Ketamine infusion clinics are a great service line for any nurse practitioner to integrate into their practice. The demand is very high in areas where ketamine infusion therapy is lacking as patients are learning more and more about how ketamine can treat their treatment resistant mental health disorders and chronic pain.

Did you know there are dozens of online communities that are patient specific for ketamine therapy? Yes! This is where thousands of patients are learning about the effectiveness of ketamine infusion therapy for their chronic issues. Patients are sick and tired of the established “medical treatments” for their mood disorders and chronic pain. It has failed them; therefore, more and more patients are seeking alternative therapies. This is where many discover the power of ketamine therapy.

Once the patient learns about ketamine infusion therapy from these online communities and various resources, they will then go search for clinics that provide this niche in demand service. This is the great marketing aspect about ketamine infusion clinics: THE PATIENTS FIND YOU! All the clinic owner needs to do is have a decent website that is search engine optimized and some online listings such as a Google listing, Bing listing, Yelp, etc. What does this mean? Practically free marketing! Remember, marketing is typically the NUMBER ONE expense in your business, so if you can decrease that number one expense, it will simply result in a higher profit margin for the clinic owner!

Not only are you improving the quality of patients lives (and literally saving some!), you are earning a fantastic living.  A true WIN-WIN!

Now, what about the profit margins? They are fantastic to put it plainly. One ketamine infusion typically runs $500-$1500 a piece. This amount is determined by two things:

1. Regional economics.
2. The type of infusion: Pain or Mood.

Pain infusions usually last 4 hours, therefore these infusions are at the higher end of the range where as mood infusions only last 45 minutes and are at the lower end of the range. There will be a good mix of both infusions in a typical ketamine infusion practice. If the nurse practitioner entrepreneur was a savvy one, they would hire an RN to manage the infusion while the nurse practitioner did another. Talk about a fantastic revenue stream!

If you wanted to just have a solo ketamine infusion clinic though, you could do anywhere from 2-4 infusions a day. Let’s do some math about revenue potential:

If we assume the average reimbursement for each infusion is $750 and you did 4 infusions a day on average, this would result in $3,000 in revenue for an 8-hour day. Not bad! The expenses are minimal with this as the cost per infusion is <$50. After expenses, you are looking at being paid $300 an hour. Tell me any other NP job that pays that. There are none…

If you hired an RN to manage the infusions while you did another in a different room OR saw patients for other niche services like HRT, weight loss, vitamin infusions, etc., you could REALLY compound your revenue potential.

In terms of how many days a week you could operate a ketamine infusion clinic, that would depend on the demand in your area. Generally speaking, you would need to do this 2-3 days a week at a minimum because many of the infusions are done back-to-back. If you are a follower of The Elite NP Model and maintain a part-time job 2 days a week, then ketamine infusion therapy would make for a GREAT part-time practice to fill in the other 2-3 days a week.

Now, what about the difficulty of providing ketamine infusion therapy? Generally speaking, it is easy to learn and integrate this into your practice. Remember, the doses of ketamine you are administering are at SUB-ANESTHETIC doses. You are in no way providing conscious sedation. With that said though, having a conscious sedation certification wouldn’t be a bad idea to just understand the concepts. Additionally, you will want to be ACLS certified. Anytime you are running an IV on a patient, regardless if it is for ketamine or vitamin infusions, you should be ACLS certified! As always, use your own clinical judgement and only do what you comfortable doing. Dozens of NPs around the country though are providing ketamine infusion therapy safely and effectively! Even psychiatrists with no special training on conscious sedation or IV therapy in general are doing this safely. Ketamine administered in these sub-anesthetic doses are generally safe without significant side effects.

Now, if you do not want to do the infusion component, you could always provide ketamine via IM and monitor the patient in office. You can also provide it via the intranasal and oral routes as well. Ketamine is available in these formulations from multiple compounding pharmacies around the country. It is accepted practice to “load” the patient on ketamine via infusion and then continue maintenance therapy with intranasal or oral routes. Therefore, for the astute nurse practitioner who is not comfortable with the infusion aspect, you could always partner with a CRNA that could administer the infusion, and the nurse practitioner then continues therapy via intranasal and oral routes! Think of the telemedicine opportunities here!

Speaking of which, you could also provide ketamine over a telemedicine platform via intranasal and oral routes to patients who have already been initially “loaded” with ketamine via infusion that are no longer wanting to pay for the high cost of the infusions. You would just want to ensure you see the patient one time in person as it is a controlled substance. This could make for a GREAT “out of the box” telemedicine practice!

Overall, ketamine infusion clinics are a great niche side practice for the nurse practitioner entrepreneur. They are a high margin practice, profitable, generally safe, and truly make a significant positive impact on your patients’ lives!

Remember, The Ketamine Infusion Clinic Course is still on sale at the discounted price of $399 until March 8^th! After that, the price increases to $499 indefinitely. This is the most affordable ketamine infusion course on the market today. Check it out before the sale ends!