Kats Chiropractic Consultants CHIROpulse

205 Be the Doctor

• Marisa Mateja

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Welcome to the KC CHIROpulse Podcast.  

This week’s topic:   Are you taking control of what is walking into your Chiropractic Clinic?

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 Troy Fox.  Michael and Troy are both seasoned experts in Chiropractic 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 you need to use your doctor skills in practice
  • Why building doctor authority can make your practice explode
  • How being the doctor can build long-term trusted patient relationships 
  • Why you are doing patients a favor by recommending the care you believe they need
  • Simple tips to use doctor authority to grow your practice
  • …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 personalized 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, and represents the opinions of the speakers.  Seek the consultation of a professional for advice in those areas. And remember…your results using this information may be different than described.


Be sure to SUBSCRIBE to the Kats Consultants CHIROPulse Podcast
When you are ready we can help.


KC CHIROpulse Podcast. Helping Chiropractors keep their pulse on success. Thanks for listening.



Dr. Michael Perusich:

Doctors. Are you taking control of what's walking into your office? Hi, everybody. Welcome to the KC ChiroPulse podcast brought to you by Kats Consultants and Chiro Health USA. I'm Dr. Michael Perusich. And of course I've got my friend and co host here, Dr. Troy Fox. Troy, all these things that walk into our practices. Are we paying attention? Are we taking control or are we just laying over and doing what the patient thinks we should do?

Dr. Troy Fox:

Okay. So I got overrode on the title of this folks, because I was going to ask if you're all a bunch of wusses and needed our help but I'm going to tell you a little story that we're going to talk this over. So this happened to me in my practice just yesterday, before we recorded this patient walks into my practice has a rib out of place, need said rib popped back in place. comes in, sits down. I look through their intake. They've got three, no less. Three autoimmune disease processes going on. Drink 10 plus drinks a day. Smokes not heavily, but smokes. All right. Not the healthiest of individuals. 50 year old female. Also on birth control. We'll just throw that one in there. That reminds you of taking boards, right? 50 year old female, overweight on birth control. She was slightly overweight smoker. All right. And she's got three. Yeah. And she's got three autoimmune disease problems. So she walks in, sits down. I come in. How are you doing? I'm Dr. Fox. Nice to meet you. I've taken a look at your intake, and the first thing I'd really like to start with is talk about some of the autoimmune processes you have going on, how long they've been going, and she sticks her hand straight out in front of her and puts it in my face and basically says, I'm not here for you to look at my other problems. I want you to pop my rib back in place. And I said, you know what, I put a doctor in front of my name for a reason. I'm not a chiropractic technician. I'm a doctor of chiropractic and your comorbidities are numerous. And we need to talk through these because they tie directly into your condition. And I pretty much got after it with her and she said, all right, I'm listening. And we went through with the thing. The other thing that I could have said is, hey, if you're not interested in talking about this just may be the wrong office for you because we're very thorough when we work with patients. And if you don't want to divulge information about this, even though you've already written it on your intake, we can find another office for you to go to. I'll find you a pop and go clinic.

Dr. Michael Perusich:

So that's called doctor authority and you got to have that authority with people. And you and I both could come up with a whole catalog of these kind of patients that have walked into our practices. I remember one, one Patient came in one time. I hadn't seen her in six months and she comes barging in a little more. She's a gruff lady, but a little more gruff than usual, agitated and says, I'm having a headache. I need to get adjusted. And I said, I haven't seen you in six months. We're doing an exam. And she said, I don't want to do an exam. She wound up leaving. Out us doing any kind of treatment and I found out the next day she had a stroke that night. Yeah. So I wonder why she was having that headache, right? Yeah. So if I did just laid her down on the table and, adjusted her neck to help her with her headache. I'm using air quotes. If you're just listening, Would I have caused a stroke? Probably not. But if she was already having one and that's why she was having the headache, who'd have gotten blamed? So you got all this stuff walking into your practice. You got to be paying attention. You got to use your authority. And it's two things. Are you uncovering conditions that could be contraindicated to an adjustment like a stroke. Are you uncovering things that patients really need to have addressed? Because your job is to provide them with the best care plan, not just a care plan.

Dr. Troy Fox:

Yeah. In my case, we ended up referring to a naturopath for some of the care and talking about why chiropractic care would take longer because your healing patterns are very slow right now with all the autoimmune and the inflammatory processes. So that's very good. I will tell you it never pays to have the passenger grab the wheel when you're driving the car. That's a good way to put it. And that's what patients do. They try to grab the wheel and here's why. I'm sorry guys. As a group, we're not as well respected as we should be. People don't walk into a surgeon's office and tell them how to do a surgery. People don't walk into their general practitioner's office. They do more than they used to. Sometimes they get after them now and they're like, why are you not telling me? Why did you not tell me that I needed to take CoQ10 if I'm taking a statin drug? I've had patients do that to their medical doctors after I've told them. It's a non starter for me. If you don't want to take CoQ10, I don't want to work with you. Yeah. And they're like, what? And I'm like, yeah, cause I have no idea. Some of the aches and pains you have are basically because your heart's not squeezing it at the rate it should. So sometimes I do non starter items and they'll go back, but they will go sometimes to GP. That never used to happen. But people will readily come into their chiropractor and let them know how much BS that exam is they're getting ready to do is, even though they're getting ready to have a stroke or an aneurysm how our prices are too high or whatever. I haven't heard that in a while, but you hear people, if you get involved in pricing while you're in the adjustment room, you're going to have people dicker over price in the adjustment room. I just laugh at them. I go, I don't know what the prices are. I don't know. I don't know. I don't set it. I just work here. They're like, isn't your name on the outside? And I go, yeah, I go, you see those girls up front. They don't let me be in charge. I just work here. So I get the pricing thing out of the way, but we get questioned a lot. And we also get the question that everybody hates. What exercises should I do? My first response, 90 percent of people that asked me that question will never lift a finger to do one exercise. It seems a little, it seems a little counterintuitive at this point to give you exercises. I say that and the reason I do it is because I'm going to use my authority at that point. And if they say, I'll do them great because the program that we have, I will custom build you a program. It will send to your email or your phone and it's going to track your progress and send it back to me. That's 25 a week. And that's the only time I ever really get involved in finances to let them know, I'm going to track you and you're going to pay for it.

Dr. Michael Perusich:

You got to stay out of that conversation. We got to take a quick break, but we'll be right back. We're talking about not letting patients take the wheel. I love that. We'll be right back.

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Dr. Michael Perusich:

All right, everybody. Welcome back to the KC ChiroPulse podcast. We're talking about taking control of your patients and their care. And guiding them for what they need, not just necessarily what they want, because sometimes if we just do what they want, we might be causing more harm. We might not be giving them the opportunity to respect what we do in the right way, and again, we can come up with all kinds of conditions, but. I remember another patient that came in and he was having a little back pain and he'd been to several other doctors, medical doctors. He'd been to the hospital, he been to several other chiropractors and his symptomatology just seemed weird. And he had some comorbidities like being overweight. And he was in his early seventies and. Low back pain, what do you do when you got comorbidities and you've got red flags, you take x rays. So I took x rays of the guy, he had this huge abdominal aneurysm, huge. So I called the surgeon down the street and said, I've got a huge abdominal aneurysm here. He said, send him right on over. I'll take a quick peek, send the films with him. Great. It was back when we actually did plain film. It, I'm telling you, it was so bad that. When I got home that night, the surgeon lived in my neighborhood. He came by, knocked on my door, said, Hey, you got a beer in the fridge. We need to talk for a minute. He had scheduled this guy for surgery. First thing the next morning. It was so bad, but had, I just started adjusting the guy and that aneurysm would have blown whose fault is that it's my fault. Not only from a medical legal standpoint, but I didn't do the right thing for the patient. So we have to use our diagnostic capabilities. We have to use our intuition. We have to be the doctor and we have to use our authority. To lead patients to what they really need. And if patients don't want to accept that, maybe you need to consider not accepting them into care.

Dr. Troy Fox:

That's a tough decision to make. And I know sometimes when you're newer in practice, it's really hard to do. You don't have extra. Yeah, you got extra time at that point. Make sure that you're doing all the right things. Make sure that your procedure for that patient matches what you know to be the correct thing to do early, and you'll still follow it 30 years later. Because here I am 30 years in, and I'm as about as abrupt with people as I've ever been. Because I don't put up with that. And here's why I don't, I'm not, I am a hundred percent, almost a thousand percent, here's what I worry about. And folks, you should worry about this too. And I know you guys got this situation. One, I worry about my wife. I worry about my kids. I worry about my legacy. Is it worth one adjustment that I didn't do the right thing? No. I worry about my staff and their families who depend on me and trust me to do the right thing and have such faith in my abilities as a doctor that they unwaveringly defend me out in the public. How about I do something that is unconscionable, something that you cannot defend. I roll a patient into side posture with a monster abdominal aorta. When they've got all the symptoms, they tell me they've got tearing pain. I even write it in my notes. He has tearing pain in the abdominal region. And then I go in and I do the million dollar roll. You guys, some of the older guys know what the million dollar roll is. I do the million dollar roll. And guess what? It costs me my career. It costs me. My livelihood, it cost my reputation and my legacy done because I didn't shoot x rays.

Dr. Michael Perusich:

I'm going to put that whole concept really in really simple terms. Who do you think is going to refer the most patients to you? The patient that you did a great job, but maybe never treated, but pointed out some health conditions that they really needed to get under control and you referred them out or patient that you weren't thorough with. You didn't use your doctor authority and you hurt them. Who's going to refer you more patients? It's not real hard to figure out that guy that had the abdominal aneurysm that I mentioned earlier. He referred me like 20 patients. I never treated the guy. I just diagnosed him and referred him, but he was so thankful that he referred all kinds of people, all of his friends. And he also

Dr. Troy Fox:

saw you as an RD, right? He saw you as a real doctor because you did real doctor. S. H. I. T. Sorry, but it's true. You really did real there. We do. You really did real doctor stuff. You were a gangster, right? And you did what you were supposed to do rather than pulling the meat thing that I see a lot of people do. And you don't assert yourself. You don't use doctor authority. And you don't work your way out of the situation. All you do is make yourself look the fool and they tell their friends, Hey, you can go into this guy and he'll just pop your back one time, or she'll pop your back one time and then let you do whatever you want. They like it. Heck yeah. The press off of that is incredible. Oh, yeah, this is the doctor that let us do whatever we want to do

Dr. Michael Perusich:

right.

Dr. Troy Fox:

The long term on that is horrible terrible, horrible for your practice, longevity and bad for your patients.

Dr. Michael Perusich:

I remember another patient he and his construction crew were working on a really tall three story barn. So if you live in the dairy world. You see these big three story barns all the time. So they're working on the roof of this three story barn. He decides to slide off and lands on his back from three stories up, just flat on his back. They call the office. We're bringing him in. He needs an adjustment. Now, common sense, everybody, right? He just slid off a three story rough. So we tell him, no, go to the emergency room. Guess where they showed up. They showed up in my parking lot. He really wants to see you first. He really wants to see if you can do anything first. I walk out to this van. They opened the back doors of the van. They've got this guy laying on his back on a piece of plywood. And I just looked at him and I said, okay, you just slid off a three story roof and you can't feel your legs and the pain in your back is starting to subside. Go to the emergency room. Okay, doc. I will. I just didn't want to go unless you actually saw me, so I don't know if he really thought I was going to adjust him and make everything go away or if he just wanted to make sure he got my physical opinion, but that's the kind of order you've got to have. Yeah.

Dr. Troy Fox:

Is that too much doctor authority right there where the guy shows up on a piece of plywood in the back of a van?

Dr. Michael Perusich:

It's a true story. You got to hear Morissette tell it. It's even funnier.

Dr. Troy Fox:

Here's the deal. If you did this up right, next thing you know, when you make it into a feature film, you got Brad Pitt laying in the back of the van, the plywood, and you get to be George Clooney. He George has a little more hair than you. But he could come out because he's played doctors before. So we'll let him do it. He comes out to the that is serious authority right there, but you know what that is serious loyalty to the fact that you've always given good information That's why and you develop that over time. I can tell you folks, I took over the practice. I'm in two years ago and did patients trust me? Not a bit. Sure. When I walked in, I was the outsider. I didn't live in this town. I didn't know what I was talking about. Two years later, I got people coming to me. Hey, before I go to my medical doctor, when you hear that, you know that you've got authority at that point. You know that you're headed in the right direction and you're going to win every time with that attitude

Dr. Michael Perusich:

every time. And you guys out there, you hear us talk about this all the time. You got to build trusted relationships. It's not just relationships. It's not just trust. It's trusted relationships and you do it. By being, what'd you call it? An RD, a real doctor by using your diagnostic skills. I firmly believe that us as chiropractors, we have some of the best diagnostic skills when it comes to the musculoskeletal system. We need to use that. We need to show people that we really know what we're doing. And when you do, you build that doctor authority people, but here's the best part of it. Okay. I'm going to, this is a practice building tip. Okay. Hang on, we've got to take a break. We're going to do the practice building to when we come back. So we're talking about taking control of a patient cases, not letting patients grab the wheel. So hang in there. We'll be right back.

Kats Consultants:

Kat's Chiropractic Consultants your partner in chiropractic success. We are dedicated with one on one guidance to bring you all your practice management needs. Let's supercharge your practice. Give us a call today.

Dr. Michael Perusich:

All right, everybody. Welcome back to the KC ChiroPulse podcast. I almost forgot where we are. Welcome back to the KC ChiroPulse podcast. We're talking about building your doctor authority. And making sure that you're managing case as well. And here's my practice tip. When you do a thorough history, a thorough evaluation, and you really put on your diagnostic thinking cap, and you start thinking real broad and real deep. Here's the cool thing about it. You're going to come up with a treatment plan that is pretty significant. You're going to come up with a whole lot of reasons to be able to treat that patient for quite a while. I'm not saying you're doing that because you're just trying to drive revenue. I'm saying you're doing that because you've uncovered a lot of health issues that the patient really needs not only help with, but they need to be aware of, and you're going to become their health advisor their, real health doctor, R. H. D. There you go. And you're going to become that trusted partner in their health journey, their chiropractic journey. And they're not only gonna understand what you do, but that those are the patients who stay paid, believe in what you do. Those are the ones who refer other people in. Those are the ones who refer everybody they know. Those are the ones who almost on bended knee will do whatever you tell them to do because they trust that you're telling them the right thing. And the practice building part of that is not the revenue generation as much as it is, you don't have to see, you don't have to generate new patients after that. They just show up at the door. It's crazy. I 20 years just about I didn't even advertise for new patients. We built that trusted authority in our community.

Dr. Troy Fox:

Yeah. I'm going on two years the

Dr. Michael Perusich:

same thing.

Dr. Troy Fox:

Yeah. I'm going on two years of not advertising and I took over a new practice and I haven't advertised. I, the best way to put yourself in that position is to figure out how to be influential enough to create doctor authority. Yep, know when to say no and you'll get referrals from your existing patients because they trust you Like they've never seen any chiropractor act like this before my patients tell me you act like no chiropractor that we've ever met before like you're like Yeah, like it's your way or the highway. You're very staunch about it. And you also will lay out why every time.

Dr. Michael Perusich:

Yeah. I'm going to, I'm going to give a, I'm going to give a shout out real quick to one of our Kats consultants members. They have an associate doctor who's pretty fresh out of school. And I want to give a little shout out to her because she was telling me the other day when we were on a phone call. That she had a new patient come in, she was having cervical thoracic pain. She'd had a little fall, she'd been a couple other places, and it just, it was getting worse. She does a very thorough exam, she does tuning fork over C7, hurts, she does x rays. Clay shovelers fracture. She's six weeks in practice, but she didn't let her desire to have a patient to adjust, override her good diagnostic abilities and taking good care of the patient didn't go into care. The patient went to an orthopedist for further evaluation and maybe care. But that's the kind of patient that yeah. Is going to refer a ton of people back to that brand new doctor. So she's already building right out of the gate. She's building that doctor authority. She's creating that sense in the community that she knows what she's doing and that she's a real doctor.

Dr. Troy Fox:

Yeah, that's amazing. And I'll tell you what, we need more of that, not less of that. Yeah. And I, I'm going to, I'm going to step on some toes here when we don't do proper exams and we just say, lay down on the table and then call me when you need me. You're not a real doctor. Sorry. You're a chiropractic technician at that point in the patient's eyes. I'm not saying you're not a real doctor because I know you are. I know you are. I went to school with you. I've met you out on the street. You're a real doctor with real skills. You're just not using them. And unfortunately, sometimes that gets you, in a bad situation with the patient in the legal system. Sometimes it just gets you in a bad situation because you're not looked at with any respect whatsoever. I still remember there was a doc in a small town in Kansas and my cousin used to go to him. And this guy was, he was a marshmallow. He didn't do exams. He just lay you down on the table. He was old time chiropractor. People liked him because he didn't cost much. You could just walk in there. You could even get him, as my cousin said, to forego his lunch hour to adjust him. Not because my cousin was busy all morning, but because he wanted to get adjusted at 1230. Because it was convenient for him. So this guy would bend over backwards and my cousin would go see him like twice a year. And I was like, Oh, how disgusting is that? And if he knew that's what really happened, would it have stopped him? That's my question. Would it have stopped him from doing that?

Dr. Michael Perusich:

So I think we need to do a podcast. I got a great topic. He just made me think of this on the PRN mindset. Oh yeah. Cause you just brought that up, being part of a good doctor is giving patients recommendations. And in my mind, when you tell a patient come back, when you need me, you're telling the patient one of two things, either I just quit you. Or you don't have a spine for a little while, come back when it returns. Yeah,

Dr. Troy Fox:

we should talk about that. Peering mindset is, you and I both, we've had so many discussions about that. It's somebody you've heard us. And if we sound like a broken record guess what? We're going to continue to sound like a broken record. We want you to be, as I said earlier, what did I say?

Dr. Michael Perusich:

Be a gangster.

Dr. Troy Fox:

And that's what we're doing

Dr. Michael Perusich:

for our clients is we're helping them be gangster. Chiropractors truly helping them. We're helping them build their doctor authority, their community engagement, most of all their profitability in their practice. So if you're having trouble with profitability for whatever reason, give us a call, go to our website, jump on one of our calendars. Let's talk about your practice. We do that for free. And I know sometimes it sounds like we, we really get on our soap box about something or really hard headed about something. We're very passionate about chiropractic and we believe that. Every chiropractor not only has the ability, but also the skill to be. Not only a great doctor, but a very profitable doctor as well. And you deserve that. Uber successful. It's

Dr. Troy Fox:

not just money. When we say that you're profitable, I'm talking about you're profiting in your personal life, your family, your practice, your spiritual life, all the above. We care about all of it. Not just one class.

Dr. Michael Perusich:

And you said it earlier, it's really all about your legacy. Yeah. A hundred percent. All right, everybody. Thanks for tuning in to the KC ChiroPulse podcast. Be sure to subscribe, share this with everybody. If you have some ideas for a podcast, send them to us, email it to Troy at katsconsultants.Com. Go check out our website, Kats, consultants. com. We got all kinds of free downloads on there. Most of all, we appreciate you tuning in every single week. We'll see you next time. See you later.