This Is Why You’re Struggling to Increase Patient Volume

53.2% of chiropractors say growing patient volume is their #1 priority. Unfortunately, it also revealed they’re often unknowingly sabotaging their own growth with invisible friction points.

The culprit? It's not a lack of skill or dedication. It’s the operational chaos happening behind the scenes: the things patients never see that quietly limit your capacity to serve them. 

Download the State of the Chiropractic Industry Report for More Insights to Support Practice Growth

Let's break down the four biggest barriers keeping new patients out of your practice (and what to do about them).

Barrier #1: Your Team Is Stretched Too Thin‍

Here's the paradox killing practice growth: you want more patients, but your team is already drowning with the ones you have.

The data is clear:

• 70% of clinics report staff feeling overwhelmed "at least sometimes"
• 52% of clinics see 151+ patients per week
• 75.5%  manage these volumes with fewer than 3 staff members

Imagine you're a potential new patient calling to book an appointment. On the other end of the line is an overtaxed receptionist juggling three other tasks, managing a phone that won't stop ringing, and trying to remember which insurance plans you accept. What are the odds you're getting a warm, confident first impression that converts you into a patient? 

When your front desk is underwater, new patient acquisition suffers in ways you can't always measure. Calls go to voicemail. Follow-ups get forgotten. The patient experience feels rushed rather than welcoming.

To make matters worse, you can't afford to hire more staff until you grow revenue, but you can't grow revenue because your staff is maxed out.

It's a catch-22 that keeps practices stuck.

How to break the cycle: The solution isn't always adding headcount, it's multiplying the capacity of the team you already have. 

SKED's automated scheduling eliminates the phone tag and manual calendar management that bogs down your front desk. With a New Patient Portal integrated directly with your EHR, prospective patients can book appointments online 24/7 without tying up staff time. Automated touchpoints and digital paperwork ensure every new patient feels valued from their first interaction, all without adding hours to your team's workload.

Barrier #2: Manual Work Is Quietly Draining Your Resources

‍Let's talk about the hidden cost of "the way we've always done it."

Manual tasks have a higher price tag than you think:

• Practices lose 300+ hours annually on manual scheduling alone. That's 37 business days of wasted time per year.
• They also spend $6,000+ annually on tasks that could be automated.

Read that again. Six thousand dollars and nearly two months of productive time, gone. Every. Single. Year.

That's not just an efficiency problem, it's a growth problem. Those resources could fund marketing campaigns, new equipment, or additional staff hours. Instead, they're disappearing into repetitive administrative tasks that create zero value for patients.

Here's what makes it worse: while your staff struggles with manual work, potential new patients are calling competitors who answer faster, book easier, and follow up more consistently. The practices that automate don't just save time, they create a better patient experience that wins market share.

How to reclaim your time and money: The key is automating the repetitive tasks that eat up your day. 

ChiroHD streamlines your documentation and billing workflows, cutting down on the manual data entry that steals productive hours. The result? Those 300 hours and $6,000 get redirected toward revenue-generating activities: marketing, patient care, and strategic growth initiatives that actually move the needle. 

Meanwhile, SKED's automated scheduling eliminates the back-and-forth of manual appointment booking like handling scheduling, reminders, and confirmations without tying up staff time. Digital paperwork and automated patient communication touchpoints ensure smooth onboarding without the administrative burden.

‍Barrier #3: Your Tech Stack Is Working Against You‍

You bought software to make life easier. So why does it feel like you're wrestling with it every day?

The technology dilemma is real: practices need modern tools to scale, but fragmented systems create more problems than they solve.

The survey revealed:

• 54%+ of practices use a patchwork of 2-3 different tools daily
• 34.4% say lack of integration is their #1 technology frustration
• Less than 40% of owners are "very confident" their systems could handle doubling patient volume

Sound familiar? Patient info lives in one system. Scheduling in another. Billing somewhere else. Your marketing platform doesn't talk to your EHR. Every new patient requires data entry across multiple platforms, and nothing shares information seamlessly. It's digital chaos dressed up as "solutions.”

Here's the kicker: practices are underutilizing features they already have in favor of adding more tools to the pile. The goal should never be more technology, it's technology that actually works together and scales with you.

When your systems don't talk to each other, new patient acquisition suffers. Leads fall through the cracks. Follow-ups get missed. Patient data gets lost in translation. And your team wastes precious time being glorified copy-paste machines instead of building relationships.

How to end the tech chaos: ChiroHD offers one unified system for documentation, billing, patient communication, reporting, and more—all with robust API connectivity to ensure seamless information sharing with other tools you rely on. 

No more duplicate data entry. No more logging into five different platforms. Just one streamlined workflow that gives you control. 

And when you pair ChiroHD with SKED, your scheduling and patient communication automatically sync with your EHR, creating a frictionless experience for staff and patients alike.

Barrier #4: You're Not Investing in Marketing (And It's Costing You Patients)

Pop quiz: How many Google reviews does your practice have?

If you said "fewer than 25," you're not alone. 28% of clinics are in the same boat, missing massive social proof opportunities that could be bringing new patients through the door.

But the real issue runs deeper than reviews:

The data reveals a marketing crisis:

• 50% of clinics spend less than $500 monthly on marketing
• 30% have "no confidence" in their ability to track ROI
• Chiropractors cite the #1 barrier to consistent new patient flow as: time to manage marketing

Translation? Most chiropractic practices are flying blind when it comes to new patient acquisition. They're relying on word-of-mouth and hoping for the best, rather than building predictable, scalable systems.

And here's the uncomfortable truth: you can't grow what you can't measure. Referrals are gold, but they’re not strategy. You can't scale what relies entirely on personal relationships, and you definitely can't compete with practices that have systematic, data-driven patient acquisition engines.

How to build a marketing engine that actually works: SKED's automated Google Review requests make reputation-building effortless, boosting your online visibility without adding to your to-do list. The New Patient Portal simplifies the booking journey, making it easier for prospective patients to choose your services. With automated patient communication and marketing touchpoints, you stay top-of-mind without manually managing campaigns. 

ChiroHD's reporting capabilities give you visibility into marketing performance, patient acquisition costs, and ROI so you finally know what's working and can invest with confidence. Together, they create a systematic approach to attracting new patients that doesn't depend on your personal time.

The Bottom Line: Remove the Barriers, Unlock the Growth

The irony isn't lost on us: 68.9% of chiropractors are optimistic about the future of the industry, yet only 23.8% are satisfied with their work-life balance.

Why the disconnect?

Most practices try to grow through sheer force of will. They work harder and see more patients, but they end up burning out their teams in the process.

But here's what the data screams: the practices that thrive aren't working harder. They're working smarter.

They're:

• Automating the repetitive tasks that drain staff capacity
• Consolidating fragmented tech into integrated systems
• Building marketing engines that don't depend on their personal time
• Making strategic investments that multiply their team's effectiveness

Growing patient volume isn't just about clinical excellence, it's about removing the operational barriers that keep excellent practices stuck at their current size.

Your competitors aren't just other chiropractors. They're the status quo in your own practice; the "we've always done it this way" mentality that keeps you from reaching the next level.

The future belongs to practices that eliminate friction, not to those who accept it as inevitable.

So, which barrier are you going to tackle first?

‍

Want to see how your practice compares against the data? Download the full State of Chiropractic Industry Report for deeper insights and benchmarks from 224 practices nationwide.

Ready to remove the barriers? Learn how ChiroHD and SKED work together to streamline operations, automate patient acquisition, and help you reach your growth goals without burning out your team.

‍