FON: The Business of Personalized Medicine

4 Reasons to Consider Integrative Medicine Group Clinic Visits

If your practice accepts third-party payer reimbursements, consider group clinic visits as a unique opportunity to cost-effectively deliver important services with reasonable compensation. I recently studied a range of group clinic visit options (aka shared medical appointments) while modeling an integrative health center for a large Florida-based orthopedic surgery group. The practice’s billing guru and I ran numbers predicated on various group session types, including: nutritional, exercise, general lifestyle and

Spontaneous Remission is a Myth

While certainly true that the human mind and body possess an innate healing capacity, the phenomenon can only be fully unleashed by activating specific powerful triggers. True healing is a complex biological process, not magic. Here’s the basic definition courtesy of Wikipedia: Healing (literally meaning to make whole) is the process of the restoration of health to an unbalanced, diseased or damaged organism. Healing may be physical or psychological and

7 Effective Website Design Attributes for Integrative Health Brands

If your website is not effectively designed and optimized to ‘immediately’ engage visitors, you may be losing more prospective patients or clients than you think. Fact: over 60% of us first research a product or service on the web and make purchasing or engagement decisions prior to ever placing our actual email or phone order. Today’s healthcare consumer is certainly no exception; she’s visiting your site as well as physician

Concierge Integrative Medicine, image of a bell at a hotel with the name of the blog in text by it.

Is Concierge Integrative Medicine a Viable Model for You?

After a year closely following the inexorable growth of concierge care in the U.S.—and advising several primary care integrative health-directed physicians and pediatricians regarding various modeling options—it’s very clear to me that its basic business principals are a terrific match for some integrative health practitioners. Insurance and CMS Models Don’t Support Integrative Medicine Consults Physicians trained in integrative medicine will spend nearly 90 minutes per new patient consult (including the

Business Model for Integrative Medicine, image of blog title with magnifying glass on a small house.

The Best Clinic and Business Model for Integrative Medicine

“If you’ve seen one integrative medicine center… you’ve seen one integrative medicine center.”~Anon I am often asked what’s the best clinic or business model to deliver integrative medicine. My standard reply is the quote above; it pretty much says it all. Frankly, when deciding the most appropriate, sustainable model for your specific organization, there are many important considerations. Recently, I led a workshop at the Society for Integrative Oncology (SIO)

The Impact of ‘Escape Fire’ and What Comes Next

In his excellent post, “Revisiting Escape Fire: The War to Rescue Our Health,” integrative health publisher and thought leader John Weeks questions the impact of this highly regarded documentary as a truly effective healthcare delivery game changer, and he appeals for a harder-hitting sequel to help finish the job. But before we discuss what a sequel might cover, it’s important to consider the uneven impact the original has had since

Grow Patient Volume By Marketing Less

Perhaps the title of this post is a bit disingenuous because, more accurately, what I’m positing is that you can best grow your integrative medicine business (patient volume, product sales) by selling and marketing differently, if not exactly less. Frankly, your customers (aka patients) and prospective clients couldn’t care less about you, your ambitions and why your services or products are special. They’re focused on themselves, their own problems and

Monitor and Manage Your Online Reputation—NOW!

 “Reputation management is the practice of building, preserving and rectifying the public’s perception of your integrative clinic or enterprise.” In today’s über-connected world with its crawling social media channels, blogs, chat rooms and physician rating websites, there’s just no good excuse for failing to monitor and manage your online reputation. That includes the auto-default excuse: I’m too busy. Slow to Build, Quick to Tarnish Left unattended, your online reputation can

7 Reasons to Launch a Newsletter to Build Your Integrative Medicine Practice

You’re missing a big opportunity to grow your practice if you’re not currently publishing a newsletter and using email marketing. Here’s why: 1. Email Still Preferred Engagement Channel Despite all the hype about social media supplanting email, the truth is that 94 percent of Americans 12 years and older still regularly use email. Email remains the preferred method of communication even with the growth in social media platforms and messaging