Coming up with a good definition of practice success is challenging, since every doctor defines success a little bit differently. However, every doctor defines failure the same: not achieving one’s life or practice goals.

Some chiropractors just want to see more people — they might have just graduated from school, so they are in growth mode. Others may have a busy practice, but also a high overhead that prevents them from bringing home a profit. Likewise, some chiropractors might not charge enough, making it difficult to get by even when volume increases.

If you are an established, successful chiropractor, perhaps success for you is working fewer hours and decreasing your stress by delegating more. Given the many possible ways of achieving practice success, it’s safe to say that you’ll have to develop a successful practice on your own terms. Chances are, however, that you’ll be working in one or more of the following four areas:

Know your goals

When was the last time you sat down and wrote out what your ideal practice would look like? Have you had a conversation with your CAs on where you would like to take the practice? Have you identified your ideal patients, desired volume, and so on? Many doctors lack a written purpose statement for themselves as well as a thoughtful office mission statement.

When your whole team is clear on your purpose and goals, then they can all work towards the same outcomes. A great exercise is to sit down with your team and come up with a mission statement with everyone involved. Define your ideal patients: Do you want to see athletes, families, children, pregnant women, seniors, or another population?

When you first open your doors, of course, you’ll see anyone who comes through them; but as you become more stable, you will enjoy your practice more when you see your preferred type of patient. Defining your ideal patient also helps with marketing, because you can target specific groups with screenings, public talks, advertising, your website, Facebook and more.

A matter of time

Time is a type of inventory. When you set goals related to the number of patients you’d like to see, you must have the inventory to meet your goals. Determine how many patients you can see in one hour, see how many longer-visit slots you need, then figure out if you have the capacity to achieve your targets in the time you have scheduled to see patients.

For example: If you want to see 300 patients per week and you can see 12 patients per hour, you need to have at least 25 hours in the week designated for regular visits. You also need to figure out how many longer visits you need.