Bigger Fish or Bigger Pond?

Naturopathic Doctors are encouraged from day one of their training to consider the unique, the rare and the treatment-resistant patients as their ideal clients. While this may have been true in the past, when the knowledge and evidence for prevention, behaviour change and co-managed care were scarce, positioning ND practices only to serve a fraction of the population limits the impact of the profession and also creates a business inventory strain that is hurting each practitioner’s financial success. 

Would we rather grow the fish or grow the pond? 

If practitioners focus on only a fraction of the population, not only is it more challenging to integrate into conventional health care, but it also limits the absolute number of patients that the profession can support. Practitioners are often encouraged to niche their practices and to grow authority in 1-2 topics, effectively “growing the fish” to be the go-to solution for the patients who fit the ideal client demographics. Practitioners can spend years becoming the authority in their niche, growing a following and trust online and can face years of sub-optimal revenue while they wait for the critical mass and fame that can support a unique-niche practice. 

We should be growing the pond. 

The evidence for the use of an integrated, patient-centred health model is clear. Patients benefit from a higher number of practitioner touch points, longer assessments, behaviour change coaching and lifestyle prescriptions to enhance the outcomes of their conventional medical experience. There is rarely a primary care concern that can’t have the speed of diagnosis, the long-term sequela or the immediate outcomes be improved by a Naturopathic Doctor, and yet, we’re rarely positioning ourselves as a primary care health care companion.  By increasing the types of patients, Naturopathic Doctors are confident working with, practitioners can improve their impact and their financial success. 

Practicing Evidence-Based Primary Care

The root challenge of practicing primary care medicine for Naturopathic Doctors is the lack of resources to support decision-making and research. How is a single practitioner expected to know everything about primary care medicine? This fear and lack of support have fueled the niche-based practice preference for most practitioners, bringing comfort in growing as an expert (growing the fish) despite shrinking the number of patients that the practitioner is willing to see (shrinking the pond). At The Confident Clinician, we’re the primary care practice resource that helps Naturopathic Doctors make informed and accurate clinical decisions, providing confidence through our tech solution to keep NDs current and capable of working with as many patients as they can. We’re “growing the pond” for clinicians to support growth and impact in the profession that has never been possible before. 

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