If you have not had experience with nutritional products, taking courses or seminars is highly recommended.

Buying an initial stock of nutritional products can often lead to overstocking and expired products. Seeking out subcontractors can also provide an effective and simple way to offer these services.

“If you are not as well-versed in nutrition, subcontracting your space to a nutritionist or allied health professional is an easy way to begin providing this service,” Kulhay says. “This way, that professional will supply the required products, leaving you with more time concentrating on your chiropractic practice. Always remember that leveraging others will ultimately lead to more success for you.”

2. Beauty. Beauty is one part of the anti-aging field that chiropractors are slower to adopt. There might be hesitancy due to misinformation that it requires expensive pieces of equipment.

According to Kulhay, “Beauty treatment does not have to involve a large investment. You can start with relatively inexpensive products and supplies and work from there. Once you become more comfortable with the treatments and there is increased demand, you can progress to providing a wider selection of beauty treatments.”

One treatment Kulhay provides is facial acupuncture. For chiropractors certified in acupuncture, this becomes a seamless transition. Facial rejuvenation courses in acupuncture are readily available, as well.

Always check with your province’s regulatory boards to see what services you are able to provide. In some provinces, mini courses in facial rejuvenation are all you need to begin facial acupuncture treatments.

Apart from acupuncture, you can start out with providing services such as masks, peels, and exfoliates. As interest increases and more patients engage in these services, you can invest in higher priced items, such as microdermabrasion.

3. Physical fitness. Originally, most patients would undergo rehabilitation and then discharge. These days, however, there is an increased demand for services that can take a patient out of pain and provide them with the ability to function at higher levels. 

If you have rehabilitation space, it may be beneficial to offer personal training packages. This can include anything from yoga and Pilates, to strength and core training. Aligning yourself with motivated personal trainers can generate increased referrals and attract a wider variety of patients to your practice.

If you are limited in space, however, there are other options. “Vibration exercise is starting to become an important exercise tool for the baby boomers,” says Kulhay, “considering they may not be able to participate in regular training, mostly due to the aches and pains that they present to your office with.”

Vibration training takes only 15 minutes and takes up minimal space. Regardless of the size of your practice, it’s not difficult to integrate a physical fitness component.

As baby boomers age, the demands placed on health professionals to provide treatments and services that will allow them to live life to the fullest will increase. These events are changing the paradigm of the way we practice.

With it, we must also change, without giving up the core principles of chiropractic care. Aligning yourself with other professionals will increase patient numbers through cross referrals, and providing additional services such as anti-aging will ensure you become a one stop source for your patients.

Jasper Sidhu, DC, graduated from Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College in 1994. Sidhu is vice-president of clinical services at WAVE Manufacturing Inc. He can be contacted at jsidhu@wavexercise.com.

References:

1. Global Industry Analysts. January 2009.

2. Health and Wellness Trends for Canada and the World. August 2007: Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.