When to Hire an Associate: Free Up Time for What's Important to You
As a female chiropractor, you may find yourself overwhelmed and exhausted, trying to juggle all the roles in your practice. As a mom, wife, doctor, business owner, cook, and housekeeper, it's no wonder you're exhausted. But what if there was a way to create more space for what truly matters? Hiring an Associate Chiropractor might be the path to freeing up more time and energy.
In fact, I’ve found that hiring an Associate offers a threefold benefit:
Freeing up more time and energy
Making more money
Expanding your capacity to serve more people in your community
...and one more altruistic benefit.
As an experienced chiropractor, you have the incredible opportunity to help and mentor new grads. The benefits are truly rewarding:
You'll contribute to their growth and success in the profession
You'll create opportunities in a field that might have been limited when you graduated
You'll provide them with a solid foundation to build their career on
The impact you can make as a mentor is immeasurable, both for the new grad and for the community they will serve.
Running a healthcare business is, well, a lot.
It can feel like constant pressure to do it all. Running a successful chiropractic practice can leave little time for you, your family, and the activities you love.
The fatigue and stress can take a toll, affecting both your personal and professional life.
Often finding yourself run ragged, failing to meet other life goals, or turning patients away? It may be time for an Associate Chiropractor to free up some of your time (and energy!).
What do you want more time for?
Maybe you want to spend more quality time with your little ones or your partner. Maybe you want to work out more, cook real meals, or just have some time to think, dream, and plan. All of this is difficult when you're exhausted, burned out or overwhelmed with work and life.
Is hiring an Associate Chiropractor worth it?
Yes! If you're ready.
By hiring an Associate, you can delegate tasks and responsibilities.
This can give you more freedom to rest, relax and enjoy time with your loved ones. It's an investment in reclaiming your time and finding balance. If you want to thrive as a chiropractor and feel happy with the other facets of your life, hiring an Associate Chiropractor could be the best choice you ever made.
By hiring you also scale your practice.
You’re able to help more people in your community have access to high quality chiropractic care. You grow your income.
…and provide a job for another chiropractor.
For me, I love the fact that I have created a great job for another female chiropractor.
How can you tell if you're ready to hire an Associate in your clinical practice?
You have a waitlist. If a new patient called today and wanted to be seen, you don’t have an opening for a few weeks. You will get great new patients who will wait to see you. But you will lose out on those folks who are in acute pain and can’t wait to be seen. This is a great clientele to refer to an Associate in your practice. If you are turning away 4-5 acute new patients per week, then you could easily build a patient base for another doctor in your space. Associates report that they expect about five new patients a week. Anything less makes them feel nervous about their growth. Especially if they have an incentive driven salary
Your schedule is 80-90% full each week. If you don’t have any same-day or next-day openings for your existing patients who are in acute pain, then you aren’t serving your existing patients well
You want to free up time for motherhood. Maybe you have recently had a child and you want to spend more time with them. Know that hiring and training a new associate will actually add more to your plate at first… but it will eventually allow you to free up time
You have a fully funded reserve account for your practice. Ideally, this would be 3-6 months of your monthly business expenses. You get to decide what number feels comfortable to you
You have at least 3 months of the new employee’s salary in savings. Your new Associate may or may not generate enough revenue to break even in the first few months. It’s important their monthly salary is not a drain on your finances. You don’t want to sacrifice paying your employees above paying yourself. That’s not good business
You have the mental energy to train and mentor an Associate. If you hire a New Grad, make sure you do better than what your first Associate position was like. Train them well. Pay them well. Treat them well. Schedule regular touchpoints with them every month. Invest in their post-grad education with courses that would give them skills to treat specialty patient populations
You have the time to train and mentor. I suggest you cut back your treatment hours when you hire an Associate. Block off time for regular meetings and touchpoints to train the new Doctor. Stop accepting new patients for 3 months so that all the new patient requests go to the Associate
You’re clear on your Business Financials. You must have a predictable stream of revenue. Your business is profitable, and you are clear on your KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators). You must know your monthly expenses. You are tracking your cost per visit, profit per visit , PVA and expense ratio. When these numbers are predictable and stable, you’re going to feel more confident about hiring. Your new doctor patient base will grow while you earn profit on your investment in them
You are tired. Your body hurts. You ache. You’ve been working for a long time as a chiropractor and you need to lighten your load
If all of the above is true, then hiring can allow you to lighten your patient load and the physical toll that being a chiropractor takes on your body.
Here is one reason you should NOT hire an Associate:
You are desperate for more money to cover your expenses. Hiring a revenue generating employee will not solve your financial problems. Paying attention to your finances, doing your books, and making a habit of taking time for a weekly money date will.
What are the steps to hiring an Associate Chiropractor?
Not just any doctor will help your practice grow while reducing your stress. The wrong doctor might make your stress levels rise, or worse, hurt your business! Before you begin the hiring process, make sure you're clear on your practice's values, goals, perfect patient persona, and ideal work culture.
Here's the process I suggest for hiring the right fit:
Assess your practice's needs and identify tasks that can be delegated to an Associate.
Get your policies and procedures in place by working with an employment attorney. An attorney will draft up an employment agreement/contract that is within the scope of your local state law. Resist the urge to use an employment agreement from your friend in another state without the insight of a legal advisor.
Seek out qualified candidates through referrals, job postings or professional networks.
Conduct thorough interviews to find the right fit for your practice's values and goals.
Provide comprehensive training and ongoing support to ensure a smooth transition.
Establish clear roles and responsibilities, setting expectations and fostering open communication.
Here are my guidelines for keeping a great Associate Chiropractor happy.
Once you've hired a great Associate (Yay!), you're going to want to keep this doctor because they are making your life so much better.
What I've learned from hiring and working with my Associates over the years:
Trust and empower your Associate to make decisions within their scope of practice
Maintain a collaborative and supportive work environment through regular touchpoints
At first meet weekly to discuss anything that comes up: patient care, adjusting technique, case management, patient education, etc
Then every two weeks to discuss marketing, relationship building, patient education, etc
Once things are humming along, a monthly lunch date to relax, enjoy a meal and discuss whatever comes up should be enough
For my practice, we also have quarterly fun activities where we do something together outside of the office. A craft night, a spa day, a BBQ, and a yoga class followed by lunch are fun things we've done with my team members
Invest in their post-graduate education to enhance their skills and treat specialized patient populations
Is your associate interested in a prenatal patient population? Send them to a Webster certification course
If your associate is interested in treating athletes, send them to a sports taping workshop
Adding skills to their repertoire, like Kinesio Taping, cupping or dry needling can enhance patient care
Pay them enough to live on
What is the cost of living in your area?
If your base salary doesn't cover their basic living expenses like rent, food, etc. then your associate will need to look for other employment to cover their basic needs. This will:
Dilute their ability to focus on working in your space
Lead them to stress and burnout
Possibly force them to leave the area sooner than you'd both like
Think you're ready to hire an Associate Chiropractor?
Great! Hiring help can help you find balance and prioritize what's truly important to you.
If you're ready to explore the possibility of hiring an Associate Chiropractor, I'm here to support you. Consider booking a 1x Strategy Session to dive deep into your specific needs and create an action plan for growth. Together, we can make your practice thrive and give you the freedom to do the things that matter most to you.