18th Apr 2008
Why burden yourself with expensive techniques?
I’m on my soapbox here, so feel free to disagree. I see a lot of grads coming out of school with high expectations and even higher startup costs, because of the technique they have chosen. These techniques require you to spend tons of money on x-ray and other specialized equipment and tables. And startup is the time when you need to keep your expenses low.
Now, I’m fully in favor of using the latest technological stuff, and I agree that using evidence from x-rays helps the profession and brings an additional element to your practice. But… you’re paying a premium for this stuff.
What if you could start out with $50,000, including used equipment and furniture and something left over for working capital, rather than $150,000? Starting smaller would
- Give you a better chance of getting a loan, even if you don’t have a lot of collateral, and
- Would relieve you of a high monthly overhead.
Think of it this way: Wouldn’t you rather have a practice with $4,000 a month overhead than $9,000 a month overhead? (By ‘overhead’ I mean all the money you must pay for fixed expenses, like rent and your payments on loans and on financing for equipment.) This lower overhead requirement would mean you would be able to pay your bills with fewer patients each month. You could save the difference and put it towards that fancy new equipment you want. AND you would be able to sleep at night, your marriage and family would still be there.
Do you REALLY need all that fancy equipment and x-ray? I thought chiropractors worked with their hands. Just a thought….
I totally agree, I think its the schools fault for teaching us that we “need” all these things. The fact is that they teach us to practice medicine without a medical license. If the schools would teach us to be “Chiropractors” we wouldn’t feel like we had to do this. I made the mistake of buying an x-ray machine, stim, massage tables….all the junk. High overhead is the death of a practice. I totally agree. I finally got hooked up with a good coach….check out www.joinpct.com
Thanks for the comment. I will definitely check out the coach. I think coaches - personal coaches, business coaches - are more valuable to a new practice than practice management organizations.