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Would you give a patient a free first visit to get them as a patient? Some practitioners would, some wouldn’t. In some cases (if you’re accepting insurance in certain states) it can actually be illegal.
There’s a tradeoff. Not charging for initial consultations:
- Allows acupuncture skeptics to give it a try without fear of being ripped off.
- Means more money-conscious people will become patients.
- Means sometimes they won’t actually become a patient after the free treatment. (Not often, but it happens).
If you don’t offer a free consultation,
- You’ll get fewer patients.
- You’ll get fewer price-shoppers or freeloaders.
(This is discussed extensively in Never Market Again Pages 65-67.)
Part of this tradeoff depends on how much free time you have, and what kind of patients you’re willing to attract (people tend to respect and value more what they pay for). If your schedule is open and you want to fill it, offering a free consultation is a good way to do it. It’s a great excuse to ask existing patients for referrals, especially if it’s for a limited time.
Anyway, I’ve been thinking about this over the weekend because I want to attract my ideal client for the coaching program. I prefer people who are doers (or want to be). So to attract doers, I’m offering $100 off the initial startup fee IF you’ve done one of the following:
- You’ve started implementing something to improve your marketing. Not just market yourself now, but improve it for the future. This could be something as small as putting together a welcome package or buying cards to send patients, to setting up a website. In particular, anything to make your marketing a system is great. To see why this is important, read “What to Look For In An Acupuncture Marketing System” if you haven’t already. Reread it if you’ve forgotten.)
- You’ve asked for referrals at least 3 times. (A lot of practitioners are hung up on this, but are almost always HAPPY when they find out how it’s not a big deal and most patients LIKE to be asked for referrals)
This $100 off includes everyone who already applied for coaching. If you haven’t done the above yet, you have until next Tuesday to get your application in with a write-up of what you’ve done above. It is the honor system, but I’ve found acupuncturists to be entirely honorable.
By the way, I’m going to have a password protected post on Friday. I’m going to tell a story slightly embarrassing to me, but everyone seems to get a laugh out of it. Women in particular think it’s cute. The title of the post is “What Asking Women Out Has To Do With Marketing Acupuncture.” The ONLY way to get the password is to be subscribed to the email list. If you’re not already subscribed, you can do so by entering your name and email address in the form on my website, or click here. Sorry, RSS feed readers won’t get the password - RSS gives no privacy.
12 responses so far ↓
1 Jimmy Yen // Apr 22, 2008 at 3:07 pm
Burton,
I’ve always struggled with the idea of giving a free visit. I can understand the pros & cons of both sides.
Based on your explanation of offering a free first visit, I was wondering if you would like to offer a free consultation for your coaching program?
Thanks,
Jimmy
2 Burton Kent // Apr 22, 2008 at 4:29 pm
Jimmy,
I always answer questions when people ask. So far, no one has even tried to abuse my accessibility, so I don’t mind. You could say that amounts to a free consultation.
Coaching is more of an ongoing support situation. It’s as much to keep you motivated and focused as to answer all your questions. If you look at the coaching program’s guarantee, you’ll see that I’m offering what amounts to a free consultation.
Burton
3 Justin // Apr 22, 2008 at 4:30 pm
Hi Burton,
The title of your post is a bit confusing. In most practitioners eyes a free first visit implies a free treatment.
A free initial consultation hwoever implies that no treatment is included.
I have found that giving a free intitial consultation to be a great way to get people started with treatment…
A critical factor in doing this is to limit the amount of time that you offer for your free consultation, and that information should be stipulated on someones website or brochure so someone knows exactly what they are entitled to. It let’s patients know “I am too busy to just give away my time!”
On the other hand, you can actually make charging for a consultation work for you all depending on the population that you are serving. If you work with upper scale types of patients, and you charge for a consultation then:
1) These types of people are used to being charged $250, $350, or MORE for a consultation by an allopathic specialist!
2) By giving away a FREE consultation it implies that your time is not valuable since you essentially don’t have the patient base that in their mind you should which means that you are not a highly successful practitioner!
Best,
Justin Mandel. Dipl.O.M. L.Ac
4 Burton Kent // Apr 22, 2008 at 4:39 pm
Justin,
You’re right. I misused my terminology - I should have said diagnosis and treatment. The general idea still stands.
I somewhat agree with both of your points - like I said it’s a tradeoff. The free consultation is primarily a tactic for people who aren’t as busy.
Burton
5 Julia Quick // Apr 23, 2008 at 2:07 am
Hi Burton,
Since I started even thinking about marketing - I offered a free 15 minute chat - to meet each other-and so I could answer questions. 1 person took up the offer and became a client.
I put a line on my website about this offer - since then had more enquiries but none asking to take up this suggestion but have become clients?!
Do you think that could have been a prompt?
Julia
6 Dan // Apr 23, 2008 at 5:29 am
Great question, Burton.
We always encourage practitioners to have a risk-free way for prospective patients to make contact.
In our own office, we call it a “meet-the-doctor” visit - it’s free, relatively short (15 min), and there’s no diagnosis or treatment.
What it does do is help people discover:
a)if we can help (and how) and
b)if there’s a practitioner-patient “fit”.
In the end, the conversion rate is really high. The vast majority of the free visits turn into new patients, and it cuts down on people who become patients for the wrong reasons, or with unreasonable expectations.
In the end, it not only gets people in who might not otherwise come, but it also preps people and helps them commit to what can be a long process.
7 Andrea Beth Damsky, L.Ac. // Apr 28, 2008 at 10:53 am
I have offered both types of initial visits for free - consultation and evaluation without treatment, and consultation and evaluation including treatment. My experience is that people who come for the free treatments rarely commit to further treatments, and if they do, it is out of some sense of guilt or debt for the free first appointment. These folks rarely continue to schedule with me for more than a few weeks. I do better with offering a discount for a first visit, than with offering free first visits, and also better with a first visit that includes a treatment than with one that doesn’t.
8 Jennifer // Apr 29, 2008 at 9:48 am
We offer a free 30 minute consultation at our clinic and would say this is the most essential marketing tool for every acupuncturist. Probably 75% of people that come in for a consultation go ahead and book a treatment with us. The reason it is so effective is that it gets people into our clinic (to see what a relaxing and inviting environment it is), they get to meet the practitioner and connect on a personal level, and it gives our acupuncturist a chance to explain how TCM/acupuncture works in a very personalized situation- ie. tailoring this info very specifically to the condition that the person is experiencing. So long as you work on developing your language and script for your consultation (your “selling” skills), most people find acupuncture compelling and will book.
I think the idea of offering free treatments however is a bad idea. We have tested this by donating gift certificates for a free treatment to charity events. Generally it’s a hard sell because people are coming to you with no knowledge of you (as compared to a referral) and they only get one treatment, which is really not enough time for people to get any positive response from acupuncture. They want to “try” (sample/taste) acupuncture but haven’t been primed about how it works or else they haven’t made a commitment to fixing a health problem- which I think are key characteristics of good patients. Our acupuncturist also doesn’t like doing free treatments because he feels like it cheapens himself and the profession- he is a professional, his time is valuable, and if you want expertise, you should be willing to pay for it, just like you would with any other professional.
9 Rudek L. Perez // Apr 29, 2008 at 10:03 am
I advertise Free Consultation on my website to attract possible patients, once they call I explain that it doesn’t include treatment and I usually have the time to do the consultation over the phone. I listen to their “chief complaint” and then briefly explain how Chinese Medicine can help them and then ask if they want to schedule and appointment with a discount for the first visit. Doesn’t take much time, is a consultation and not an intake.
10 Dr. Melissa Carr // Apr 30, 2008 at 12:33 am
I offered free brief consultations to anyone when I first started, but often found it difficult to keep the time short. I felt I was struggling between selling myself and offering the best health advice in such a short time.
Even though I’m very busy now, I do offer a free initial appointment (treatment or consultation, depending on the case) only through a couple of select health colleagues. They pass the certificate on to their clients/patients and I am happy to focus on benefitting these new patients’ health, rather than thinking about whether they will continue or not. Because I have a good relationship with those people who can offer me good referrals, not just anyone gets the free initial appointment and the new patients do tend to continue with treatments and become the kind of patients that I want to attract. In addition, it maintains the beneficial relationship that I have with those colleagues as they look like stars when they hand out the certificates. They, in turn offer my patients some valuable services through certificates that I can hand out, making me look very generous as well.
11 The Sanborn Maxim (Offering a free visit part 4) | Acupuncture Clinic Marketing // May 19, 2008 at 9:11 pm
[...] May 19th, 2008 · It’s not too late! If you aren’t already signed up to have up-to-date marketing information delivered directly to your inbox, do so here:→ This will also keep you updated on contests related to the Never Market Again book release, with prizes totaling hundreds of dollars. There was a lot of discussion when I first wrote about offering a free first visit. Many readers gave good feedback. [...]
12 Karen // Jul 8, 2008 at 10:05 am
I myself do not offer free treatments in my clinic. I do, however, offer a 30-minute consultation where the potential patient and I have a chat. I do not diagnose or treat under those circumstances, nor do I charge for these. I think it is good policy to avail some small amount of my undivided attention to someone inquiring about my services. Usually when people see my clinic and meet me, they schedule appointments.
Regarding discounts, I do on occasion discount the first treatment. But the first treatment so discounted still costs more than followup treatments. The only other discount I 0ffer is a package rate. If a patient will commit to 5 treatments by paying for all 5 up front, I will discount my return office call fee by 10%. The packages represent the bulk of our sales and have dramatically improved our cash flow. They also encourage the patient to commit to their healthcare. (No, I do not permit the sharing of packages. 5 visits discounted is for 1 patient only.) I also do housecalls which are never discounted and the fee for those is equivalent to my fee for 2 office calls.
The bottom line for me regarding discounts is twofold: 1) NEVER have a discount that requires your patient to pay more to come back than to see you for the first time. This should kibosh the idea of free treatments. 2) If you must give free treatments, do so on a volunteer basis and ALWAYS offsite. And not very often. Do not use your regular office space for free treatments.
I have had only 1 patient complain about my prices. While writing her check the last time I saw her, she said that acupuncture “was really expensive” and that she didn’t feel she got anything out of that particular treatment. I have since told her I could not help her, and not just for this issue. (Although trying to cadge a free treatment after the fact was the final straw for me with this patient.)
The overwhelming majority of my patients are fine with my fees. They like the treatments, they get better, and they refer.
And I feel better about my discounting policy, because I do not end up harboring resentment or disappointment. When I was just out of school I did a lot more discounting that I did not feel good about, because I did not yet understand what I was worth or how to hold my boundaries.
Now that I do, life is much better, and my bills are getting paid.
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