170 - Creating a Balanced Chiropractic Practice

Welcome 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.

Whether you're a seasoned chiropractor or just starting your practice, the KC CHIROpulse Podcast offers a wealth of knowledge and practical advice to help you navigate the intricate world of Chiropractic business. Join us on this journey as we explore proven strategies, share success stories, and connect with industry experts to empower you in your pursuit of building a thriving Chiropractic practice.

Don't miss out on the latest insights and expert guidance. Subscribe now and unlock the secrets to taking your Chiropractic practice to the next level. Your success is our priority at Kats Chiropractic Business Advisors.

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.

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Transcript

170 Creating balanced chiro practice 

[00:00:00] 

Dr. Michael Perusich: Chiropractors, do you have a balance to 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 co host, Dr. Alex Kallio. Hi, everybody. Cool shirt. 

Dr. Alex Kallio: Thank you. Appreciate it. 

Dr. Michael Perusich: Yeah.

Is that I don't see any Nebraska signs on 

Dr. Alex Kallio: there. No, it's just a good itching to go golfing 

Dr. Michael Perusich: shirt. Okay, perfect. Perfect. When we talk about balanced life, it's almost hard not to chuckle along with that because, in, in today's practice, it doesn't seem like it feels very balanced at times we're running here.

We're running there and that's just in the practice. Then there's our personal lives 

Dr. Alex Kallio: too. Absolutely. Yeah, the buzzword I think around this is mindfulness and trying to, have an eye to the personal life to the practice life and being able to really pay attention to all those facets.

So you have a bit of a balance to that. I think all of us would [00:01:00] 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 figure out how to get 

Dr. Michael Perusich: settled into that. 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 suck us dry a little bit and yeah.

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 bad, 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 wrap my head around the mental aspect of the day. Instead of just, I know some people just jump right out of bed, throw their clothes on and head to the [00:02:00] office and dive right into patient care.

That would make me nuts. So I have found my own little pace and 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. Yeah. I'm 

Dr. Alex Kallio: With you. I, I tend to be the early morning up before everybody else is and carve out, 20, 30 minutes of just time.

When the kids aren't up, and whatever that time may entail, whether, it's a little reading or self reflection or just a cup of coffee, but just that personal time on a, yeah, I tend to hit that in the morning to and try to find some other times of the day as well, but I think having some of your own time or whatever that is for you to just be able to focus in on your day.

Dr. Michael Perusich: Yeah, and I think you could almost think of it as spiritual time, and that doesn't necessarily have to mean religious time, but just time to just be with your own spirit, whether it's reading or meditation or just being quiet or yeah, definitely the cup of coffee for sure. Absolutely. And I think along with that, I think we also have to [00:03:00] be very careful with our time.

So when we're in patient care, for example, know the minute I hit the office, it's just 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 tech talk for a couple of minutes or, going and reading my email.

I have a very specific times when I do those kinds of things, not tick tock 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 Marissa, but we have to be really careful of that because our time can get away from us, not just at the office, but our personal time.

You have kids, I have kids, 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. 

Dr. Alex Kallio: Absolutely. Yeah. And it's really easy. There's so many things to be mindful [00:04:00] of 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.

And then we end up falling behind on everything else. 

Dr. Michael Perusich: I think that kind of leads into a good point. 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? You've probably heard the adage before, but if you can delegate something to somebody who can do it 80% As well as you then delegated, if they're only going to do it 20 percent as well as you don't delegate, do some training.

But, if you can delegate things and get them off your plate, fantastic, you know, and I see a lot of doctors not being very good at delegating and taking on way too many tasks themselves. Like I [00:05:00] was talking to a doctor the other day busy practice. He does all of his own insurance verifications.

But he's got staff. 

Dr. Alex Kallio: Yeah, there's all of us have staff that I think are typically willing and certainly very able to take over way more than many times we're having them do. And part of that is, yeah, make sure they're trained and 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 every other, a couple of times a month and review it, make sure it's everything's, happening the way that it should, but let them do it, they're there for a reason.

And then, and if you hired them and aren't letting them do the work then maybe there's another discussion to have there too. But 

Dr. Michael Perusich: yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. 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 wellbeing and still be a busy doctor. So we're gonna take a real quick break and we'll be right back.

[00:06:00] So we all feel it. Rent or dining out, gasoline or movies, as a matter of fact, the dollar is not going as far for a whole host of reasons. And it's impacting everybody, regardless of your financial situation. Did you know that 38 percent of the overall population is having to reconsider how they're spending their money just to afford the healthcare they need?

And if you break it down further, 26 percent have actually delayed the healthcare that they need. Including going to see you, the chiropractor. So here's what we need to know about the breakdown in demographics. You would think that someone who's making 120, 000 or more would be continuing their care right now.

But the actual number is 18 percent. 18 percent of that group is actually putting off health care. And that's a group of people making six figures. When you take that same information all the way down to a group making 40, 000. That number [00:07:00] is much higher. It's closer to 40%. So it's never been more important than now to make sure you've made it easy for your patients to come see you, that you have choices for them, and you understand what they're going through at home.

We want to make sure your practice thrives during this time, and we encourage you to learn about what ChiroHealth USA can do for you and your practice, and making it easy for patients to see you and continue care.

Dr. Michael Perusich: All right, everybody, welcome back to the KC Chiro Pulse podcast brought to you by Chiro Health USA and Kats Consultants. Alex, we're talking about personal wellbeing and just developing this balanced life. And like we said, in the very beginning, sometimes that feels impossible. Um, what are some of the things that you do that you feel like help balance your world out?

Dr. Alex Kallio: From a personal standpoint for me, it's exercise, I've got, I have to build in some time for exercise, throughout the week and I think a lot of chiropractors are that way. We're naturally health minded. People that [00:08:00] kind of how we got into this profession. Exercise time is important.

We can overdo it. I've been in practice for 25 years. Certainly there have been points where I have not had good balance with the way of the other for a couple of years. I got heavy into triathlons and I used to spend early in the morning and would it. Would run over lunch. I would go swim and we'd have all these things and man did work fell to the wayside, for a period of time that, it became clear okay, I've got to reel this back in and find a better balance on that and do some work focus for a time.

We've got to get those things in. But at the same time, if you're You know, neglecting work items, you gotta find a better balance there too. But exercise it's time, time for the kids, my kids are at a super busy age now, or we're running on that, afterschool stuff and all kinds of activities that, you gotta fit that in.

It's part of that comes back to probably, okay, what's your schedule look like at work? Do you need to make some shifts there to make family, important and hitting priority there. Do we need to have staff, take over more activities. There's so many kind of [00:09:00] nuances to getting that balanced steps that I think the bigger 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 patients in some of that. 

Dr. Michael Perusich: Absolutely. You bring up a great point and it's about changing your hours. Sometimes I think we, we get in this rut of, Oh, we have to be open from eight to six every day.

And we allow that to really interfere with our personal lives. 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 back to back, but they have different hours and 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 adjustments to the [00:10:00] schedule, they would then make adjustments to their schedule.

Our hours, whatever they were still convenient. Absolutely. If you do it correctly, you can absolutely change your schedule and you should change your schedule. You don't want to miss your kids activities and life events, and those kinds of things. Just because your sign on your front door says you're open till six.

They could say, I'm open till four 

Dr. Alex Kallio: 30. For years, it's, typically I spend the four mornings, four afternoons. You want to have that mix of I'm adhered to them for the longest time, but we just hit a point this year where the after school activities were just too much and I had to be able to make a change.

So we flopped, flip flopped our Tuesdays, we're yeah, what I prefer to be in the afternoons those days. Yeah, preference would be that. But, Come in the morning, I'm off in the afternoon and able to go get kids from school, get them to activities that we have on Tuesdays, patients have, again, he said, you explain it to him, they haven't missed a beat, it hasn't affected the office at all missing that afternoon now that used to be there.

Do we have to make a few tweaks to our, our other day schedules when we [00:11:00] 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 plugged into not really plugged into your personal life, but they understand What your personal life is about and how busy it might be, I always had patients coming in.

How, how's your daughter doing in soccer? How's the team doing this year? And them having that understanding instead of just blocking your patients completely from what your personal life looks like creating that culture 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.

Dr. Alex Kallio: Your patients are, they're virtually probably most of them are in the same boat. They fully understand, that end of things. And frankly, they're probably running a lot of the same stuff at the same time. So they, they may appreciate not having to come in at that time because they're awfully busy as well.

We make some assumptions sometimes that everybody has [00:12:00] to come after five. And we try to cram everybody in and we'll sure there's plenty of people there, but you know a lot of those patients can come at a lunch time or a morning time or You know make that adjustment and it's going to work better for them in a lot of cases, 

Dr. Michael Perusich: too Yep.

Yep, or lo and behold you thought they could only come in on tuesday afternoons for a long time and all of a sudden No, I can come in thursday morning. That's fine You know Some funnies and we get those ideas on our mind, you know a lot of us In practice face kind of some obstacles All of us face some similar obstacles that keep us in that imbalanced manner at times, EHR, 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, but, so there's all these factors. There's. There's EHR, there's staff management there's staff development. You got to spend time doing that or you should be it's all of those things and trying to find [00:13:00] balance for that can be difficult sometimes, especially with EHR, 

Dr. Alex Kallio: I just spoke to one of the neurosurgeons here in town this week who spends every night from 10 30 till 1 AM doing his notes.

And that doesn't sound like balance to me, you're in the office clinic all day You get whatever a little chunk of time in the evening and then you're up till 1 a. m. Every night doing notes that's a little system change you know if any of you out there doing that kind of thing We got to break that down a little bit.

You shouldn't be spent, you know having that kind of a daily structure and I know there are docs out there that are, so it's, it's not just the surgeons, but that's not balanced and we've got to work 

Dr. Michael Perusich: on that. It's not balanced and 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 too, where we have to take take into consideration technology.

So I know [00:14:00] EHR is technology, what's coming after EHR? AI generated EHR and we're starting to see it. In fact, we tested out a program not too long ago. It's really interesting and, 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 calling 60 patients. Hey, don't forget you have appointment tomorrow You have text messages that go out. That's a game changer right there you know look for those things that create time savings that create that balance in your practice and don't just think of yourself stocks.

Think of your staff, too 

Dr. Alex Kallio: Yeah, and that's piggybacking right off of that, the online schedulers where Patients themselves in and don't have to call, and involve the staff on a phone call. They're able to get scheduled. And honestly, they probably [00:15:00] schedule more frequently that way than if they 

Dr. Michael Perusich: had to call.

Yeah, that's probably true. And one of the hop, 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 if you don't have it, again, it might be something to look into to bring that, that mindfulness, that balance back into the practice a little bit, especially for your staff.

Dr. Alex Kallio: Absolutely. Yeah, it's just as important for them. And that's, you kind of circle back to the hours again, as what kind of hours are we running, for your staff, not just the docs, they all have family. For, are we running behind every night and we're here till, you're in the clinic till six 37 o'clock, or are we, ending on time and getting out on time and getting them off to their families too.

It's a discussion certainly for the whole office, not just for the doctor's perspective. Yeah. 

Dr. Michael Perusich: And I think it's good to just have a powwow with your staff once in a while. And we used to play this game called what's stupid around here. And it's not really about what's stupid from a negative standpoint, but it's about [00:16:00] what can we break down and do differently?

So we're more efficient, and maybe we're starting to run behind at the end of the day. Is that scheduling? 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. 

Dr. Alex Kallio: That balance is so important to, just prevent the burnout, we've all been there and we've all felt that a different, if you're a newer doc, maybe you haven't quite gotten there yet, but, we all hit it at different points and you, the better we are, the more efficient we are, the more mindful we are of our, That work life balance and our processes, the less likely we're going to hit that burnout mode where, you know, we just, oh man, we're just ready to throw in the towel and, be done kind of thing.

And it's not a great place to be if you're, in practice. Super important to, to, keep good mental health and to, keep practice fun, 

Dr. Michael Perusich: keep [00:17:00] practice 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 it right, if you schedule it ahead of time, your practice won't suffer. It won't suffer at all. And I know a lot of docs 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, That's one of those things that's a game changer when you just refresh and renew yourself.

Yeah. 

Dr. Alex Kallio: And you can make the work fun. We've had a seminar in Orlando here with cash. We took an extra day on the front and the back end and did universal and Disney for a day. It was, great way to work, have work, have fun come back re energized and ready to go, in the week.

So yeah, absolutely. Staff should be building those in, regularly to the, 

Dr. Michael Perusich: to the practice. Absolutely. And I've got one other thought and I don't mean to end on, on, on this note on a dark note, the other thing that kind of throws life into imbalance sometimes is some kind of unexpected life event.

[00:18:00] Somebody passes away, somebody gets ill, those kinds of things, 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. Yeah, 

Dr. Alex Kallio: Especially, no matter how busy, an office is through the day, we have a tendency to always, I'd see 50 patients and you have one negative encounter and we have a tendency to then focus on that negative on it.

Yeah. Pick out, look at the, the 49 positive encounters that we had through the day and especially in a time like that, where, 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 [00:19:00] was I would ask every staff member, who was your favorite patient today and why? And it was real quick. Oh, 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 going to be the next day.

Find little things like that just especially at the end of the day, bring that spirit and that energy back. 

Dr. Alex Kallio: Yeah, it sure beats focusing on. I know who drove you crazy for the day. 

Dr. Michael Perusich: Exactly. Exactly. All right. Great conversation. Hey everybody, if you haven't yet go to Kats consultants.

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 to our podcast has grown so much.

We're in the top 10 of podcasts right now. So everybody listen and keep those [00:20:00] likes coming. 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 cause we like filling it, 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. All right, man, everybody, thank you for tuning into the KC Chiro Pulse podcast brought to you by cats consultants and Chiro health USA. We will see you next time.

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