Should Chiropractors Integrate Their Practice?

How to Structure Your Medical Practice

The decision about how to structure a medical practice is a key choice, and it can be a challenging one. Working in an integrated practice offers the trade-off of an improved support system, but it also limits the personal freedom of an independent chiropractor.

Traditional practices have been around for decades, and they are viewed as the default method for practitioners in a wide range of fields. Multidisciplinary practices, on the other hand, have a whole host of advantages for chiropractors and patients.

There are good points and bad points to each stand alone and community-oriented chiropractic care, but the case for an integrated practice is strong.

Before you can make a decision about whether or how you should integrate your practice, take a look at the highlights of the multidisciplinary approach.

Improved Patient Care Options

Patient-centered chiropractors inevitably want to provide the best possible care to their clients. A positive way to do that is to adopt a model that incorporates chiropractic, acupuncture, physical therapy, massage, and other related services under one roof.

When a centralized approach to care is provided, patients benefit as it minimizes the need to go to multiple offices.

Familiarity breeds ease, so patients who use an integrated practice are able to come to the same office repeatedly for many of their healthcare needs. Converting a single chiropractic practice into a comprehensive care facility allows entrepreneurs to capitalize on a diverse range of services while also giving patients what they need.

This shows in increased patient retention. By offering multiple services to patients, they’re in the office more frequently and so form deeper relationships with the care providers housed in the practice.

Reduce Costs with Comprehensive Care

There are multiple ways to structure a multidisciplinary care practice, but all of them reduce costs. A chiropractor might decide to partner with other practitioners in an equitable arrangement, with all parties shouldering decision-making duties.

Another option is to rent space to other providers, giving the main provider a source of passive income while maintaining autonomy. The final option is to hire other practitioners in an employer-employee structure, which gives the chiropractor the greatest deal of autonomy but also the greatest amount of responsibility. With any of these options, patient billling and office management can be integrated to cut costs.

This comprehensive care approach offers patients a wider set of choices, which gives each practitioner a wider reach.

Word of mouth marketing, most of which still happens offline, is a highly effective method for reaching potential clients. For practitioners who are part of an integrated practice, the customer base to “get the word out” is larger and more effective.

Other forms of marketing are also more cost-effective as those costs are shared across the shoulders of everyone.

Creating a Successful Integrated Practice

With an integrated chiropractic practice, doctors can better adapt to the constant changes in the healthcare world. It’s a win-win scenario not only for those who provide healthcare, but for their patients as well.

To become an effective integrated practice, the most important step is to create a clear vision of the mission and purpose of the business. Determine why this comprehensive care approach is worthwhile, dig into the nuts and bolts of how to operate it, and then execute those ideas.

The primary goal must always be delivering the highest standard of care to patients. Incorporating best-practice concepts, no matter what the structure, is an essential part of creating a successful integrated practice.

A multidisciplinary practice offers chiropractors a great deal of flexibility and ease of operation, all while improving the patient experience and saving money.