Kats Chiropractic Consultants CHIROpulse

220 Who's the Boss in Your Practice

• Marisa Mateja

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Welcome to the KC CHIROpulse Podcast.  

This week’s topic:  Who’s the Boss in Your Practice?

The KC CHIROpulse Podcast is designed for Chiropractic professionals ready to elevate their practice to new heights.  This week, the show is hosted by Kats Consultants’ coaches Dr Michael Perusich and Dr Troy Fox, seasoned experts in Chiropractic business management.  This podcast provides invaluable insights and actionable strategies to help you create a flourishing and sustainable Chiropractic business.

In this episode, we discuss:

  • Whether it’s ok to bring your spirituality into your practice
  • The benefits of leading alongside a higher power
  • Why “turning on the radio” can build deeper relationships with patients
  • How your leadership becomes more decisive and mission-driven 
  • How spiritual grounding gives you more emotional strength  
  • …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.



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



Dr. Michael Perusich:

Doctors. Who's the boss in your clinic? Hi everybody. Welcome to the KC Chiro Pulse Podcast, brought to you by Kats Consultants and Chiro Health USA. This is Dr. Troy Fox. And I'm Dr. Michael Perusich. We're your host for today, as we are often most days when you tune in. Hello Troy. How are you?

Dr. Troy Fox:

I'm good. I was trying to figure out where you were going with that. I'm like, I'm, we're your host here today and I'm thinking. We're your host most days. Every once a, every once in a while I get ousted by Marisa or Kelly or Alex. Or Alex. Yeah. Somebody else oust me every once in a while, but we are familiar faces for sure.

Dr. Michael Perusich:

A little bit. We are the face of the chiro Pulse.

Dr. Troy Fox:

I think I've known you since 1893 or somewhere in that neighborhood.

Dr. Michael Perusich:

Just about, yeah. I don't even want to go there. We can tell some stories too.

Dr. Troy Fox:

Oh, man. I, yeah. We've known each other since the nineties, and that makes us sound really old Now we act really young for our age. We're seasoned. Yeah.

Dr. Michael Perusich:

We're seasoned. We're seasoned. Good wine. Good wine. Speaking of wine. Yeah. I opened the show with who's the boss in your clinic and a lot of you out there probably thinking, it's my wife or my spouse or my office manager. I'm the boss because i'm the doctor. Let's take this in a little bit different direction. Last time we did a podcast we had such a great time just talking about our spirituality and how we brought that into our practice and, I always made sure in my practice that God was in charge. God was in charge. I was doing the adjusting, but it was his power through me that made that happen. It was his power through us that allowed us to help patients find good outcomes and have a good experience. Or a great experience. And, I think that's an important concept. As Christians and I don't mean to step on anybody's foot out there if you're not, so we're not suggesting that this is the only way to practice. This is just how we practiced.

Dr. Troy Fox:

It's a very effective way to practice. It's an effective way to

Dr. Michael Perusich:

practice. Yeah. And there, there's a couple of scriptures that, that really point to this. I've got a couple written down here, in imp Proverbs three, lean not into your own understanding. In all your ways, submit to him and he will make your paths straight. We, I both, we talked to a lot of doctors out there. There's a lot of doctors who are complaining pro about practice, who are, seem to have lost their direction, who are not at the profitability point they want to be. And I think sometimes you just have to take a step back and say, I gotta give this up to God because my way may not be working and it's God who makes our paths straight. And I think that's an important concept because when you think about. Running a business, you have to have a roadmap. And for a lot of us that's our goals and how we're working our goals. That's a roadmap to where we want to go. But if you don't bring God into the picture, God has way more wisdom than we do. He knows the outcome already. He knows where we're gonna go, so why not get the guy who built the big roadmap to help you out a little bit?

Dr. Troy Fox:

I think it brings a moral compass to the practice as well, where sometimes Yeah, for sure. Maybe and I'm not saying very many, but there, there are a small group of people out there that would either give you advice that shady or. Ask you to operate in a way that's shady, or you may choose to operate in a way that's a little bit shady. Meaning that, do you really believe the recommendation you gave the patient or is it just good for your practice? Yeah, and we talk a lot about that. Is it good for the practice? Is it good for the patient? So when you're led by God as the CEO, I have to ask, is it good for the practice and is it good for the patient if it's not for both? Then we probably shouldn't do it. And so it brings an element into the equation where I have to look at it and go, is what I'm doing ethical? Is what I'm doing gonna be beneficial for my patient? Yeah. Is it gonna be good for the practice? Which usually if it's good for the patient, most of the time it's good for the practice. But the reason we say that is'cause sometimes you could say, gee, what I'm gonna do is just give everybody free care for life.

Dr. Michael Perusich:

Yep.

Dr. Troy Fox:

Because it's good for the patient. Would that be good for your practice? Probably not. You'd be outta business in a month or two. So that's where that comes into play. It needs to be good for both, but it brings an ethical component in when we bring God into our practices and we operate in an ethical manner. Not saying that you couldn't without, but it makes it really easy to do, and I think it is in the back of my mind, every single day. Every day, is it good for my patients? Is it good for the practice? And does it serve my master?

Dr. Michael Perusich:

Yep. Yep. And that's simple. So I have this litmus test that I use for everything, and it basically guides what am I gonna get involved in? What am I gonna do? Those kind of things. And the very first part of the litmus test is, does it lift up God? And if it does, great, then we go on to the next component. Does it lift up my family? Great. Does it lift up my community? Does it lift up my business? Does it lift up me? If it meets all of those things, great, let's go do it. If it misses any of those, you'd be amazed. How many things miss the first one?

Dr. Troy Fox:

And it's funny how you're at the very bottom of the list. Yep. Not at the top of the list. It's not about me. It's about God and family first and Yep. You've got your priority straight, and that's why it works so well, because you have a lot of hoops to jump through and a lot of criteria to meet before it ever gets to the point of where it's is this good for me? Yeah. At that point, you've already qualified it so many times that you're like. It's probably good for me'cause it's good for my family. It's good for God, it's good for my community. It's

Dr. Michael Perusich:

probably a good thing the filter's down that far. Yep. And I always saw it as that just keeps all of those things out in front of me. So I'm constantly seeing them. I'm not out in front where everything's behind me. It's all that is out in front. So I, I think if you're finding yourself in practice where you're a little bit against a brick wall, you're a little burned out you're maybe not covering the bills quite the way you should. Maybe it's time to take just a little step pa step back and get God involved in the practice just a little bit. And some of you out there may be thinking, oh I've always heard, I can be a Christian, but I can't do that in my practice, in my business I can't bring religion. I'm not really talking about bringing religion into your practice. However, everybody in my community knew I was a devout Christian'cause I wore it on my sleeve. They could come to church and see me play in the church band. There was k love playing on the radio every single day. I've got a story about that, that I'll tell if we have time or I'll tell it another day, but

Dr. Troy Fox:

Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Definitely. Because that's we play Klove in our office as well. Yeah. Not that's the only sign that you're a Christian, but people come in and thank us all the time for doing that all the time. We're so thankful for you guys playing that type of music. It's calling, it's yo. It's uplifting and encouraging. Klo? Exactly. We'll give the we'll give to K little

Dr. Michael Perusich:

plug to Klo. How funny. Yeah. Yeah. Don't be afraid to do those kind of things. And I'll tell you the story. You've heard this a million times, Troy, but I call this story, turn the radio on, and so when nine 11 happened, all of us that were around that day, we knew exactly where we were and what was happening. And. In our office. We had local radio station on back then, so fairly early in practice and we just had local radio on and of course, every 30 seconds they're coming in with, what's going on in New York and Right. And there was a point in the morning where we were super busy and I just. I took a stop and I was looking around at patient's faces and I could see the angst on their face, and I heard somebody on their phone saying yeah, I'm gonna go pick up my daughter from school here in a few minutes as soon as I get done at the chiropractor's office.'cause I'm totally freaked out and we're going home, we're gonna hide in the basement. And I thought, wow, I gotta do something different. So I went over and I flipped the radio over to Klo. And within seconds, I saw the comfort and the relaxation come over people's face. And I went and adjusted a couple patients and came back. Somebody else was on their phone and they were saying, Hey, come over here because Dr. Kush has Caleb on. And it just feels good to be here. And before the day was out, we had people lined up out on the sidewalk sitting around the parking lot, waiting to come in and get adjusted because we had become the place of comfort that day. The churches weren't open and things, people were looking for something someplace to go where they could be comforted. And I thought, wow. Talk about a chiropractic paradigm, that's what our profession is all about. It's all about bringing comfort and peace and serenity and good health without drugs and surgery to people, and we never turned Klo off after that. Ever.

Dr. Troy Fox:

My, my expert coaching analysis would say that if you worked a little bit harder and a little bit faster, people could have sat inside and listened to K level. They were waiting to get adjusted instead of having to wait in the parking lot. But I'm sure you were doing the best you can'cause you were freaked out because of nine 11. You saw, I had to, I had to throw some humor into that story.

Dr. Michael Perusich:

I love it. Yeah. But you probably remember my first office in the waiting room. It was, oh yeah. We literally three chairs. That was almost bad.

Dr. Troy Fox:

It was a little, yeah, it was a little small.

Dr. Michael Perusich:

It was a little small, but, even inside, we had people sitting around on the floors and it was quite the sight. And it just made me realize that, wow, that old adage of. Not bringing God and spirituality into your business is just wrong. It's just wrong. You have to believe it. Okay? You have to believe in it too, but if you don't be afraid to bring that into your practice at times.

Dr. Troy Fox:

There's only two types of practice. There's the ego driven, doctor driven practice. And then there's God is the CEO. There's really not many other types of practice. Maybe if you work in a multidisciplinary practice as an employee, you're not really in charge of what the attitude is, right? Yeah. Or you're in a large practice and there's eight docs in your practice. You're not, maybe you're not the lead doc and you're not in charge, but if you're in a small practice, which is most of us, right? Yep. And you're in charge. It's either ego driven. Where we take everything personally. And that's one great thing I will throw out there. Maybe we should go to break and let's come back and talk about the difference between ego driven and what it does to your heart and your inside. Let's do that.

Dr. Michael Perusich:

That's a great idea. We need to do that. All right. We will be right back.

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Dr. Michael Perusich:

All right everybody. Welcome back to the KC ChiroPulse podcast. We are talking about God being your CEO, and pick up on what you just said a minute ago, Troy, God, being your CEO and really just in some ways surrendering your practice to Christ and having that stewardship mindset versus the profiteering mindset, I think is really important. And I wanna point out the difference between the two. A profiteering practice is you're just constantly trying to drive the bottom line, which is a business person you need to do to a degree. But what if you drove that bottom line by being a good steward in the community? By being a good steward, as a chiropractor, by serving, that's what that means, by serving others. And isn't that really what we do? We serve others. We provide, yeah, a hundred serving others.

Dr. Troy Fox:

A hundred percent. And as you look at, let's say, an ego-driven practice, in other words, a practice where there's no you're the pinnacle. Everything done is to make sure that it serves you, and I get the world revolves around us. Some days in practice, most days, let's be honest, if we're a busy practice, the world revolves around you inside the practice. It has to. You're the center, but you're the center cog in a whole bunch of cogs, a whole bunch of wheels, right? So that doesn't mean that the world revolves around you because you're egocentric. It just means the world revolves around you. Now, it can be because. There is nothing else for you. You're like, people love me or hate me because I'm a chiropractor. I take everything personally. I wear my heart on my sleeve because of that. Here's how I approach practice, and it's so refreshing. I will tell you folks, it's so easy when I go home at the end of the day, let's say that we didn't meet our projections through the month. On services. Let's say we were a thousand dollars off. And we get to the end of the month. What we look at is, did we do everything we could to get there? Did we take all the appropriate steps? Were our goals set appropriately and were our action steps actionable, right? Yep. Okay. If I say yes to all those, and I've already determined this is good for God, good for my family, good for my community, we've already gone through all those steps. My action steps are actionable, and I did all of them. I did'em with gusto. I didn't do'em halfway, so I don't have to have a reckoning with myself. In other words, everything was done by the book. Okay. I missed it. Yep. I don't start thinking the sky's falling. I will tell you, there was a point in my life where my practice was not driven by God. It was driven by me. And guess what? I started to question myself. I started to wander where I was at. In my practice and what was I doing wrong? Yeah. And then the sky, and then I chicken whittled the thing. Sky's falling. You know what we do? Let's throw more advertising money at this. Let's do you know what I do now? I very calmly go, wow, girls, we got really close. What are we gonna do next month? And we'll review what we're gonna do and we make sure again. We're ready to go. Everything's actionable, and we approach it from that process standpoint. Now, if I miss goals two or three months in a row, I may want somebody else to look at my numbers. I may want you to look at my numbers and go, what do you see that I'm not seeing here? What am I doing? Sure. Am I losing patience at a certain point? So sometimes an outside view will help me, but I don't get panicked anymore like I used to, because guess what? My practice is God's practice and I work there. I reap some benefit from it, but it is not an extension of me to a point of where literally, if it fails, I fail.

Dr. Michael Perusich:

And I look at practice the exact same way, early on in practice, oh my gosh, a patient dropped out, the world's ending, chicken little is falling. And I got over that really quick because what I realized was God was preparing me for something I. If there was a reason why that patient left my practice, maybe we just didn't jive. Maybe I didn't quite key in on some health issue that needed a different kind of doctor and I just wasn't picking up on it. And the patient realized it though, whatever it might be. Yeah. But I realized that, that disengagement by the patient was. Was God preparing me for something else? And if we didn't make our goals, God was preparing us maybe for to blow through our goals the next five months. Who knew? So just constantly giving it up to God. Wow. When you do that don't you feel better about practice. You don't panic. It's the greatest, it's the greatest insulation to burnout. I think there is. I would agree because

Dr. Troy Fox:

When I got burned out in practice was when I was trying to, I was trying to man the ship, man, the oars plug all the holes in the ship. I was trying, I was chief cook, bottle washer, and everything in between.

Dr. Michael Perusich:

Yep.

Dr. Troy Fox:

And instead of letting God be in charge, I was in charge and it just burnt me to a crisp, I hated practice because of it. Yeah.'cause guess what I. It was a reflection of me and I felt like I was a failure.

Dr. Michael Perusich:

Yeah,

Dr. Troy Fox:

and here's the thing, you and I both know, I wasn't a failure dollar dollars to donuts. I was generating more income than most practitioners in my state, and I still felt like a failure.

Dr. Michael Perusich:

Yeah.

Dr. Troy Fox:

And the truth of the matter was, is my priorities are outta line.

Dr. Michael Perusich:

Yeah. And we had a similar experience in our practice. We I woke up one day, this literally happened. I woke up one day. This was when the air quotes, the Affordable Care Act was Yep. First being discussed in Congress and just getting passed. And I woke up one morning and I realized, holy cow. Not only are we gonna see some dramatic changes with reimbursement, health insurance rules and so forth I was fortunate to understand what was happening there, but I realized our practice had become so insurance guided. That everything we did in practice was to play to the insurance gods basically. And I took a step back and I said, we can't do this anymore because this, we are no longer meeting the litmus test in this practice. And we started retooling the practice and bringing it back to God and what happened? Holy cow. Practice exploded, and before I knew it, we were, we're a hundred percent cash practice and 34 per percent more profitable. And like you, Troy, we had one of the more. Profitable practices in the States, and yeah. From there on, we just blew the doors off. And so it, it's amazing when you trust in God enough to give your business up to him, give your family up to him, give yourself up to him. It's the greatest strategic planning session ever.

Dr. Troy Fox:

Sometimes it makes it really easy. I say sometimes I feel like this has been the easiest stretch in my practice Yeah. That I've ever had. And not to say that I wasn't a Christian before, I just wasn't letting God be in charge. I was in charge. I'd just gotten through chiropractic school. I had worked my tail off just like the rest of you guys and girls have, and guess what? Darn it, I deserve this. I deserve to be successful in practice. Yeah. Because of what you

Dr. Michael Perusich:

did.

Dr. Troy Fox:

Because of what I did. It's all about me. And so I had the whole pyramid flipped upside down.

Dr. Michael Perusich:

Yeah.

Dr. Troy Fox:

It was all about me. And then everything. And I will tell you, my own personal story is, no, it's no secret that I literally hated practice. I almost lost my marriage. I almost lost my family. You know what? At the time I thought it was because money was evil. I thought it was because all this money has created so much strife with me and my family. No, it was me that was creating the strife because I was not submitting, I. To God being in charge of what was going on. And once I did, life became way easier. And this is one of those deals where you may listen to us and say, I don't know what you guys are talking about and this doesn't make any sense. It seems a little crazy what happened to the practical tips for my practice. This is a practical tip, but it is definitely. Driven by Mike and I both our desire to follow what God tells us to do because we believe that is the correct way to do it. So if this is one of these deals where you may not agree with everything we're saying right now, and that's okay, it still may be, it still may be worth listening, but we're just telling you that we believe that our success came from submittal. Behavior, not type A alpha behavior, which is what every doctor's taught when we come outta school. Be a tiger.

Dr. Michael Perusich:

Yeah.

Dr. Troy Fox:

And that didn't work all the time either. I tried that on the golf course the other day and I said, be a tiger. And I was like a, I was like one of those orange striped house cats instead of a tiger. So sometimes what you want and what really happens are two different things.

Dr. Michael Perusich:

They sure are. Yeah, they sure are. And out. Those of you out there listening, when we get off on these spiritual. Tangents that we do sometimes just hang with us. We're a Christian based company and so we appreciate the opportunity to talk about these kind of things from time to time because like you said, Troy this was a very important aspect we feel like of our success and our whole job is just to pass that along in the profession, to other doctors so you guys can have the opportunity to enjoy the same level of success that we have and. Whether you're a committed Christian or not, there, there are ways to bring just good spiritual ethics into your practice. And I'm telling you, no matter what level you do it on, it's a game changer.

Dr. Troy Fox:

A hundred percent. And the thing is quite frankly, it just, your whole life is in order

Dr. Michael Perusich:

truly.

Dr. Troy Fox:

Yeah, and it doesn't mean that you're not gonna get hangry and get grouchy sometimes in the office or you're not gonna, I do that. I got hangry last week because I was on a little different diet and Bridget goes, man, you're really short this week. And I'm like, I'm hungry. Sometimes you get a little irritated still, but I'll tell you what, when you do that and God's a CEO and you work for God, right? Yep. You get real introspective real quick.'cause you gotta figure out how you're gonna keep your job. Yep. Because I work for God, I don't work for me.

Dr. Michael Perusich:

Yeah.

Dr. Troy Fox:

And so when you're not big man on campus or big woman on campus, that probably didn't sound right. Probably shouldn't see that big woman on campus. If you're the top dog,

Dr. Michael Perusich:

there you go. That's what you meant.

Dr. Troy Fox:

Top. If you're the top dog, sometimes you can overlook your bad behavior.

Dr. Michael Perusich:

Yep.

Dr. Troy Fox:

When you're not the one in charge and you are part of a you're part of a cog in a wheel of a mechanism that makes this happen for patients and the rest of the staff's involved, God's in charge, then you have to become introspective. So sometimes you get called on the carpet and it's really easy when you're not the figurehead that says, I command you to do blah, blah, blah. Do as I say, not as I do kind of thing. And now all. Your subject, just like your staff is, and I think that makes perfect sense.

Dr. Michael Perusich:

Good point. God is the CEO. I love it. Yes. Alright, everybody go check us out at. katsconsultants.com. See all the great things we're doing to help doctors really drive profitable ethical practices. We do so many different things. Honestly, I think the only thing we don't do is come treat your patients for you. We help you with all the business side. Of the practice, the compliance side, those kind of things. So go check us out. There's some free freebies on the website as well. And hey, if you, if out there, if you ever wanna talk about your practice, jump on one of our schedules. You can get to our calendars right on the front page of the website and jump on. We like talking to you guys. So we're in practice too and we want to hear about yours. So feel free to touch base.

Dr. Troy Fox:

Troy, anything else? Yeah, you said we do everything except the adjustments. We also don't provide any kind of free ice cream or snow cones or any of that kind of stuff. If you do work with us from a coaching standpoint, you get great coaching without all the fluff. Sometimes we see, we, and I've had fluff before where I got given a, this'll age me, but I got given a free iPod. Preloaded with some stuff at one Point iPod. I remember that some of you youngsters have seen one of those in a museum before, right? Smithsonian? It's right after the cassette player. Okay. The walk the Walkman. So I, sometimes we're good information without the fluff and we're also what I would call very condensed and boiled down because you don't come to a seminar with 500 people and see us up on a stage and never speak with us. Yeah, we're up close and personal with all of our clients. We're friends with all of our clients. That's, yeah. We're the craziest. We know everybody when we're, when we are. I wouldn't even call it a seminar. Most of what we do is workshops because we're in front of you and up close and personal with you, and we're there to answer your questions. Yep. And we're there to answer your questions on a personal level so it Yeah we don't adjust your patients, but yeah, we do a lot. Other than that,

Dr. Michael Perusich:

we give you the tools you need that you can use today? Absolutely. Alright everybody, be sure to like and subscribe and share the podcast with all your colleagues out there. We're growing like crazy because of you guys. We really appreciate it. So tune in next time. We'll dive back into some other topics and we always enjoy being present in front of you. So have a great day everybody. We'll see you next time. We'll see y'all later.

Kats Consultants:

Kats 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.