Nitin Chhoda shares the real value of planning ahead and setting your goals for your practice. Although collections from your physical therapy services can be unpredictable, allocating your expenses with regards to your marketing and business plan can help determine your goals for the practice.
Physical therapy marketing and budgeting is an absolute necessity for every physical therapy business, but it is especially important for someone who is hoping to run a successful physical therapy practice.
Healthcare and physical therapy marketing professions are especially difficult to budget for, because in so many cases, you will not know whether patients and their health insurance company will compensate the practice as you bill.
Collection Is Unpredictable
Even if you do collect the full amount, the timing of collection may be very impractical and unpredictable.
Because there are so many unknowns, it is even more important to plan ahead when allocating expenses. For the first few years, it is possible that your practice and physical therapy marketing will not run at a profit.
This means that you should factor extra cash into any loan you take out. If you plan ahead for expenses, you will eventually come out on top when you do begin to make a consistent and significant profit.
Most Expenses are Obvious
The majority of the expenses of any practice are completely predictable. You know what rent will cost every month, and you even know when and if your rent may increase.
You also can determine pretty quickly what utilities will cost, and of course physical therapy marketing and management staff salaries will also be set and predictable. These are the major expenses that you can expect to pay every single month.
In many ways, expenses are much more reliable than income. This is one reason that many people are afraid of budgeting; nobody wants to stare down a long list of known expenses and only see a few uncertain income streams.
At first, you will likely take out a physical therapy marketing plan and business loan to cover the predictable expenses. You will only be able to include legitimate income expectations once the physical therapy marketing practice has opened and your patients start to pay for visits.
Income Can be Estimated, Too
But it’s not all doom and gloom for a new physical therapy practice. With a good physical therapy marketing strategy, you can get the word out about your business even before you open your doors.
You can start scheduling appointments for the first week you’ll be open, even before you start paying your bills. And the truth is, you know how much you’ll charge for each appointment, and you know how many hours there are in every workday.
Of course, not every day will be full of paying clients, even if demand is booming. There will time when all other things must happen in a physical therapy marketing practice. But you can probably come up with a rough estimate of how much you can expect to make if you have a decent flow of patients coming through the doors.
Bringing it Together
The really important thing to do is to figure out how you will pay your bills. If your income estimates can never cover the estimated expenses, you’re going to have a problem. But if you budget your physical therapy marketing plan and business ahead and do a good job in advance, you can find solutions before you are faced with a failing practice.
