170: Creating a Balanced Chiropractic Life
Apr 21, 2024Welcome to the KC CHIROpulse Podcast.
This week’s topic: Creating a Balanced Chiropractic Life
The KC CHIROpulse Podcast is designed for Chiropractic professionals ready to elevate their practice to new heights, and is hosted by Kats Consultants coaches Dr Michael Perusich and Dr. Alex Kallio, both seasoned experts in Chiropractic care and business development. This podcast provides invaluable insights and actionable strategies to help you create a flourishing and sustainable Chiropractic business.
In this episode, we discuss:
- Why balance is important for the doctor
- The mechanisms that create imbalance
- How to create better work-life balance
- The long-term benefits of a balanced life
- …and so much more…
In each episode of KC CHIROpulse, we delve into crucial aspects of building a successful Chiropractic practice, covering topics such as establishing a strong foundation, adopting a patient-centric approach, mastering marketing techniques, achieving financial fitness, fostering effective team building and leadership, integrating technology and innovation, and navigating common challenges in the field.
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DISCLAIMER: The information presented in this broadcast is for educational purposes only and is not intended to offer legal, investment, accounting, or medical advice. Seek the consultation of a professional for advice in those areas. And remember…your results using this information may be different than described.
170 - Creating a Balanced Chiropractic Practice
Attendees
Dr Alex Kallio, Dr Michael Perusich
DISCLAIMER: The information presented in this broadcast is for educational purposes only and is not intended to offer legal, investment, accounting, or medical advice. Seek the consultation of a professional for advice in those areas. And remember…your results using this information may be different than described.
Dr Michael Perusich: Chiropractors, do you have a balanced life?
Hi everybody. Welcome to the KC CHIROpulse podcast brought to you by ChiroHealth USA and Kats Consultants. I'm your host Dr. Michael perusich and I'm joined today by my good friend and host Dr. Alex doing cool shirt
Alex Kallio: Hi everybody. Thank you. Appreciate it.
Dr Michael Perusich: Yeah, is that I don't see any Nebraska signs on there. So if
Alex Kallio: Now it's just a good itching to go golfing shirt.
Dr Michael Perusich: Okay, perfect. when we talk about Balanced Life, it's almost hard not to kind of chuckle along with that because in today's practice. It doesn't seem like it feels very balanced at times. We're running there and that's just in the practice then there's our personal lives, too.
Alex Kallio: Absolutely. Yeah that the buzzword I think around this is mindfulness and trying to have an eye to the personal life to the practice life and…
Dr Michael Perusich: right
Alex Kallio: and being able to really pay attention to all those facets. So you haven't been of a balance to that and all of us would say if we've been in practice for any length of time. We've certainly all hit points where we weren't very in Balance one way or the other and it took us a while to kind of figure out how to get settled into that.
Dr Michael Perusich: yeah, and I think part of that balance mechanism if you will is trying to stay positive and I know there are days when patients it feels like they kind of suck us dry a little bit and
Alex Kallio: Yeah.
Dr Michael Perusich: There can always be staff issues and personal life and maybe you kick the cat on the way out the door that morning and just start everything off about but we've got to figure out ways to figure out how to stay positive and I think we all probably have our own mechanisms for doing that part of that for me is finding white space in the day and my white space is typically early in the morning. So I'm an early riser and I do that on purpose because it allows me the time to just kind of wrap my head around the mental aspect of the day instead of I know some people just jump right out of bed brother clothes on and head to the office and dive right into patient care. That would make me not So I have found my own little pace and…
Alex Kallio: Yeah.
Dr Michael Perusich: I know you probably have too. I found my own little pace of how I am able to keep my life in a positive manner.
Alex Kallio: I'm kind of with you. I tend to be kind of the early morning up before everybody else is and kind of carve out, 20 30 minutes of just time with when the kids aren't up, …
Dr Michael Perusich: right
Alex Kallio: and whether or whatever that time May entail whether it's a little reading or self-reflection or just a quiet cup of coffee,…
Dr Michael Perusich: exactly
Alex Kallio: but just kind of that personal time on a I tend to hit that Learning to and try to find some other times of the day as well, but I think having some of your own time for whatever that is for you to just be able to kind of focus in on your day.
Dr Michael Perusich: Yeah, and I think you could almost think of it as kind of spiritual time and that doesn't necessarily have to mean religious time. But just time to just kind of be with your own Spirit whether it's reading or…
Alex Kallio: Yeah.
Dr Michael Perusich: meditation or just being quiet or definitely the cup of coffee for sure.
Alex Kallio: Yeah, absolutely.
Dr Michael Perusich: and along with that I think we also have to be very careful with our time. So when we're in patient care, for example I mean, I know the minute I hit the office. It's just go go, but I've got to be really careful with my time. So I can't waste precious few moments between patients between client calls or whatever. I can't waste that by, opening tiktok for a couple of minutes or going and reading my email. Times when I do those kind of things not tiktok time, but, very specific points of the day. There's three points in the day where I go. Look at emails. And I have a system for managing those emails pretty quickly. It's called Marisa, but
Dr Michael Perusich: I think we have to be really careful of that because in our time can get away from us not just at the office but our personal time. I mean you give I'm kids,…
Alex Kallio: Yeah.
Dr Michael Perusich: do they take up a lot of time. Of course they do, in a wonderful way. but it's time and so we got to figure out how to balance that component of life, too.
Alex Kallio: Yeah, and it's really easy. There's so many things to be mindful of he said between the schedule between staff needs and patient needs and where do we pay the bills and get our notes done and just so many different things that you have to be mindful of scheduling time for each of that and trying to stick to a schedule as much as you can throughout the course of the week so that you don't get that time component too heavy to one or the other then we end up falling behind on everything else.
00:05:00
Dr Michael Perusich: I think that kind of leads into a part of good time management skills if there's such a thing as time management, but it is delegating things. what can you delegate off of your plate?
Alex Kallio: Yeah.
Dr Michael Perusich: you've probably heard the adage before but if you can delegate something to somebody who can date do it 80% as well as you Then delegate it. They're only gonna do it 20% as well as you don't delegate do some training,…
Alex Kallio: No.
Dr Michael Perusich: but if you can delegate things and get them off your plate. fantastic, that and…
Alex Kallio: No.
Dr Michael Perusich: And I see a lot of doctors not being very good at delegating and taking on way too many tasks themselves. I was talking to a doctor the other day and busy practice. He does all of his own insurance verifications. But he's got staff.
Alex Kallio: Yeah, there's all of us have staff but I think are our typically willing and certainly very able to take over way more than many times. We're having them do and part of that is make sure they're trained to make sure they know how to do it. But then let them do it, and sure have a check-in meeting once a month or…
Dr Michael Perusich: .
Alex Kallio: every other a couple times a month and review it make sure everything's happening the way that it should but let him do it, they're there for a reason and If you hired them and aren't letting them do the work then maybe there's another discussion to have there too. But yeah.
Dr Michael Perusich: Yeah, exactly. So we need to take a break for a word from our sponsors, but I want to come back to this whole idea. We're talking about how to manage really your mindfulness how to manage a balanced life how to manage your personal being and still be a busy doctor take a real quick break and we'll be right back.
SPONSOR MESSAGE
Dr Michael Perusich: All right everybody. Welcome back to the KC CHIROpulse Podcast brought to you by chiro Health USA and Kats Consultants. Alex we're talking about personal being and just developing this Balanced Life and like we said in the very beginning sometimes that feels impossible. but what are some of the things that you do that you feel like help kind of balance your world out?
Alex Kallio: I mean from a personal standpoint for me. It's exercise. I have to build them some time for exercise,…
Dr Michael Perusich: No.
Alex Kallio: throughout the week and I think a lot of chiropractors for that way. We're naturally Health minded people that's kind of how we got into this profession. So, exercise time is important we can overdo it. I mean, I've been in practice for 25 years certainly there have been points where I have not had good balance with the way the other free a couple of years. I got heavy into triathlons and I get up early in the morning and…
Dr Michael Perusich: I remember that.
Alex Kallio: would run over lunch. I would go swim and we'd have all these things and landed work kind of fell to the Wayside, for a period of time that it became clear I've got this back in and find a better balance on that and do some
Alex Kallio: Focus for a time so, we've got to get those things in but the same time if you're neglecting work items you got to find a better balance there too. but I mean exercise it's time for the kids, my kids are at a super busy age now or we're running at after school stuff and all kinds of activities that …
Dr Michael Perusich: Yeah.
Alex Kallio: You got to fit that and it's part of that comes back to probably What's your schedule look like it work. Do you need to make some shifts there to make family, important and hitting priority there. do we need to have staff? Do you know take over more activities? There's so many kind of nuances to getting that balance steps that I think the biggest thing for doctors is realize you can't just be the only one to sit and take that on you've got to include your spouses or your staff, sometimes even include your patience in some of that.
Dr Michael Perusich: Absolutely, you bring up a great point. yeah, and it's about changing your hours, sometimes I think we get in this rut of we have to be open from eight to six every day. And we allow that to really kind of interfere with a personal life.
Alex Kallio: Yeah.
Dr Michael Perusich: So you brought up having kids and kids being in that time of life when they're super busy and involved in all the activities and we went through that too and So my daughter played soccer basketball show choir and golf and so all those seasons are just kind of back-to-back, but they have different hours and…
Alex Kallio: No.
Dr Michael Perusich: different activities. So we got to the point where we were just constantly readjusting the schedule. And you talked about bringing patients into the picture when we would tell patients why we were making the ad They would then make adjustments to their schedule. So our hours whatever they were still convenient. So if you do it correctly,…
Alex Kallio: Yeah, absolutely.
Dr Michael Perusich: you can absolutely change your schedule and you should change your schedule. you don't want to miss your kids activities and life…
00:10:00
Alex Kallio: Yeah.
Dr Michael Perusich: but life events and those kind of things just because you're sign on your front door says you're open till six make it…
Alex Kallio: yeah, for years it's you…
Dr Michael Perusich: I'm open till 4:30.
Alex Kallio: typically I spend the four mornings for afternoon. You want to have that mix and I kind of adhered to that for the longest…
Dr Michael Perusich: right
Alex Kallio: but we just hit a point this year where the X after school activities were just too much and I had to be able to make a change we flopped our Tuesdays, what I prefer to be in the afternoon. So those days preference would be that but coming in the morning. I'm often the afternoon and able to go get kids from school get them to activities that we have on Tuesdays patients hat. again, he explained it to him, it hasn't affected the office at all missing that afternoon now that It used to be there.
Dr Michael Perusich: Yeah.
Alex Kallio: So do we have to make a few tweaks to our other day schedules when we are in the afternoon? Yeah, but again with a little mindfulness a little attention. It's pretty easy to do.
Dr Michael Perusich: Yeah, and some good communication with your patients and I think you just create that culture in your practice where your patients are almost kind of not really plugged into your personal life,…
Alex Kallio: No.
Dr Michael Perusich: but they understand what your personal life is about and how busy it might be. …
Alex Kallio: Yeah.
Dr Michael Perusich: I always had patients come in and how's your daughter doing in soccer? How's the team doing this year?
Dr Michael Perusich: Them having that understanding instead of just blocking your patients completely from what your personal life looks like. Creating that culture…
Alex Kallio: .
Dr Michael Perusich: where they're almost involved just a little bit allows you to be able to create I call it white space when you need it.
Alex Kallio: Yeah. Yeah. your patients probably most of them are in the same boat. They fully understand,…
Dr Michael Perusich: right
Alex Kallio: that end of things and frankly, they're probably running a lot of the same stuff at the same time. So they may appreciate not having to come in at that time because they're awfully busy as So we make some assumptions sometimes that everybody has to come after five, and we try to cram everybody in and we'll share there's plenty of people there. But, a lot of those patients can come at a lunch time or a morning time or make that adjustment and it's gonna work better for them and a lot of cases too.
Dr Michael Perusich: Yep, or lo and behold you thought they could only come in on Tuesday afternoons for a long time and…
Alex Kallio: No. Absolutely.
Dr Michael Perusich: all of a sudden. No, I can come in Thursday morning. That's fine. patients are funny. and we get those ideas on our mind, In practice all of us face similar obstacles that kind of keep us in that imbalanced manner at times, for example, is that a Time Saver? Not really. I know we all lament the idea of wanting to go back to the travel card someday, so there's their staff development. You got to spend time doing that or it's all those things. And trying to find balance for that can be difficult sometimes especially with EHR.
Alex Kallio: No, no,…
Alex Kallio: I just spoke to one of the neurosurgeons here in town this week…
Dr Michael Perusich: …
Dr Michael Perusich: it's easy to get blind.
Alex Kallio: who spends every night from 10:30 to 1 am doing his notes. That doesn't sound like balance to me. you're in the office Clinic all day you get whatever little chunk of time in the evening and…
Dr Michael Perusich: No.
Alex Kallio: then you're up till 1:00 am every night doing notes. That's a little system change. So, if any of you out there doing that kind of thing, we got to break that down a little bit. You shouldn't having that kind of a daily structure and I know they're knocks out there. Are so it's …
Dr Michael Perusich: there are
Alex Kallio: it's not just the surgeons but that's not balance that we got to work on that.
Dr Michael Perusich: It's not balancing. You're right. We do need to work on that. So spend the time, to make sure that you get your EHR system as customized as you possibly can with your note-taking so that your notes go a little bit faster. And I think this is another area to where we have to take into consideration technology. So I know R is technology but what's coming after AI generated R and…
Alex Kallio: Yeah.
Dr Michael Perusich: we're starting to see it. In fact, we tested out a program not too long ago. That's really interesting But as technology comes about we're going to have to integrate it into our practices. So we're going to stop for just a second and integrate maybe some new systems down the road one of the systems that I think has been a huge Time Saver for practices is the appointment reminder systems. Where instead of Staff picking up the phone and…
Alex Kallio: Absolutely.
Dr Michael Perusich: call in 60 patients? Hey, don't forget you have appointment tomorrow. You have text messages that go out. I mean that's kind of a game changer right there. So, look for those things Time Savings that create that balance in your practice, and don't just think of yourself stocks think of your staff, too.
00:15:00
Alex Kallio: Yeah, that's kind of piggybacking right off of that. the online schedulers where patients can add themselves in and…
Dr Michael Perusich: exactly
Alex Kallio: don't have to an involve the staff in a phone call they're able to get scheduled and honestly, they probably schedule more frequently that way than then if they had to call. so
Dr Michael Perusich: Yeah, that's probably true and one of the top and I don't remember exactly where it falls we'd have to ask Marissa but one of the top things that patients want out of a doctor's office is online scheduling. Yeah, so…
Alex Kallio: yeah.
Dr Michael Perusich: if you don't have it, again, it might be something to look into to bring that mindfulness that balance back into the practice a little bit especially for your staff. Yeah.
Alex Kallio: Absolutely. Yeah, it's just as important for them. And you kind of can Circle back to the hours again, as you know, what kind of hours are we running, for your staff not just the dogs, …
Dr Michael Perusich: right
Alex Kallio: they all have family so, for we're running behind every night. We're here till you're in the clinic till 6:37 o'clock and ending on time and getting out on time and getting them off to their families too. So it's a discussion certainly for the whole office not just for the doctor's perspective.
Dr Michael Perusich: exactly
Dr Michael Perusich: yeah, and I think it's good to just kind of have a powwow with your staff once in a while and we used to play this game called what stupid around here and it's not really about what's stupid from a negative standpoint, but it's about What can we break down and do differently? So we're more efficient. and…
Alex Kallio: Yeah.
Dr Michael Perusich: maybe we're starting to run behind at the end of the day. Is that too many patients walking in without appointments and they're just coming by on their way home from work and we need to break them of that habit a little bit and get them back into a scheduled time slot. a lot of those things are pretty easy to correct and bring that balance back into your practice.
Alex Kallio: No, that balance is so important to just prevent the burnout, I mean again,…
Dr Michael Perusich: yeah true.
Alex Kallio: we've all been there. We've all felt that at different times, if you're a newer doc, maybe you haven't quite gotten there yet. But we all hit of the different points and the better we are the more efficient. We are the more mindful. We are of that life balance and our processes the less likely we're gonna hit that burnout mode where we're just ready to throw in the towel and be done kind of thing and…
Dr Michael Perusich: Yeah.
Alex Kallio: it's not a great place to be if you're in practice so super important to you…
Dr Michael Perusich: right
Alex Kallio: keep good mental health and to keep practice fun.
Dr Michael Perusich: keep practiced fun and take some time off from your practice once in a while, we always recommend Two to four weeks a year, take a week off every quarter. If you do If you schedule it ahead of time your practice It won't suffer at all.
Alex Kallio: Yeah.
Dr Michael Perusich: And I know a lot of ducks are afraid to leave the practice because if they're not there it won't generate Revenue, but there is a way to do that and I'm telling you it that's one of those things. It's kind of a game changer when you just refresh and renew yourself.
Alex Kallio: Any you can make the work fun. I mean, obviously we just had seminar in Orlando here with cats and…
Dr Michael Perusich: right right
Alex Kallio: we took an extra day on the front and the back end and did Universal in Disney for a day, you…
Dr Michael Perusich: Yeah.
Alex Kallio: it was, great way to work have fun, come back kind of energized and ready to go, in the week. So yeah absolutely staff stocks should be building those regularly to the practice.
Dr Michael Perusich: Absolutely, and I've got one other thought and I don't mean to end on a dark note, but the other thing that kind of throws life into imbalance sometimes is some kind of unexpected life event. Somebody passes away. Somebody gets ill those kind of things,…
Alex Kallio: No.
Dr Michael Perusich: when those things happen. I can tell you from personal experience work really hard to find it just in your soul to stay positive no matter what's going on. And when you've got a team around you and you've built that culture of we support each other in your practice. You'll be glad you have that if something like that does happen.
Alex Kallio: Yeah, and especially no matter how busy, an office is through the day, kind of we have a tendency to always, might see 50 patients and you have one negative encounter and we have a tendency to then focus on that negative.
Dr Michael Perusich: Focus on it. Yeah.
Alex Kallio: But pick out look at the 49 positive encounters that we had through the day and especially in a time like that. yeah. Maybe there is something bigger going on. But how many good encounters did we have throughout the day in the office and try to focus on that part of it necessarily than the negative. It makes the day way more enjoyable.
Dr Michael Perusich: Yeah, here's something we used to do at the end of the day. I would ask every staff member who was your favorite patient today? And why? And …
Alex Kallio: Yeah, that's a great one.
Dr Michael Perusich: he's just real quick. Dorothy she was amazing. She always has a smile on her face, and everybody would say who their person was and you'd walk out of the clinic with this big smile on your face ready to see who the favorite patients were gonna be the next day. So you don't find little things like that that just kind…
00:20:00
Alex Kallio: Yeah.
Dr Michael Perusich: special at the end of the day bring that spirit and that energy back.
Alex Kallio: Yeah, it sure beats focusing on I know who drove you crazy for the day, so.
Dr Michael Perusich: Different rotates Exactly. All right great conversation. Hey everybody. If you haven't yet go to KatsConsultants.com check out all the great things that we're doing to help chiropractors build the practice of their dreams bring profitability and bring fun back into the practice. So go check us out. There's lots of downloads on there free things subscribe to the podcast tell your friends about it. I'm really excited to announce this too our podcast has grown so much. We're in the top 10 of podcasts right now. So everybody keep listening keep those likes coming.
Alex Kallio: awesome
Dr Michael Perusich: We appreciate it. If you have a topic that you want to see us banter around on here. Feel free to send it to us. We usually send those to Troy because we like filling up his email box. So send them to Troy at KatsConsultants.com. All right, Alex Thanks for being on here. Today. Alex is one of our awesome coaches. So it was fun to have him on here and you'll see him again soon.
Alex Kallio: Thanks for having me.
Dr Michael Perusich: All right, Everybody thank you for tuning into the KC CHIROpulse Podcast brought to you by Kats Consultants and ChiroHealth USA. We will see you next time.
Meeting ended after 00:21:31 👋