lost

So I was supposed to blog last week, but time got away from me, like it always does about everything.

I can't say that this will be as interesting as the post about Felice Dunas's questionable article, but it is tangentially related. It's about money.

I work at WCA. I make a good wage, and it's a good place to work. Basically, this is my job--it pays most of my really important bills--the expenses that I have to send a check in the mail to someone I don't know, or have met a hand full of times. I am soooo thankful for this, but in the end, I am disenfranchised from my labour, someone else owns it, and as such I do things their way, on their clock, etc. Also, it's not nearly enough to live on, I'm accruing more debt as we speak. With out this job at WCA, I'd have been forced to leave the profession at this point, so believe me, I am nothing but grateful.

I have, up until now, maintained a modest (at best) private practice PP--I have some issues with the use of BA or 'boutique acupuncture' in CAN, as most of my patients pay me $30 for their treatments, and my office is nothing but function, really. I average about 3-4 patients a week, which, I know is pretty sweet for someone who's been in practice all of 10 months, only 6 of which have been at my current PP. But, you can also do the math and see that this "makes" me minimal money--in fact I calculated it, so far I have made about $1 per hour at my PP. The very definition of "not sustainable".

Now, I don't need a whole lot of money and I could live like I am now indefinitely on what I'd make if I went full time at WCA, but I've got a mountain of debt, and what's more, I do want to have a house someday, and it would be nice if I could at least, partially retire someday. Not to mention the fact that even doing CA, 40 hours is an awful lot of acupuncture to be doing on a weekly basis. I was originally planning on writing my blog about the *true* cost of an acupuncture education, but it was a lot of numbers and VERY depressing.

So, there's an obvious solution here: open you're own CA clinic, stupid! Yeah, I had thought about it when I graduated, but I was too scared. However, now I've been doing CA longer than PP, so I could really do it! So, I start talking about it, get a preliminary business plan together (all the financials), and start scoping out people I graduated with to partner-up with. This happens in the space of about three weeks. I wanted to open a clinic in my neighborhood, a place I've lived for over 3 years now, where I shop, go out and generally spend most of my time (and money for that matter). I'm just starting to get serious enough to bring things to Lisa, Lupine, et al. when I get a phone call from someone about how she has been working on getting a clinic going in the exact same location. I don't mean same zip code--we're talking literally across the street from one another. Only thing is, she's got a building lined up and I've just started looking.

Things don't go in a happy direction here, people. While I was keen to team up, she wanted to do it her way and that was that. While I'm not happy about it, I do understand, things were left amicably. I'm an easy going guy, and I should have done this a long time ago, biddness is biddness as they say. However, it brings up an ugly reality of this revolution I've basically been watching from almost the very beginning--this is business and a huge part of any business is competition, even for the all embracing Community Acupuncture Network. Neither of us really seemed comfortable with the idea of having both clinics literally in the same neighborhood. So I thought about other places I'd like to live, and this being Portland, it turns out there's already one there, and I don't want to move anyway. Getting a comfortable distance from another clinic would require that I start it in a place that really isn't my community. I've not ruled it out, but these events have taken the wind out of some already very weary sails. This sort of stuff is only going to happen more and more as the movement gets bigger and bigger.

Most of CAN has focused on how we're not a threat to PP's as our markets are different. There is no doubt in my mind about that. There was a thread with VERY questionable analogies with Starbucks, etc. This was all speculative and ignored the the very important fact that there is already a widely accepted system of health care in this country--they're called MD's and they serve many different markets, albeit not in a sustainable way, but they are there, and will be there for the foreseeable future. Also, store/cafe staff is way more cost effective and fluid than acupunks. Last, but not least, trying a dark black drink that everybody has heard of (if not tried) will cost you a couple of bucks and 5 minutes to drink it, even a CA treatment will cost you $15, GETTING STUCK WITH NEEDLES and at least 20 minutes. There's a much bigger buy-in necessary. While I agree that having more acupunks in any given area is likely to make them all do better, I also see that our market is hardly unlimited. The other thing I see is that there's a lack of any data to back either perspective.

In this post I'm half whining and having myself a big ol' pitty party and half asking people for their opinions, and if they have facts and numbers, such the better.
Any ideas on population density per CA clinic?
Good ways to resolve situations like this?
It makes me think there could be a "smart growth" plan for CA in these areas where it has taken off (can you tell I've been Portlandized?).
Any ideas on starting a clinic that's really not in your community?

Thanks for reading!

--Matthew