Differential Pricing for Podiatry Fees

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Hello Again,

Anybody else out there have differential pricing?

From January I put my fees up from £24 to £26 for established patients. The thinking was to keep as many of the regulars as happy as I could with only a small fee increase. A few did "huff and puff" and decided to dispense with my services but there no mass exodus, thank goodness.
As I had a reasonable number of regulars it left me pondering what to do with new patients. I decided on £30 and luckily there has not been a great deal of resistance.
Of course some patients say it is too much although I suspect they are looking for the economy end of the market anyway. But as far as I am concerned I have enough regulars and charging £30 is a whole lot better than £24.

Cheers,
Graeme.

 

Hello Graham I too have differential pricing, I was trying to reward my clients by keeping the price the same and price increases were only for new clients the problem was remembering what fee so and so paid.
Mrs Jones then complained she was paying £20 . 00 and Mrs smith was only paying £18 .00 I
also discovered clients do not appreciate my goodwill, at first I informed Mrs Jones that Mrs Smith will now be paying £20 . 00 rather than give her a £2 .00 discount, not very pleased Mrs Jones or Mrs Smith.
So now come April all my clients / patients will be on the same fee scale, resulting in one less stressed chiropodist trying to remember who pays what. the best advice I could give anyone on pricing KEEP IT SIMPLE.

 

Hi chaps,
It's far easier to review your fees on a yearly basis, give patients fair warning, then raise them across the boards as you see fit.

You will always tend to lose a few patients by increasing your fees, but this should not be a problem as long as your practice increases in growth year on year.
Regards,
Davidh

 

Double fees --> loose half your patients --> make just as much money --> don't have to work so hard --> have a life.

 

Nice one Craig.

Just for fun though:

If you see 450 patients avg 5 times per year and charge £25 you'll take £56,250
If you raise the £25 fee by 4% to £26 and lose 17 patients (3.8% of your list) then you can still make £56, 290.
You'll work 42 hrs 30 mins less per year and have £40 more to spend (based on 30min appointments).

Based on that I'm looking for 10 patients who are willing to pay me £1125.80 for a treatment
Any takers?

While we're on the subject has anyone ever audited the number or % patients lost after fees have been hiked up?

Regards to all,
John

 

While my doubling the fees etc is in the extreme, it does highlight a point - yes you will loose patients (are they the ones you want anyway?) - you will make more money and you won't have to work so hard.

I can cite many eg's of Podiatrist's in certain areas who easily charge more than other Podiatrists in the area - guess who is the busiest?.... thats the problem with my theory of doubling .... it never seems to work in practice, as if you are any good, you don't loose half your patients

I know one friend of mine from where I used to work (those from there will know who I am talking about) who was nearing retirement (5-10yrs to go), just kept putting up his fees way more than anyne else as he wanted to start taking it easier. No matter how hard he tried with this approach, he just could not loose patients He was just very good at what he did...... there is a lesson in that for everyone.

 

Hi Craig,

Very interesting. The above should be the norm. The assumption is if you have 5-10 years to go before retirement the patient will be seeing a very experienced and seasoned pro who has seen and done everything in the foot world. If I was looking for a health professional this is what I'd look for and stuff the cost (within reason). It is generally acknowledged professionals approaching retirement are at their peak of earning capacity and it shouldn't be any different for private pods. Waiting another 20 years could become tedious for me though.

Cheers,
Graeme.