Family Chiropractic Business Plan

The Advanced Chiropractic Clinic offers a complete chiropractic health care solution. Chiropractic is an alternative health care field that focuses on correcting joint misalignments called subluxations. Misalignments that occur in the spine and other places in the body cause interference to nervous system flow.

This interference will disrupt the way the body, organs, muscles, and other parts of the body function. It is the chiropractors job to remove these subluxations, thus removing the interference and returning the body to its normal functioning state.

3.1 Service Description

Dr. Azzato’s philosophy is that optimal health and performance can be attained through the proper balance of exercise, nutrition, and care of the body’s framework (skeleton).

In addition, maintaining a state of good health depends on a normally functioning nervous system. The most important and delicate organs of this nervous system are supported and protected by the skull and spinal vertebrae, when misaligned these structures can irritate and interfere with nerve impulses.

Chiropractors locate these points of interference and correct the spinal misalignments, so the body can reestablish its balance and heal itself to the best of its ability.

The Advanced Chiropractic Clinic offers treatment for various conditions including, but not limited to:

• Low back and leg pain.
• Neck and arm pain.
• Headaches.
• Athletic and work-related injuries.
• Shoulder, knee, and foot pain.
• Asthma, ear infections, and many other problems that begin when we are children.

If treated early on, these problems can be suppressed or fully corrected before the symptoms of the disorder become debilitating.

It is our focus at Advanced Chiropractic to care for each individual case that enters the clinic. After treating the patient, we educate them in rehabilitation, nutrition, and exercise. Our ultimate goal is that they have the opportunity and knowledge to adopt the chiropractic philosophy of health and share their experience with others.

3.2 Competitive Comparison

In general competition among fellow chiropractors is small. There is an average of only 10% of the United States population currently seeking chiropractic care.

With an ever increasing demand for cost effective health care, the chiropractic field is the fastest growing alternative health care option available in the United States. Moreover, there is an increasing number of “baby boomers” entering early retirement, which only increases the demand of chiropractic.

These facts along with the current success rate of chiropractors in the field and chiropractic as a profession over the last 100 years gives strong support that a well run chiropractic clinic can and will flourish.

Our clinic will be located on North Michael Street, which is close to the downtown area, giving our clinic great exposure in the community. Being located in close proximity to other businesses will also facilitate professional networking.

There are currently five chiropractors located in the city of St. Mary’s with approximately 15,000 people living within the St. Mary’s area. Moreover, only one of these five chiropractors serves the Emporium area, which has a population of 5,200. This is a very good patient to doctor ratio, also a number of surrounding areas have a limited chiropractic presence and many of these people commute to St. Mary’s for work and chiropractic care.

There are advantages to starting a practice in a community that already has a chiropractic presence. First, the community as a whole accepts and understands chiropractic because they have already been introduced to it.

This helps any new chiropractor because they have something to compare your office to. Our clinic will utilize the most recently taught techniques and equipment available to our profession. As a new graduate of one of the top rated chiropractic colleges in the U.S., Dr. Azzato has been exposed to the most recent academic and philosophical issues in the chiropractic profession.

This one fact alone will give our clinic an advantage when compared to the clinics that have been around for 20 plus years. Although, these older clinics have experience, they may lack the cutting edge knowledge that an ever changing profession must deal with to survive. Our clinic will have this knowledge and training.

Our clinic will also have an advantage in that it will be setup near Dr. Azzato’s home town. The Azzato family currently has family members employed in four of the major powered metal factories in St. Mary’s.

Also located in St. Mary’s are two other family-run businesses. One of which is the car dealership named AutoEdge, Inc. and a flower shop by the name of Forget-Me-Not-Creations. These community ties will increase the likelihood of a recognizable market presence and also provide valuable co-marketing tools for the future.

Furthermore, our clinic will promote patient education as high priority. We feel that this is sometimes overlooked by other chiropractors and can give us a large advantage in patient referrals and retention.

3.3 Sales Literature

The clinic will have a strong business relationship with Patient Media Inc., a chiropractic management firm, that has a number of patient friendly brochures, videos, mailing, and other materials used to promote a chiropractic office.

Literature and mailings for the initial market will be very important, with the need to establish a high-quality look and feel in order to create and fulfill the right sense of professionalism. We feel that Patient Media Inc. will fully support our marketing and sales efforts.

3.4 Fulfillment

Fulfillment and delivery will be provided by Dr. Azzato. The core value in our clinic will be professional expertise, provided by a combination of experience, hard work, and education. A limited number of staff will also provide services to our patients, all of which is influenced by Dr. Azzato.

Our clinic will turn to qualified chiropractic support specialists to assist with marketing and patient education. These marketing tools include brochures, mailings, educations videos and nutritional supplements to name a few.

Services will include performing chiropractic adjustments and therapy to our patients, as well as nutritional supplement and chiropractic orthotic product sales.

3.5 Technology

Our clinic understands that technology, when used properly, can increase the systematic approach of daily activities within an office and at the same time decrease chances of mistakes.

One step to a systematic approach that isn’t utilized by all offices is the use of electronic claim filing and patient tracking software. Our clinic will utilize high speed Internet servers and software for billing electronic medical claims.

There are many advantages associated with electronic claim filing. Health insurance carriers provide incentives like faster payment for processing insurance claims electronically, time-in-transit is reduced to speed payment, and administrative costs are lower.

In conjunction with electronic billing, there will be a clinic website where potential patients can learn about our clinic before ever setting foot in our office. The website will have articles related to patient’s specific conditions and nutritional supplements and orthotics available to purchase.

We will also use a number of therapies in the office including ultrasound, electric stimulation and electronic acupuncture. Our new patients will view educational videos to further enhance their visit and overall knowledge of chiropractic.

The clinic will maintain a high standard of professionalism with new chiropractic equipment, including adjusting tables and an xray unit.

We feel that all of these technological enhancements will increase our chances of success.

3.6 Future Services

As our clinic grows, we plan on increasing the number of treatment rooms and also expanding our staff to meet the increasing needs of our patient base. This will include newly developed chiropractic therapies and techniques.