Let’s admit it, running a successful chiropractic business is challenging. As per the American Chiropractic Association, there are more than 60,000 active chiropractors in the United States. That’s a lot of competition! It takes a lot of hard work to attract, educate, and earn a patient’s trust in the first place. After that, the challenge is getting patients to buy into your treatment plan.
Did you know that studies have also shown that of patients who have been to a chiropractor, nearly half of them have the opinion that they would again prefer chiropractors if they were affordable? What does this mean for you? Half of your hard work is wasted.
So, the question is, how can you make chiropractic treatment more affordable and how can you make more money without raising prices?
How can you make treatment more affordable?
For patients with insurance, you can finance a patients’ deductibles and copayments. Patients may want your service, but if they can get someone else to pay for it (like their insurance company), they certainly will. Insurance deductibles and copayments are sky high and look to only be rising. Deductibles are a barrier to treatment and they need to be paid every year. By financing your patient’s deductible, you are actually helping them get other medical care that they may need.
For patients without insurance, make a packaged deal, and break it up into affordable payments.
How do I make more money without raising prices? Simple, charge interest on your payment plan. With the addition of interest to any treatment package, you can make anywhere from 10% to 100% more than what you would have earned without a payment plan.
Interest: It may seem obvious, but the higher interest rate you charge, the more you make. But there is more to interest than this.
When it comes to interest, there are two basic types: simple and compound. Simple interest refers to a set percentage of the principal. For example, if you charge a 10% interest on $1000 you would get $1100 back, giving you a profit of $100.
Compound interest is an essential “interest on interest” and is the reason many financial institutions are so successful. For example, a 10% compound interest would make you $1104.71 over 12 Months (10.4% in profit), or $1645 in 60 months (64.5% in profit)
| 12 Month | 24 Month | 36 Month | 48 Month | 60 Month | |
| No Interest | $1000 | $1000 | $1000 | $1000 | $1000 |
| One Time- Interest | $1,100 | $1,100 | $1,100 | $1,100 | $1,100 |
| Simple Interest | $1,100 | $1,200 | $1,300 | $1,400 | $1500 |
| Compound Interest | $1,105 | $1,220 | $1,348 | $1,489 | $1645 |
What if my patients default on their payments? According to Transunion, the default rate for unsecured personal loans is 4%. So if you are making more than 4% profit financing your patients, it means that you are not losing money. For example: Say you have 100 contracts averaging $1000 each. If you can make a 50% return on your money, ideally you would get $150,000. But if 4% of those contracts completely default (meaning no down payment was collected, and not even a single payment was made), you would make $144,000. That is still a 44% return that you would have.
Medical Loans/Medical credit cards
While medical loans and medical credit cards can work in the right situation, it is the lender that profits. Not only do some companies charge the patient high-interest rates, but most also charge a lot of fees like loan origination charges.
A medical loan is considered a personal loan. In the event of any medical emergency, the medical loan gives you coverage against expenses. There were 2,245 American adults surveyed, to see how personal loans are being used in the US. It showed that 21% of people require extra cash for a medical emergency.
The major issue: Credit checks and denials
Even if your practice is associated with a well-known lender, until your patients have a good credit history, they will not get financed. Major lenders disapprove the financing for chiropractic treatment based on your patients’ credit score. Another set back for your business if your patients don’t have a credit rating. With no option left, you are forced to turn them away.
Finally, the solution.
By now, you may have experienced and witnessed many barriers to your chiropractic business, and you may look for a permanent solution. A solution in which your patients don’t have to go through a credit check process and can get the needed treatment.
Financing for chiropractic treatment is offered by various money lenders. But a few major drawbacks include a high rate of interest, credit checks, no guarantee for approval, duration in which the installments have to be paid, and so on. Also, chiropractic business loans can help with the amount required for the treatments but these chiropractic business loans can charge a high rate of interest from the patients, and many times, due to the credit check process, patients may not even get eligible for Financing for chiropractic treatment.
Capital financing for chiropractic treatments can be challenging. You have to thoroughly search the market to learn the way you can easily get Capital financing for chiropractic treatments.
The need of the hour is that the requirements of patients should be kept in mind before enrolling them in a patient financing program. Their flexibility to pay the treatment amount in easy monthly installments. Even if they have a bad or low credit score, how to help them afford expensive treatments. Also, charging them a low rate of interest in the treatment payment plan. All these factors play a major role, not for the wellbeing of your patients but also in your favor. Once they have these payment plans that work according to their requirements, your practice will fetch more patients and automatically will increase your revenue.
All these factors play an important role in the growth of your business as well. So, help your patients to help you in the long run!
