Chiropractic Practice Blog

When my dad was attempting to reverse his cancer, I remember having a dinner table conversation about the wisdom of including chiropractic care along with his choice of employing chemotherapy. Since he had benefited from chiropractic care in the past, I assumed that he would see its value and add it to his protocol. He did not.

“Adjustments just aren’t powerful enough to fight cancer,” he said matter-of-factly. “To beat cancer you need something far more powerful.”

Even though at the time I was 57, his parental tone suggested that the matter was settled and needed no further discussion. (Apparently, an intravenously administered poison designed to kill the cancer without killing him made far more sense than trusting the inborn wisdom of his body.)

As I chewed my food during the loud silence that followed, it occurred to me that this might be a common belief, especially among patients of chiropractors who present chiropractic as a bone-spine-muscle therapy rather than a nerve-whole-body-function resource.

Do you make practice about you?

A common symptom of this sort of professional selfishness is when you think your problems are larger than the problems of those who consult you. If this shows up, the end is near.

Why? Because patients are unusually skilled at deciphering self-serving motives. They can tell when you’re X-raying their pocketbook. Or manipulating them with guilt. Or deploying scare tactics. Or using inauthentic scripting. Or hijacking their responsibility. Or abusing your social authority.

Get your heart right.

Your needs will be met only as you meet the needs of others. Put the problems of others first, and your problems will resolve. This principle always works and it always works in that order. (Usually, with a faith-testing lag between giving and receiving.) Oh, you may get away with reversing cause and effect for a season, but it’s unsustainable and often comes at a high price.

Subscribe to Monday Morning Motivation.

Maybe the reason more and more chiropractors are not enjoying the fruits of a chiropractic practice is because they don’t have a chiropractic practice. They have a chiropractic medicine practice.

Not that they set out to water down the principles that attracted them to chiropractic in the first place. Instead, dozens of small nudges, expediencies and temptations along the way has brought them to a confusing place. As they see their practice volume erode they feel increasingly disoriented.

Instead of focusing on the real problem (a lack of clarity about their identity and purpose), they focus on convenient outside factors such as the economy, the weather, stingy insurance carriers and all the other usual suspects. As unseemly as this predicament is for the established chiropractor, it is even more pronounced for the newest batch of chiropractors who, because of the limited vision of their chiropractic college, emerge as over trained spinal therapists.

In marketing circles it’s referred to as “the bookends.” At a restaurant, it’s the complimentary breadbasket at the beginning of your meal and the bowl of candies as you leave. These first and last impressions of a service experience are often the longest lasting.

What are your bookends?

In far too many practices a patient’s first impression is the feeling they’re an interruption to something important going on with the computer, and the last is writing a check to a frazzled CA.

At your next team meeting, brainstorm some ideas. Here are a few to get you going:

A hug. A printed thought-for-the-day handout. A question: “What’s the best thing that’s happened to you today?” A compliment: “It’s great to see you!” An energy pick-me-up: “Please enjoy a miniature box of raisins.”

As you acknowledge, appreciate and manage the patient experience notice an increase in the fun quotient. Referrals follow.

Subscribe to Monday Morning Motivation.

Think globally. Act locally.

Sure, it's a bumper sticker, but it also sums up the chiropractic experience. It's not just that changes to the spine (local) can have far-reaching neurological effects throughout the body (global), it's how the care you deliver in your practice can have far-reaching effects in your community.

Many overlook this because they may not see...

The renewed self-esteem of a former bed wetter.
The changed lives of a family no longer plagued with a colicky baby.
A spouse who is more loving because the pain is gone.
A husband whose ability to support his family is restored.
An employee who is more productive.

Because symptomatic improvements are practically routine in most practices, it's easy to overlook the implications that occur beyond the four walls of your practice.

This week, take a few moments to acknowledge and embrace the significance of the care you provide. It's huge!

One of the self-appointed tasks I perform each week is to review the log that records the terms visitors enter into the search box in the upper right corner of every page on this site. My goal is to see what interests people, or as Google refers to it as “the database of intention,” and to update the keywords associated with each page so they will appropriately show up when searched on. (It’s actually easier to do than to describe!)

This week, the search phrase “how to be busy” caught my eye. The same visitor entered “increase numbers.”

Wow. Instead of entering “make a difference” or “change the world” it was a far simpler request.

Because constructing a castle from toothpicks will keep you busy. As will a jigsaw puzzle. Even watching television. (Probably the reason far too many people do it.)

Being busy is often confused with productivity, significance or even importance. As in, “I’m too busy, I can’t get to that right now.”

If you’d like to be busier by helping more people, the solution is simple.

Are you a control freak?

It's nothing to be especially proud of, since it's often a sign of insecurity, indecisiveness, low self-esteem or all three.

Through the insecurity lens, control is a strategy to get our way, minimizing the contributions of others.

From the indecisiveness standpoint, control is a way to delay the responsibility for making a choice.

Within the low self-esteem point of view, control is a way of imposing our will on others without having to explain or justify.

Worse than the unintended consequences from these, are the second-guessing, walking on eggshells and demoralizing effect it can have on our support team.

Needing to control may reveal we have a mistrust of others or even ourselves. Control may be a sign that we want to be God. The need to control can be a heavy burden. Often, imagining that we actually have control is merely an amusing illusion.

Subscribe to Monday Morning Motivation.

Q: Do you have any archived articles or a Monday Morning Motivation about the importance of a chiropractor arriving on time for the first scheduled appointments of the day? I work for a DC who consistently strolls in 10-15 minutes late. His self-sabotage not only affects my income but I resent having to entertain patients who have shown up for a specific appointment time. What can I do?

A: I don’t recall a specific Monday Morning Motivation on this topic, however I’ve certainly addressed this subject many times at speaking gigs and Connecting the Dots. (Spin down to the heading ‘Working for Efficient Managers’ in the chapter “Inspired Teams.”)