While many Health and Wellness Professionals often see themselves as being solely service providers, but by having an entrepreneurial and growth mindset, you can expand your services and grow a thriving multi-disciplinary business. Some examples of Health and Wellness Professionals include:
• Mental Health Professionals
• Physiotherapists
• Dentists
• Massage Therapists
• Naturopaths
• Osteopaths
• Social Workers
• Alternative Medicine Professionals
• And so on…
To grow your thriving multi-disciplinary team of Health and Wellness Professionals, the following considerations need to be taken into account:
1. Business Plan & Structuring
This is the idea and planning stage where coming up with a business strategy is important and things such as your short-term vs long-term goals, structure of business, team members to be involved, ideal clients, revenue streams, brand and marketing, as well as your exit strategy need to be considered. The importance of tax planning advice and other advisors such as marketing experts or business advisors cannot be understated in this initial step.
The structure of your business is the first step to beginning your business, and most Health and Wellness Professionals start themselves off by setting up at least one professional corporation, if permitted by the profession, and one practice management company.
Practice Management Company
The practice management company does not address delivery of regulated health professional services or services ancillary to them, but addresses other aspects of the business that include creating and owning the brand of the business, entering into leases or buying the business property, hiring employees or entering into contracts with other professionals or their corporations.
All founders, whether professionals or non-practitioners, are typically shareholders of the practice management company, and make financial investment into the business. This company also collects payment for the professional services from clients, although each governing body has different rules and regulations regarding this.
A practice management company may have agreements with health and wellness professionals that are from different but complementary professions.
Professional Corporations
Based on the rules of the applicable regulatory body, professional services are to be delivered by a professional either acting as a sole proprietor or through a professional corporation. Professionals may also act within a partnership for tax-related purposes. However, a multi-disciplinary team cannot practice under a single professional corporation as each self-regulated profession requires its own professional corporation.
Self-regulated professions require a professional corporation to obtain a certificate of authorization once it is incorporated under the Business Corporations Act (Ontario) which imposes certain restrictions for incorporation that may include:
• Naming restrictions
• Shareholder restrictions
• Requirement for authorizations and renewals
• Etc.
The law imposes no limit on the professional liability of professional corporation shareholders for acts of shareholders, employees or agents of professional corporations. Further, if a professional corporation is a partner in a general or limited liability partnership, their shareholders have the same liability with respect to the partnership or limited liability partnership as they would have if the shareholders themselves were the partners. It is important to note that some self-regulated professions do not allow limited liability partnerships to be formed.
2. The Team
The role a team member plays in a corporation has serious consequences for the business, especially the classifications that provide different legal entitlements, potential liabilities and benefits.
Owners/Founders
The founders are the owners of the business and will be shareholders of the practice management corporation and other relevant corporations. As owners, founders are invested in growth of the business, and while some of the founders are Health and Wellness Professionals, some of them may not be professionals.
Founders take the initial risk at the startup stage. They may also join the owner/founder team as the business grows rather than being there from the start, and some may even exit the business. In the event of founder breakups, having proper documentation in place makes for the least legally disruptive transition.
As shareholders, owners/founders may be included in the same or different class of shareholders, depending on the parties involved, legal implications and tax planning objectives to be achieved. A Shareholder Agreement is one of the most important legal documents that the founders can enter into. The decision-making of the corporation starts with shareholders, who each year elect directors of the corporation, who then appoint officers for the corporation.
Once the practice management corporation is incorporated, it is a separate legal entity from the founders and as such, founders would usually enter into a Practitioner Agreement, or an Employment Agreement in certain instances, to document the roles and responsibilities of the person.
Associate Professionals
Associate Professionals are the Health and Wellness professionals that typically do not become shareholders in the practice management company and maintain their own professional corporations or practice as sole proprietors. Their role in the corporation would most likely be akin to an independent contractor, rather than an employee.
Associate professionals enter into Practitioner Agreements with the practice management company, allowing them to use the branding that the company provides. While some associate professionals may even engage in fee splits to be compensated by the business that allows certain overhead costs and some profit margin of the business to be taken into account, this is only permitted by certain self-regulated professions. Alternatively, the practice management company may enter into Space Sharing or Sublease Agreements that allow the Health and Wellness Professionals to share billings or rent but not the branding of the business.
Staff
Non-professional staff are also part of the business and include mostly employees that help maintain and run the business. A proper Employment Agreement must be entered into that clearly lays out the scope of the employees’ duties is essential, especially given the presence of multiple practitioners. It is important to ensure compliance with both the Employment Standards Act (Ontario), in addition to the Occupational Health and Safety Act.
3. Relationship with Clients
There is a litany of considerations related to clients when a practice management company and Health and Wellness Professionals are involved. The most important of these include the following:
• Appropriate onboarding documentation
• Confidentiality and privacy issues, including compliance with the governing regulatory body, the Personal Health and Information Protection Act (Ontario), and the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (Canada)
• Non-solicitation of clients
• Other applicable rules, policies or guidelines set out by the relevant professions’ governing bodies
4. Other Business Issues
Where setting up and the growth of your multi-disciplinary team of professionals is involved, other key aspects of the business also need to be considered.
Advertising and Branding: This begins right at the inception of your business and continues throughout to maintain the brand and how the business is advertised, which requires consistency between what the company represents and what its professionals that the company is in business with represent. Although note that proper compliance with advertising must be met and the brand is appropriately protected through trademarking and/or registering business names.
Product Development and Sales: Some Health and Wellness Professionals develop their own products to sell, while others have become “health hubs” for their clients by selling products that are either directly or complementary to their professions. When developing and selling products, proper regulations must be followed, such as Health Canada’s labelling of medicinal products and requirement for the Drug Identification Number (“DIN”) that evidences that a medicinal product has passed the safety and quality requirements.
Virtual Services: The COVID-19 pandemic has opened the door of opportunities where Health and Wellness Professionals can go beyond in-person delivery of services to virtual ones, including selling of products to one-on-one consultations or group therapy sessions.
5. Planning for Growth and Expansion
There are numerous opportunities for growing a thriving multi-disciplinary health and wellness business that can be explored and planned for not only as independent venues but may be considered as a combination of alternatives. These include:
• Virtual Growth: as discussed above, there are tremendous opportunities to explore when it comes to virtually growing your business.
• Expanded Locations: the brand of your business can be taken to different locations by opening different offices that may be managed by a single practice management company to allow for economies of scale and growth.
• Franchising: this is a good way to expand your business and brand recognition by using the “franchisee” business that takes away some of the financial and managerial burden.
How Momentum Can Help
Book a Health and Wellness Corporation Consultation with our team. We go through all the critical elements of your corporate set up, team requirements, investment planning and key customer and product documentation. We provide you with an execution plan for what you need to prioritize and when.