In order to successfully grow a practice there has to be a constant flow of new patients. New patients can be attracted via external marketing or internal marketing. Internal marketing is a long slow process that involves referrals of patients and demands tremendous amount of organization in the practice as well as the staff to be able to generate referrals with the current patient load. Typically, a good way is to try and get 3 referrals from each patient who comes into the office. The second alternative way is to use external marketing which involves everything from television to newspaper ads, internet, to dinner talks… External marketing is expensive. With the extensive growth and explosive changes that have occurred because of the internet, marketing using the internet, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter…have been extremely popular. However, statistically speaking it has been clearly shown that the pool of people looking for services that are directed towards specific treatments are indeed limited. If you were to look for a pool of patients for instance that have sciatic pain and you would limit this to chiropractic, then you would find a smaller pool than you would of patients that have sciatic pain looking for treatment for medical care. It is well-known that less than 10% of the population have been coming to chiropractors for many years. Which leaves over 90% of the rest of population going to other medical doctors and other healthcare practitioners. Given all the challenges and difficulties in the decreasing reimbursements, in the last several years it has become extremely difficult and challenging to keep up with the growth of a doctor’s office. One of the solutions is to attract many medical patients by opening up an integrated medical center.

Let’s face it, to date medical is the most sought after care. Now this doesn’t mean by offering a broader scope of practice which includes medicine that a patient necessarily has to receive medical care by a physician. An integrated medical center does not just offer a solo practitioner but has multiple providers giving a different kind of health care options. Of course the staff have to be trained accordingly which often requires the need of a well-qualified consultant who will be able to train and guide the staff appropriately to avoid mistakes. Just as well it is critically important to remember that staff should be continuously trained and reminded of any potential liabilities. Lastly, proper forms and protocols must be in place to be able to limit liabilities and increase efficiency. 

As a conclusion although today the liabilities have increased, there are many things to be done in order to help an integrated medical clinic avoid any potential pitfalls that can be detrimental and costly to the clinic.