Maximize Your Chiropractic Practice: Simple Data Tweaks, Big Impact (Case Study)
If you're running a chiropractic practice, you know how valuable the data is. But maybe you don't fully understand how to gather it so that you can make the critical decisions that will drive your practice's profitability and growth. So, I’ll share some small tweaks you can use to generate massive results in your practice!
I want to share with you an amazing case study with Dr. Jeremy. He's a chiropractor who recently finished school and has worked hard to build up his practice over the last few years. And let me tell you, he's been killing it! His practice grew quickly, and he put together an excellent team. By most standards, he was already very successful.
But, like some of you reading this now, he felt he had more in him — there was more room to grow.
It was shifting from that building and getting that initial success level to now feeling like there was more in him, more impact, more growth, more opportunity to create change in his community. So he turned to us here at The Data Driven Practice.
And one of the coolest things we do at The Data Driven Practice is create a dynamic dashboard where you can see the most critical data of your practice. It's like having a snapshot of your practice's health right in front of you.
We run profit formulas, and the Double Your Profit Formulas helped us pinpoint the one aspect of Dr. Jeremy’s practice that, with a few minor adjustments, could transform everything. It's like grabbing the easiest opportunity for improvement, making a tweak, and witnessing the results in no time.
And in his practice, that was his new patient show rate. He was getting plenty of leads, but unfortunately, less than half of them were actually showing up for a new patient visit. So, the impact of this was an unbelievable amount of open space on his work schedule.
When you have open space, you can't produce. You have nothing to convert into accepted care. So, that show rate became the one thing we focused on tweaking in his practice.
In our data-driven approach, we help you pinpoint the most crucial metric. Once we get that, we can then step back, look upstream, and work with your team on a strategy. Think of it like a chain reaction. Upstream, there are numbers and processes that generate those numbers.
With Dr. Jeremy, we discovered some missing links in the process, particularly when converting leads into new patients showing up at the practice. So, we rolled up our sleeves and worked closely with his team to fine-tune those specific steps that needed to be in place to boost the show rate.
Here's the coolest part – in just four weeks, we witnessed an incredible transformation. The show rate skyrocketed from less than 50% to over 70%. The transformation was such a big jump that it led to a whopping 40% increase in collections. Can you imagine that? Can you imagine giving yourself a 40% raise in four weeks by changing one number? That’s the power of the Double Your Profits Formula.
“That which is measured, improves. That which is measured and reported improves exponentially.” - Pearson's Law
13 Most Powerful Metrics To Focus On In Your Practice
To catapult Dr. Jeremy's practice growth, we didn't need to juggle a hundred different metrics or sift through a sea of data points. We honed in on just 13.
Number Of Scheduled New Patients - these aren't just leads. Among all the data points we consider upstream, this one holds the key to a healthy system.
New Patient Acquisition Cost - this involves looking at your marketing labor combined with your ad spend, then dividing that by the number of completed new patients, and that gives us your actual new patient acquisition cost.
Front Desk New Patient System - this tracks what percent of those new patients are actually showing up in the practice.
Completed New Patient Exams - a comprehensive evaluation of a new patient in your practice. We pass these on to the next metric, the Exam and Case Acceptance Start Rate.
Exam And Case Acceptance Start Rate - the exam and case acceptance start rate shows how many of those exams make it to report of findings and accept care. These patients are moving forward with your recommendations, committing to financial agreements, and aligning with the outcomes they want to achieve through your services.
Care Plan Value Accepted - this indicates the portion of a care plan you presented that gets the green light from your patients. This number directly indicates the workload that will be added to the schedule. It prompts the question: do we need a bigger team to handle the influx of work? If you have a massive month, you better be ready to deliver that massive amount of care to your patients. So, this is a vital metric for you and your team.
Front Desk Established Patient System - this is all about measuring how many scheduled established patients we have or the patients that are now in care. And we pair that with the accelerator of what percent of those patients are actually keeping those appointments. The higher the percentage, the better the schedule for the treatment team, and that system is measured by total adjusted production.
Total Adjusted Production - this is the value of services delivered daily. We want to know the adjusted amount, meaning after write-offs. If you’re a cash practice, you’re adjusting for cash discounts. If you're an insurance-based practice, you're adjusting for contracts with insurance companies. It's essential to keep tabs on this value – it represents what you can reasonably expect to be compensated, not necessarily your highest fees. This metric provides a realistic view of your practice's revenue.
Average Adjusted Production Per Visit is a key metric in understanding how much value we provide per patient. This figure can vary greatly depending on the type of visit – be it a personal injury case, a wellness visit, or a specialized program for conditions like neuropathy or joint pain. You want to track this average to gauge how we’re doing at helping patients receive the care we recommended during the exam and case acceptance system.
Financial System - this measures the percentage of the adjusted production we can collect. It doesn't matter if your financial systems are handled at the front desk, at the exam and case acceptance system, or in the billing department – what's important is tracking the number that gives us a good average over about 90 days. This helps us assess our efficiency and effectiveness in collecting for the services provided. Think of it as fuel for expanding your team, scaling your practice, and reinvesting in marketing.
Total Collections - the total amount of money collected from patients. We are now ready to pass these on to the admin system.
Admin System - this is the executive system that measures profits. One of your most important roles as your organization's leader is to ensure your practice is profitable. It’s on your shoulders to understand the books and the numbers. There are so many profit levers in this system that we love to move and optimize so that you can scale profitability over time.
Average Team Member Skill Rating - this is a significant number to track to make sure that you have A-players who are being trained and that their performance and outcomes are in the winning state of the practice.
If you want to see your practice grow and succeed, it's crucial to track these 13 metrics. You've got to measure performance if you want that performance to accelerate. You need to define what success looks like for your practice, and your team needs to understand what it means to be high-performing.
With these insights, you can make informed decisions to optimize your practice and accelerate its growth.
If you love this type of content, you’ll love our free Facebook group, “The Data-Driven Practice.” We talk about this kind of stuff every day, and I want you to become a part of it. You’ll get to hang around with other data-driven docs who are as passionate about owning and running a thriving practice. I'll see you on the inside!
