New Brunswick’s Town Health Solutions Opening First U.S. Franchise
SAINT JOHN–A New Brunswick-based chiropractor and physiotherapy provider is expanding into the United States.
Town Health Solutions, which has locations in Saint John, Fredericton, Hampton, Woodstock, St. Stephen and Sussex, is slated to open its first franchise in the United States in San Francisco next year.
Town Health was founded in 2004 by Erik Klein, who now co-owns the business with Daniel Comeau. The business offers a variety of services such as chiropractic, physiotherapy, athletic therapy, shockwave treatment, massage therapy and more. The goal of their multidisciplinary approach is to provide a solutions-based practice.
“We don’t provide a service here. We fix problems and we get people better. We come with solutions to people’s issues. Otherwise, you’re just banging on a nail all day long,” says Klein.
“A solutions-oriented mindset is what we approach problems with. It’s easy to point out a problem with somebody’s approach. It’s a lot harder to point out and provide a solution for these problems.”
Klein says Town Health also differentiates itself in the market by the way they approach hiring new graduates.
“Everyone thinks you can come out of school and you can open up shop and just get working. But the reality is that the schooling you receive in your educational institution doesn’t necessarily match up with the real world very well,” says Klein. “We bridge that gap very well. With our clinical systems and clinical training programs, we like to say it gets you to a five-year competency within six months.”
It was this mentality that caught the eye of Noah Volz, who will be opening the San Francisco franchise. Volz is a student at Life Chiropractic College West in Hayward, California, and will graduate in September and then undergo Town Health’s six-months of training.
He is also the host of DC2Be Revolution, a popular industry YouTube Channel where he has interviewed over 100 doctors. He first heard of Town Health when he had Klein and Comeau as guests on his show.
“Town Health had a different perspective that I had not heard before. Their goal is to offer the highest quality care possible, to get people better in the shortest amount of time,” said Volz, in an email to Huddle. “Through the clinical algorithms they have created, they have already been doing this at their locations in Canada and their goal is to provide excellent opportunities for students like me.”
Volz says Town Health’s mission of being patient-centric and finding permanent solutions was what inspired him to open a Town Health franchise in San Francisco.
“They provide the training and the systems that can build this bridge and make a huge impact on the healthcare infrastructure,” he said. “They provide great jobs for recent chiropractic graduates and they are building a movement within the chiropractic [field].”
This is why, Volz says, Town Health will stand out in a saturated market like San Francisco.
“Town Health is different because they are results oriented and the value that they provide is getting results with people and procedures that are evidence-based and cutting edge. They are the only evidence-based chiropractic franchise in the world,” says Volz. “Evidence is the language of mainstream medicine. Creating an evidence-based franchise will build trust with mainstream medical professionals.”
Klein and Comeau say that’s another one of Town Health’s goals is to improve the reputation of the industry in the eyes of patients. Simply put, a lot of people don’t trust chiropractors.
“It comes from unfortunately less-than-keen practice management strategies. The whole overselling lifetime care, unnecessary treatments, things like that,” says Klein. “It happens in every industry.”
“That’s what it comes down to. Some less than honourable business practices, people that are not patient-centered, but people that are business centered,” adds Comeau. “We have a business mindset, but our business mindset is based off patient-centered care.”
The goal is to open two clinics, one in San Francisco and another in Atlantic Canada (location pending) in 2019. They want to open five new locations in 2020 and then be at 100 by 2025. The goal is to one day make it to 1,000, the size of the biggest chains in the United States.
Klein says they are already meeting with potential investors interested in opening franchises, but they are being very selective. They want people like Noah Volz who understand their mission and approach.
“We just don’t want to take a lump of money and put together a clinic for anybody. It had to be somebody who is aligned with our ideals,” he says. “This gentleman is San Francisco is very much aligned.”
Though Town Health’s expansion plans are focused outside New Brunswick, Klein says the business will always be headquartered in the province.
“The reality is we’re a little company that started off in the basement. We’re not going to be Amazon, but we are going to go big. There is no doubt because where we are now is passed what we thought we would get to five years ago,” says Klein. “This can be an economic driver. If we have 1,000 clinics, we need a lot of people to manage that and that’s going to be [in New Brunswick].”