Adding Aesthetics to Podiatric Practice

Welcome back everyone to Podiatry Today Podcasts, where we bring you the latest in foot and ankle medicine and surgery from leaders in the field. Today's episode is no exception, where we welcome back for the third and final episode in our series, Two doctors talking about enhancing practice opportunities, this time we're diving into adding aesthetics into a podiatric practice.

From your perspectives, what might an aesthetic component look like in a podiatric practice?

I'll jump in. So I have a medical spa that's been going for a long time now, over 10 years, been very successful. And I've had friends that have tried aesthetics and it's failed. I think what's really important is that understanding that it's an absolute need for people, because when you think of people who make an appointment with you, it's either a percentage of people that are not feeling well, a percentage of people that don't think something looks well, and then a mixture of the two.

And sometimes when it's aesthetics, it's more about the look and feel that combo. So If someone's not happy with something and you have that clientele, it's really easy to bring that in. And I think the reason why people are afraid is because most of these things are cash basis.

They're afraid that people don't have money or won't be able to spend money. People will spend money on anything to feel and look good. I mean, they will never compromise on their haircut and they will not compromise and making their feet feeling good.

So another thing about that, things should be really to take it on slow, kind of take on one aesthetic thing at a time, and something that you're interested in, you'd make, maybe don't want to buy fancy lasers, they're very extensive right away, but maybe you can consider doing injectables or skin rejuvenation, those are a little bit more economical, great profit margin on them and people are asking for it. Times have changed. People really want to feel their best and be comfortable.

So if that's your interest, we can certainly help you exactly where you want to start and how much you want to grow that. And also kind of what's not worth your time. There's a lot of things out there that are kind of gimmicky.

Don't really work and we don't want you having unhappy clientele when you go into aesthetics, because that is a big component of it. They have to be realistic about their expectations and so do you.

So how can docs go about evaluating whether or not they think that this could be a good fit for them in particular?

I always say your patients are going to ask, if they have trust in you, they're going to say, "Hey, doc, do you do the laser for the toenail, do you do this? Do you like have anything for this? You start hearing that more than once, you should consider bringing it in.

The other thing is you have people, they don't know about it. Let's say it's derma fillers for the feet. And you know this would benefit a lot of your patients.

You start asking them, just ask them. Just be like, if I had something that did XYZ and it would probably cost around this much. How much interest do you have? Like ask people, and I think you'd be surprised at people's, you know, interests and levels and what they're willing to spend.

And it's free, you already have those patients, you don't need to do anything special, but it's really good to ask especially before you start putting out a lot of money because the aesthetic world can be very, very expensive. And lastly, what do you feel like some of the challenges are that docs may need to overcome if they do plan to incorporate this into their practice? I mean, I think Maryellen is going to agree with me on this one, but it's time. You got to have time to promote it.

Time to do these treatments. Well, if these are cash services for the most part, you got to make it feel like a cash experience if they are putting down money. So if you don't have time and you have to have a space, a dedicated, beautiful space for the more money you spend, the better the place has to look.

So you can't do it in like your regular room. You got to kind of upgrade one of your rooms or areas a little bit and see if you can do that. If you can't do that, you know, just think twice and make sure you have the time for it.

Maryellen, are you in agreement? I mean, you have to have the time. Yeah, absolutely. You have to have the time.

You have to have the patient, not patients with a T, but patients with a C. Yeah, you know, it's going to be slow. You're going to have to talk to a lot of people about the service first before you sell the first, you know, service.

And then you're going to get confidence after doing that first service and making sure the outcome is good and patients happy. And then, you know, you're going to sell the second one, and then you're going to sell the third one, and then it's just going to have this snowball effect. But you have to, you know, you have to be patient with yourself and with the process and everything, because it's not like it's just like anything else in private practice.

You don't just open up, you know, your door and hang your shingle and everyone comes in and like, you know, flooding your doors, you know, wanting to, you know get injections and whatever and things like that you have to work for it and that's just like anything anything else. So and I think the other struggle that people have is you know the upfront investment like in my area I have a laser for fungus for toenails and a lot of patients drive an hour or two hours away to come to my office for that and you know they'll ask me well how come you know you're the only one around that doesn't and the you know the only thing I can think of is because it because it costs a lot of money it costs a lot of money to buy a good laser and other podiatrists don't want don't want to put out the money for it and I get it it's scary to buy an expensive machine that patients then have to pay out of their pocket the insurance company doesn't cover it but if you can tolerate that unknown, that uncertainty and start selling it to people and start getting patients satisfaction. It's so worth it.

I love mine, I've been lasering toenails for over 10 years. The patients love it. I love it.

And then they're getting people in the office and then you wind up making orthotics for them and then you wind up doing bunion surgery on them. So it's just something to get people in the door as well. 

Thank you so much doctors for spending some more time with us today and sharing with the audience these important tips and tricks to keep in mind when it comes to adding some of these unique aspects into one's practice.

You can view this and other episodes of Podiatry Today podcast at podiatritoday.com or listen to them on your favorite podcast platforms like Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud and Spotify.