Here, he talks about the philosophy underlying his practice and shares the most important lessons he’s learned in his career so far. Read on:

Tell us about your practice. What sets you apart from other practitioners in your area?

Our practice is very unique. We are a cash, referral only, subluxation based, family wellness practice. We believe that the subluxation is the cause of all illness, disease and premature death in our society today; that the maintenance of health is far superior to treating disease; and that the subluxation interferes with the body’s innate ability to restore homeostasis and enact healing.

This is not the current “mainstream” direction the profession seems to be heading in, as many DC’s in my area are choosing to practice some method of symptom-based therapeutic relief (MD/DC, PI, spinal decompression, PT, Sports) or they are pursuing diplomat credentialing (neurology, orthopedics, PI, nutrition, etc). I believe all these roads stem from a hope to expand the scope of practice toward more of a medically aligned, symptom-based chiropractic profession with prescription rights.

I believe this is a shame considering we, as chiropractors, can offer our clients so much more than “chiropractic pain relief”. There are enough professionals out there seeking to corner the market on pain relief, and yet our society continues its downward health degradation. I prefer being known as a spinal subluxation correction specialist vs. a PCP or portal of entry pain relief provider.

We’d like to talk about a patient success story you’re especially proud of. Tell us about the patient. How did they learn about your practice?

By being a subluxation correction specialist, we have had the opportunity to care for really sick people (migraines, cancer, infertility, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, etc.), as well as pregnant mothers to be and their children. We have been able to deliver first adjustments at birth as well as last adjustments at death, all in the same family. That is a grand blessing.

One example…when I first opened my doors in practice, I had a firefighter come in who had been dealing with arrhythmia for quite some time. The arrhythmia was also causing significant disruption in his blood pressure and the medications were starting to pile up.

The next step for him was going to be the installation of a pacemaker … and this guy was in his 40s! So we performed our examination, including radiographs of his neck and mid-thoracic spine, identified his subluxations, put him on a correction plan,and within two months he was no longer a surgical candidate, off ALL his medications and had no signs of his arrhythmia.

He is still a practice member here (along with his wife) after eight years of practice and moving two counties away! Had we not educated him on the detrimental effects of subluxation on system performance, he would have gone under the knife and would have had to be on medication for life, without any hope of significant improvement in his quality of life! Being able to give back control over their health is the most rewarding experience I have had in practice and it never came from insurance billing and symptom treatment.

What advice would you give Chiro students today? For instance looking back at your own career is there anything you would do differently?

Again, we have, by far, the most rewarding profession available today. I regularly receive visiting students from many of the chiropractic schools on the East Coast, who come by to see what a subluxation based, family chiropractic office looks like. I try to mentor them in seeing chiropractic practice as the result of your life goal DESIGN, not some default way of thinking. Chiropractic should be complementary to your life goals, not central… it is what will support your dreams and aspirations, it shouldn’t enslave you.

Finally, I try to help them see the value of the service they are providing. Many students come to me with a “poverty consciousness” and think they have to give away exams, x-rays or severely discount their fees in order to attract and grow their practice. Or, they have to join some managed care plan as an in-network provider in order to have a patient base. From experience, those types of programs only help to build symptom relief practices, not long-term, family wellness practices, where you care for generations of people, not just their low back pain.

The best way to attract new practice members – just get results. Results in subluxation correction produce greater ROI than any ad and marketing campaign available. Word of mouth referrals cost you nothing, yet the return is infinite.

The greatest example for me in learning this lesson was seeing people fighting (insert disease process here), pay tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars in insurance premiums, surgery and drugs, and many of them ended up dying… because instead of trying to maintain health, they were fighting disease, and often, that fight started too late.

Yet, those individuals, who came to us by referral, some of whom were fighting (insert disease process here), many others who were just told “You have to go see me guy,” came to know what chiropractic was truly about (instead of only knowing “chiropractic pain relief”). We educated them so that they understood the science and logic of the benefits of maintaining their nervous system integrity and spinal alignment. THEY consequently chose to pursue a true “health” care option, which restores the cause of LIFE within an individual. Many of these people still pay for their insurance plans, on top of our care … out-of-pocket!

That helped me understand that my service is more valuable than any symptom relief treatment, because what we do, in correcting the subluxation, does maintain and promote health. That subtle change in the perception of the value of the service I provide, has transformed my practice from a “pain relief” practice, to one where we regularly see families, children, athletes, elderly, healthy, sick and everyone in between who have a desire to regain and maintain their health.

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Categories: Chiropractic