How to Boost Your Private Practice Revenue Fast

Adding an extra service to your clinic is one of the fastest ways of increasing your income.

After all, if you can get your existing patients or clients to buy more from you by offering an additional treatment as a cross-sell, you will increase your income, right?

Yes, that’s right.

However, I think there is a big "BUT" that is often overlooked.

In this article, I would like to share the 5 things we as doctors, nurses and aesthetic practitioners in private practice, should consider when thinking of adding extra services to boost our income.

And I will tell you the biggest mistake most doctors, nurses and aesthetic clinic owners make when weighing up the pros and cons of adding a new service or treatment option.

So what are these 5 considerations?

Before we dive into each one in turn, here’s the list:

Is there a demand for this service?
What is the set-up cost?
What is the marketing cost?
Is the procedure easy to learn?
What are the regulatory and legal requirements?

Now let's consider these in turn, using the examples of Microsclerotherapy and Short Wave Diathermy.

Just as a reminder, Microsclerotherapy is used for the treatment of leg spider veins and Short Wave Diathermy is used for the treatment of facial spider veins.

So, let’s look at Consideration Number 1.

Is there demand for this service?

It might seem obvious, but it is worth stating clearly, “if there isn’t a demand for the new service, you shouldn’t add it to your clinic”.

Now if you are running a vein clinic or an aesthetic clinic, you will come across many people with spider veins on the legs on the face. In fact, It is estimated that around 8 out of 10 adults will be affected by either leg spider veins or facial spider veins at some stage in their life and 50% will have one or both of these conditions at any one time.

Yes, that’s right, half of your existing clients and patients will have these conditions.!

You will probably know many people attending your clinic who are already asking about how they can get treatment for their leg or facial spider veins. How many enquiries about facial or leg spider veins are you turning away right now?

How much extra revenue could you add to your clinic if you could treat these conditions?

As you can see there is a huge potential demand for Microsclerotherapy and Short Wave Diathermy, but this might not be the case for the treatment you are considering, let’s say a treatment such as a fat removal or body contouring or skin tightening.

Before expanding your services, you should seriously consider doing some internal market research. This doesn’t need to be complicated or expensive. I’m not suggesting you need to hire an independent market research company. Just ask the next 25 people attending your clinic if they might be interested in the new service that you are thinking of introducing. If the majority say “yes”, then move on to consideration number 2.

What is the set-up cost?

Will you need to buy expensive equipment, or will you need extra space in your clinic?

Will you need to make building modifications or build an extension to your premises?

Will you need to hire extra staff?

Get quotes and estimates for these and don’t forget to factor in the cost of servicing, maintenance and consumables.

For Microsclerotherapy and Short Wave Diathermy the set up costs are very low.

For Microsclerotherapy there is no need for any additional special equipment and the total cost of needles, syringes and sclerosant used is less than £10 per treatment session.

For Short Wave Diathermy, the cost of the Short Wave Diathermy machine that I use is less than £900 and the consumables are less than £5 per treatment session.

Compare these with the cost of using a laser machine. Laser machines can cost tens of thousands of pounds, can require a separate room, may need additional cooling machines and special signage and need regular servicing and maintenance.

As you can see, Microsclerotherapy and Short Wave Diathermy have very low set-up costs.

If you have assessed the set-up cost as being affordable, then this leads to consideration Number 3:

What are the marketing costs of the new service?

If you have done your own internal market research and you know that there is already interest in your new service among your existing clients, then your marketing costs should be near zero. Your marketing campaign may be as simple as telling your existing clients about the new service verbally when they visit your clinic or by announcing the new service in your email newsletter or on your website.

If you have added Microsclerotherapy and Short Wave Diathermy to your treatment options, marketing will be very simple and straightforward.

For example, you might note that your client has leg and spider veins or facial spider veins and you might simply ask your client if they might be interested in having these treated.

You don’t have to do this in a “pushy” or “salesy” way and it can be done in an ethical way. Consider it an act of kindness to a valued client who already trusts you to treat other conditions. Your client may be really bothered by their spider veins and they will be so grateful to know that you have a treatment for them.

Having assessed the marketing costs to be low, proceed on to consideration Number 4:

Is the procedure easy to learn?

If the new procedure requires a considerable investment in time to learn and master, it probably isn’t a good fit for your clinic. The training courses needed to learn the new procedure may cost several thousands of £s and may take you away from your business for an extended period of time. In addition, if the procedure is complicated and requires a lot of training, it will be difficult to delegate. Insert clips of delegate movies

Procedures that are relatively easy to learn can be delegated to existing staff members, leveraging your time and providing extra revenue without your direct involvement. Microsclerotherapy and Short Wave Diathermy are both relatively easy to learn and they can easily be delegated to aesthetic practitioners. You won’t need to hire additional highly qualified staff to add Microsclerotherapy and Short Wave Diathermy to your clinic treatment options.

Having identified the new procedure as being easy to learn, this leads to the consideration Number 5

What are the regulatory and legal requirements?

In the UK, adding certain treatments may require registration with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) . This adds an extra layer of complexity to your clinic, extra costs, additional staff and administrative time as well as compliance issues. Extra insurance and indemnity may also be required. Are these regulatory and legal requirements prohibitive to you and your size of clinic?

If you already run a private practice or aesthetic clinic, Microsclerotherapy and Short Wave Diathermy do not impose any additional regulatory or legal burdens, certainly in the UK at present, but clearly you need to check your own jurisdiction and you need to keep up to date in this area.

So, in summary, these are the 5 most important considerations when thinking of adding a new service to your clinic.

Is there a demand for this service?
What is the set-up cost?
What is the marketing cost?
Is the procedure easy to learn?
What are the regulatory and legal requirements?

If I have missed something, let me know.

Do you disagree, leave me a comment below, I'd love to hear your opinion.

At the beginning, I said, I would tell you what I thinnk the biggest mistake most doctors, nurses and aesthetic clinic owners make when weighing up the pros and cons of adding a new service or treatment option.

In my opinion many health professionals confuse gross profit and net profit.

Let me explain, gross profit refers to sales (also known as revenue or turnover) minus the total cost of sales. Net profit includes the same costs as your gross profit PLUS your overheads or fixed costs such as salaries, rent, software and bank charges.

Many doctors, nurses and aesthetic practitioners may be tempted to add a new service when looking at gross profit, but when they add the cost of the additional overheads such as leasing costs, servicing costs, annual training, staff costs, additional insurance and regulatory overheads, the new service may not look quite so attractive.

When talking to a rep about a new piece of expensive kit, the rep will often emphasise the opportunities for additional gross profit and they omit to explore the additional overhead costs linked to acquiring the equipment such as the cost of leasing and they omit the overhead costs such as servicing and maintenance.

When deciding whether to add a new treatment option, make sure you calculate the net profit for that treatment. Decide how much you can charge then deduct the cost of goods (the consumables) to calculate the gross profit and then deduct all the overhead costs for that treatment, such as staff costs, leasing, servicing, maintenance, regulatory costs etc.

You might find that a service that looks good from the point of view of gross profit, may actually be sucking money out of your business when you carefully calculate net profit. By that I mean, you might make a net loss!

I would love to hear about YOU and your business. Are you a solopreneur health professional or do you own a clinic?

Have you expanded your services to increase profits? How did it go?

Many thanks to the author of this blog Dr Haroun Gajraj who has over 30 years’ experience in treating people with varicose veins, thread veins and other vein complications such as phlebitis, varicose eczema and varicose ulcers.