Pricing In Podiatry: How Much Should I Be Charging?
How confident are you in setting the right price for your services?
When we first take the plunge and begin running our own practice, pricing can be one of the last steps we deal with. Why? Because it is not an easy task!
Pricing in podiatry – our products and services is complicated even seasoned practitioners struggle with developing a pricing structure which provides a good profit margin AND remains competitive.
While large businesses make use of trend analysis, numerical data and hard statistics, small practices usually just do it off the cuff. But can you afford to get it wrong?
The way we charge for our services has significant impact not only on our profitability, but also on how fast our practice grows. How can we confidently introduce a pricing scheme for our practice? How much should we really be charging?
The Market
The price range offered by other Podiatrists within your area is a measure that can be used to set your baseline.
A common temptation is to lower prices to attract more patients, but is this really the best choice? Chances are a lower price could send the wrong message about your practice, like inexperience or lack of confidence, not to mention the impact on your profit margin.
Following other clinics pricing models might not help attract patients either, especially when you are new in the market. Price yourself too high and you may risk turning away or losing patients and never winning them back!
Indeed, developing the perfect pricing strategy for your practice involves a lot of factors costs, time, resources, margins plus external factors such as competitors and the industry as a whole. When we are clear about how we want to position our practice to provide an edge in the market, we become more conscious of how to provide more value on our offering as service professionals.
Over the years, Troy has made a lot of progress with his pricing, finding the sweet spot – of retaining not only his patients, but also his best Pods. Illustrated below is a brief outline of how Troy goes about structuring his pricing. Please note the numbers and prices used are by way of example only to demonstrate the methodology used I recommend you start thinking like this too.
Note: Figures above show charges reflecting appointments only. Scans, orthotic fit charges and other services are additional.
The industry as a whole
Now what do you think would happen if Pods raised their charges to $120 per consult?
In a recent email, Andrew Roberts made an eye-opening analogy to a body massage that he is willing to pay $120 for because it felt good! he added. …Do you think we could come to a point where we could raise podiatry fees to reflect the benefits we offer?
Using this perspective, we at Podiatry Hive see this as a chance for you to get to a point where you are confident with your pricing scheme. By all means, we are not comfortable selling cheap parachutes!
Whilst Podiatry is not yet equally regarded with other medical professions, we believe the Podiatry industry has a huge opportunity to raise the bar and mandate its practice fees accordingly.
Aiming High
How we position our Podiatry services has a dramatic impact on our profitability. How do you think we could optimise our profit based on price and the number of patients we cater for every day?
Consider our premise above of increasing Podiatry consultation fees to $120.
At this price point, we reasonably estimate a drop in our patient turnover from 16 patients to 10 patients. Therefore, we have:
In essence, we may see some drop in patient traffic, but with the increased price, we gain MORE TIME for you to work ON the business. Isn’t that a great result?
We are excited to see how this would work in your business!
Till next time,
Greg Gunther
P.S. Got questions and feedback on this topic? Post them in the comments section below and we’re happy to reply.
