Alternative practitioners understand business is all about service

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By Kristin Harold, Ottawa Business Journal StaffMon, Mar 20, 2006 12:00 AM EST

As the debate over the healthcare system in Canada rages on, fee-for-service alternative medicine clinics are seeing an increase in popularity due to the choice in options and control they offer consumers.
One local clinic that focuses on naturopathic medicine is celebrating its second year in business this month. Dr. Colleen McQuarrie, a naturopath who is the founder and director of Ottawa Integrative Health Centre on Carling Avenue, says the clinic has found success by focusing on its clients' wants and needs.
"We're a full service family clinic, so we do annual physical exams, bloodwork, allergy testing, acupuncture, botanical medicine, nutritional counseling, massage therapy and hydro therapy," she says, adding most of their business comes from referrals. "It's a growing market because I think people are looking for options outside of conventional medicine. People are realizing they have to be consumers for their own healthcare, be responsible for taking care of themselves and they're looking for better quality of life."
While most Canadians are still not accustomed to having choice and control regarding healthcare, Dr. McQuarrie says that notion is slowly changing.
"We're coming from a model where everything should be paid for, so that obviously drives the way in which we run our business and market ourselves and the demographic whom we market ourselves to," she points out. "The average person who comes for fee-for-service healthcare isn't going to be your average person at this stage in the game."
Dr. McQuarrie says naturopathic medicine tends to appeal to women with a post-secondary education between the ages of 30 and 50. Many of these women are also making the healthcare choices for their families, so she says most naturopathic clinics end up with a family practice as a result.
"We find that more and more young professionals are coming in because they want a different quality of care and a doctor who gets to know them and spend quality time," she says. "We're also an 80 per cent female profession, which is highly unusual and it seems that our biggest patient demographic matches ourselves. There has been quite the growth in the field because in the province of Ontario naturopathic doctors went from approximately 120 in the 1970s to now approaching 700."
The future success of naturopathic clinics and other fee-for-services alternative medicine clinics in the country will be largely dependent on the consumers' perceptions and requirements, says an expert in the field.
"Consumers are becoming discerning at whether or not somebody is offering a service because their intention is healthcare or if someone is offering a service because their intention is revenue and profit," says Dr. Iva Lloyd, a naturopathic doctor herself and chair of the Canadian Association of Naturopathic Doctors. "And that goes whether it's fee-for-service or a hospital."
Dr. Lloyd teaches the business course at the Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine in Toronto, one of only two schools of its kind in Canada.
"I teach people how to run a business successfully with the premise that you're only going to be successful in the long-run if the decisions you make benefit your patients," she says. "If you over-charge on products, charge for services people don't want or if you link too many services together that patients don't want to do, then they're not going to come back and see you."
She says fee-for-service clinics are teaching Canadians how to take charge of their healthcare wants and needs because it gives them choice in the marketplace.
"Customers can afford to be choosy with fee-for-service clinics while with the traditional healthcare system people feel like they can't say no and that they can't say they don't like this doctor," she says.
"In fee-for-service environment, the practitioners have to contentious and be more aware of what the client is looking for because they will pick and choose."
Dr. Kelly Norman, a local chiropractor who is the clinic director at the Back In Balance Chiropractic Centre, says her practice has found success by establishing patient trust.
"We offer gentle chiropractic care because it's something some people are worried will be very rough, as well as acupuncture, ART (active release technique), custom-care made orthotics, nutritional counseling and family counseling so it's multi-disciplinary," she says.
"Some chiropractic clinics can be very competitive, but we're successful because we depend on referrals and people trust us. I really believe in word-of-mouth marketing and
in any business that's a great way to attract people."
The clinic, which opened in Westboro in June 2005, is located in a building with a pharmacy, a medical doctor and a massage clinic. Dr. Norman says each of these businesses exchange referrals to better serve their patients while also helping each other grow.
Dr. Norman says she is seeing a growing openness to alternative medicine in the market for many reasons, but many are turning to it because they're struggling to find a general practitioner.
"In the state the healthcare system is in, it's becoming more and more difficult for people to find doctors, so sometimes they don't know whom to turn to," she says. "So we're seeing
a lot more people I think who wouldn't
have sought out our services in the past. And then they come to us and see the awesome results they can get with alternative healthcare practitioners."