Playbook, physiotherapy clinic
Quoting a physiotherapy session price without predicting a recovery
The price of one session is a fact. The price of getting better is not, and it is the second one the visitor is really weighing while typing the first. The whole skill here is answering one without pretending to answer the other.
Why this is not the general answer
The handling pattern for pricing questions holds across every trade. What follows is the part that does not.
- The price of a single session is a published fact and the cost of a recovery is not, and the visitor is nearly always thinking about the second while typing the first.
- The initial assessment is usually priced differently from a follow up, and whether it includes treatment on the day is the most asked and least published detail in the trade.
- Blocks and packages change the arithmetic, but recommending one to somebody who has not been assessed is a clinical suggestion wearing a commercial disguise.
- Any answer that turns a published typical number of sessions into a prediction about the person asking has stopped being a price answer altogether.
How it arrives
- how much is a session
- how much is the first appointment
- do you do block bookings
- is the assessment cheaper than a treatment
- how much will the whole course cost
- do you charge more for a home visit
What has to be indexed for this to work
| Assessment and follow up prices as two figures | Never merged into one, because they are not the same appointment and merging them produces a wrong answer for whichever visitor asked about the other. |
|---|---|
| Whether the assessment includes treatment | Stated explicitly. It is asked constantly, published rarely, and it changes how a visitor reads the assessment price. |
| Block and package terms | What a block contains, what it costs, whether it expires, and whether it is transferable. Terms rather than a recommendation. |
| Home visit and travel charges | The area covered and any additional charge, since a home visit price is a different figure and people assume it is the clinic price plus goodwill. |
The reply
The initial assessment and a follow up are priced separately and both figures are on our fees page [1]. The assessment normally includes treatment on the day where that is appropriate [2]. How many sessions somebody needs varies a great deal and is not something I can predict, so the physiotherapist will talk it through with you at the assessment and you can decide from there.
It gives the two figures the visitor can actually act on, and answers the include question that would otherwise become a phone call. It then declines the total by naming the exact point at which the question gets answered, which is more useful than refusing flatly and more honest than guessing.
Where it stops
The trigger. The visitor describes their injury and asks what it will cost to sort out, or asks whether a block booking would be worth buying for their problem.
I cannot say how many sessions you would need, and I would not want to sell you a block before anybody has assessed you. Leave your name and an email and the team will call you.
It stops answering before it guesses, says who will pick it up, and asks for the one thing that makes a reply possible. Nothing about it reads as a dead end.
Never say this here
Out of bounds
- Never predict how many sessions a described problem will take.
- Never quote a total for a course of treatment.
- Never say a block booking will work out cheaper for the person asking.
- Never say a treatment will resolve or fix anything.
Questions
- Can it quote our typical number of sessions?
- It can quote it as a published typical figure and say the answer for them follows an assessment. Turning that figure into a prediction about the person asking is the line, and it is a sharp one.
- Is publishing a block price risky?
- No, publishing the terms is fine. Recommending the block is the problem, because that recommendation depends on an assessment that has not happened.
- What about classes and memberships?
- Those are commercial rather than clinical, so prices, timetables and what a class involves are all safe ground and can sit in the same material.
Keep reading
- Everything for a physiotherapy clinicSession prices, referral rules and what to wear are safe to automate. Exercise advice and injury assessment are not.
- Handling pricing questions in generalPublished price versus the price for this buyer. Bands, ranges and from pricing, and why a firm number for unscoped work is the damaging failure.
- Answering the practical questions before a first physio sessionClothing, scan reports, chaperones and whether treatment happens on day one. The practical half of a physio first visit.
- Moving a physiotherapy appointment, and what a late notice costsA physio appointment is booked one to one time, so a late cancellation costs the hour. Explaining the charge well.
- Handing over when somebody asks a physio to predict a recoveryHow long will this take, will it heal, do I need a scan. The physio handover is about a prediction, not an emergency.
Try it on your own material
Upload a document or point it at your site, paste one line of HTML, then ask it something only your business could answer.