Many clinics and wellness centers are shut down due to COVID-19 pandemic outbreak but this forced break could provide opportunities to work ON your business.  This may be the right time to make a strategy for the future of your business.  Some forced “work from home” time now may set you up to become much more profitable next year.

It goes without saying that this is a time to brush up on treatment protocols for acute illness and external pathogenic invasions.  We should all be honing our skills as acupuncturists and herbalists right now. Check out Health Seminars or Lotus seminars for helpful insight in Chinese Medicine.

But if you are worried about income, as most of us are, you should also be putting some effort into your business skills.

Tightening up systems and streamlining your operations could help you reap financial benefits in months to come.

SO TAKE A DEEP BREATH, STAY CENTERED and GET ORGANIZED around your Practice Business Plan. Remember to tackle this when you are uninterrupted and when your mind is at it’s best.

This following business task list is in no particular order.  We recommend you look it over and restructure it into a To Do list for your business depending on what areas you need to focus on. Many of these list topics are large undertakings.  Don’t try to start all these things at once. Take bite-sized chunks and break them into lists into further to-do lists.

1.  Revamp your phone system.  You can save a tremendous amount of money going to a VOIP phone service like 8×8.  This is the phone system works on a desktop, laptop, cellphone, and you can also pair it with a desk phone and you won’t know the difference.  You can switch calls on the fly and pick up calls from anywhere. It has SMS and Virtual Meetings built in.  8×8 will provide you with a BAA for HIPAA concerns.

2. Update your website and marketing approach.  Have you been wanting to update you site?  Check out Acuperfect Websites if you are wanting to completely rebuild a site. Take some time to compare your site to other clinics sites you like.  Check out the Creativo website theme by Rocky Themes for an easy plug and play website you can manage and build on your own. Can your site be upgraded? Do you need to add internal and external links, add keywords and phrases, create google ads, etc?   Can your site be monetized?  Can you add a store or link to a product sales platform such as Fullscript? If you recommend supplements or sell products to your clients now it the time to make this available online. Check out Acuprosper for some marketing strategies and tips.

3. Evaluate your scheduling and EHR software.  We are continually impressed with Janeapp. Jane is sleek, easy to use and filled with so many awesome features. This platform just introduced it’s own Telemedicine feature that should be rolling out very soon.  It’s all integrated with the program.  You don’t need any other apps to do the video chats.

4. Consider offering Tele-medicine:  There are many free webinars going around about shifting into Telemedicine.  AAC has a new one about billing for Telehealth.  Watch some of them and consider how this may help your practice.  Janeapp and 8×8 are good options for this.  Both are HIPAA compliant.  There are other options out there, but you do need to investigate the HIPAA part before diving in. Sam Collins with AAC offers this video about coding for Telehealth visits.

5. Implement a Virtual Reception Service: This is not a good time to be missing calls.  Every request for herbs or support right now could be turned into income if you are available.  Acuhub Virtual Receptionists have proven  invaluable to many clinics these past two weeks with all the cancelling and rescheduling of appointments. The receptionists work from home and don’t have to be laid off in times like these. They are safely taking calls and helping clinics get set up to reopen with a full schedule. Let them handle your phones while you work on more intricate parts of your business development.

6. Organize your email  and contact lists.  This task is tedious but will pay off. It’s a good time to decide which email service fits your needs for mass emails from your clinic.  You may choose to use Mailchimp. It’s a good choice and it’s free and relatively easy to set up and use.  OR, you may choose to go with one of the paid email providers ConvertKit or Constant Contact to get more bells and whistles. Regardless of what platform you choose, make sure to set it up well from the beginning creating segments and using tags to keep your outgoing mail targeting and sending the proper messages to the right recipients.

7. Take stock of your pharmacy.  Do you wish you had bulk herbs currently, or do you like the patents you carry?  Do you want to down size or streamline your herbal offerings?  Do you want to start an online dispensary?  These are things to think about right now. Consider joining Fullscript so that your supplement recommendations can offer you a small financial reward.  Decide if you want to carry certain lines of products and which vendors you support. Evergreen herbs has been well stocked with fast shipping during these past 3 weeks.  We are impressed with the service right now. Look into creative ways to sell products in house and online.

8. Ask for Support:  Send a personal email to all the people you love and who love what you offer (close clients, family, friends, associates, etc) Let them know the ways that they can support your business right now. Ask them to support your clinic by buying gift certificates, products, packages, ordering supplements from your online store, etc. Add links to make the email more actionable. Ask your clients for reviews and testimonials that can be shown on google and on your website.

9. Update your policies, price list, forms, and manuals. These chores are tedious but always a work in progress.  Pricing for supplements and herbs might need to be evaluated. Forms might be outdated and need some attention. Do you have operational manuals in place for associates and staff?  No better time than now to spend some energy on this part of your practice. Consider apps like Trello and Slack for better inter-office communications, task sharing, and goals check lists.

10. Streamlining you systems.  Consider outsourcing your insurance billing.  Holistic Billing does a great job at helping your send and track your claims.   What are things you can start learning how to do that you may be overpaying for? This is a great time to look at all options in your operations. Check out our other articles or purchase a coaching session to kick start your projects and to-do lists.

By putting this type of focus on your business right now, you’ll gain insight and inspiration on what your practice needs to thrive. And you’ll feel productive in these dark days staying home and hunkering down. This storm will pass and hopefully in it’s wake, we’ll see acupuncture and other preventative modalities become valued and sought after in months to come.