Issue 14 - October 2004

From 1 clinic to 17 in a decade
Dr. Scott Wilson builds his practice on fitness
By Todd Stumpf

For Dr. Scott Wilson, leisure time might be a half-marathon, but life is a full sprint. At least the pace is.

He began by working with another chiropractor, who offered Wilson a share of the practice. Within three months, Wilson owned the practice outright. In less than 10 years since then, Wilson has gone from a partner in a single-location practice to the majority shareholder in a 17-outlet chain that, in the last fiscal year, billed $7.5 million.

Wilson now has his sights set on expanding to 100 clinics over the next decade, to bill $2 million annually per clinic and to go public within five years.

His success is based on a three-prong plan that involves being affiliated with a health-club chain, recruiting young graduates and recognizing his niche within the chiropractic industry.

KEY TO SUCCESS:
FITNESS AFFILIATION
The most important part of his plan was affiliating with Premier Fitness Clubs, a fitness chain with locations throughout Ontario. All 17 of Wilson’s Physiomed Health locations are within Premier outlets. That translates into thousands of potential patients — 1,300 or so of whom visit a Physiomed Health center for the first time each month.

Wilson was able to grow as quickly and expand to so many locations by employing a workforce of recent graduates and interns predominantly from Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College and National University of Health Sciences. Early in his expansion efforts, Wilson began using young graduates and even student volunteers — whom he employed as interns. Some of them have ultimately become partners.

“So these are all people who started with me from grassroots,” Wilson says. “Getting personnel at a very young age to work with me has been very important.”

Finally, Wilson sought a niche within the scope of chiropractic and found one within health clubs, where a legion of fitness-conscious people come every day to take charge of their health.

Far more than merely operating as a chiropractor who adjusts, Wilson has built a practice around what he calls "physio fitness" and "clinical conditioning." His protocols involve fitness training as much as standard chiropractic.

Wilson’s interest in these segments stems from his own experience as both an athlete and a chiropractic patient. A former standout baseball player once invited to tryout for the Canadian National team, Wilson ultimately gave up the sport to concentrate on his education, knowing that would take him farther someday than a bat and ball. Before he gave up playing, though, a rotator cuff injury led him to seek care from a chiropractor.

“I was always intrigued by sports injury,” Wilson explains. “The whole motivation to get into chiropractic was around the fact that I was a very athletic person. My sports and athleticism played a very important role in triggering me to even go to a chiropractor. Because of that, that's where I am and where I stand. That's what got me in.”

From there his vision — and career — took off. He quickly began to recognize a niche: People needed clinical care to accompany their health fitness routines.

Wilson’s life quickly became a culture built around the fitness club industry. His existence stemmed from his passion for sports and athleticism, coupled with exuberance for treating people.

A GOOD MATCH
“It was a perfect match to do it this way,” Wilson says. “It made so much sense to start like that.”

It continues to make even more sense when you figure in all the aspects a health club can bring to a chiropractic practice and vice-versa. Swimming pools, weights, machines and everything else found in health clubs can be applied to Wilson’s practice philosophies.

“I’m able to combine diet, exercise and obviously the clinical passive portions of lifestyle that go along with a regular chiropractic clinic that would deal with adjustments and passive-type treatments,” Wilson says. “Because we get into the passive treatment and diet components, when I prescribe care to people it’s more about an overall lifestyle change than it is rehabilitative.”

Wilson says that although his practices start out with mostly Premier members as patients, once they are “up and running,” they attract non-members as well. “From a business standpoint, it’s a nice spring-board to start a practice,” he says.

When he isn’t practicing, Wilson stays active. He still runs and periodically competes in half-marathons. He trains by running 40-60 kilometers a week. He also plays the guitar, camps and canoes. In other words, he tries to keep a good balance between work and play.

SOFTWARE KEEPS HIM IN TUNE
Helping him maintain a less hectic lifestyle is his business communication/patient management software system. The program not only ties his 17 clinics together, but also ties together the inner workings of each location.

Wilson says, “When I want to know what's going on at a clinic 100 miles away from me, I can see in a second.”

Wilson also keeps in commun-ication with what is happening within his clinics in the health clubs. “I've got some places where we have a place upstairs dealing with exercise and an area downstairs where all the treatment offices are. Creating the online service allows fulltime communication both intra-clinic and inter-clinic.

“Some of the clubs I’m in are greater than 50,000 square feet. We have check-in spots to keep track of patients. These communication spots keep us from getting bottlenecked. It’s an efficient service flow.”

The initial software prototype was written in about three months, but is constantly modified as Wilson’s business evolves.

“We had to go through a difficult first year, when we were using it and beta-testing it at the same time, if you can imagine that,” Wilson says with a laugh.

Further expediting his handling of the scores of patients that come through daily, Wilson uses a billing system common in the health-club industry. The system allows Wilson to offer his patients pre-authorized payment plans (PAPs). This gives patients a third payment option. In addition to financing and pay-as-you-go options, PAPs enable patients to pre-buy services.

Working much like a cell phone company might, the billing system allows patients to authorize debiting their accounts monthly, based on services rendered. A course of care can then be mapped out months in advance. Using this service (termed a multiple-appointment program), a patient can pay, for example, for $1,200 worth of services and products and have his or her account debited $200 each month. Wilson says paying this way saves patients up to 20 percent.

Technology plays a large role in Wilson’s practices. Patients have access to chiropractic, massage therapy, orthotics, MDs (in some locations), x-ray facilities, stretching and rehab programs, nutrition programs, clinical fitness programs and more.

Wilson is convinced anyone can do what he has done. It’s simply a matter of taking an idea and running with it, which he says is all he really did.

“The best line that was ever given to me was, ‘If you want to compliment someone, copy what they're doing. If you want to compliment yourself, better that idea,’” he says.

And realize if you’re going to expand it, get help in the form of a financial commitment from a partner.

From there, it’s just a matter of expansion. When it’s time to do so, Wilson says, be hands-on. Go to the second one and get involved to make sure it gets off to a good start.

“Just capture an idea from someone else, see how you can make it work at a local fitness club nearby,” he says. “Anyone can do it.”

Todd Stumpf is a freelance writer from Akron, Ohio. He can be reached at TStumpf22@yahoo.com.