Managing Your Budget When Opening A Physiotherapy Clinic

The reality in opening a physiotherapy clinic is that funds are limited. You will have to choose which parts of your clinics you invest in. These are our top things to consider when opening a physiotherapy clinic

One Thing We Would ALWAYS Invest In

If we had to pick just one piece of high quality equipment and sacrifice on the rest it would be with buying high quality physiotherapy treatment tables

Why?

• When a physiotherapy table needs a repair, it makes the entire room useless. You can not simply borrow a treatment table from another room when you need it
• It is your most used piece of equipment.
• It is the core of your patients experience at the clinic. If you have a treatment table that squeaks as it goes up or has a part that doesn’t work quite right. Your patients will notice
• When you buy a quality treatment table like our Kor Innovations table, You will purchase it once and have it for a very long time. We have seen these tables reach 20 years old and still work like new.
• Buying a quality treatment table is not much more expensive than buying a Low Quality treatment table. For the price difference and the hassle a table repair causes, we would always invest in a high quality treatment table immediately. If new treatment tables are not in the budget, consider leasing!

What Equipment Do You Really Need To Start Out With

It would be great if we could all open clinics with the very best technology in every treatment room, but that is often not possible. Here are some ways we have seen clinics set up

• Treatment tables – We recommend buying tables for each room immediately. High Quality treatment tables are made to order and have long lead times. It is not guaranteed that you will get one right away. At HealthMed we keep the most common high quality tables in stock, but if you have specific requirements, your table will need to be made to order

If you plan on adding treatment tables as you grow, we recommend purchasing your more specific tables first, and saving the treatment tables that you know will be easiest to get for later.

• Electrotherapy – Generally has a short lead time. This is a great place to order just the bare minimum and share in between treatment rooms, then as your clinic gets busier, add more equipment. When sharing equipment between rooms we recommend having each modality separately instead of in combination units. This way the modalities can easily be shared
• Clinic Supplies - Items like taping products, exercise band and other smaller items are easy to get. There is no need to keep a huge stock when you are starting out

Planning For Future Growth

It is not always certain in which direction your clinic will grow. There are a few simple things that you can do to help your future self plan for growth

• Choose physiotherapy tables that can have additional attachments. The right physio table can also be converted into Massage therapy tables in the future
• Hydrocollators – We often see clinics outgrowing their hydrocollators. This can be planned for in 2 ways.

Immediately buy the biggest one you can – This is great for keeping your monthly maintenance down, but if the hydrocollator breaks, then you will have no back up. We often see this in larger clinics

Buy one small one, then keep buying small ones as your grow and eventually you will have one in every treatment room – This is great for ease of access and if one breaks, you will have more as backup. However, you will also have more monthly cleaning to do