26/08/2024
Great post!
I’ve seen a couple of comments lately about the cost of seeing a Homeopath, and it is also something that came up in my homeopaths demographic survey last year, so I thought it was worth discussing.
You may already understand that it is not a matter of cost but of value, and that this is not just unique to Homeopaths, but Naturopaths and other non-funded health practitioners. I would also like to make note here of all my wonderful clients who understand these points already and remind me when I have forgotten to invoice them - I appreciate you. But let’s do a little exercise and look at a few things around money.
For reference, I currently charge $180 for an initial consultation for an adult or $120 for a child, and for follow ups $120 for an adult and $90 for a child. Remedy costs and postage is additional.
Looking purely at my numbers and the time of the appointment, this looks like anywhere from $120-240 an hour, which sounds great! Only it doesn’t reflect the reality.
Sometimes I can recognise a remedy during the appointment and it is easy to say “yes, this child needs Sulphur”. However, often that is not the case and I am spending anywhere from half an hour to two hours repertorising, looking at remedies, differentiating, and coming up with a plan. I then also have to dispense, write instructions and if not collecting, package for posting. Let’s be conservative and say 1 hour - and that takes my hourly rate from $120-240 to $60-120. Still not too bad, right?
Now let’s consider all of the other things that are required, that are less easily broken down into per-client costs.
I do have administration to do - invoicing, emails, taxes, ordering supplies, and probably other things I have forgotten (or try to blank out).
Those reference books I read to compare remedies have a cost, as does software. Stationary and other supplies are also necessary.
Marketing - realistically I do little to no marketing, except for managing my page and writing my blog. Some weeks I don’t do much, other weeks I can spend hours and hours researching and writing.
I do contract out the management of my website, because IT is not really my thing.
Registration - for me it is important to be a member of the New Zealand Council of Homeopaths, our professional body. I also hold indemnity insurance, just in case. I support the Homeopathic Society of NZ, and also the Aurum Project in Australia.
Continuing education - not only is it a requirement for registration to do continuing education, it is also an important part of being a practitioner and staying up to date. I spent countless hours each year watching webinars, doing courses, and this year I am attending the NZCH conference in Christchurch (with the associated travel costs).
As many of you know, I undertook a survey last year about the demographics of our Homeopaths. The Society and Council both provided some funding for the direct costs associated with this - however, the time was all mine. I am still working on this as we hope to have two articles published soon. I also coordinated the New Zealand branch of the Materia Medica Pura Project proving earlier this year.
Peer group support and meetings with colleagues is also important - not only does it allow discussion when we are stuck on cases, but it also prevents isolation and fosters more learning as we all have different knowledge and experience.
It’s really hard to add up all of those things, and quantify it on a per-person basis, but it certainly takes my hourly rate down significantly.
Now let’s do a little comparison:
GPs get funding from the Government for people enrolled at their practice. It does not depend on the number of people they see each day, instead it is about the number enrolled, their age, gender and whether they are frequent users (have a high use health card). In addition to this they can set their price - at my GP it is $38 for a standard appointment which is usually 10-15 minutes - which makes an hourly rate of $152 NOT including the government capitation payments.
I add this not to equate Homeopath with General Practitioner, as they are two completely different health ideologies, and I understand there are other costs that they need to cover, but for context around how much this costs.
Homeopaths are well aware that it is hard to access for people of lower incomes. I have had many discussions with colleagues about this - myself and others have indicated that given the cost of living we want to raise our prices, but are aware it has a flow on effect into lack of access for some people, and have not done so. Many of us offer payment plans, and are happy to discuss this in advance.
When I undertook my survey last year we asked a number of questions about Homeopaths themselves, their practice, and challenges. We did not ask about income. Despite this there were some very interesting findings which show that income is a major issue. In challenges for both building a practice and for homeopathy as a profession in New Zealand, money was a significant challenge - this came up as the cost of building or running a business, needing to have another job, but also that homeopathy is not funded and it is costs much more than seeing a doctor.
Also important is that two thirds of Homeopaths had another form of income, and of those the average was over 25 hours a week worked in their other job. We did not explore reasons for that, some Homeopaths may be choosing to structure their life and work this way (like how I have chosen to go back to work as a Pharmacist), but others are working because income is a major challenge.
Let’s consider experience and time: My dishwasher broke recently, we took it to a local electrician to get it fixed. My husband is quite handy, maybe he could have removed the broken part and fixed it himself, but it would have taken him a long time to figure out what was wrong and how to do it - his googling does not replace the qualification and experience of the electrician. Possibly he could do it but it would take a lot longer.
Periodically I see a story on Facebook about an expensive boat that could not be fixed until a particular engineer came along and hit it with a hammer in a specific place. The fee was high and when asked why the answer was “you are not paying for the hours that I spent on fixing the problem, but the years that have allowed me to get to this point.”
Homeopaths (and Naturopaths and other professionals) have spent years of training for their qualification, plus years before and after gathering experience and knowledge that allows them to distil all that experience into a few hours to come up with a treatment plan for you as an individual. Particularly with holistic health the individual nature of recommendations takes more time. If all I had to do was to tell everyone to take Belladonna it would save me so much time, I wouldn’t need to know nearly as much, and my fee could be cheaper. Instead I am sifting through several thousand remedies to find the right one(s) for you. I’m not going to get it right every time, but that also gives me more information, and different ways of looking for the next remedy for you.
Prices also go up over time - a colleague notes that it used to cost the same to see her as to go get a cut and colour at her local hairdresser. Her price has remained the same, and yet her hair dresser now charges over $300.
And my final point is about value. Instead of asking what something costs, ask what the value is. How much will it cost me to fix my dishwasher is different to what is the value of having a dishwasher. Health has even more value, because poor health reflects on so many other aspects of our lives. So consider what the value is for having improvement in your health and how that will impact on your life as a whole - and then consider, can you afford NOT to go to a Homeopath? For me, the answer is always clear: that I invest in my health and wellbeing.
