Unlocking the potential in subscription-based patient care
Chiropractic memberships fit right into today’s subscription-obsessed society. Now everything is conveniently available to consumers with a monthly or yearly subscription fee. From groceries and clothing to streaming services and car washes, membership plans provide easy access to goods and services. And for those who know what they need and are looking for ways to save money, these plans make sense.
In the chiropractic industry, membership opens up areas of great potential for practices and patients alike. Currently, offering subscriptions is a logical step in offering chiropractic care, meeting patient needs, and growing your practice.
If offering chiropractic membership plans seems like a big ask, here’s how subscription-based care will make your life easier.
Faster and more predictable payments
Dealing with insurance is a tedious process that takes an enormous amount of time and presents many challenges – sometimes with little to no payout. Manually creating claims, filing, waiting for months and reconciling payments will virtually freeze your earnings.
However, with chiropractic memberships, your practice can eliminate one of its most vexing pain points. By offering subscriptions to patients, you can offer discounted services that patients use. They may have their own concerns about dealing with insurance companies. It can even be just as cost-effective and encourage them to opt for memberships and cut out the middleman altogether. So nothing stands in the way of your practice and your profit.
Plus, when you remove insurance companies from the equation, you pay out faster but also more consistently. With membership plans, you don’t have to wait for claims to be processed. You’ll automatically receive monthly or yearly payments to fill your revenue gaps. And with predictable earnings, you can plan your finances more accurately.
The patient perspective
Providing patients with affordable memberships for their chiropractic needs has many benefits. For one, don’t force them to either pay a sticker price for your services or go down the insurance rabbit hole. They will see your discounted offers favorably and will trust you more.
Also, by automatically retaining patients with a financial commitment, you are more likely to see patients again. This could be due to a sunk-cost fallacy that makes them less likely to give up their practice because they’ve already put their time, money, and effort into creating the subscription.
And because they pay for it, they keep an eye on your practice. This might explain why many people stick with their gym membership for a reason, especially if they pay a monthly fee. Additionally, one study found that spreading payments — like a monthly subscription plan — keeps you on board.
But most importantly, provide better care. With cash subscription plans, your office isn’t busy filing insurance claims, and you don’t have to meet a set patient quota to pay these companies’ rates. You’ll have more time with patients, and they’ll be motivated to come back based on how well you’ve treated them.
In addition, it also eases the stress of responding to insurance company concerns. By accepting cash memberships, you don’t need to see a certain number of patients each day to meet insurance estimates and receive balanced reimbursement rates. With bar memberships, patient visits are far less stressful.
Memberships as a marketing tool
Today the market is saturated with practices like yours. Their $15 billion mainstream industry has spawned a sizable number of nearly 40,000 practices in the United States alone. While investing time and money in marketing tactics like sponsorships and advertising are effective strategies to attract new patients, there are other ways to attract those who land on your website.
Displaying transparent membership pricing inspires trust and sets you apart from prospects looking for an offer. Your patients’ perception of your pricing directly influences their purchasing decisions. If they see your pricing as fair, they will commit.
In fact, patients are more likely to take action when they make these costs available and highlight their benefits. Research shows that a company’s apparent pricing—especially alongside customized or non-discounted services—provides value to patients and drives purchase. When patients make it to your office and see a good deal, you have a better chance of winning them over. In an already flooded market, showcasing your deals can differentiate your practice and set it apart from the rest.
Improving Chiropractic Memberships
If you run a smaller chiropractic practice, chances are you haven’t thought about memberships. Before modern software, offering memberships required entering data into Excel spreadsheets and billing patients manually. Add to that the added burden of drawing attention to your memberships and convincing patients to sign up. Up until this point, subscription-based care was something that only larger chiropractic practices could offer.
Solutions are now available to address the difficult administrative burden of subscription care plans. ChiroSpring360 offers solutions to combat membership challenges:
- Patients can sign up for a membership of their choice at the practice or on your website.
- Patient subscription information is easily accessible within the platform.
- Credit cards are automatically captured through ChiroSpring Pay, which sets up your practice to receive automated, recurring payments every month.
- Customizable memberships allow you to design membership packages that best fit your practice.
ChiroSpring360 helps reduce the administrative burden of managing patient subscriptions. Removing manual entries and hiding insurance effectively removes blockages in your earnings.
It is also beneficial to practice growth. Patients will appreciate a hassle-free care process as well as the additional savings with subscription packages. With the many improvements memberships can bring to your chiropractic practice, it’s worth giving them a try – then you’ll be armed with one more tool to compete in your growing and competitive industry.
references
Davidson, M. (2013, March 28). How the Sunk Cost Fallacy Makes You Look Stupid. life hack. https://www.lifehack.org/articles/communication/how-the-sunk-cost-fallacy-makes-you-act-stupid.html
Gourville, J. & Soman, D. (2002, September). Pricing and consumer psychology. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2002/09/pricing-and-the-psychology-of-consumption
How to become a membership-based chiropractic practice. (2023, January 4). ChiroSpring. https://www.chirospring.com/articles/becoming-a-membership-based-chiropractic-practice
Mohan B, Buell RW & John LK (2014). Lifting the veil: The benefits of cost transparency. Harvard Business School. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2498174
Why Chiropractors Need Membership-Based Care Plans. (2023, January 4). ChiroSpring. https://www.chirospring.com/articles/3-reasons-for-chiropractic-membership-based-care-plans
