Sciton Helps Grow a Profitable Full-Service Practice with Expanded Skin Treatments

From the beginning, her objective has been to provide a complete service set for her clients, but something was missing. Dr. Collins needed an effective method to better treat her patient’s skin, particularly lines around the mouth. The addition of a Sciton laser provided the finishing touch that helped Dr. Collins create her full-service practice, satisfy her patients, and boost practice revenues.

Practice Overview

Following her medical residency, Dr. Collins launched her individual private practice in 2009. Starting with skin cancers and reconstructive surgeries, she shared offices with her father, also a surgeon. Her business expanded enough to support building out new office space in 2011. The new area was designed to offer a broader scope of cosmetic procedures and includes an OR for plastic surgeries. She added a website and realized annual business increases of 40-50%.

As word spread and the practice grew, Dr. Collins added staff. Having established her practice with a solid foundation, she began to evaluate opportunities for revenue and expansion of her menu of services.

“I had a problem with a set of patients who had lines around the mouth. The only tools I had to treat that were Botox and filler. Even when I perform a facelift, I still can’t fix the problem because it’s a skin surface issue. The only fix for that is laser resurfacing or chemical peeling. You have to change the texture of the skin.”
– Beth Collins, M.D.

Deciding Factors

• Cost-effective procedure scalability
• Positive revenue assurance
• Feature-rich and effective laser capabilities
• Sciton quality and relationship

The Challenge

Early in her practice development, Dr. Collins had an unpleasant encounter with a laser that failed to deliver. “It was a disaster, a $70k waste,” Collins said. “They promised amazing results, and it didn’t work. It was a terrible experience.” After moving to her new offices, she concentrated on expanding cosmetic surgery treatments and put the incident behind her.

Still, she had a problem to solve. Patients were regularly asking for treatment of smoker’s lines and wrinkles around the mouth. Filler and Botox results were unsatisfactory. “There was a hole in what I could offer,” she said. “I don’t want a treatment that makes my patients look phony.” So, she began to research, looking once more at lasers – cautiously.

Dr. Collins Advice to Practitioners

• My advice to other physicians and practitioners is to prepare patients: be honest about recovery and downtime, and let them know it’s not painless. People need to be prepared, and if you don’t warn them; they will be unhappy, no matter how well the treatment turns out.
• Tell patients that laser treatments are a process, not one and done.
• Protect yourself and satisfy your malpractice insurance. Make sure you know the laws that relate to the use of lasers in your state.
• Hire good people and then get them trained on the laser you have. Anyone using a laser needs to know what they are doing to avoid patient harm.
• Visit other practitioners. Attend the User Summits. Develop the skills to gain the maximum advantage from all that the Sciton laser can do.
• Work on sales training for your staff. You will need people with excellent sales skills to get patients in the door.

The Solution

Before investing in a new laser, and given her previous experience, Dr. Collins wanted to look at all the options. She started by researching all the laser companies. She called friends from medical school. She spoke to current practitioners and asked for opinions from anyone with an informed point of view. “A friend with a Sciton gave a glowing report. I also spoke to a former laser salesman – not from Sciton,” Collins said. “He told me to ‘Buy the Sciton. It works as advertised and it won’t break down in two years.’ He also advised me to invest the time learning how to use it. We had no exposure to lasers in medical school, so that was also good advice.”

The Sciton laser made an immediate business impact even before any marketing program. Satisfied patients began making referrals. A rapid increase in activity recovered all laser expenses from the outset and treatments have increased in profitability every month since.

“The laser is the finishing touch to what I can do for my patients. Surgery and fillers get you only so far. The laser makes my practice full-service. You need to treat patients skin. If you’re not doing it, you’re not providing everything they require, and you’re missing a business opportunity.”
– Beth Collins, M.D.

The Benefits

Dr. Collins’ Sciton investment paid off from the start. The laser is helping to provide new patient services and build new revenue streams. “If I’d known how easy it would be to develop a steadily increasing and profitable income stream right from the outset, I would have bought it sooner,” Collins said. “It’s also become a relationship former. I’m considering adding the diVa™ module to my JOULE to build business through a local OBGYN.. I’ll help her, and then she’ll send her patients to me for tummy tucks and facelifts.” The laser has helped Dr. Collins recognize new opportunities to expand her practice revenues. “Added services like this,” she said, “go way beyond my initial intent which was to solve that lip wrinkle problem.”

VIP Marketing Program

To further promote skincare benefits for her patients, Dr. Collins created a “VIP Membership” discount program. With four levels of participation from bronze, through silver, gold, and platinum. Patients choose a personalized menu of services that includes laser, facial and Botox treatments. Annual memberships also provide access to medical grade skincare products at reduced prices.
The program positively emphasizes the “skincare journey” for patients while providing a predictable revenue stream for the practice

“Sciton has tremendously improved my practice. It’s broadened the services I offer and increased my patients’ satisfaction by assuring predictable results. I couldn’t be happier with Sciton’s positive impact.”
– Beth Collins, M.D.

To learn more about the advantages that JOULE and HALO can deliver for your practice, visit our HALO treatment page https://scitondev.wpengine.com/physicians/halo or contact your Sciton representative at info@sciton.com