I got another great question today, and that’s, “How do I increase my fees?”
Listen, coming from experience in this, I had a difficult time raising my fees in the past. You know, 15 – 20 years ago when I was seeing a higher volume of patients and I was treating patients directly, my purpose was all about helping and serving as many people as possible.
And so I set my fee structure on the lower end with the thought that I would be able to see and help more people. But I was beating my body up for that low fee structure. If you’re a treating doctor you know the physical work it takes seeing so many people every day.
Let’s go over the numbers…
Since 2019 we’ve seen a cumulative inflation of 19.3%. That’s just in four years, right? That’s big!
Which means a $50 adjustment in 2019 should be $60 today. So how much have you raised your fees since 2019?
And that means a $10 rate increase per treatment just to pay your bills. That doesn’t account for any other growth or employee expenses. And we all know how much those have grown!
How about this crazy stat to blow your mind…
Since 2003 inflation over the past 20 years is a whopping 65.8%. Get that. Almost 70%…
It takes almost 70% more money now to do the same exact thing as 20 years ago.
So if you were charging $50 for an adjustment 20 years ago, that’d be $83 today. So how much have you raised your fees? 70%?
The question I hear all the time from owners I work with is… “I know I need to raise my rates but, how do I do it?”
All of us here in this profession want to help and serve as many people as possible, right? And when you want to serve and help as many people as possible, the fear comes in…
“If I raise my fees, are my patients gonna stay?”
“Will that prevent them from getting care?”
Especially for those of you who are in the wellness arena you convert many of your patients onto wellness care and you want to ensure they get that preventative, wellness benefit.
So what exactly do I do?
A great way to go about doing that is and I’ve done this successfully many times now, is I’ll pick a date. Let’s just say we’re in September of the year, and I’m going to raise my rates at the beginning of the next year.
I would start telling patients in an easy going manner:
“Hey, I wanted to let you know we’re going to be raising our rates, but don’t worry about that. We’re not doing it until January 1st. The good news is you can buy as many visits as you want right now, and you can use them how you want to over this next year. But you can buy as many as you want at today’s current price.”
And guess what? When I did this in my practice I had a lot of patients that would bite, and I’d have a good amount of cash inflow immediately. Patients wanted to take advantage of this and secure 20, 30, 40 visits at today’s price.
And so that’s an easy way to ease into the increase, because guess what? Then everyone knows that you’re gonna be raising rates. If they want to participate in saving money by buying now, they can. If they don’t, they don’t, but they are prepared.
And every time I’ve done that, I’ve lost very few patients.
At the end of the day, the very few I did lose, I more than made up for by the increase in money that was coming in on those who were paying the higher fees now. So it makes a huge difference.
If you’re going to sacrifice your body for this craft and for serving people, helping them improve their lives… you need to also value yourself. I speak with thousands of providers and sometimes it’s hard to see a provider and they don’t value themselves. How much can we help others if we are worn down and exhausted and not receiving the level of value we deserve?
Here’s the real truth about value…
These providers who don’t value themselves are the ones who would not even pay for the services that they’re delivering.
This is your gut check, honest, real-talk time. How many of you feel that way?
Would pay out of pocket for the services you’re recommending?
And if the answer is no, I need you to take a step back. Take a real hard look at this.
Because the truth is, if you don’t value your services, that oozes out of you and patients (and your staff) will not value your services either.
When patients don’t value your services, your starting percentage of new patients is going to be super low. And that’s a major problem!
You guys should be at 80%, 90% close as far as closing people onto care. This includes cash patients and insurance.
If your percentage is 50% or lower, I can guarantee you there’s a value issue.
You’ve got to believe in your services. And if you don’t, then figure out why and handle that so you do believe in them. This is one of the most vital things you can do.
Each member of your team needs to value and understand what you do as well.
Here’s how you can check this with your staff:
- You should be having weekly team meetings.
- In your team meeting, ask the question “On a scale of one to 10, 10 being that you completely understand the services that we’re doing, and 1 you have no clue, where are you at?”
- Get specific with each aspect of your services and make sure everyone is clear and confident.
“What’s your understanding of Chiropractic (Scale of one to 10)
“What’s your understanding of Rehab (Scale of one to 10)?
“Do you understand regenerative medicine… or whatever services that you’re delivering?
You’ll be amazed at how some staff are gonna be like “I have no idea what this regenerative therapy stuff is”
And here’s the secret sauce: your staff are an extension of you. If they don’t understand what you know, if they don’t understand your services, why they work and how they work, and why they are so valuable to your patients… then you’re not gonna sell it.
It’s a team activity from scheduling to therapies to Case Management and that lack of understanding and value will leak out to the patient.
The number one rule to sales…
I know sales is a dirty word out there, right? But the fact of the matter is you’ve got to sell your services. How can you help someone improve their life if you don’t sell your services?
And the fact is, if you don’t have faith, confidence and belief in your services, products and ideas, you won’t sell it.
At the end of the day, it does not matter what your fees are. Really.
I know this whole topic started with how do I increase my fees?
But at the end of the day, people will pay for what they value.
So the guy or gal down the street, who is charging double your fee, let’s say, may not have any problem selling it if they truly value their services.
The patient will feel and place the level of value of services they feel from you.
So to sum it all up, take a step back and ask:
- Do I deeply value my services?
- Do my staff value my services? Do they really understand everything we do?
- I gave you a blueprint on how you can raise your rates over time and make it comfortable and a win for your patients.
I hope that was beneficial for you. Here’s to your wild success!
