Resource Centers:(News, information, and tools to support your practice)
July 2008
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You Can Thrive in Hard Times
After reading the headline, no doubt you thought the writer might be a little “touched in the head.” How can a recession possibly be good for a health care practice?
It was a lesson I learned from a chiropractor who practiced in Michigan in the 1970s.
His town in Michigan is a little over an hour’s drive from Detroit. It had a lot of small factories that supported the automobile industry. In the 1970s the automobile industry fell on hard times and a lot of the companies there went out of business. Unemployment skyrocketed and real estate prices plummeted.
That year, my friend the chiropractor had one of his best years ever. Throughout the course of his career he had focused on getting people better—not on how many patients he could sell adjustments to. He had developed a nutritional approach that was both easy and effective.
Actually, a recession tends to favor chiropractors and other natural health practitioners. Our care is cheaper and it tends to get to the source of the problem. When the people have good jobs and good insurance, they go where the system moves them. They tend to go to medical doctors. If they go to chiropractors, they go to doctors with big offices that take insurance and do a lot of volume. Employed patients stick with their managed care—because it covers treatment. Bad treatment seems to be better tolerated by patients when the insurance coverage is good.
In 1970s Jackson, this was the case. There were chiropractors in town who were really busy when the economy was good. They advertised a lot, but a lot of what they spent was wasted money. They used a lot of inefficient informational marketing. When times were good, they made money in spite of themselves. During a recession, they found out just how inefficient their marketing and their practices were. The prosperity they had enjoyed in the past was dependent on people having good jobs and good insurance.
When times are hard, people don’t stop getting sick. They do, however, become very discerning consumers when they are spending scarce cash to get better. My friend had a reputation as a good doctor who did not run up his bill to cash in on insurance. People knew that they could go to his office with a health problem and get good care, and not have to pay for any unnecessary treatments. They stopped going to inefficient insurance practices. Many people who went to traditional medical doctors began to seek alternatives. His practice took off.
He was also a genius at direct marketing. The large practices in town did a lot of advertising—but they relied on informational marketing. My friend spent very little on marketing, but focused on direct marketing (for more about this, get the free report mentioned later in this article). He also knew a few secrets about practicing effectively. He utilized nutrition in his practice and was always amazed at chiropractors who did not. The funny thing is, the way he incorporated nutrition into his practice took almost no extra time and improved results dramatically. His approach was so simple that he claimed
So how do you develop a practice that thrives in a recession? Here are four easy steps:
1. Utilize nutrition: Get good results by addressing the nutritional needs of your patients. The method you should use should be easy and effective. Many doctors utilize nutrition, but they do it in a hit-and-miss fashion that does not help their practices nearly as much as they could.
2. Utilize direct marketing: Your message should be precise and delivered to as many places as possible. Even during a recession, people need your services. Good marketing teaches them your value.
3. Work smarter, not harder: There are ways to increase the cash-flow in your office. If you are dependent on insurance companies, Learn marketing secrets designed to get your practice as busy as you want it to be: Marketing is a science—in many ways it is more scientific than a lot of the approaches taken in health care. When done right, the results are amazing—in any economic environment.
4. Make a plan: A general would not go to battle without a plan. You cannot grow your business without a plan. There is a free report available that will help to get you started. It is called How to Recession-Proof Your Practicewww.wholehealthamerica.com. and is available for free at
Health care is actually a recession-proof business. People don’t stop getting sick because the economy is bad. They do, however, have a choice at who they go to see. An efficient, well marketed practice will thrive in a recession.
A recession is also a boon to any practitioner of natural health care because when money is tight, people begin to look for answers that are less expensive than traditional medicine. Face it, natural health care is cheaper and more efficient than traditional medicine and people tend to find this fact out during tough economic times.
Are you ready to take advantage of this fortunate turn of events? Ben Clark and I have put this information in a powerful new seminar that is guaranteed to give you the information that you need for your practice to thrive in tough times; go to www.practiceseminars.com to learn more.
Dr. Paul G. Varnas graduated from National College of Chiropractic in 1983 and has been in private practice in the Chicago area for over 25 years. He is a Diplomate of the American Clinical Board of Nutrition and has written several books and hundreds of articles about health care. Dr. Varnas is the founder of Whole Health America, which is a resource for chiropractors and other health practitioners that provides Web sites, newsletters, marketing material and other practice development material.
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