor and full claims cycle management, including status updates and electronic submission.

Additionally, ChiroTouch offers several ancillary services such as patient communication tools like CT Engage and CT Informs, and online scheduling that help you keep track of patient outreach and retention goals. With ChiroTouch, you can seamlessly follow your business plan knowing your operations are secure and streamlined.