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David and Magda Ballentine of Wellbeing Chiropractic moved location earlier this year and have been working furiously to refit the whole building. 

Increasingly aware of the benefits to patients with unresolved disc problems, stenosis and sciatica complaints, their new IDD Therapy spinal decompression suite is open. 

We carried their Accu-SPINA up some stairs.  I had a more supervisory role (!) as I had a slight issue with my back and to be honest, me being out of the way made the process a lot smoother! 

Pictured are Dave and Magda, with Phoebe who is a passionate sports therapist. 

We train lumbar, cervical and you can see Phoebe measuring angles to direct treatment, some pictures of set up and using the software (super simple). 

Great to welcome the team on board and they’re already treating patients. 

Fore more details visit: Wellbeing Chiropractic

To request details about becoming a provider, download HERE

Last week I injured my back with some repeated twisting (emptying buckets of water!).  This led me to seek a local clinic. 

The process revealed the pattern a potential patient will follow when they look at your clinic.  I thought I’d share the lessons of how I chose a clinic to demonstrate how clinics may be losing patients / money by not taking care of some basics.

I’ll go through my evaluation process and then put forward my suggestions.

Word Of Mouth

You may get most of your patients by word of mouth, that is good … or is it?  Because it also means that the cold audience, ie people who aren’t referred by a friend are choosing NOT YOU but someone else instead.

I live in Bishops Stortford in Hertfordshire and hadn’t had treatment locally for back pain.  So I chose a clinic from cold.

Here is how it played out. 

Google Search

I began with a search “Practitioner type Bishops Stortford” – I did “physiotherapy/ Osteopathy/Chiropractic clinic Bishops Stortford”.  I arrived at the Results Page

Google My Business – who has got the most google reviews gets first dibs on my custom.  I look at their website first.  But then I do go back and look at clinics in my town and some neighbouring towns.

Website – first impression makes a difference.  If your website is ugly, you are going down the pecking order. Obviously.

About Us – I go here.  I want to see the name and I definitely want to see the face of the person who might treat me.  I want to read a bit about them to see what they do. 

Social proof – The busy restaurant test.  Evidence you are good that others choose you.  I want to see some testimonials, ideally taken from your review site and ideally recent.

Pricing – I am interested to know the price.  I am not a money-no-object person but I am not on a low budget.  I do want to see the first appointment and follow up price.  Not so much to compare, I just want to know. 

Book Online – I don’t want to phone up and check for availability, I just want to see what’s available and book what suits me.  I dismissed the clinics who didn’t have online booking without much of a second glance.

So what are the lessons.

Websites

In my day job we work with clinics for IDD spinal decompression, we look at lots of clinic websites to evaluate if they may be suitable for adding a spine specialism.  As a prospective patient, the process was similar but a little different.

They say don’t judge a book by its cover.  But whether it’s a product on amazon, a youtube video thumbnail, a restaurant, we judge. 

Some clinics have awful photos! I think a professional friendly staff photo is worth its weight in gold. 

Note I say professional. 

You don’t need to have super model looks, but we know what professional looks like.  You trust someone more if you have met them or seen them.  It builds a picture in your mind.

Google My Business – make sure you have plenty of professional photos there for people to browse and full clinic service details, opening hours etc.

Google Reviews –  If you have less than ten reviews, people will wonder if you are any good and will look more favorably on a clinic with lots of reviews. 

It’s about ticking boxes for your online presence.  Make a point of getting more reviews.  This also helps the website ranking locally. 

Have a qr code with a link to your google review page positioned inside your clinic which people can scan to take them to your review page. (look at QR code monkey to make a qr code for any webpage url).

Website – if your website is old and tired … you are losing money to a fresh faced clinic.   If you are meaning to update your website, just do it.  You can improve on it as you go but just get started because you are losing patients otherwise.

About Us – I am looking for competence.  You may treat everything under the sun, but in my case I want to know you treat backs.  I want to know you are an expert so convey that. 

You can add a couple of things you treat/ like to treat but as the person who treated me said, he likes sports injuries but 75% of his case load is backs. 

A list showing you treat everything under the sun is less likely to convert.  You can cover many things by saying you are an expert in treating joint pain and muscle injuries.

Some practitioners like to tell their whole life story.  I would much rather read about who you have learned from than what you like to do at the weekend. 

By all means say a line or two about your interests but focus on why you are competent and I can put my body on the line in your capable hands.

Social Proof – do you read reviews on Amazon before you buy anything?  Add testimonials to all your pages.  Video testimonials will be great.  Certainly have some evidence. Someone may only go to one page on your site, so make each page count.

Pricing – Display the initial consult and follow up treatment prices.  Clinicians get hung up about being competitive. 

Price does make a difference for some patients, but my main priority is to get someone who is good and not going to waste my time or make me worse! 

If you are cheap, then I take that as a sign that you are not very good. 

I have a rough idea of what it costs and a £10-£20 spread on the price isn’t going to make a huge difference.  I am not buying on price like I might buy petrol. 

The number one priority for me is skill and competency. 

I want to know whether my injury is serious and that it can be dealt with professionally.  I do want to know how much I will pay, but it’s not to compare with others. 

If you are dilly dallying around putting your price up (suggests you know you are underpriced for what you give), do it with confidence but make a point to show that you are worth the price by working on your profile and expert positioning. 

Online Booking – All I can say is if you don’t have online booking in this day and age you have either been living in a cave or you have more patients than you can handle. 

I wanted to choose a time based around my diary and I didn’t want to spend time back and forth with a receptionist to check what is available.  I was either going to book Saturday or Monday.

And remember, many patients are looking at clinics after hours because they want an appointment. Many will not wait until tomorrow to phone up, they want to book there and then. You are DEFINITELY losing patients without online booking.

(Note – when I booked online I completed a questionnaire where I typed about my injury symptoms etc, that saved ten minutes “dictation time” in the treatment time. I also got an email with an option to pay there and then, which I did … ). 

Other thoughts – it can be worth having information pages about conditions.  These don’t need to be long winded anatomy lessons. 

The main thing is that you tell me what you are going to do differently, or rather, how you will identify what is my problem, that you treat those conditions regularly and you will let me know what to do next. 

Websites – So many websites have irrelevant content of no interest to what the patient wants. 

Home page – make it easy for me to call or book online.  Let me see you are an expert in certain conditions, let me see social proof and evidence you are good. 

Photos – Don’t let me see tired old photos.  Get your photos crisp. I would get pictures of you treating patients so we can see you in action.  I want some hands on treatment, so showing pictures of you in situ treating patients will give me confidence.  Show pictures treating men and women in a variety of poses. 

It is well worth paying someone to come in and take photos of your clinic with lighting etc.  If you don’t have much budget, you could contact a local college and get a photography student, helps them and costs you less, win-win! 

Improvements – If your clinic isn’t pretty on the inside, make it “pretty”.  By that I mean your clinic needs to scream professional to me.  That’s good for your website photos and also good for patients coming in. 

Now, you can cover up a multitude of sins by being a guru clinician with zero personality if you can help my back.

But your clinic is like the proverbial water bucket and if any of these elements I describe here are below standard, each one is a hole and a leak where you are losing patients and money.

Any area you think “I ought to improve that”, is an area you must improve, unless you are happy seeing patients go past your window (with their money) to someone down the road. 

Or you may prefer to think of your expert care. A patient may be wasting their time and not getting the result they could have got if they go to an inferior competitor just because you couldn’t make the time to work on your online business profile.

NOTE: if you are so busy that you don’t have time, great.  If you are happy as a solo practitioner who wants to keep things simple, that is fine. 

But if you have team members who would love to see more patients or you want to build the practice so it is less dependent on you, then these details compound.

Think of them as the 1%ers. Cliché but true, marginal gains compound.

Personal Story

I remember when I had my clinic (sold in 2022), I asked a visitor “do you have any feedback on this space”. 

They said, that it was really nice. 

I pressed.

“but if you could do something ….”

They said “well the walls in the treatment room are a bit grubby …”

I was mortified.  There were a few marks where chairs bashed the wall but as I took a step back I saw what she meant. 

We painted that weekend!

Why not ask your regular patients that question. 

Ask them what they think of your website. What’s the reception like, what’s the outside paintwork like, the signage, the branding etc

And when they say “its fine”, press them

“but if you were tasked with making things a bit better, what would you do ….”  That will help you.

Patient Profiles

Now some people do just want to phone up.  Some people don’t like booking online and hate computers!  My parents would NEVER have booked online, my children would ALWAYS choose to book online.

Why wouldn’t you appeal to both audiences? 

If your online profile is second division, a few simple improvements will easily bring you to premier league.  Think – if I had to sell my clinic next week (and get the maximum sale price) what would I do? Write down a list of improvements

Copy writing side note.  Is your website copy dull?  If it is go on upwork.com and find a copy writer.   Give them a list of pages and ask them to write you engaging copy for your website.  Or, give Chat GPT a brief to do it and then tweak it. 

Summary

The thing to remember is it’s not a sprint.  It takes time but it is easy to get stuck.  Inertia takes hold and the should-do list stays just that!  Get your list, maybe start with photos and work from there!

Good luck!

Author: Stephen Small is Clinic Development Director for IDD Therapy Spinal Decompression, specialist conservative treatment for unresolved disc problems, stenosis and sciatica.

DOWNLOAD A PROSPECTUS HERE how you can help patients avoid injections and surgery, and grow your clinic.

Working with clinic owners for over ten years, I see a common trait of ‘analysis paralysis’ when it comes to clinic development.

That is a tendency amongst some to believe they need to know everything before they start something new.

In the business of working in a clinic, thoughts bounce around inside heads and the thought “I must do this” or “I must get round to doing that” prevail.

And then it’s back on the tools treating patients and months, even years go by.

I notice this in many areas.

The decision to take on a clinic or business coach is a classic one. Who to choose, is it worth it, what if it doesn’t work, what if I can’t do it.

The decision to expand with an associate.

What sort of person, what fee split / salary, where to recruit, I just need to get a few more patients and then …

The decision to invest in technology, IDD Therapy, Shockwave, Laser, Rehab. What kit, what if it doesn’t work, what if I lose money, what if it’s not as good as I think, how shall I market it.

The decision to do more marketing

What sort of marketing, marketing doesn’t work, I’ll just lose money, word of mouth is best isn’t it ….? I must get round to getting a new website …

I spend my days meeting clinic owners, talking to clinic owners and looking at clinics online.

I get to know which clinics are growing, thriving with energy and which are staying the same.

The ones moving forward make a decision, act and then get to work on the thing. Those that stay the same tend to think a lot, think about taking a decision but never get round to it.

Staying the same is absolutely fine of course. A good work life balance, a healthy set of patients and referrals, happy days.

But many clinic owners, especially as they get older, do have a desire to get more from their practice.

To have a clinic which is less dependent on them.

They think a lot about what to do and often think they need to get a detailed plan.

There is of course a lot of choice, many options and it is overwhelming.

But that uncertainty creates inertia and inertia leads to stagnation.

That is why many clinic owners are earning pretty much what they earned the year before, and the year before that, despite growing in experience and skills.

Sometimes necessity is the mother of action.

You get arthritis in your hands, now what? You need to take time off to care for a loved one, now what?

You have three kids going to uni starting in five years time and you can’t work more hours, how will you pay for that?

You want to retire or cut your hours down, now what?

Having a plan of action doesn’t need to be minutely detailed.

Like deciding to get fit or lose weight, you just decide. Go for your first walk and choose to have a sweet potato instead of chips … From there you develop things and the detail comes.

Momentum builds from taking action. Stagnation sets in from inertia.

Whatever the thing is that you think you need to be doing, is usually the thing you need to be doing.

You need a coach, pick one and call them. (You don’t have to sign up forever!)

You want to do some adwords or facebook advertising, ask around for recommendations,

You’re thinking of investing in equipment, see how much it costs, what comes with it and do you your numbers, Talk to people already using the thing you’re interested in.

Need an associate? look on indeed or ask in the facebook groups for salaries and job descriptions and put out an ad (and make it compelling because very clinic is trying to recruit as there aren’t enough good candidates it would seem)

Need time to work ON your business? Block your diary on Wednesday morning so you’re not doing it at the weekend when you should be reviving.

And if that means you lose some income, yes it’s a step back but chances are you’ll come up with a plan, implement it and take three steps forward.

(After all, for every half day you want to take off, on average you just need one associate to work a full day to have the same money. Then you can start taking more time off and build your business, feel less overwhelm and have a clinic business not dependent on you etc.)

Of course I write this in part because I see how clinic owners really like the idea of IDD Therapy spinal decompression, but they think they need to do this, that and everything.

From all my experience, if you have the basics of a clinic and some underused space, the decision to move is ALWAYS the first step and things fall into place after that decision.

Whether IDD or something else, the decision not to move forward to where you want to go is the decision to stay the same as last year.

They say leap and the net will appear. That is invariably the case.

Food for thought I hope.

Webinar

If you want to grow your practice and get better results for back pain patients, you might like to watch this webinar I put on which will give you an overview of IDD Therapy spinal decompression.

It starts 15 minutes after you register.

You can copy the link to your diary to watch it in the evening or at the weekend. Relevant to any clinic anywhere. See you shortly!

Steve Small

https://www.gotospineclinic.com/register

At a recent IDD Therapy installation, we recorded a video to demonstrate feature of IDD Therapy which separate it from traction. Watch here: (scroll to click start video).

What’s changing in spine care?  A lot! Do you remember the first time you saw a Tesla?  Do you remember the first time you heard about a bagless hoover … called a Dyson.   Or the ad for a thousand songs in your pocket – the ipod.  With a lot of complex thinking about back pain, we’re just keeping it simple. 

The latest IDD Therapy newsletter is out with a snapshot of what will be a seismic shift in the way physical therapists, osteopaths and chiropractors deal with unresolved spinal pain. 

As part of the process, we provide clinics with hard copies of the newsletter to share with colleagues, consultants and GPs so that they can see the changes and the solution right here right now for patients. 

Because if a patient with a bulging or herniated disc is not responding the standard treatment, we can do so much more without them going from pillar to post, trying medications, perhaps a steroid injection or two, coping strategies etc. IDD spinal decompression is the most significant scalable solution, it’s precise, duplicable and measurable. 

There is a body of evidence, it will need more before we get NICE approval, or we get into the NHS but that’s fine for private clinic because patients who are fed up, in pain and want to improve their quality of life.