Improving My Therapy Clinic with These 8 Essential Upgrades
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[00:00:00] Running your own therapy clinic can be a lot of fun, but it's also a lot of work. And sometimes you have to make some changes. And here are some ways, eight ways specifically that I'm working to improve my therapy clinic. And I thought I would share them with you just in case they give you some ideas in terms of what you could do, um, to help boost and improve your own clinic.
If you've been in business for a while. So my name is Wong. I'm an occupational therapist and certified hand therapist. And I have my clinic for over 10 years now. I've been working in my clinic and also working to build my online platform, hand therapy secrets, which you're seeing right now. But for a few years while I was coming in to work on creating, uh, Uh, hand therapy secrets and the programs.
I have been somewhat neglecting my therapy clinic and truth be told, you know, sometimes we were like, Oh, well, you know, it looks like you're, you're doing so much. I am doing a lot. And sometimes, you know, when you're working on too many [00:01:00] different things, something drops. Um, and that was my clinic for a few years.
I mean, I've hired to, um, to make some improvements and to essentially buy back my time. Right? So a lot of times you can start your therapy clinic and then you're working in it all the time. And then at some point you make enough money that you start to hire and pay other people to do stuff. Right? So that was, um, a couple of years ago that I worked to hire and get more staff on my team to with everything that needs to be done.
This year I'm going to share with you a few things that I'm doing to improve my therapy clinic that might be helpful to you as well. So one of the first things that I wanted to improve upon is the appearance. You know what happens when you stay in business for a really long time is there's natural wear and tear of how your clinic looks.
And so Appearance is a really big thing for me when you are trying to be a premium type of service. You [00:02:00] can't have you can't Have an office that looks like shit. Like let's be honest. I want to point you to You know, have you ever been to an orthopedic practice? It's all in network and they serve many people you go into their office and it looks dingy and it's like you know, the run of the mill kind of place.
And then you go to a plastic surgeon. Have you ever been to a plastic surgeon's office? I work as a hand therapist. I work with a lot of plastic surgeons and I work with a lot of orthos. And I go into an ortho orthopedic practice. You can tell when it's like, you know, they take every insurance, tons of people in it.
And then you go to, uh, um, uh, a plastic surgeon. And I mean, some of the very first ones that I went to go see, I was like, wow. top notch design, premium seating, you know, walls decoration, like everything. And I think that that's really important. Um, if you're a premium type of service, your [00:03:00] office needs to look like that.
So I repainted my, my walls. I had already redone the floors. I don't want to say like a few years ago. So my flooring looks really good. My baseboards look really good But my walls were getting a little dingy. And so I had the whole office repainted um I put in new Furniture because my chairs were looking like pretty run down because I mean just wear and tear it just happens And so I see like I said, I'm going to be splurging a bunch of really nice chairs that are gonna last me even longer.
because I need them to last me longer so I don't have to keep buying it. but like just new furniture, like so when things are breaking down, you want to make sure that you, you get new furniture. Then one of the biggest things also I think when it comes to making your office feel really nice and special is a decluttering.
like you don't want shit everywhere. or you don't want. Stuff all clumped together. Um, like I always talk about the therapy, you know, [00:04:00] aspects, just keeping the shelves like clean and decluttered makes it really look nice. Um, so yeah, you, you want to make sure that your office looks really good. So that's one of the things that I did to improve.
And then, um, I introduced a new service. So that's the second thing that I did. Uh, I've been planning for it. And so, you know, you're not playing us up. I'd like, it's been a while. I'm paying for it. So I was planning for it a few months ago and then I, um, jumped the gun, bought some new equipment and introducing a new service to my therapy clinic.
And then The other thing is I started to create, I'm coming back into creating content for my YouTube channel, for my social media, for my therapy clinic. Like what you might see here at Hand Therapy Secrets is me creating a lot of content just for therapists in general, but I want to create more content for the people that I actually help in my [00:05:00] clinic.
So, um, I am coming back in to create more content for that. So, um, that was the other thing, the third thing I was doing. The fourth thing that I'm doing. Or that I, that I did this year to help improve like my therapy clinic was just minor adjustments to my website. So I have written guides and I have, um, you know, had these images on my website for a while and it just makes, you know, you got to switch it up a little bit.
Just to kind of keep up with the times. Like, I think I, um, changed out some of the images because I think some of the images that we had were from like COVID time where people were wearing masks and stuff like that, but we're not wearing masks anymore. So I need to update some of those, some of those images.
And then I updated some other images and just like the minor improvements. And, um, it's amazing what just minor [00:06:00] things. can help improve about your therapy clinic and people's first impression when they come in. Right? So your website looking a certain way is the first impression when they come and find you digitally online.
And second is like when they walk in through the door before they walk in the door though. Um, the other thing is they, they, Talk to your staff first, right? So that's one of the things that I have been improving. It's something that I always work on, but I wanted to make sure that we were making, um, we're making more time or use utilizing our time well for staff training.
So I am spending more time training my manager. Um, and then she trains, um, all the assistants and then also keeps track of the therapists and stuff like that. So, uh, just making sure my, my team has the training that is required to run an office that, um, we, [00:07:00] we cater to people at a certain level. And so that's really important.
Sometimes you can train. And when you go on to other things, the things that you trained on at the beginning get forgotten. And so it's extremely important to loop back around, um, and train, even though you're like, you might think, Oh, well, I've already been training you on this before. Like, how, how is it that you, You don't remember, but, um, which is very easy to say, like, how is it that you don't freaking get this yet?
You know, but I have to remind myself that as they're doing other things, they're going to forget like the true, the tried and true. And so sometimes it's about going back to basics and just reminding people of the necessary things that need to happen in order to run a very premium type of thing.
therapy clinic. Like I don't want my therapy clinic to be a run of the mill when people come in here, when they talk to my staff, um, everything about it feels really special and that, that they feel really well [00:08:00] taken care of, you know? So that's really important to me and the kind of, the kind of clinic and the kind of business that I want to run.
So in order to do that as well, um, You have to increase your prices. And so a few months back, I had to bump up my prices just a little bit, um, in order to accommodate for all the time and, and improvements. And when you, when you have the profit margins in your business, it allows you to make these improvements.
And because you're, it's not because it's money in your pocket per se, but it's money so that you can, um, expend to make improvement for the patients that you serve. Um, And so let me see what else. Oh, I made a change to my CRM. So I upgraded my customer relationships management tool and also the services that go around it.
Um, you know, if you're looking to grow your business, there are just some things that are smart. You know, in the sense that you can't do everything [00:09:00] yourself and at some point you have to spend money to make money. I know that's like, you know, like, oh, but we don't have any money. You do have money. You have to, you have to, you know, part of being in business is about part of being in business is having a certain amount of money.
Uncertainty. And we have to, uh, and I remind myself of this all the time. We don't work for someone else. Our employees get the certainty of like, I'm going to pay you every two weeks, right? You're, you're guaranteed, um, a paycheck. If I think that you're doing a really good job and you can stay here, they get that certainty as a business owner.
We don't get that certainty. We have to make, um, big decisions and then we have to make small decisions. And those small decisions, Um, small decisions can help our big decisions are big decisions and then are supported by the smaller decisions. And it's through the decision making process that, um, that help you to build your business and to be able to sustain it over a long period of [00:10:00] time.
So knock on wood. Over 10 years, I've made it to a certain extent, a small percentage of people in, in business, um, and also being able to grow a second business. So hallelujah. Um, by the grace of God, I'm still here. Uh, but I think it's due to me always sort of making those decisions, whether it be big or small to support and always thinking about my business as a separate entity than just myself.
Right. And so those are the big. seven things. Um, what did I say? Appearance? I said, um, new service. I said, uh, upgraded my website. Uh, staff training was really big. Um, upgrading my CRM, increasing my prices. And um, let me start that over. Let me start that over because I [00:11:00] went out of order and now I'm like.
What was I saying? So, all right. These are the eight things. These are the eight ways I'm improving my therapy clinic. Upgrading the appearance, so just updating everything. Training my staff. service, creating a lot more YouTube content and social media content for my clinic, specifically increased my prices, made updates to my website, made updates to my CRM and also the services that support it.
And then the eighth thing was my time. So my time is probably the most fundamental thing. I, I've been able to hire staff people to help support my clinic so I can utilize my time inside hand therapy secrets, creating content, creating programs for other occupational therapists. Cause I, I believe that In order to help more patients, [00:12:00] I really needed to help more therapists so they could get the jobs, they can improve their clinical skills and then they can create, you know, opportunities for themselves everywhere around the world in their towns, right?
And then even to develop themselves in a way that can show, hey, they can open a therapy clinic and we can have more OTs in business and we have more OTs that are confident that are able to really help patients. around the world. And so I have been utilizing my time inside my program versus in my clinic.
And so this year was the first year, not the first year, this year, I Recommitted back to my therapy clinic to do more for my therapy clinic to grow it. Not because I'm trying to grow it into multiple locations or anything like that, but um, I want to grow the clinic and be able to, you know, hire more people, hire more therapists, [00:13:00] and really at the end of the day, be able to treat more patients and help more people locally.
So I've committed to doing that because hand therapy secrets is also, um, a little bit more of a toddler now, right? So it's not, it's not a baby. It's not a baby like when I started it over five years ago. We have more products, aka courses and programs, and I'm always looking to improve my program as well.
So maybe I'll share another video in terms of how I am, um, improving my online program. But those are the eight ways that I'm looking that I have already done and that I'm committed to making improvements in my therapy clinic. And if you have been in business for a while, I hope that one of those eight ways trigger something you and say and have you say, Oh, maybe I should it.
look at doing this or looking at doing that. Yeah, it costs money, but the cost is made up once you can acquire more patients. And especially, [00:14:00] I really do think there's something when it comes to appearance, whether it be like the first impressions coming in from your website, or coming someone coming into your clinic, or making content is a really big thing.
And if you haven't seen my other videos on how to do any marketing or getting in front of a camera, I think it's really important as occupational therapists. If you say people don't know about us, then go on camera and share more about what you do for your specific specialty, for your particular, uh, clientele, what you can do to help improve their life.
And then over time, more and more people will learn what What occupational therapy is and how occupational therapist can really help improve people's lives, improve how people function. Um, and you'll be able to help more and more people through occupational therapy. I had this huge conversation with my husband because, you [00:15:00] know, I'm going to share more about it later.
But, you know, his father Had suffered a stroke and you know when we talk about insurance, you know Insurance and we have this big conversation on but but little snippet of it is insurance will keep you alive But occupational therapy and other therapy services will help people regain their function back so that they can live But insurances and big companies don't necessarily see that So if you're an occupational therapist It really is up to you to share your message and to say how you can help somebody You Right.
And so I, it's like one of my big ways that I'm coming back in and I'm sharing new content on my clinic side to say, if you have this problem, if you have this particular problem, this is how, you know, this is why you should go get help. And this is what you should be looking for and things like that. And so I'm really committed back to my clinic to doing that.
Um, and I hope that that helps you see if you are a business owner, [00:16:00] how. You can improve ways to, to bring more business into your clinic, but really at the end of day to help more people in your local area. So many different ways to do it, but these were my eight ways and I hope that helped you So i'm gonna share some other videos if you are trying to get into marketing And trying to like again show your face share your perspective There are other videos that i'm sharing if you like more videos like this.
Leave me a comment What are you doing to improve your therapy clinic? I'd love to hear from you And thanks for listening. I'll see you next time
