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106: Chiropractic Transitions and Changes

chiropractic business managment Jan 15, 2023
Kats Consultants
106: Chiropractic Transitions and Changes
13:27
 

Transition and Change. Two scary topics in the Chiropractic practice world. 

Welcome to the KC CHIROpuse Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Michael Perusich I'm joined by my co-host, Dr. Troy Fox. 

Troy…Change.

Oh my gosh. Does that not just kind of give you goosebumps.  You're like you would just want to run and hide? 

Oh yeah. And we've seen it with clients for years. I mean, you and I have talked all the way back into the nineties when we had folks that were, when we, we weren't even consulting at that point.

We weren't coaching people. We were just in practice creating success. And people are like, how do you do it? Well, yeah, come watch our practice for a little while.  What we see with a lot of folks is they're scared of change, and I think as human individuals we're scared of change, but especially in our practices, because we're fearful of interruption of patient care, what's it going do to our practice when maybe in our hearts we feel like if we make these changes to our practice, that it's going to be a good thing?

And, and you know, some of those transitions might be transitioning from more of a more insurance based practice to more cash transitioning into more nutrition in your. Or you know, maybe other modalities. Like I just started doing some dry needling and we had to kind of rethink how we did our schedule to not interrupt patient care and not get us tied up and behind schedule.

But how do we provide great care to patients, but still add this new service that's very doctor driven in the case of dry needling. You know, there's a lot going on when you think about transition For sure. Well, and we hear this all the time, and I always break it down to, Is it fear of change or is it fear of the unknown?

Is it not knowing whether what you're about to do, is it going to fail? Is it going to work? Is it going to work the way you think it is? Is it going to cost more time? Is it going to require more management? Right. My father always had a classic saying, the worst thing you can do is never change, because change itself always pushes you forward.

And I just, I've always lived by that. Such true words. If you are wanting to make the seventh grade basketball team, you don't just show up with a basketball in your hand. You'll work for the months up to it to get in shape, practice your shots. Practice your dribbling. Otherwise you're not going to get picked.

Right. You know, and I think the same thing works in our Chiropractic practices. We have to really pay attention when whenever we're going through transition and change and we know we need to, we've really gotta create the strategies to go along with. Yeah. And if we don't have the strategy, we don't have those action steps, then yeah.

It does become difficult to manage. And it does cost you time.  And there is a higher chance that it won't work. , and I think you have to look at a couple of things when you're talking about your action steps with your practice. You have to think about one return on investment. Am I buying a piece of equipment that's going to take me until after I retire to actually pay for it?

Realize a profit. That's probably not an option. The other thing that I look at is I always think of it as like, so like if I go to Vegas and I'm not much of a gambler, but let's say that I'm going to Vegas. For me, Spend a hundred bucks in Vegas on a table or something, I'd probably spend a bunch because I'm not, me too.

I look around, hang out. I like to, people watch a lot more than I like to gamble. But let's say I'm going to gamble and I look at my bank account and I go, here's what I can afford to lose. Literally when I start something new in my Chiropractic practice, I look at it in the same way. If this completely falls flat on its face and I'm not going to, you know, and it just doesn't work.

Because every once in a while you and I have both done things that we've tried. Sure. And we've abandoned. I mean, it's just like Absolutely. You know what, this didn't look, feel, or smell like I thought it was going to and I don't like it. So you have to look at it from that standpoint. It's a Vegas gamble now.

It can be a very well calculated gamble. You can be like a card counter in Vegas or whatever (laugh). You've got one of those strategies that guarantees you're going to win kind of thing, and you still don't. But if it's a well laid plan, you still have to look at it from a standpoint of what if I lose the whole thing.

Can I withstand that? And I look at every opportunity in my Chiropractic practice, even if it's really beneficial for my patients, or I think it's going to be, they may not accept it the way that I'm excited about it, but your excitement does tend to be infectious. So sometimes that helps too.

Yeah. You have to look at it from that standpoint. What am I going to lose? And if I do, can I withstand it.  and what happens when you lose, you know, as long as you're calculated about it and you're not, you're not betting everything you've got. Soon as you're calculated. You really don't lose, even if it doesn't work out the way you thought it would.

Typically, you learn a lot from that experience to help either remodel your idea, or, hey, that direction just doesn't work. Let's go this direction instead. And that does work. So it does help define where you're.  I'd love to know, and I don't know, but I'd love to know how many times did Einstein try an experiment that didn't work, and in relation to that, how many worked versus how many didn't work?

I bet you there's more that didn't work than did. 

And for some of us, our practices are a lab. They're an experiment for sure. In a lot of cases. But I think in a lot of cases that's the entrepreneurial spirit. Sure. I think those of us that treat our Chiropractic practices like a business, tend to try a few more things and are probably a little looser.

I was definitely like that from day one and still am. But I see some Chiropractors that are very scared to make change and sometimes it's just that you don't have as much of that entrepreneurial spirit. So it takes a lot more planning for you to feel comfortable with it, but it can still be done. 

Yeah, absolutely.

You know, I think you have to think about this too. You know, some of you're probably sitting out there. Well, you know, I've been in practice for 30 years. My practice is fine. And I don't need to change. Well, I mean, the reality is Chiropractic business changes. Economics change. I mean, look at the economy today.

It's way different than it was three or four years ago. Look at consumer mentality today versus about five years ago. Totally different, you know, and, and we've got to be able to keep up with those things in practice. And if we're not paying attention, all of a sudden we're way behind the eight ball because we didn't transition and change and we didn't, I think, wrap our heads around.

I think you nailed it on the head because, you know, 10, 15, 20 years ago, there wasn't big changes in Chiropractic practice. It was kind of everybody ran their practice the same way. You look at what's out there now and you know, I give it to you docs because there are so many different styles of practice out there now, and all of them are very popular.

We're popular with the public because we have a career path or a practice style that works very well with patients. I can't think of the word that I'm trying. I tried about three times I give up (laughter), but you know, when we're working with folks, when we're working with folks, they are very receptive now to a lot of different methods and techniques for Chiropractic care.

Sure. So I think I, I think there's a lot more ability. But here's the other thing. , if you're stuck practicing the way that you were 20 years ago, there may be some new hotshot that comes into town that, uh, I call it the flashy new fishing lure. They may not get better results than you, but they may look a lot flashier.

And when it comes down to Chiropractic business, I want people to come in my door, I want to help people. Yeah. But the only way I can help them is to get them in the door. That's exactly right. And so you, you've got to put yourself in a position where you're okay to change with the times.

And I talked to a Chiropractic doctor a couple of weeks ago and he was lamenting that, um, how do I put this? He was looking for a practice coach that did things like we did 30 years ago. And I'm like, buddy. Coaching has changed. It's changed. Oh, yeah. So dramatically. It's so different, and I realize you can still find the old kind of coaching out there, but you know, there’s a new model of Chiropractic practice management. 

Wow. If we hadn't, if we hadn't really monitored and watched change and reacted to that, gosh, a lot of these Chiropractic practices wouldn't happen the way they are today, because they require a different level of management. So you've always got to be on your toes, watching market changes and watching howChiropractic business is evolving.

And, you know, here's a great example. You know how many years ago did we do the Wednesday night spinal care class? Oh, yeah. And today…I'll be honest, and if you're doing one, I'm not saying it's bad, but I'll be honest, I don't know that I really know anybody out there doing a spinal care class on a regular basis.

And here's why. Because people have changed. It's not because we've changed. It'd still be great to do a Wednesday night. Spinal care class. People learned a lot from that class. But here's what's happened. The world has changed.  It's like when you watch the Star Wars movie and Han Solo goes to warp speed or whatever, when they're, you know, all of a sudden the stars are just like, whoa.

That's literally what's happened to life for most of our patients. They don't have time to come sit for an hour in a spinal care class. Right. If life were slow and comfortable, they still would. Now, can you get away with still doing maybe a lunch and learn now and then if you provide lunch and keep it to 30 minutes?

Yeah. There's still options to do things like that. And I'm not saying you don't do one, but Yeah. It's just a lot tougher to get people to come to it because of their busy schedules. Right. And people just want a different level of knowledge today about it, you know? And chiropractic is so much more accepted than it was at one time.

You know, we've seen that change throughout the years. I guess what I'm trying to say is you've got to evolve and as coaches that's what we do…as chiropractic coaches we help track where you need to evolve and what's changing and what's happening and how you implement those things and how you look in the crystal ball to to look forward to what the opportunities are that lay out in front of us.

I'm going to tell everybody out there listening, there are a ton of opportunities in the chiropractic world these days. So don't be fooled by the naysayers out there that say, oh, the economy's bad and it's going to take down your practice. It'll only take down your practice if you don't manage change and react to it.

Yeah, I totally agree with that. And, it's, it's really too bad to hear when I, when I hear people owe the economies. Is that what you're telling your patients as well? Because, if you're in your practice every day talking to every patient that comes through the door about how bad the economy is, all you're doing is drawing more attention to it, and the patient starts thinking, well, 

Maybe this is an expendable, you know, I talk to my patients about healthcare not being expendable.

It's one thing that you can't buy when you get older. I can buy a new tv if it breaks. I can buy a new car. My wife's car, something happened to it today. So I'm looking for cars, you know, and I'm not excited about it, but I can look for another car. But the problem is, your health, you can't get it back in a lot of cases.

No. Can you work out and strengthen yourself a little bit? Sure. But once you've done a bunch of arthritic damage or a bunch of loss of range of motion damage to your spine. Can you undo that? Well, you maybe can mitigate some of the pain factors, but the skeletal changes and the soft tissue changes that have happened are a lot harder to turn around.

Especially the principal change. Yeah, it's Wolf's law. It's plastic deformation. 

Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Looking, I'm trying to be all smart here with Wolf's law. 

I love it. 

Wolf Law. I know, right? Yeah. Well, my Guyton’s physiology, that's right. 

All right, everybody, another great topic...Managing Chiropractic change.

Hey, by the way, today's podcast is sponsored by the Barlow Brain and Body Institute.

They're helping doctors learn functional neurology without all the complicated stuff. So if you're interested in bringing brain based therapies into your practice, Check them out. It's BarlowBrainandBody.com. They've got a bunch of great upcoming seminars and training resources and things.

So again, BarlowBrainandBody.com.

And I want to thank everybody out there for listening to the KC CHIROpulse Podcast as well. Be sure to check us Katsconsultants.com, helping doctors create amazing, profitable Chiropractic practices. So jump on our website, Katsconsultants.com. Schedule a breakthrough call.

And thanks for listening to the KC CHIROpulse Podcast - again brought to you by Barlow Brain and Body Institute and Kats Consultants. 

 

We'll see y'all next time. See ya.