| By
Bryan Miller
Nutritional/herbal
supplements can help you promote optimal health for
your patients and generate income for your practice.
Regardless of the type of practice you maintain, the
socio-economic demographics of your patient population
or what chiropractic school you attended, these foundations
of promoting optimal health and generating revenue
are shared by every chiropractor.
Combining
your chiropractic care with a nutritional supplement
adjunct to your treatment protocols and professional
recommendations makes sound chiropractic and business
sense!
Are
you missing an opportunity?
Economics are governed by supply and demand. If you
are skeptical about whether you are missing an economic
opportunity to generate revenue independent of health-insurance
reimbursement, consider the following. According to
the Nutrition Business Journal (Vol. 8, May/June 2003),
multivitamin sales for the food, drug and mass-market
channels were $688 million in 2002. Herbal supplement
sales were second behind multi’s at $293 million.
Clearly,
consumers are spending disposable income to improve
their health status. Are you capitalizing on this
opportunity? To easily gauge your patient populations’
interest and usage of nutritional/herbal products,
try this simple exercise:
Add
a section in your patient history/inventory questionnaire
that asks if the patient is currently using a nutritional/herbal
supplement formula. Find out the types of products
and the patient’s goals in taking them.
Take
the exercise one step further and ask if the patient
is comfortable with the quality of product being used
or would like more general information regarding the
use of supplements to promote health and general well
being.
Basic
steps for success
1 Develop a plan. Planning is essential.
Many chiropractors waste time, energy and money with
nutritional products because they rush into purchasing
an inventory without thinking through a basic strategy
consisting of what they need and how they will apply
these products to their existing practice and treatment
protocols.
Before
purchasing any products, take time to analyze your
practice and ask yourself these questions:
•
“What type of practice do I have?”
How
to display your nutritionals
Here are some tips to installing a successful
nutritional supplement display:
•
Seeing is selling. Location is vital. Review
your patients’ traffic patterns and place
your display where they will be entering and
exiting the clinic. My favorite is the check-in/check-out
station located near a staff member to answer
initial questions. Make sure your display is
not too low or too high. Eye level is ideal.
•
Keep the display stocked. An inventory representation
of the product shows patients you have the product
readily available and it is used on a regular
basis.
•
Provide product information. Have product information
material readily available.
•
Secure the display. Don’t let products
“walk” out of your clinic. That
can get expensive. At the same time, don’t
sacrifice visibility for security. If patients
cannot see the product, they are less likely
to purchase. A good solution is a closed acrylic
or glass front with access for your staff from
the back.
•
Keep the display orderly. Most of all, keep
your display clean, neat and full. Unordered,
backwards-facing and disheveled products do
not impress patients. |
•
“What are my patient demographics (sports medicine,
elderly, acute injury or wellness and maintenance)?”
•
“Do these patient populations fall within the
five major nutritional supplement categories of general
health and wellness, acute care, joint, bone, and
seasonal products?”
Lining
up the answers to these questions with the types of
products available will save you from purchasing inventory
you do not need and you will not waste your time talking
with patients who are not candidates for certain products.
2
Educate yourself and your staff. Learn about
the history, science and application of the nutritional/herbal
products you plan on recommending to your patients.
A confident, scientific presentation of your product
is crucial to patient confidence and compliance to
your recommendation.
Take
the time to train your staff on the types of product
you will be carrying and their general applications.
Patients often spend more time in your clinic talking
with the receptionist and chiropractic assistants
than they do with you. When your staff can intelligently
discuss and answer basic questions regarding your
nutritional/herbal products and then refer the patient
to you for more detailed follow-up, your clinic assumes
a professional image.
3
Establish credibility. When discussing and
presenting nutritional/herbal products to a patient,
be frank about the realistic benefits of using the
supplement.
The
therapeutic benefits of many nutritional supplements
are scientifically established. Unfortunately, unrealistic
and sometimes fraudulent claims are often made regarding
these products. If you combine unrealistic health
claims and ignorance of the concept of nutritional
products as an adjunct to achieving optimal health,
you have a recipe for failure.
Strive
to educate your patients on a program of incorporating
nutritional products as one of the building blocks
to good health along with improved diet, regular exercise
and chiropractic adjustment, as opposed to merely
being a “natural medicine” alternative
to alleviate their symptoms.
4 Provide professional references.
The healthcare consumer is very interested in the
use and benefits of nutritional/herbal formulas. Unfortunately
they are bombarded with marketing jargon, misinformation
and deception from various sources, including the
Internet, friends, families and less reputable supplement
marketers.
When
you make a professional recommendation, provide third-party
information and reference material on the types of
nutrients you are recommending.
Good
third-party information — which will enhance
your credibility — consists of professionally
written articles and scientific reference material
written for the consumer.
The
best information should be independent of the marketing
materials provided by the manufacturer or distributor
of the products you are carrying and should contain
some scientific documentation but not so much that
it would overwhelm the average patient.
Providing
professional references not only builds your credibility,
it also educates your patients. A well-trained staff
can take the time to provide the materials to the
patient, leaving you free to concentrate on treatment.
5
Display your products. An orderly, professional
display of your products tells your patients that
you incorporate nutritional formulas as part of your
treatment protocol, makes them aware that you carry
an inventory and often stimulates interest and desire
to purchase.
Take
the time to work through these recommendations and
you will achieve success incorporating nutritional/herbal
supplements as an ethical revenue-generating adjunct
to your existing treatment plans and protocols.
Bryan
F. Miller is a representative with Anabolic Laboratories
Inc., a pharmaceutically licensed manufacturer of
clinical nutritional products. He has 17 years of
experience in clinical product sales and consulting,
including modalities, pharmaceutical and professional
nutritional products.
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