156: Building a Thriving Chiropractic Practice

Dr Michael Perusich: In today's economic environment, we see a lot of practices struggling and I get it. It's tough economy patients are backing off on spending money consumers in general are spending less money. So are you struggling to build a thriving Chiropractic practice? 

Hi everybody. Welcome to the KC CHIROpulse Podcast brought to you by Kats Consultants helping doctors keep their eye on success. I'm Dr. Michael Perusich, your host and I'm joined by my guest host Marisa Mateja. Hello, Marisa.

Marisa Mateja: Good…

Marisa Mateja: How are you?

Dr Michael Perusich: Good morning.

Dr Michael Perusich: I'm doing Thank you. So we see this a lot. We hear from doctors all the time. We go to conventions. We're speaking engagements. We're coaching. We got calls from doctors and we're hearing this common theme. I'm struggling. How do…

Marisa Mateja: Yeah.

Dr Michael Perusich: How do I get profitable again? And just recently we've talked to a couple of doctors who've come to the realization that

Dr Michael Perusich: My gosh, they're making money last year. In fact, they may have lost money. So what's happening?

Marisa Mateja: Yeah.

Dr Michael Perusich: How are we not building thriving practices right now in Chiropractic?

Marisa Mateja: I think there's a lot of different layers to that. I think you have to factor in. what's your practice what does you know your marketing look like what does your idea on patient relationships look like there's so many different things. …

Dr Michael Perusich: Yeah.

Marisa Mateja: I think one of the first things is just laying the right foundation, right so You…

Dr Michael Perusich: my gosh. Yes.

Marisa Mateja: I feel like laying that Foundation of what you want your business to be definitely is step one.

Dr Michael Perusich: So we see a lot of doctors creating these top heavy practices. And what do I mean by that? I mean they get so far away from their foundational components because they're just trying to add new things in and some of it's out of panic and all of a sudden you're ready to just top all over and that's part of what happens is if you don't have that solid foundation in your practice, you really can't make the steps towards creating that thriving practice like you want. So what does your business plan look like if you've been in practice for five 10, 15 20 years. When was the last time you even looked at it? your business plan should be a living document.

Marisa Mateja: Yeah.

Dr Michael Perusich: It should be updated continuously so that you're always working toward that Vision that you want. So think of your business plan as literally a roadmap to success.

Marisa Mateja: Yeah.

Dr Michael Perusich: And so you've got to unfold the map from time to time or relocate the GPS if you will and make sure that you've got all the key elements of a thriving practice built into your business plan.

Marisa Mateja: Yeah, what's your business plan? Look like what do you aiming to do? what kind of services are you providing? And are you offering all of those services to patients that are coming in or do you have towels hanging on equipment or things that you're not using, we find ourselves from time to time doing that. It's almost like you had a dust off the cobwebs reevaluate what kind of things you have in your office? and are you really proposing those things to patients in good treatment plans?

Dr Michael Perusich: Right, you have to build those things into your treatment plans and we see doctors have trouble with implementation quite often when it comes to those kind of things and we've been helping a lot of doctors kind of dust off the cobwebs lately on some of their equipment and teaching them how to build those successfully into patient treatment plans and my gosh overnight the revenues going up. I just talk to a doctor who has increased his practice by over $30,000 just by dusting off one piece of equipment last year. It's amazing.

Marisa Mateja: Right and what a great tool just one little step in the foundation of your practice, So just looking at those things and looking around your clinic atmosphere and saying what do I have to offer and am I really setting myself up for Success along with the other side of that is our patients for Success because you got those tools for a reason you bought those things…

Dr Michael Perusich: That's right.

Marisa Mateja: because they do something to help your patient. So what are those things reevaluate some of those things?

Dr Michael Perusich: Yep.

Dr Michael Perusich: Yeah, so, just Sashay through your clinic and what kind of equipment do you have? What's not being used or what's not being used very often? So make sure that if you use it if you're not gonna get it out of the clinic,…

Marisa Mateja: Absolutely.

Dr Michael Perusich: don't let it be a use your term. Don't let it be the towel collector. …

Marisa Mateja: Right exactly.

Dr Michael Perusich: we've seen practices like that. So, you've got to lay those good foundational blocks. You've got to have good patient communication. You've got to follow your business plan has to identify who your target market is what your vision is.

00:05:00

Marisa Mateja: Yeah.

Dr Michael Perusich: We talk to doctors all the time about, what's your uniqueness in the marketplace? Do you know…

Marisa Mateja: Yeah.

Dr Michael Perusich: do What makes you unique or you just shot gunning everything and trying to just get anybody with the spine and the door like we all did in the first year of practice and if you're in the first year practice that you have to do that.

Marisa Mateja: Sure.

Dr Michael Perusich: You can't just Define a single target market or two or three Target markets. you've got to be broad scale. But the longer you're in practice the more you should be honing that So great example over time in our practice.

Marisa Mateja: That's right.

Dr Michael Perusich: We quit seeing patients with knee problems. Why because I never was I'd give Dr. Bruce didn't like them.

Marisa Mateja: That's approach didn't like.

Dr Michael Perusich: I just didn't like knee conditions unless it was an athletic issue. I just didn't like them and so because of that I just wasn't very good at getting good outcomes for patients with their knees so I would refer them out. Here's the crazy thing because I was honest with them and refer them on and they got great care somewhere else whether it was another chiropractic clinic or an orthopedist or whoever.

Marisa Mateja: Yeah.

Dr Michael Perusich: They referred all kinds of patients in so, it's a win when you start to narrow down your target market and work with the patients that you want to work with and the conditions that you like working with that's part of the foundation.

Marisa Mateja: Yeah, so important to know what it is that you want to achieve with patients as well. What do you like doing with patients? What do you enjoy because if you don't enjoy what you're doing, that's a foundational block that's gonna be a missing component and patients feel that.

Dr Michael Perusich: very much. and another foundational block is getting your compliance house in order. And this is so important.

Marisa Mateja: I'm sorry. I laughed just a little bit on that one because it doesn't matter who we talk to there's always hold in our foundation of compliance.

Dr Michael Perusich: Yeah, and here's the funny thing. we feel buried sometimes by compliance, when we're talking about compliance. It's things like, making sure you're billing correctly. You're following the insurance company rules. There's HIPAA that's part of compliance. There's no surprises act that's part of compliance. So there are several layers there and because of there's so many layers of it. I think we feel overburdened by it. But here's the funny thing.

Marisa Mateja: Yeah.

Dr Michael Perusich: If you'll just implement it and implement it correctly. A lot of them are actually tools to build your practice.

Marisa Mateja: Absolutely, we've seen that dramatically change over the last couple years just using no surprises correctly,…

Dr Michael Perusich: right

Marisa Mateja: you have an adherence to treatment plans people understand the cost better. It's actually been a benefit if you're using it, right?

Dr Michael Perusich: it's better. You huge boom to the Chiropractic practice at least in our opinion. So, if that's one of the things that you're struggling with get in touch with us that we can show you how to very easily Implement those kind of compliance things. So you've got that compliance foundation in your practice and you're making it an actual tool to retain patients in the practice

Marisa Mateja: So as we're talking it's like this layering event happening. I feel so all I'm seeing is this Foundation getting stronger and stronger, So it's when you have all these little components in place that Foundation is strong. my gosh what happens you have a thriving practice All These Little Things feed into patience adhering to treatment plan staying with us. It's just amazing how much these things fit together?

Dr Michael Perusich: It really is. It's just like a puzzle and…

Marisa Mateja: Yeah.

Dr Michael Perusich: if you just get all those pieces together, does take you a little bit to get them all together? does it take a little bit of training and development with your staff to make it work for you and not just be a burdensome aspect of practice? Yes, it does. But once you get it down, you've got a puzzle that you want to put glue on the back side and frame it. literally because it becomes A yeah,…

Marisa Mateja: Sure, sure, okay. It's like it.

Dr Michael Perusich: go ahead.

Marisa Mateja: In talking about all that, the next layer to that in my opinion is how do we treat our patients? our are we?

Dr Michael Perusich: right

Marisa Mateja: Patient Centric are we paying attention to what they want from us and what they're telling us and are we using that to help build that business model. So just a little bit of that centricness. Really affects our business model potentially because they're telling us in our community. We need this or we've got clients…

Dr Michael Perusich: he

Marisa Mateja: who added in things like dry needling because they had patients driving to go get these services and they weren't in their area. So they added that service in because they were tient Centric enough to be listening to what their patients needed in their Community. It's another huge foundational block.

00:10:00

Dr Michael Perusich: You really hit the nail on the head with this one. So this is so significant because being centric as opposed to being. clinic Centric Is an important aspect of a thriving practice? Because why do patients come to us do they come to us to feed our ego do they come to us to feed our bottom line?

Marisa Mateja: Yeah.

Dr Michael Perusich: Do they come to us to …

Marisa Mateja: right

Dr Michael Perusich: because we're great conversationalists. No, they have a problem. They have a need and they're hoping that you can fulfill that need. And help them with it. And if you do then though, what do I always say stay pay refer and believe in what you do?

Marisa Mateja: Absolutely.

Dr Michael Perusich: And then become lifetime patients, but if we flip that script and we aren't patient-centric then those are the patients that are going to drop out of care after the visit First Progress exam at the end of acute care treatment, and they don't go into Wellness. You've got to develop strong patient relationships, and we do that by developing Trust. as well as creating an atmosphere where patients not just field but truly believe that we have their best interest at heart.

Marisa Mateja: Yes, and that's really what we're there for right? It's to build a strong relationship with this person so that we can help them the best way possible. They're coming to us saying that they can't perform something in their life and we're there to help them try to figure out how to get to that place where they can do those things again, it's so important to pay attention to what patients are talking to us about what they need from What they need.

Dr Michael Perusich: they need. what their personal journey is?

Marisa Mateja: and it's funny when you do that Foundation is laid to really Now lead the patient down the best path of care that they need now, we flip the script and start looking at how our treatment plans affect that patient and what's going to be best for them. And when we put them first the practice thrives,…

Dr Michael Perusich: Yep.

Dr Michael Perusich: It truly thrives it does and it really kind of blows the doors off of your practice. in a way because When you spend the time. To learn and develop effective patient communication skills, not only you doctors but your staff as well. Then you're really gonna understand and…

Marisa Mateja: because of yeah

Marisa Mateja: Yeah.

Dr Michael Perusich: be able to create a strategy or a tactic to drill down on what those needs are and I'm gonna tell you and I'm not gonna give it all away. I'm going to tell you it' It's not their pain. It goes deeper than that. So when we develop those effective communication strategies, We don't need to teach people about what Chiropractic is all about. we put ourselves in a position…

Marisa Mateja: Yeah.

Dr Michael Perusich: where we're teaching s showing patients how effective we are in helping them get back whatever it is. They can do. and then Yeah, go ahead.

Marisa Mateja: Those strong communication skills are just huge. So it's understanding ino the right way to talk to patients the right way to approach them and make sure that they understand that you have the doctor Authority and that's one of those foundational blocks that's huge. I believe is not only in communication…

Dr Michael Perusich: Yep.

Marisa Mateja: but having that authority to lead them and help them understand, sometimes I think we forget patients don't know as much as we think they might so we have to give them That good plan of action so that they understand exactly what we need from them so that we can fulfill their needs to get them better.

Dr Michael Perusich: Said, we focus so much sometimes in practice on the new patient. And we don't think down the road to this patient's gonna need 12 visits. Are we focused on what happens at the end of 12 visits? Are we focused on getting the good outcomes? Are we focused on leading them into lifetime care Wellness care maintenance care, whatever you want to call it. Or are we just so focused on the new patient? We're great at marketing, but do we ever get the new patient to stay? And one of the foundational blocks in building any business Not Just Chiropractic business.

Marisa Mateja: right

Marisa Mateja: Correct. Yeah,…

Dr Michael Perusich: is retention

Marisa Mateja: repeat business is what you need.

Dr Michael Perusich: repeat business exactly

Marisa Mateja: And I can't stress that enough and I will say this is one area of this profession that I have seen that we fall down on and…

Dr Michael Perusich: big time

Marisa Mateja: we fall down on repeat business. A lot of times we focus so much on like you said bringing in those new patients that work heavy on communication and talking to patients, but we fall down when we get to that middle the end of the treatment plan to really showing them the path. That And so there's a huge component for a lot of offices there to increase…

00:15:00

Dr Michael Perusich: Yep.

Marisa Mateja: what they're doing just by retention.

Dr Michael Perusich: And a lot of times our communication strategies are so ineffective that we're actually pushing patients out the door early.

Marisa Mateja: Yes.

Dr Michael Perusich: first third visit They're dropping out of care before we ever get them to the point…

Marisa Mateja: Absolutely.

Dr Michael Perusich: where they're seeing great outcomes. And so we're losing the opportunity for great testimonials. We're losing the opportunity for referrals. We've not done studies, but we read studies about what happens to a business when you lose somebody and how many referrals you actually lose and on average every patient that drops out represented seven to ten referrals that you lost too. Think about that. You didn't lose just one. You lost 10 you have 10 dropouts in a month. You lost a hundred patient potentials.

Marisa Mateja: That's the point where people don't realize the foundations of communication and all of that are so important to your business. And so no matter…

Dr Michael Perusich: Yeah huge.

Marisa Mateja: where you are in practice. This is a key point. I think here to make real quick. Is that no matter where you're at in practice. You can fix your foundational blocks. It's just retooling just a little bit and…

Dr Michael Perusich: Yep.

Marisa Mateja: paying attention to what's actually happening with patients in your office. when we evaluate new clients and…

Dr Michael Perusich: Yeah.

Marisa Mateja: what's going on. It's amazing the things that we bring Delight to them and show them because they're so far in the weeds. Sometimes that they've never stopped to back up and take a big broad picture of what their practice is actually doing what patients are doing in their practice. So it's important for those foundations to Step back, if you're not getting all those referrals all of those little things that are not happening pay attention to those things because that's some of the foundational blocks that truly can change your practice.

Dr Michael Perusich: Yes, truly. Hey, we need to take a quick break and hear word from our sponsor. We're talking about how to build a thriving Chiropractic practice. Whether it's this crazy economy. We're in at any point in time. So when we come back, I want to talk a little bit about some of the financial components of the foundation a building that thriving practice.

Marisa Mateja: good.

Dr Michael Perusich: So hang on everybody, a quick word from our sponsor we’ll be right back.

 

SPONSOR MESSAGE

 

Dr Michael Perusich: All right everybody. Welcome back to the KC CHIROpulse Podcast brought to you by Kats Consultants. We're talking about building a thriving Chiropractic practice. We've already talked about some of the foundational components and that we're going to continue talking about those how to be more patient Centric and how that really helps from a found. Will aspect really build a strong practice. And Marisa, I want to dive into a little bit of the financial aspect of the foundations.

Marisa Mateja: You like that topic,…

Dr Michael Perusich: I kind of like that. Yeah.

Marisa Mateja: don't you? I think we both do I think the financial side of practice is something that's not evaluated enough. In our practice or…

Dr Michael Perusich: right

Marisa Mateja: in our profession, I think we tend to focus on those four main, statistics. It's new It's patient visits. It's services and…

Dr Michael Perusich: services and collections

Marisa Mateja: collection. we tend to focus so much on just those four that we miss really what else is happening in the practice. And if you do a deeper dive and a lot of our Mastery members know because I think it's up to a 33.36 point.

Dr Michael Perusich: 33 Point statistical evaluation plus trending analysis

Marisa Mateja: Yeah, Plus turning now. So there's so much more and all the sudden it opens up. All of these ideas that you didn't realize were going on in your practice and how it affects huge benefits in really following the statistics of your practice.

Dr Michael Perusich: huge Deeper than the four and…

Marisa Mateja: And deeper than before so.

Dr Michael Perusich: and we can add one more to the four we can add the arbitrary number called PVA.

Marisa Mateja: Yes. Yes that I don't want to talk about that because it's such a irrelevant number.

Dr Michael Perusich: No.

Marisa Mateja: That's just been. Something that the profession focuses on so much but in reality, it doesn't tell us a whole lot and if you're going really you should holler at us give us a call…

Dr Michael Perusich: Yeah. We can show you…

Marisa Mateja: because we can help you with that.

Dr Michael Perusich: how to look deeper.

Marisa Mateja: Yeah, talk a little bit about setting your practice up for financial success.

00:20:00

Dr Michael Perusich: There's several components to that first. We have to have a solid V strategy and…

Marisa Mateja: Yeah.

Dr Michael Perusich: far too often. we're either racing to the bottom of the market because the clinic down the streets doing a $29 promotion and we think then we've got to do a 19 and then I've seen a few times on Facebook a nine dollar first day

Marisa Mateja: I mean you're losing money left and right if you're offering a $9 first day.

Dr Michael Perusich: And you might as well pay the patients $100 to come in. I mean, here's the funny thing and…

Marisa Mateja: That's really crazy.

Dr Michael Perusich: I don't mean to get off track here. But the funny thing to me is The service we offer is invaluable to our patients and never before in the history of Chiropractic the communities realized how valuable Chiropractic is. That the pandemic just raised us up on the totem pole of healthcare.

Marisa Mateja: Yeah.

Dr Michael Perusich: Several notches, so we don't have to be afraid of what we do. We don't have to be afraid to charge the right fee. And…

Marisa Mateja: Yeah.

Dr Michael Perusich: what is the right your fee strategy has to do really two things. Maybe three you have to build it in a manner that you make a profit. and I know some of you just passed out. Yeah.

Marisa Mateja: That's a foundational block right there.

Dr Michael Perusich: But that's a foundational block Because unless you're a 501c3 nonprofit organization, and I don't think really probably any of you that are listening to this. You have to turn a profit. You have to be for a profit business. Otherwise, you eventually get to the point where you can't see patients anymore because you're out of business. And we certainly don't want that to happen. So.

Dr Michael Perusich: How do you do that? you have to understand your insurance contracts. If you're on insurance, you have to understand…

Marisa Mateja: Yeah.

Dr Michael Perusich: what your overhead is. You have to understand what your cost to deliver care is and you have to understand how to calculate those profit numbers in your practice. And I'm not gonna lie. It's a little intricate. But that's why you need a good coach that can help you develop those because those numbers right?

Marisa Mateja: Absolutely.

Dr Michael Perusich: There are so important and Marisa, this all the time we see doctors statistics and their fee strategy is so off that by the time we look at profit there is none and…

Marisa Mateja: Yeah.

Marisa Mateja: Yeah.

Dr Michael Perusich: so we've got to be able to develop profit. What do I mean by profit? mean the money that's left over after you pay overhead after you've and that includes you doctors your salary. You're part of overhead.

Marisa Mateja: Any expense in Europe with any expenses?

Dr Michael Perusich: Any of your expenses any and all? even the paper towels

Dr Michael Perusich: So we have to be able to not only set the right pricing strategy for the practice. So we develop a profit but then we have to figure out how to make it competitive. Now again, it It's not a race to the bottom when I say…

Marisa Mateja: right

Dr Michael Perusich: how to make it competitive. We've got to figure out how to position ourselves in the marketplace. So that patients see value for what we're doing and so that eliminates the competitive pricing structure right there. You don't have to compete on What you're competing on is how your positioned in the marketplace as a clinic. Are you just a general clinic? Make sure your position yourself strongly that way. Are you decompression Make sure you position yourself strongly in that manner. A pediatric clinic I could go on and on.

Dr Michael Perusich: So you have to make sure that your position correctly correctly with your marketing and so forth.

Marisa Mateja: Real quick. Just a great example was …

Dr Michael Perusich: Yeah.

Marisa Mateja: the community that we were in there were several other chiropractors in our area but none of them position themselves differently than the one next to him. So it was a competition between them it became on price and these kind of things because they didn't look for their uniqueness. They didn't look for the things that could separate them. we found ways to change that narrative and when you change that narrative then you become. More like a specialist if you will now. I'm not saying we were labeled that but I'm just saying you become a difference versus the other guys and when you are different, that's a foundational block that sets you apart.

Dr Michael Perusich: And we would hear that from patients all the time. You guys are so different.

Marisa Mateja: And we didn't have to compete on price with the other docs. It didn't matter what they were doing. It had no bearing on our practice…

Dr Michael Perusich: No.

Marisa Mateja: what they were doing because we weren't the same. In the eyes of the public and…

Dr Michael Perusich: right

Marisa Mateja: our patients would know that it may take a little bit of time to get into our practice, but they were willing to wait that's the point in practice that financially ends up setting you way apart from your competitors.

00:25:00

Dr Michael Perusich: Yep.

Dr Michael Perusich: Way apart, and that one's huge and we can do a whole podcast on that one. That's a big topic,…

Marisa Mateja: Yeah.

Dr Michael Perusich: but it's an important topic. and so when we talk about pricing you don't have to price yourselves low. You have to price to your position.

Marisa Mateja: Yeah.

Dr Michael Perusich: And I'll just give you a simple example. If you go to a car dealership and you see a Mercedes on the floor and it's brand new and they're charging $7,000 for it. Don't you immediately think what's wrong with that Mercedes?

Marisa Mateja: Probably yeah.

Dr Michael Perusich: That's an upper end car. Are they missing a zero somewhere is the common Mist positioned, something's wrong and…

Marisa Mateja: Yeah.

Dr Michael Perusich: that's what happens to businesses too. If you're not priced correctly then.

Dr Michael Perusich: This is called sustainable pricing. Then you're not going to sustain the right patient base. So if you price yourselves too low, you're going to get the patients who just want the quickie the low cost they want to control everything…

Marisa Mateja: All right.

Dr Michael Perusich: if you price yourself high, but you're still providing low value care. Then patients are going to see you as overpriced. So you have to find that sweet spot. On to create sustainable pricing so that when I say sustainable so that you create patients who are willing to pay your price whatever it is long term because they find Value in it.

Marisa Mateja: Yeah.

Dr Michael Perusich: And that's kind of a big concept. I can't. fully go into it here, but If you're not doing that if you're hearing from patients. Hey, I'm quitting Kara because it's too expensive. or

Marisa Mateja: Yeah.

Dr Michael Perusich: I'm controlling care and I only want to pay this much or I don't want the muscle stem therapy. I just want the adjustment then. Some of that is you're not setting your fees correctly.

Marisa Mateja: And we'll tie that back to something we talked about earlier. It could be in your communication strategies as well. And that affects your practice tremendously.

Dr Michael Perusich: Absolutely.

Marisa Mateja: If you don't have the right communication strategies in place. So along with pricing goes how do we talk to patients about pricing? So it's very important to tie that back in to that, price communication all of those things again. Good building blocks for a practice. Now with that being said, I feel like that leads us into another thought process is do you have the right people in place to be able to communicate to patients? I see that sometimes in practices that we talk to they've hired somebody or they promoted someone who they feel like are going to be the next manager in their office just because they've been there for a long time, but they don't actually have the communication skills to be able to communicate effectively to patients.

Marisa Mateja: to be able to I know you guys are gonna freak out when I say this word sell you're gonna I don't fails or…

Dr Michael Perusich: my four letter word

Marisa Mateja: sales are so scary in this profession. It's funny. That's what we do every day. We sell what we do and so having to have that communication in place. Also depends on who we have delivering that information.

Dr Michael Perusich: It does it's huge and we might be good at marketing marketing is getting people into the door. But selling and I know everybody hates that word. but any business I don't care…

Marisa Mateja: I know it's a hard one.

Dr Michael Perusich: who you are. If you're not good at sales,…

Marisa Mateja: You have to sell.

Dr Michael Perusich: then you're not gonna have the thriving practice like we're talking about so you have to incorporate that component and…

Marisa Mateja: Absolutely.

Dr Michael Perusich: so you've got to have the right people. with the right communication strategy To be able to and I'm for those of you listening. I'm using air quotes to be able to sell or…

Marisa Mateja: It's horrible.

Dr Michael Perusich: a letter word. I know it's horrible.

Dr Michael Perusich: But we have to be able to implement those kind of strategies and that just takes the right people. and Marisa you made a great point. we got to make sure that we're not just promoting people to management level positions because they've been there the longest and…

Marisa Mateja: It has to make sense.

Dr Michael Perusich: It has to make sense.

Marisa Mateja: It has to make sense and that they have to have the skills and so many of us use personality tests. I think that's fantastic to evaluate what we need on our teams and what holes we have on our team, but it's one step further. It's communication Styles. It's all of these things skill set for sales need to happen for it.

00:30:00

Dr Michael Perusich: And skill set. Yep.

Marisa Mateja: And that has to go for everybody in the clinic. There has to be a underlying skill set for sales somewhere in everyone that we hire in my opinion.

Dr Michael Perusich: Absolutely. And then once we hire the right people then we have to build a cohesive team and…

Marisa Mateja: Yeah.

Dr Michael Perusich: part of building a cohesive team is Not only working together but playing together and what do I mean by that We need to create a great positive environment. But we also need to have good professional development opportunities for our taking time to do staff retreats to do team building events to having that Weekly staff meeting and…

Marisa Mateja: Yeah, yes.

Dr Michael Perusich: everybody's engaged in that meeting having your daily huddles and all those things are important. And I hear this all the time and it kind of makes me. Pull what little hair I have left out.

Dr Michael Perusich: We don't want to take time to do those kind of things because it takes away from patient care. it's way wrong…

Marisa Mateja: So wrong mentality.

Dr Michael Perusich: because here's what happens. When you take the time to develop your staff. Your Capacity goes up. You can see more patients. You're gonna have more patient referrals. You're gonna have less onerous on bringing new patients in the door because you've got so many referrals coming in and patients retaining in the practice. And so your need for new patients goes down doctors.

Marisa Mateja: Absolutely.

Dr Michael Perusich: Wouldn't that be great because The new patient is number one the hardest. To get to the retention point but number two. There are more likely to drop out of Early on so they cost us and it takes about three visits before they really become profitable. So if they drop out before that

Dr Michael Perusich: then that new patient just costs you money. So spending time for development and those kind of things is hugely important. It also makes your staff So you retain Good People by doing those things.

Marisa Mateja: I was gonna say that it allows staff to a enjoy what they do have pride in what they do. And when you enjoy and you have pride in what you do and you have a wage that is competitive in the marketplace all of a sudden you have. No reason to leave you want to stay You Want to Build and Grow that practice and have ownership in that practice and when you get staff to that point it's invaluable to what you're doing. It's not only invaluable to you as the doctor is invaluable to your practice,…

Dr Michael Perusich: Yep.

Marisa Mateja: but it's invaluable to your patience because they are also important in this process because these are the people that they're gonna build relationships with and if our patients can build good relationships with our staff. They're gonna stay again. it's all connected. You see how it all fits in this little bubble, right it all builds upon each other.

Dr Michael Perusich: It does. Yeah, we just did a whole virtual seminar on this concept about.

Marisa Mateja: We did.

Dr Michael Perusich: Developing that environment where patients just want to come and watch you burn. Because you yeah,…

Marisa Mateja: Yeah. Yeah huge.

Dr Michael Perusich: you're just the funnest. Is that a word? You're the most fun business in town?

Marisa Mateja: I don't know. funny

Dr Michael Perusich: If you want to know what we're talking about, look at companies like Starbucks. Okay, it's our Starbucks the cheapest coffee. No, it's probably the most expensive coffee. But why are they always so busy? What is it take 20 minutes to get through Lane.

Marisa Mateja: It's fun to see how they're gonna spell your name.

Dr Michael Perusich: Exactly exactly, it is the E and the A and Michael gonna be flipped around are they gonna add an extra s into Marisa,…

Marisa Mateja: right

Dr Michael Perusich: or call you Clarissa or Martha or…

Marisa Mateja: Who knows?

Dr Michael Perusich: It's kind of fun. And then when you walk into the office and you've got a Starbucks everybody looks at you and says, my What flavor did you get? Did you bring me one? it's something people want to talk about and…

Marisa Mateja: The right.

Dr Michael Perusich: you can make your business the same way.

Marisa Mateja: The right people bring personality to your practice.

Dr Michael Perusich: Yes, great Point great point. You…

Marisa Mateja: Yeah.

Dr Michael Perusich: we're talking about building that thriving practice and all these foundational components and we know there's a lot of challenges and practice we get it we've been in We're still in practice. We still own practices, and there's a lot of common challenges and so when you come together as a group and appear to peer situation because you're a member of a coaching company like cats or whoever and you get to hear how everybody's handling those common challenges, and what are some of the common challenges insurance reimbursement Medicare compliance HIPAA compliance?

Marisa Mateja: Sure.

Marisa Mateja: understanding you have legal cash Services, and…

Dr Michael Perusich: Legal cash Services.

Marisa Mateja: collecting on the That's a big one.

Dr Michael Perusich: That's a big one. You managing your electronic health records. Holy cow.

Marisa Mateja: And…

Dr Michael Perusich: Is that a time consuming component?

Marisa Mateja: didn't talk about this today, but technology fits into that as well as a challenge and…

Dr Michael Perusich: It does.

Marisa Mateja: I see a lot of clinics Falling by the wayside because they're not keeping up with technology. So, that's just a side note for challenges that can be a challenge and I know it is but the more you embrace it the easier your practice that comes there's so many amazing tools out there for us today to overcome some of those challenges and practice and really create a faster way for patients to get connected to you

00:35:00

Dr Michael Perusich: Yeah, that's a good point. And I'm not big on New Year's resolutions, but I'm going to give everybody a challenge and that challenge is if your State Chiropractic Association has a convention this year go to it. whether you're going for CEUs or not, go walk around and Talk to the vendors that are there. Because that's where you see all the latest and greatest stuff. And if your state doesn't do that,…

Marisa Mateja: Yeah.

Dr Michael Perusich: I know there's some states that don't allow vendors anymore, which is I think kind of sad but Take the time to come to the Florida Chiropractic event. And I'm not saying that because I'm in Florida, but I'm saying that it's a great event and…

Marisa Mateja: It is a great.

Dr Michael Perusich: there's probably a thousand or so vendors there. And that's where you really can see a lot of great equipment. It's a great event too. So, make time to do those kind of things because that's…

Marisa Mateja: Yeah.

Dr Michael Perusich: that's where you're going to get a lot of the ideas about what's out there.

Marisa Mateja: all of these things help us figure out how we can set those foundational blocks. To really have a thriving practice. So there's so many things out there to really focus in on find our practice.

Dr Michael Perusich: there are and one of the things that I think is foundational too and we can kind of wrap up here in a second but is personal development. You've got to have personal development.

Marisa Mateja: Yeah.

Dr Michael Perusich: If you don't get off the Chiropractic treadmill from time to time. It will suck you under. And you will get burned out and you will want to get out of practice. you've got to take time for yourself. We always recommend that doctor should take four weeks of vacation a year. That's once a quarter and…

Marisa Mateja: Yep.

Dr Michael Perusich: just put it on the calendar. Your practice is not going to suffer if you manage your schedule correctly. so Figure out ways to get personal development in at the Mastery Program.

Marisa Mateja: Yeah.

Dr Michael Perusich: We inject some of that in there on purpose. we have our doctors Retreats. We do our weekly.

Dr Michael Perusich: 

Dr Michael Perusich: Mastermind sessions just 30 minutes off the treadmill. Even it's just great. and we talk a lot about exit strategies and those kind of things So that you've got an endpoint sometimes somewhere in practice because that's important, too. Otherwise, you just see it going on and on and on and then the monotony of that is really hard on you mentally so you've got to take time for yourself. Whatever that might…

Marisa Mateja: Absolutely.

Dr Michael Perusich: So we've talked about a lot of Foundations today.

Marisa Mateja: Really? Yeah, this has been really great and kind of gave them me some ideas of things that I want to make sure I'm talking to a couple clients about so, you…

Dr Michael Perusich: Yep me as…

Marisa Mateja: it's huge huge.

Dr Michael Perusich: Me as So if you haven't already be sure to subscribe to the KC car reports podcast. We do these every week. We have a lot of fun doing them. But we feel like we put out a lot of great information for doctors and…

Marisa Mateja: Wow.

Dr Michael Perusich: we get a ton of feedback and our podcast is really grown of the last several months. So we're excited about that too. So also go to cats consultants.com check us out see what we do. We're very different as far as Chiropractic business coaching goes we're very one-on-one oriented and so forth and we have several different membership options main thing is we don't have long-term contracts so we know some good free resources

Marisa Mateja: Absolutely. There's also some great free resources. So check out the free resources. We've got a couple options for some classes and different things that you can watch and learn and see what we teach and those kind of things as well as a brand new free resource for you is a little sample of literally everything that we do. So sign up it's free check us out and of course click up at the top and schedule a consult if you would like to just visit

Dr Michael Perusich: Absolutely, we do those for free a lot of people ask. Why do you do this for free? Because we like to see doctors have thriving practices. And we know we can help most of you.

Marisa Mateja: Absolutely, absolutely.

Dr Michael Perusich: So, all right everybody. Thanks for tuning in to the KC CHIROpulse Podcast brought to you by Kats Consultants. We'll see you guys next time.

Marisa Mateja: Bye

Meeting ended after 00:39:54 👋