Accelerate the Growth of Your Acupuncture Practice with These 10 Expert Tips
As an acupuncturist, did you analyze what could be the main areas to focus on for tour business growth? Start treating your acupuncture practice like a business. Analyze the issues and draw solutions for each of them. Anticipating growth sets goals to achieve.
It is easy to set a goal for growth but hard to reach. Ask yourself a few questions for self-assessment.
- What is a growth opportunity?
- What new services can you provide to existing customers?
- Who are our new target audience, and what should we offer them?
- Are we capable of growing into new markets and different countries?
- Do we have to develop our skills to expand our growth?
When you want to initiate growth in your business, commit yourself to the work. Instead of watching shows all day and wasting all your valuable time on unnecessary activities, sit down and take the necessary steps to succeed. Managing your time comes first when accelerating your business growth.
Are you willing to accelerate your acupuncture practice in a successful domain?
Learn how to encourage the growth of your acupuncture practice with the tips cited below.
Daftar Isi
Establish an organizational culture
The organizational culture of your acupuncture practice is what keeps all your operations well organized and bonded together.
We receive a manual or guide whenever we try a new board game. We use it to be aware of its guidelines and rules. Without that specific instruction, we would have no idea how to play that board game.
The same applies to businesses. Policies, agreements, and some internal rules all make up an organization. We require a corporate culture that establishes acceptable conduct within the organization.
These policies differ at each hierarchical level. Assume that the company directors are responsible for handling the day-to-day operations, while the managers are responsible for controlling and directing the personnel and activities of an organization or a particular department. Every chore is assigned equitably.
Even though you have a set of guidelines for your acupuncture practice, it is better to refine them for development.
Hire professionals wisely
Hiring practitioners in the acupuncture practice is quite expensive. But if the workload is too tiresome or you want to set up a new branch, you have no choice but to hire.
Open your enlisting charts, list your applicants, set up interview timing and dates, and start your hiring process.
Be careful while interrogating your candidates; be sure to inspect their:
- Training period and credentials.
- Values and beliefs.
- Style of practice, whether Western or traditional.
- Commitment to the industry.
Remember, rather than hire some random people, assess them ideally and train those who have the potential. Hire them, train them to your standards, and watch them grow with your practice.
Enhance your marketing channels
Marketing your acupuncture practice services is essential for growth and identity. Prioritize your distribution channels.
Two to four key metrics will direct all of your marketing efforts. Your marketing team won’t have anything to aim for individually or collectively if these benchmarks are unsettled.
Instead of revolving around ordinary metrics like leads generated, goal completions, cost per lead, etc., go for much more effective ones like click-through rate, bounce rate, and multi-touch attribution.
Your marketers use these marketing barometers to track, record, and evaluate the progress of your acupuncture practice over time. The metrics vary from platform to platform.
Using these measures in your diversified marketing channels is necessary. Your chain stores include content marketing, email marketing, direct marketing, SEO, and social media marketing. We will discuss social media marketing further.
Make use of social media
For growth, every business, including acupuncture practices, must have a social media presence. Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are the current social networking platforms.
Create your social media account now, or if you already have one, ensure to include the following tips:
- Blog post: writing blogs is one way to express your services. An acupuncturist is responsible for providing informative content to their followers to ensure bonding and trust in their practice.
- Short videos: these are used as a fun way to convey your message. Shoot small clips of your practice and post them online. With this, you have visual proof to assure your customers.
- CTA widgets: Call-to-action widgets are to convince your page visitors to take the necessary action. Put the Book Now widget on your media pages to make it easier for customers to take further steps into the purchase.
- Use hashtags: To establish a stout online presence, mastering SEO is a must. Make use of the right keywords to top your patient’s search feed. It is essential to use hashtags in social media accounts for better results. Such as #Acupuncturecenters, #: Aupuncturistsnearme, etc.
- Long videos: videos with more than 30 minutes of duration are considered long videos. Post your videos on your YouTube channels to generate more subscribers. Your subscribers may recommend you to family and friends if you post informational video formats such as live practice sessions, tips, and advice.
Refine your website design
Website designs are unique to the business. Make the website of your acupuncture practice center more fun and engaging. People tend to spend more time on your official website if it is informative and neatly organized.
If you have a web page or a website, take the necessary steps to refine it for your growth.
Making your site mobile-responsive is a must in this modernized era.
- Regularly update your content, software, and relative graphics on your web page.
- Create customer-driven content and review it periodically.
- Make sure it is easy to find by providing a custom domain name.
- Increase the visit duration by making it easy to navigate.
- Maintain a balance of text and graphics to ensure a clean page.
- Make sure that the information is accurate and up-to-date.
- Constant updates to the page, proofreading, and periodic checks are vital.
- Reduce the page loading time to avoid higher bounce rates.
- a neat and clear-cut layout. Make it as minimal as possible.
Learn medical billing
As we know, most acupuncturists are self-employed and manage everything alone. But money matters can be an integral part of management. Since a medical billing practice is tough to manage, many acupuncturists hire professionals for their billing records. But I suggest you learn it by yourself. Although it requires a well-versed education and training, it is worth the shot.
To learn medical billing, you should follow the necessary steps in the process. Starting from patient registration to payment posting. These steps include insurance verification, processing the claim, medical transcription and coding, service charge, denial management, and, at last, payment posting.
If this is too much to handle yourself, you can hire billers and coders to do it. Ensure that you are mindful of every detail when you hire someone else to operate your medical bills, as revenue leakages are a catastrophe in the medical industry. As the acupuncture practice is slowly growing, it is crucial to look after financial affairs.
Maintain hygienic environs
We expect a clean atmosphere wherever we go, despite the purpose of our work. It is common for your clients to expect a hygienic ambiance in your acupuncture practice.
Meet your patient’s expectations for a satisfactory review and your business growth. Here are a few tips to set up a natural and sterile environment for your practice.
Plant green and fresh plants here and there.
- Use scented candles in your practice rooms.
- Keep your restrooms and wash areas clean and neat.
- Unspotted marble and tables are necessary.
- Provide magazines and books to the clients in the waiting room.
- Place trash cans in the needed areas.
- Ensure your staff is free from sickness.
As a professional acupuncturist, you should ensure a positive client experience. The health of both you and your patients is also negatively impacted by unsanitary conditions.
Use proper scheduling systems
Acupuncture is an ancient medical therapy. The results of the practice amazed people across the globe. The establishment of acupuncture centers has risen since then.
Many victims of neck and back pain began to book their sessions with acupuncturists. Booking appointments is a good sign of development. A significant component of any needle therapy practice is appointment scheduling.
If you want to keep your regular clients coming back week after week, you need an efficient appointment scheduling system, Picktime, that makes things easy for you and them.
Use Picktime to ease your operations. Picktime is an Acupuncture Appointment Scheduling Software. It is designed to cater to the needs of acupuncturists. It allows patients to book appointments for their treatments online. Picktime provides a wide range of features that can ease the workload and optimize the workflow. This powerful platform streamlines your work process, eliminating manual administrative tasks. It also helps increase productivity by automating tedious scheduling processes.
Picktime’s powerful features include:
- Easy appointment booking
- Automated scheduling
- An online calendar
- Reports
- Invoices
- Payments
- Staff management
- Automated reminders, and more.
The customizable booking page offered by Picktime helps patients book their appointments easily. It also automatically reminds them about the appointment via text and email, eliminating the hassle of no-shows and phone calls. It allows receptionists to ease their workload by automating the appointment booking and scheduling process. Additionally, it gives easy access to the patient’s database, reports, and invoices.
With the help of Picktime, your staff can easily manage practitioners’ appointment schedules, patient data, and individual arrangements. Its reliability and functionality make it easy for your acupuncture practice to ease patient scheduling. With no continuous calls, no overlapping sessions, and absolutely no mess, your growth is guaranteed.
Take preventive measures
It is no secret that success comes with a price tag. The increasing growth of acupuncture practice globally has come with emerging health problems.
Due to some sources online, we have discovered that among the 52 sporadic cases, 37 (71%) of patients had musculoskeletal or skin infections from septic arthritis, corresponding to the site or insertion of acupuncture needles.
However, the infections are HIV, Hepatitis B and C, mycobacterial, staphylococcal, and others, which were the main complications of acupuncture. The causes of these diseases are the use of contaminated cotton wool swabs, towels, hot-pack covers, unwashed dirty needles, or inadequate disinfection before acupuncture.
The perceived risks associated with acupuncture practitioners were higher than those associated with acupuncture treatment. Patients stated that discomfort was felt when inserting the needle. It was neither tender nor smooth. As a result, they began to question the acupuncturist’s education, credentials, and practical abilities.
Take proper preventive measures to avoid such health and reputational complications.
Use disposable needles.
- Adequate skin disinfection procedures.
- Practice aseptic techniques.
- Hire practitioners wisely.
- Use clinical gloves, hair, and face masks during the treatment.
- Sanitize the used equipment regularly.
- Disinfect and wash your towels and bedsheets after every use.
Time management
The vital aspect of any self-employed business, including acupuncture practice, is time. You might think that being self-employed comes with freedom. But no, your time and management are in your hands. You are responsible for the outcomes.
All appointments, treatments, and strategies must be managed efficiently to ensure successful growth.
Install scheduling software to save time on calendars and phone calls.
- Audit your time in every field, procedure, lunch, recess, meeting, etc.
- Follow the 5-minute rule of Elon Musk.
- Time blocking is necessary to block your time for a specific activity.
To manage your time and maintain a balance between your professional and personal lives, you must enjoy some free time for yourself. Doing everything alone can consume your time like the sun drains every drop of water from your body during the summer.
Delegation of work is essential to your acupuncture practice. The sanitization and disinfection of towels, floors, tables, and restrooms are for the cleaning staff; all the scheduling and patient record-keeping are for the front desk staff; and the procedures and patient well-being are for the practitioners and doctors in the organization. Everyone is responsible for performing their tasks without omitting them.