Use patient psychology to launch your nutrition business
By Miranda Jorgenson, DC

Like chiropractic, supplementation does not always garner all of the accolades it is due. Savvy practitioners, however, have long understood the efficacy that can result from complementing their practices with nutrition.

Developing a nutritional component of your practice is a logical, low-overhead solution to increasing the average dollar-per-visit and patient outcomes. To do this effectively requires understanding and following simple patient psychology and marketing paradigms of:

• Creating credibility,
• Writing prescriptions,
• Starting small, and
• Providing what patients want.

CREATING CREDIBILITY

If your want your patients to take your recommendations seriously, you must take nutrition seriously. Be prepared to:

• Talk about your own personal nutrition plan at a moment's notice. If you "talk the talk," you must "walk the walk;"

• Tailor nutritional plans to individual patients. Needs vary; assess each person's and address them specifically; and

• Carry premium-grade supplements. Provide physician-grade supplements that are available exclusively through healthcare providers. You lose credibility if your patients can Google your recommendations and purchase the same brand at less cost on the Internet or in retail stores.

WRITING PRESCRIPTIONS

When patients visit their medical doctors with a problem, they expect to leave with a prescription. Leaving the office with that slip of paper validates their health concerns and confers authority and credibility to the doctor.

The public perceives that "real" doctors prescribe. You can take advantage of this perception by treating nutraceuticals like the powerful substances they are. Have nutritional prescription pads printed and use the pads when prescribing supplementation to patients.

By judiciously giving your recommendations on an official Rx pad and having your office staff provide fulfillment, you achieve several things:

• You gain credibility;
• You appear indifferent — not a pushy sales person; and
• You follow the medical model your patients are familiar with, which happens to be the most efficient way to put them at ease.

Trusting patients are ultimately complaint-free patients.

STARTING SMALL

It is difficult for nutrition-minded practitioners to wear both their clinician's hat and a marketing hat because the hats often do not fit well together. What you believe would benefit a patient and what is mentally and fiscally prudent for a patient may be two different things.

For example: You may want to send a new patient home with a multitude of supplements, or a large complex protocol. You know this would greatly benefit the patient, but doing this would violate two patient psychology factors:

• Trust. First, you have not earned the patient's trust yet, so he will be more apt to question your advice.

• Prevalent mentality. Second, the prevalent one-per-day mentality of patients ensures that most are not used to taking large quantities or even therapeutic doses of nutrients.

If they are reticent about taking their supplements, the supplements will sit untouched on their kitchen counter. Ultimately, patients tend to blame a lack of progress on their practitioner, not their inability to follow your advice.

It is much more pragmatic to guide your patients into nutrition with baby steps.

For example: Patients generally come in to see you because of neuromusculoskeletal complaints. If these patients visisted an allopath instead of a chiropractor, the MD would likely prescribe a painkiller or a muscle relaxant as a remedy to the pain.

You can prescribe your own natural equivalent with a nutritional supplement. Introducing nutrition in a baby-step manner with a simple formula is affordable for the patient and increases your dollar-per-visit. (See sidebar, "A slow but good start.") This is especially important on the first visit when you may not give an adjustment and either discount or write off the patient visit.

PROVIDING WHAT PATIENTS WANT

Americans want (and buy) multivitamins and essential fatty acids. Evidence of this is clear:

• In a 2006 poll commissioned by the Council for Responsible Nutrition (CRN), 54 percent of respondents over 50 years of age, and 39 percent of respondents younger than 50 years of age, reported using a daily multivitamin.

• In the June 19, 2002, issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, two Harvard researchers stated the need for vitamin supplementation, indicating, "Most people do not consume an optimal amount of all vitamins by diet alone ... it appears prudent for all adults to take vitamin supplements."¹

• The Nutritional Business Journal reported that in 2005 supplement sales exceeded $21 billion. The FDA estimated that 48 percent of those sales were from multivitamin formulas.

Clearly, patients are taking multivitamins. If they are not getting them from you, they should be. You have the opportunity to generate a potentially huge stream of revenue by simply prescribing a superior quality, broad spectrum, bioavailable multivitamin, or a comprehensive bone supportive.

The public is also rallying behind the need for essential fatty acid supplementation which is being recognized as an essential component in the treatment of inflammation.^2,3 Marine lipid concentrates are excellent sources of omega-3 fatty acids, while products that combine marine lipids, flaxseed oil, and borage oil to provide optimal ratios of oleic acid, ALA, EPA, DHA, and GLA are also excellent.

If you educated your patients on the need and superiority of physician-grade supplements, and only 30 percent chose to purchase their multivitamins from you, you could add from $13,000 to $20,000 per year in revenues to your practice, with minimal effort.

Nutrition and the supplement industry are developing in direct proportion to the ever-growing pharmaceutical industry. The public is inundated with advertisements and media reports on healthcare, and despite the fact that the average American fills more than 10 prescriptions per year, Americans are as unhealthy as ever and are now demanding safer alternatives to pharmacological medications.

No segment of the healthcare industry has taken ownership of supplementation. This void leaves a huge opportunity for the chiropractic profession. At a time when scope of practice and clinical identity are being challenged, you have a major opportunity not only to implement nutrition, but also to be recognized as preeminent nutritional specialists.

The facts are simple: Your patients are taking supplements. Shouldn't they be buying quality and reliable ones from you?

Miranda Jorgenson, DC, a graduate of Texas Chiropractic College, is a physician advisor to Biotics Research Corp. (www.bioticsresearch.com). She can be reached at mjorgenson@bioticsresearch.com.

References
1 Journal of the American Medical Association, 2002 June 19; 287 (23):3127-3129.
2 Simopoulos, AP. Biomed Pharmacother. 2006 Nov; 60(9):502-507. Epub 2006 Aug 28.
3 Calder, PC. Am J Clin Nutr. 2006 Jun;83(6 Suppl):1505S-1519S