Why Square One moved to a Home-Based Business

For nearly a decade, Square One Active Recovery has been a disruptor in Singapore’s chiropractic scene. We have consistently challenged the status quo. From swapping the standard “crack and pop” chiropractic model for an evidence-based, exercise-only approach to starting our own functional training gym.

Today, we are going to discuss the move to a home-based business and how it ultimately benefits our clients. Moving from a commercial clinic to a home-based practice better aligns our business with our core values of clinical excellence and long-term sustainability. Here is why this shift is the best thing for both our practice and your recovery journey.

Prioritising Results Over Rent

In a high-cost city like Singapore, commercial rentals often trap healthcare providers in a “volume over value” cycle. The reality of Singapore’s healthcare rental market has become increasingly stark. A recent HDB tender for a GP clinic space in Tampines attracted a record-breaking bid of S$52,188 per month for just 50 square metres. In comparison, the average tendered rent for similar-sized clinics in 2024 stood at approximately S$9,800 per month, making the Tampines bid more than five times higher.

The appetite or willingness to pay a staggering premium over other medical providers indicate how optimistic medical businesses are in their business model. In the words of their founder, Andrew Chim, “we believe that it is a rate that we can have decent ROI (return on investment).” I-Health Medical Holdings, the winner of the tender, is not a new entrant in the medical space. I-Health Medical operates three other locations at Bendemeer, Yishun, and Serangoon North.

Exorbitant Rent Inevitable Raises Concerns Over Affordability

Singapore’s health minister expressed dismay at the costly bid of the tampines GP clinic. He warned that it was likely to result in higher healthcare expenses. When overhead is massive, the pressure to either increase medical fees or squeeze in more patients in attempts to increase revenue becomes more salient.

My decision to a home-based model eliminates the uncertainty of commercial rent hikes and the need for aggressive marketing just to “make rent”. Previously we paid as much as $12k per month in rent! Even when rental was at a more affordable rate of $4k, there was still a lot of uncertainty because you don’t know when you would be asked to move.

This has been seen over and over again in F&B businesses. In a news article published on Chinese-language newspaper Lianhe Zaobao, rental in Chinatown has gone up by as much as 125%. Rental for Madam Liew’s Bistro & Bar went up to $18,000 from $8,000 in 2022.

The broader rental crisis is forcing businesses to make difficult choices. Flor Patisserie recently closed due to a 57% rent spike, with their landlord justifying the rental increase by citing that “the rental market has moved up significantly” and “cost to service the mortgage for the place has similarly gone up with interest rates”. What’s particularly unsettling is that the landlord’s benchmark for “market rate” was based on asking rents of empty units along the same stretch, all of which was vacant.

By preemptively choosing to move to a home-based business model, we are able to:

• Maintain our Independence: We can make clinical decisions based solely on what you need to get better, rather than having to upsell treatments so we can make rent.
• Focus on Empowerment: Our goal remains the same: to provide a meaningful long-term pain solution that eventually makes our services redundant to you.

A Human-Centric, Real-Life Environment

Recovery doesn’t happen in a sterile vacuum. It often happens in the context of your daily life. There is a shift of healthcare away from a strict biomedical model to a biopsychosocial model, especially in the management of chronic pain conditions such as low back pain.

Moving to a small, home-based practice setting allows us to address the biopsychosocial factors of pain more effectively:

• The Setup: Our space is compact but fully equipped for peak physical well-being, featuring pilates reformer and cadillac apparatus, a 200kg cable machine, a barbell squat rack, and dumbbells. We also have calisthenics equipment like pull up bars, gymnastic rings, dip bars, and parallettes for those who prefer bodyweight exercises.
• Individualised Coaching: This private environment provides the quiet headspace needed for the deep, 1.5 to 2-hour initial assessments required for complex chronic pain cases. You are undisturbed by other patients so you can really dig deep to share your thoughts and feelings without having to worry about privacy.
• Contextual Strategy: We can better design exercise programmes that mirror how you move at home or work, building your body’s natural robustness. Being in a chiropractic clinic or a gym unconsciously make different move differently. Being comfortable in a home setting, allows you to relax and move the way you do in your usual daily life.

Prioritising Our Clients Above All Else

In business, you will be told repeatedly that your business is a separate entity with one primary objective: to make profits. It doesn’t pay to be emotionally vested. That’s not the model we choose to adopt at Square One Active Recovery. While we still charge fees for our services, the focus is squarely on helping our clients achieve their recovery and physical well-being goals. Not on maximising profits.

Being in a home-based business model allows me to focus entirely on my clients. This means we don’t need to care about what our competitors are doing, we don’t need to make more noise than our competitors when it comes to marketing, we don’t need to make money for shareholders, and we don’t need to constantly engage with stakeholders to make sure rent stays affordable or maintain a pipeline of business referrals (think BNI) and leads.

I can simply focus on the person who’s sitting right in front of me.

Having more predictable expenditure also means I can see fewer clients, which frees up the bandwidth for me to think deeper about each client’s case and the approach we should take in their programming to help them find freedom from pain. With lower overhead costs, I’m not forced to pack my schedule with back-to-back appointments just to cover rent. Instead, I can dedicate the time and mental energy each complex chronic pain case truly deserves.

This mental space also allows me to write content that can help more people beyond those who walk through my door. It gives me the capacity to consolidate my knowledge and refine my clinical reasoning skills, which ultimately improves the quality of care at Square One Active Recovery. When you’re not constantly stressed about making rent, you can invest in becoming a better  chiropractor, and that benefit flows directly to every client we serve.

Giving Back to the Community

Having our own space combined with reasonable expenditure means being able to run more community projects. For example, we recently collaborated with Pulse Pilates to offer free assessments for their members during International Women’s Day. I’ve also started trying to engage neighbours and seniors around the Chinatown estate to encourage them to try pilates (aka gentle exercises) at my home for free.

It’s true that doing free community projects by and large is not sustainable. But with expenses in check, I can give back to the community in my small ways. Healthcare costs in Singapore have increased by 55.8% from 2004 to 2024, with the average healthcare inflation rate outpacing general inflation. Many seniors and community members are priced out of preventive care services that could genuinely improve their quality of life.

Our home-based model means I can afford to say yes to community initiatives without jeopardising the financial sustainability of the practice. Whether it’s offering free movement assessments to local residents or hosting educational sessions about pain science and exercise therapy, these projects are only possible because we’re not trapped in the “volume over value” cycle that commercial rentals impose.

This is our way of ensuring that evidence-based recovery isn’t just available to those who can afford premium clinic rates. It is doing what is best for the people and staying accessible to the community that surrounds us.

What Stays the Same?

While our location is changing, the “hard change” we advocate remains:

• No Passive Therapy: We still do not offer chiropractic adjustments, dry needling, or soft tissue therapy.
• Evidence-Based Practice: We strictly follow clinical guidelines that place exercise as the first-line treatment for musculoskeletal conditions.
• Predictive Results: Our recovery programmes still utilise a test-retest approach to track your journey toward true freedom from pain.

Join Us in our Chinatown Home Clinic

Square One Active Recovery has always been about “own self help own self”. This new chapter is our way of ensuring we can continue providing ethical, results-oriented care for years to come, without passing inflated commercial rental costs onto you.

Whether you are seeking help for chronic neck pain or looking for a long-term solution that traditional chiropractic has failed to provide, we are ready to work with you.