How Do I Start a Business
How to Start a Pain Clinic
Opening a pain clinic is an excellent entrepreneurial opportunity if you do it right. This article contains tips and advice that instructs you on how to start your business.
Wondering how to start a pain clinic? We take you step-by-step from start to success.
Pain Clinic Business Models
Pain clinics are more than just one-stop shops for pain management. Generally, patients and medical practitioners rely on pain clinics to help develop a comprehensive pain management plan, often involving the combined input of specialists, physicians, therapists and pain management professionals.
Pain clinics are usually operated by board certified physicians specializing in pain management. But if you lack medical credentials, it's still possible to launch a pain clinic -- you'll just need to make sure your clinic employs licensed and certified pain management doctors.
Getting Referrals for a Pain Clinic Startup
The majority of your clinic's patients will come from referrals from your local medical community. Although your clinic's mission is to serve patients, it's still a business. Subsequently, you'll need to take a proactive and aggressive approach to soliciting patient referrals.
There are plenty of things you can do to increase referral volume in your pain clinic startup. Sometimes, you can increase clinic traffic by asking satisfied patients to refer your clinic to friends and acquaintances. As a starting point, take a look at Gaebler's Five Steps to More Customer Referrals.
Alternative Pain Clinic
Pain clinics are multi-disciplinary environments by nature. But in recent years, some pain clinic entrepreneurs have achieved success through a niche market strategy based on alternative pain treatments.
Acupuncture, homeopathic pain relievers and other alternative pain management techniques may be a viable way to differentiate your business from other pain clinic centers in your market.
Creating Business Plans for a Pain Clinic
A carefully crafted business is your pain clinic's most important asset. With the right ingredients, your pain clinic's business plan will serve as a blueprint for success.
To assist your efforts, you may want to consider enlisting the aid of a professional business plan writer.
Professional business plans can often be more effective than plans that are created in-house. However, outsourcing doesn't completely eliminate your responsibilities in the writing process.
As the primary stakeholder in your pain clinic, you will intentionally need to insert yourself in various stages of the plan's development.
Location Selection
For the most part, pain clinics target local customers. You may think you know your community well, but it's worth doing some additional homework on your area. What types of people live nearby? Is the community ethnically diverse? Your location selection strategy may vary considerably based on whether you are starting a business in a small town or setting up shop in a big city. But, regardless, it's helpful to know as much as you can about local demographics before you start a business.
Review the Competition
Prior to opening a pain clinic in your area, it's essential to determine what the competition looks like. Use the link below to generate a list of competitors nearby. Complete the form by entering your city, state and zip code to get a list of pain clinics that are close by.
It's important to be aware of what the competition is doing. Take the time to visit the competition to properly assess their strengths and weaknesses.
A Good Source of Advice
After you've evaluated your local competitors, it's a smart move to have a conversation with someone who is in the business. Local competitors are not going to give you the time of day, mind you. What's in it for them?
But, a person who owns a pain clinic in another town will be much more likely to talk with you, given that you don't compete with them in their area. In fact, they are often very willing to share startup advice with you. Our estimate is that you may have to contact many business owners to find one who is willing to share his wisdom with you.
How does one go about finding a pain clinic entrepreneur outside of your area who is willing to talk?
Here's how we would do it. Try the useful link below and key in a random city/state or zipcode.
Is It Easier to Buy an Existing Pain Clinic?
Tough decisions are what business ownership is all about. And one of the first decisions you'll have to make is whether to start a business from scratch or buy an existing pain clinic.
Despite the appeal of a new business launch, the scales consistently tip in favor of buying a proven business enterprise. From a financial perspective, you'll receive more income sooner in a business purchase than you will in a startup.
Entrepreneurs who are committed to a highly unique value proposition may need to pursue a startup approach. But for the sake of minimizing risk and maintaining your sanity, a business purchase is often the right move for emerging pain clinic entrepreneurs.
Don't Forget About Franchising As an Option
You should know that your odds of being a successful business owner greatly improve when you join the ranks of franchisees and leverage their successful brand and track record.
Prior to starting a pain clinic, it's worthwhile to check out whether buying a franchise could be worth investigating.
The link below gives you access to our franchise directory so you can see if there's a franchise opportunity for you. You might even find something that points you in a completely different direction.
Pain Therapy Industry Associations
For more resources about pain clinic startup requirements and the possibility of incorporating alternative treatments into your business model, visit the International Association for the Study of Pain.
More Startup Articles
These additional resources regarding starting a business may be of interest to you.
Buying vs. Starting a Business
Share this article
Additional Resources for Entrepreneurs