The Hybrid Clinic Model: What It Is and How It Changes Your Profit Margin
Hybrid Health Model: what it is, and isn't.
In late Feb, I got invited to speak about my hybrid model in front of 400 clinic owners at The Physio Private Practice Symposium, ran by Nick Schuster and Stephen King. As I was writing up the keynote, I kept coming back to something: how divided the feedback has been when it comes to whether a clinic would adopt hybrid or not. And how many misconceptions there are about what it actually is.
I've been teaching hybrid programs since 2023. I'm so passionate about it, I even opened a clinic, Papaya Clinic, based on this model. There was no one to model, because as far as I'm aware, there's no clinic that does this.
It is a model I created based on my expertise as a business owner, women's health clinician and someone who has been perfecting patient experiences for over a decade. Maybe I'll trademark it one day.
So today I want to explain what it is, as clearly as I can, to clear some things up.
This is for clinic owners in private practice. With existing space, existing team, existing patients.
What it is
It's not telehealth.
It's not online health programs.
You're leveraging what you have, your team, space, in person care, and adding more on top of it.
During Covid there were lots of online health providers that sprung up. The problem is it's not regulated. You can have different providers solving the same problems, giving the same promises. Online programs are attractive. There's more freedom, it's scalable, it's in groups, and the profit margin can be as high as 60%. Whereas in brick-and-mortar, we are billing for time. We are often met with assumptions and limitations on how much we charge (even though we're often undercharging). We're limited by our team's capacity, by geographical location. Our profit is traditionally 5 to 10% at industry average.
There are conversations about ongoing sustainability of private practice businesses, which is what The Clinic Project is set to solve. Instead of waiting for governance and policy changes to affect our delivery, I advocate to solve problems from within our businesses, and the hybrid model is my solution.
So how can I bring the best elements of the online world and integrate them into brick-and-mortar clinics? Keep the in person assessment precision (I am hands on manual therapy person) and relationships, but expand that by adding accountability and behaviour coaching to improve adherence and achieve better health outcomes.
I asked this question during my keynote at the symposium: "How would you work with your patient if you were to charge her $3,000?"
How can you solve a bigger problem? E.g. treating the 4 pillars of health VS treating frozen shoulder in menopausal women.
What would you put in? How do you bundle up value, how would you design the experience? How do you satisfy the 5 senses, catch her before she drops off, pick her up when she's not following the plan, motivate her, celebrate her wins?
Healthcare is much more than providing consultations within the treatment room. How do you innovate and listen to the requests from those you treat? How do you not serve on default?
An example
In Papaya Clinic, instead of just offering one-to-one in-person services, we looked at online education plus accountability and coaching built into the patient journey, all baked into one experience. We want to add elements that extend beyond the clinic walls. There are more touch points, more support resources we can provide using the same time or less.
My hybrid Menopause Program at Papaya Clinic goes like this:
4 months, with recurring enrolments available if needed
1:1 in-person consultations: the key point of difference from all online programs
Education portal explaining women's health in bite-size videos
Step-by-step action plan in line with behavioural change principles
Personalised assessment bundle which allows us to provide a personalised treatment plan and help her navigate the program
Integrative (as part of Papaya's ethos): nutrition, emotional health, physical health, hormonal health
Specifically: weight management and healthy relationship with food, strong bones through exercise and supplements, supportive pelvic floor to reduce leaking, prolapse, vaginal dryness and irritation, maintaining sleep and cognitive function
Can you visualise the full picture?
How it solves our industry problems
Improve clinical care beyond the clinic walls. If patient experience varies based on the practitioner they see, a well-designed hybrid program can help standardise care. You design it to best practice: what is necessary to deliver a good outcome?
Better profit margin means you can pay your team better. Physios are known to undercharge. The Australian Physio Association recommends $261/hour billing for private practices, but most clinics I know are nowhere near that. Wage expenses sit at 60% of revenue. After rent, operations, and admin, profit is 5 to 10%. Clinics running hybrid are comfortably at 30%+.
Retain better practitioners. Variety of work is one of the top reasons good clinicians stay. For clinicians who want more than a back-to-back appointment schedule, this is meaningful work. It also reduces the burnout that comes from doing the same thing in the same room every day.
Scalable. In-person care is baked in, but that doesn't cap your geography. You can bring in remote practitioners to deliver parts of the program. You can take it nationally. The talent pool widens and your reach does too.
You don't have to hire more people to deliver it. In fact, you can now hire remote health practitioners to help deliver the program. The talent pool suddenly widens. It's also very attractive work for the right practitioner.
The point of difference
There are plenty of coaches teaching course creation. Getting health professionals to go online and create their signature programs. Yes, that's a wonderful option for practitioners. But not so much for existing clinic owners with teams, who are already in the thick of trying to run their brick-and-mortar practice and keep it alive.
Most of these coaches have never run a brick-and-mortar clinic. Most went online themselves as solo practitioners, found success, and now teach others how to go online.
That's not what I'm teaching.
Forget $300 to $500 digital products on your website. They are more work for little gain.
Design a well-rounded program so it's worth everyone's time. Win-win for the patient, team, and yourself. High ticket. $3k+. Integrated into your model of care.
Most clinics can eventually adopt the hybrid model. The question is whether the timing is right
Creating a hybrid program is only suitable for some clinics. Clinics that aren't in operational chaos. Clinics whose founders have time and space to build the first version and get it moving. This is why in my business programs within The Clinic Project, the first phase teaches clinic owners how to run a sustainable, profitable clinic and get out of firefighting mode. The second stage: remove yourself from operations, untie yourself from revenue generation so you are free to create and build. Then hybrid comes.
It's diversification. It's a different service. And if you're in chaos, there's no way you can start a hybrid program and give it the momentum it needs to do it justice.
If you want to talk through what a hybrid component could look like for your clinic, connect with me.
Design healthcare that goes beyond the clinic walls.
To the future of healthcare 🔥
Winnie
Winnie Wu is a physiotherapist, clinic founder and strategist. She runs Movement Laboratory and Papaya Clinic in Sydney, and The Clinic Project, a strategic education platform for women allied health clinic owners.