Update on a 'Social Business' Model: The Working Class Acupuncture Clinic Had 448 Patient Visits Last Week
One of the Integrator's Top 10 for integrative practice for 2006 was Working Class Acupuncture. The Portland, Oregon-based business, controversial in the acupuncture community, promotes greater access to affordable acupuncture services through a business model in which acupuncture is delivered in a community room. Patients average $19 per visit. Now just 3-years-old, the clinic, which anchors a national network, had 448 patient visits in the final week of August 2008. Visits for the month were at over 1600, up 33% from the prior year, and quite likely the highest number of any acupuncture clinic in the United States. Co-founder Lisa Rohleder, LAc shares data on visits, salaries and expansion of this business about which they discovered, on reading the work of Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, is a classic "social business."...  

Full article...