As with any private business, marketing and advertising are essential in order to grow and prosper. A TCM business is no different. In most states, TCM modalities are not covered extensively by most insurers and Medicare covers a couple of modalities, with heavy restrictions. Because of this, most TCM practitioners still really heavily on patients who pay in cash (cash patients).

I’ve seen many well qualified TCM practitioners not succeed business wise due to the fact they were not able to generate enough cash patients. I have had many obstacles in getting patients willing to pay money for my services.

What do TCM practitioners do, including myself, to attract cash patients? The easiest and most rewarding manner is by having a Western clinician, MDs, therapists, chiropractors refer you patients. Now, though insurance is still limited to TCM practitioners in comparison to our Western colleagues, the fact is that insurers are increasingly willing to inure us-to some extent.

In addition, many TCM practitioners have set up an arrangement whereby the TCM services are billed under the Western clinician’s practice and both parties reach an agreement on the percentage of the split. Such an arrangement especially works great when that Western clinician values the field of TCM.

Traditional advertising methods can work. Mailings, billboards, newspaper advertisements, to name a few, are still viable. However, with the advent of social media, most TCM practitioners are taking a different route in exposing their services to the general public.

Social media outlets like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are easy and fast to set up with little overhead. This is appealing to TCM practitioners starting off. It is also appealing to seasoned practitioners, like me. I continually use these outlets not to just advertise my services but to educate the public and my patients of Chinese Medicine and the TCM modalities.

I really find educating the public both rewarding and satisfying.