For part 1 – Challenges – For Allopathic Practitioners
For part 2 – Challenges – For Integrative Practitioners
This is the final post of the 3-part series and is a summary of the observations with my 4+ years focused in the space as an investor, founder, and operator.
Big Picture
With a drastically increasing number people with lifestyle health issues, a stagnant growth in number of new practitioners being able to treat them allopathically (and a sizable number of practitioners facing retirement age), a stale profit environment for those practitioners due in part to large amounts of student loan debt, questionably unbearable increases in insurance premiums for patients with a disproportinate amount of the increase going to the middlemen, and an increasing number of patients having problems not really suited for an allopathic environment, a compelling argument is made for the need of lifestyle and integrative practitioners.
These lifestyle and integrative practitioners can start helping clients sooner due to shorter classroom-only training, start with significantly reduced or zero debt, earn money sooner to have the power of compound interest work for them rather than against them, and have an overall higher efficiency pass-through rate of money from the client to the practitioner for services rendered. However, these benefits do come with a different set of risks (primarily demand and entrepreneurial risk) and companies working to provide more services to the greater population face unique challenges to scaling as well.
Challenges
- Minimal barriers to entry continually allows new people and companies to come into a market and undercut the price to gain market share (race to the bottom)
- Unregulated delivery of service could potentially damage the practices’ reputation (one bad apple ruining the bunch)
- Work on business’ growth vs. work in business with income generating activities with clients
- Uncertain allocation of time to ensure stable cash flow: Seek new clients vs. focus on customer retention vs. reengage old clients vs. create new products and services
- Different skill-sets required to deliver care vs. running the business (Scheduling, marketing, operating, accounting and legal)
- Unknown demand to plan and forecast with unknown supply of new clients, unknown demand with existing clients, and inefficient scheduling during general work-day hours renders immense operational inefficiencies
- Continually questioned efficacy and usefulness of modalities used by the general public and potential new clients
- Scrutiny and distrust by some as being “alternative” with no “peer-reviewed studies”
- Questionable and overabundance of brands, supplements and products disrupting and distracting the overall health message
- Dilemma to become entrepreneurial, learn skills outside core competency, and start something yourself with higher margins and risk or work for a company, learn skills related to delivering of therapy, and take smaller pay
- Price point elasticity and pyramidal competition structure
- Uncertain and complex legal and HR landscape
- Precarious expansion opportunities
- Outside one’s core competency to expand and create scalable offering
Paradigm Shift
The solution lies not in some hidden ancient text but out there in the open with other “professional service” industries. That is, the integrative lifestyle practitioners need to have an alliance in which small amounts of monthly dues are collected to cover the pain points faced that is neither too overbearing on the autonomy of the practitioners nor onerous on the practices. These areas would support the SG&A, R&D, and operations of the practice.
Real Estate Agents have the MLS – a highly functional technology solution to streamline listings and buying that enable agents to be successful in the face of competing digital-focused and digital-only platforms. The AICPA has a group policy for liability insurance for CPAs. Insurance Brokers take continuing education to stay abreast of all the regulatory changes, innovations and updates occurring.
This Alliance should achieve the following:
- Technology: Provide the robust and responsive technological infrastructure to manage practitioner’s practice including book, bill, and record clients notes in an integrative fashion that abides by any and all regulations governing the data, allows the modularity and transference of notes from one practitioner to another given adequate client approval, and provides a seamless client interface that keeps them engaged
- Legal, HR & Accounting: Provide references and referrals to lawyers, HR consultants and accountants who are well versed and vetted to be able to handle the unique and specific needs of the practice and practitioner
- Insurance: Provide group liability and health insurance for the different practices that are customized to the unique needs and healthy lifestyle of the practitioners
- Marketing: Provide marketing and branding tools for practitioners to create their own company where ownership and vision is still in the hands of the entrepreneurial practitioner and does not have a need for extensive investment in time or money
- Lead Generation: Provide overall lead generation to location-based practitioners through a unified marketing campaign to help address demand risk
- Product Approval: Create a review board for products and supplements in the space that have intelligent, unbiased reviews from professionals
- Affiliate Network: Create a marketplace and seamless integration of approved products and services that practitioners can earn additional revenue through affiliate commissions
- Certification: Create standards and training for certification to enable new and current practitioners a pathway to a much greater retained earnings potential and understand how different modalities can work collaboratively versus competitively
- Research & Development: Continue to integrate modalities into a cohesive approach to always look for ways to extract the truth in each modality and to include more and more modalities into the certification process after being vetted
- Continuing Education: Provide in-person and online programs to demonstrate and share new findings, continued skill development, and create community building events
- Quality Control: Create systems to monitor, measure and address quality control issues as they arise and share and disseminate best practices to practitioners
- Publish Research: Create, fund and publish extensive studies regarding the efficacy of the practices in a way that will be respected by the mainstream
- Awareness: Provide a unified voice for the aggregation of the practices and practitioners highlighting the developments, innovations, community and success stories that are distributed to members and the general public
- Government Advocacy: Dedicate resources to advocate for representation and support from governments as to the need for and mission of the practitioners
- Academic Advocacy and Involvement: Create collaborations with universities to teach students about the research available relating to the modalities and develop a train program from them
- Healthcare Advocacy: Create opportunities and ways in which the gap can be bridged between allopathy and integrative lifestyle medicine so that they can be efficiently and effectively merged into the current established infrastructure