Kats Chiropractic Consultants CHIROpulse

239 The Chiropractic Failure to Thrive Syndrome

• Michael Perusich

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This week’s topic:  Are you caught in the failure to thrive syndrome?

The KC CHIROpulse Podcast is designed for Chiropractic professionals ready to elevate their practice to new heights with innovative business strategies.  

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:

  • The danger of marketing like every other practice
  • Why the wellness story creates lifetime patients
  • Why the pain message for Chiropractic is worn out
  • Why your patients leave you after they are out of pain
  • …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.



The Chiropractic Failure to Thrive Syndrome

Introduction and Podcast Overview

[00:00:00] 

Dr. Michael Perusich: doctors. Are you failing to thrive in your practice? Hi everybody. Welcome to the KC ChiroPulse Podcast, brought to you by Kats Consultants in Chiro Health, USA. We are the ones bringing you the most innovative business strategies for your Chiropractic practice. Why? Because we want you to be successful today.

Troy, I want to talk about, by the way, I'm Dr. Michael Perusich. This is Dr. Troy Fox, just in case you don't know us. But, uh, hopefully a lot of you are tuning in for the multiple new word, multiple time. Yeah. Did you catch that? I got it. 

Challenges in Chiropractic Practice

Dr. Michael Perusich: , Today, Troy, I wanna talk about, and this is actually your idea off camera, I wanna talk about this idea of failure to thrive in practice and we're kind of seeing some weird things happen and I, I think we both can kind of agree on where part of it's coming from, why some doctors are having a hard time with success.

Dr. Troy Fox : I would agree. And I think this goes back and you and I were talking off camera this morning, we were both in Chiropractic [00:01:00] school at the hundredth year anniversary of Chiropractic. Yeah. And some of you don't remember that 'cause you haven't been around that long. Some of 'em are old dogs and we've been here for a little while and we remember that hundredth year anniversary.

We were both at Cleveland and Kansas City at the time, and we went into the church. If you know what the church is, you probably went to Cleveland, right? The church. So we went into the church and I remember the discussion point that day was that we'd made it a hundred years, and if you make it a hundred years, you're really gonna start to thrive.

The profession as a whole was gonna start to thrive, and we were gonna see great things in the future and. Like I stated this morning, I don't know that we're any farther along than we were at the hundred year anniversary, and that's a bit unfortunate. 

Dr. Michael Perusich: It doesn't, you know, it, it doesn't really feel like it.

I mean, in some ways I, I guess we are, but it just strange to [00:02:00] me that we would have a hundred plus year old profession and find some, so many doctors still still struggling for success. 

Dr. Troy Fox : I 

Dr. Michael Perusich: mean, it just, that, that's kind of hard for me to bear. I I know you as well. And I think so much of it is we don't have, we don't have a good message out there and we're all kind of off doing all these little offshoot things and, and yet when you look at our advertising and our marketing, it's all identical.

It's kind of the weirdest thing. There's no real solid identity. It, it doesn't feel like in our profession right now, 

Dr. Troy Fox : and it's really unfortunate because we are a wellness profession. And we hear chiropractors talk about that all the time, that we're a wellness profession and we will tout our practices as a wellness and maintenance practice, but yet all of our advertising drum roll does what [00:03:00] 

Dr. Michael Perusich: It's about 

Dr. Troy Fox : pain.

It talks about pain and, and everything is, does your back hurt? Does your neck hurt? Does you know? We don't talk about the wellness aspect of Chiropractic. We don't get deep into. The function of the human body. Now we have a lot of us, because we're all trying to grapple with how do we fit into that wellness equation.

I see a lot of docs that are heading into like functional medicine or regenerative medicine. Or regenerative health and functional health, whatever you want to call it. Mm-hmm. And that seems to have a bigger identity. And we've seen practices thrive as a result of. Looking out for wellness for their patients long term, but yet they don't do it in Chiropractic.

And that's where I think the dichotomy is. And I also think that's where our failure to thrive is. I think we get to a position in our practices where we're like, okay, what are we gonna put out as [00:04:00] advertising? Does your low back hurt? Call me. Yeah. Does your neck hurt? Call me rather than conveying the message when we talk to patients.

That we are about wellness. Yeah. And when we talk about wellness, yes. Does it get a little more complex? Do we have to probably do a little more explaining, as I like to say, not explaining. Explaining. We have to explain ourselves and we have to do it in office as well. It's a multi-step process. So I'd like you to touch on a little bit.

About what you did in your practice, because really, you know, I don't care if it was two years ago, five years ago, 10 years ago, or last week, the message really for practices that are thriving hasn't changed. So how did you approach wellness in your practice? Because you were an act let me preface this.

You were an activator practice. Yep. You got outta school shortly after I did. [00:05:00] Yep. We, we also were looking for the answer of how we could help more patients. That was really our mantra was how do we help more patients? So how did you step into it? 

Dr. Michael Perusich: You know, I, it's kind of funny, my practice, I think, started out pretty heavy in PI for some reason.

Mm-hmm. And I, I don't really know why necessarily, other than I was on a, uh, boys and Girls Club board that had three or four attorneys on it. Maybe that's where it came from. But anyway, what I realized pretty quickly was getting people out of pain is great and Chiropractic is great at it. And , a little caveat here.

We're not trying to step on anybody's toes today. If you have a pain based practice and you're doing great, go for it. That's fantastic. Where do those patients go afterwards and. I was actually at my dentist one day and we weren't even talking about healthcare, and he just said something and I had this little light bulb that went off, and I'm like, okay, wait a minute.[00:06:00] 

He's talking about the importance of ongoing care, is what he called it. I'm. That kind of makes sense. And I got back to my practice and I looked at my staff and I realized, holy cow, all of my staff gets adjusted at least once a week. I get adjusted once a week. Why? And I got to really thinking about this.

And I went home that night. And I remember, I remember Joe and I, my wife and I had this long conversation about about it because she got adjusted once a week, Mike. My daughter got adjusted once a week. My daughter got her first adjustment when she was an hour old, you know? So I'm thinking, I'm thinking, why are we basing so much on pain when all of us are getting adjusted when we're not in pain and we feel like we're in better health than a lot of people?

So just occurred to me, why don't we give that same benefit to our patients? And then I realized too, kind of at the same time, Troy, [00:07:00] that. The tradition in Chiropractic was either, you're out of pain, come back and see me when you need to. And I thought, well, patients don't need necessarily know when they need to come see us unless we're basing it on pain.

Mm-hmm. Number two the model back then was I'd suggest you come back in four to six weeks, or we would just schedule people out a month. 

Okay, this isn't, this doesn't fit into what I do with Chiropractic Care. Why am I giving my patients something different than what I espouse to?

And so that's kind of, that's kind of where it came from. And we, we need to take a quick break, but when we come back I'll tell you a little bit more about how I really got patients on that wellness cycle, and then I know you have the same story, so. Mm-hmm. , We're gonna take a quick break.

​We're talking about failure to thrive in your practice, and of course, Trey and I think we know the answer to it. Just kidding. We're just kind [00:08:00] of batting around just. These ideas that we have that we're seeing in the profession as to why this may be happening in some cases. So again, not trying to step on anybody's toes, but come back after the break and let's, let's finish up this conversation, so we'll be right back.

[00:09:00] 

Dr. Michael Perusich: Okay. Welcome back to the KC ChiroPulse podcast. We're talking about failure to thrive today. And Troy, you asked me to tell my, my wellness story, and hopefully you didn't ask me what time it was and I told you how to make a watch, but when I got. When I started realizing my wellness recommendations were different than how I was using Chiropractic Care, it dawned on me that every four weeks is so random, it's just so random.

Now, of course, my brain thinks twofold. I think, you know, what's the benefit to the patient. But I also think from a business standpoint, what's the benefit to my practice? And I thought it dawned on me that, every month, that's a patient coming in 12 times a year. And then my brain immediately went, huh.

But every three weeks [00:10:00] is 18 times a year. And I thought in every three weeks, better than every four weeks for the patient. Yes. And isn't 18 times a year versus 12 times a year coming into the practice and paying me for my service? Isn't that good for the practice? And then all of a sudden I realized, Hey, if it's good for the practice and good for the patient, let's do it.

And that became the cat's litmus test. But and then pretty soon, uh, wasn't too far after that. I heard somebody ask at the front desk. He said, how often do you get adjusted? Marisa said, oh, at least once a week. And the patient said, well, why can't I have that? Why can't I have that? And it made me realize that.

I'm the one that's holding everybody back. Why am I holding everybody back? So I just started telling people, two to four times a month is a great maintenance cadence. And I just started telling everybody that. Did everybody accept it? No. Some [00:11:00] people wanted to come in once a month. That's fine.

But after a couple of years of doing that, all of a sudden everybody's coming in every one to two weeks. Everybody in my practice was coming in, and I saw a huge change in their health by doing that. And from there, it just caught a caught on like wildfire in our town that it was the place for wellness.

And I know you, I know you have a very similar story, and feel free to jump in and tell it. 'cause I'm gonna run away with this if we don't, but you know, I started thinking about, okay, so we take our cars in for regular wellness care, maintenance care. We get our hair cut periodically for maintenance care, unless we just want our hair to grow way out.

We do all these things and yet Chiropractic is always marketing pain. And pain. Pain hopefully runs out. And I think, Chiropractic, I think everybody out there would agree [00:12:00] probably in three to six visits. Can't you get most patients out of pain? Of course you can. Most, not all. So why are we creating an endpoint to a profession that shouldn't have an endpoint?

'cause it should be based on wellness. It's a shift. 

Dr. Troy Fox : That's really what I saw early on as well, was that there was a shift in patients. They shift from. Active care, and what I noticed was when I really wasn't making any kind of long-term recommendation for wellness, what I saw was patients that made their own determinations, as soon as they were out of pain, they're like, start, they'd miss an appointment, they'd test the waters, they'd miss an appointment, then they'd make it up, and then they'd miss two appointments, and then they'd come in, and then next thing you know, they were no longer in my practice.

And then I would see them a year later with the same problem again. And so what I started noticing and started working on very early in my practice was on day one, we started talking about wellness care and the importance thereof. [00:13:00] And how I did that was, I would say, Hey Mike, is, we're looking at your low back pain today.

Because, you know, we still have a lot of patients that come in for pain, right? They know that we can fix pain, but we don't have to advertise. I don't think we have to advertise that we help low back pain. I think people, for the most part get that. Yeah, I think that's an understanding. But yeah, that patient comes in.

They're tweaked, they're messed up. You know it. I think sometimes we're shocked when patients come in and go, I'm just looking for wellness care, which I see a lot of in my practice. Yeah. It's like, I'm like, so, I read your intake today. It doesn't look like you have any specific problems that we're looking at, blah, blah, blah.

And so that, that's one type of patient, but that patient that comes in in pain, if I don't. Sprained that pain early on and talk about how we got there. And that's really one of the things I want to speak to with the patient is how did we get to this point? Has this been going on a day, a week, a month?

Have you had recurrences of this specifically? [00:14:00] What's going on with you? And we can talk about the physiological backing about joint movement and function and how we get oxygen and blood flow into the joints. I mean, there is a very physiological reason that a cadence of care. Works for patients and it's important for patients.

Mm-hmm. So what I looked at was, okay, how do we move from point A to point B? How do we transition? Well, I think we do it preemptively. And we do that by talking to the patient early on about long-term care. And you're gonna have, like you said there, there are really three types of patients when they're in pain and they get out of pain and they get to that wellness phase.

You've got patients that get to the wellness phase and want more care. They're like, Hey, can I come in every two weeks instead of every three? And you've got patients that say, you know what, doc? I mean, this is a reality. My finances just won't allow me to come in more often. I'd love to be in here every week, but I just can't do it.

And I don't feel like Monty Hall, let's play a deal [00:15:00] when that happens. I feel like the patient's being fair and honest with me and just says, look, sure, and that's fine. I wanna get care, but I can't get that much care. What works for you? Will I get paid? Every other Thursday and my first payment goes to rent, and in my second payment I can get Chiropractic Care.

So on the 28th of every month, I get paid, blah, blah, blah. And then you've got the third type of patient, which you don't wanna spend a whole lot of time on. That's the patient that says they put the hand out, they give you the hand, right Doc, I'm not really interested in that. I was just here for you to get me out of pain.

Hey, that's fine too. That patient has made a decision because quite frankly, you have an agreement between you and the patient. Yep. And so that patient walks well. If you do it in a graceful manner, guess what? They'll be back. When they do the message is the same. And what I've had over over the years is that patients then eventually go, Hey, you were talking about that wellness thing or getting adjusted every few weeks or once a month or whatever [00:16:00] before.

What would that entail? And then I talk through it and I make sure that we talk about the physiological aspects again, and that we get into the weeds a little bit. Because I think it's important, not just that it just makes sense. Everybody gets adjusted periodically. On a cadence of care, we need to find what cadence of care works for you.

Well, how do we figure that out? Here is a caveat. Here's a little tip for you and your practice. It's no different than if you were, let's say, a functional medicine practitioner that prescribed and a patient has a thyroid problem and you get them pretty well balanced out, right? Do I need blood work to tell whether that patient is on the right level of their thyroid?

Probably not at that point because a lot of it's by feel. How do you feel? Mm-hmm. Now I'm not asking if a patient's in pain or not. That's not my question. How you feeling today? I'm feeling pretty good. Okay. Let's take a look and see functionally how you're [00:17:00] moving then. And we look at 'em and they're like, oh yeah, I've got some spots that are kind of stiff, kind of sore, whatever.

We all have that type of thing. Then we start getting into the con, the context of cadence. I don't think three weeks is your cadence because we're already getting to a point of where you've got spinal segments that are starting to get sore when I challenge 'em again. So that tells me that maybe two weeks would be a better number for you.

Why don't we try that over the next two months time period, every two weeks. Then we'll discuss here in a couple of months time. I'm very much about involving the patient in the conversation because if they don't have buy-in, they're not gonna do, it'll never 

Dr. Michael Perusich: happen. Yeah, it'll never happen. 

Dr. Troy Fox : And so from my standpoint, when I look at patients, my whole goal on day one is looking at the long picture, not the short picture.

We all know that if you allowed a patient with low back pain to sit for 30 days. In a lot of cases, that pain's gonna resolve. [00:18:00] Did that mean the problem resolved? We all know that it didn't. That's the thing. We as chiropractors are smarter than that. We already know the problem didn't resolve, and the next time that problem appears, it might be devastating.

Yeah. Okay. Did I do my job if I didn't take care of that patient long term? So that goes back, and I'm gonna throw this back to you of your concept of dentistry. What were dentists doing in the 1950s? 

Dr. Michael Perusich: Sitting around waiting for, waiting for people to have tooth pain. 

Dr. Troy Fox : Really? Yeah. So they had sickness practices back in the 1950s and they had a thriving problem because they were sitting around waiting for somebody to hurt.

Yep. That sounds so familiar, doesn't it? That's why I, I really feel like that as a profession. I don't know the solution to this. You don't know the solution. None of you listening to us probably have the solution. We all say it's kinda like big government. Well, the, the [00:19:00] government should take care of me, right?

They should fix this problem. I think it happens at a grassroots level, but I'm not sure the answer of how we solve the problem. But what I do know is that our message needs to be consistent, and our message should be a consistent wellness message, not a sickness message. 

Dr. Michael Perusich: Agreed. So it's frustrating to me.

It is frustrating. And you guys may have seen me on my keyboard over here for just a second. I just wanted to see what would happen. So I Googled wellness care near me and the entire first page, guess what it's full of. Do you think it's chiropractors? No, there's not a single Chiropractic on the first page.

It's all medical doctors. They have absolutely usurped the term from us. We're the wellness doctors, and here we are, we're sitting in this post pandemic era where everybody's looking for wellness and we're out there talking about pain. Mm-hmm. And here's the funny thing. So I, not too long ago, I [00:20:00] asked one of the marketing, Chiropractic, marketing gurus, if you will, why?

Why do we always advertise pain? And the answer was because that's what people are Googling. Okay, so just because people are Googling low back pain, that's when we want Chiropractic to come up on the Google search, that's the only time, when are we gonna change that message? When are we gonna change the message like the dentist did to get out of this pain model and get people into understanding really what Chiropractic, at least in my opinion, in your opinion too, Troy, at least in our opinion, a Chiropractic.

Is really about, and it's about long term restoration of health, long term, not short term pain management. Which again, if you're, if that's what you do, that's great. I'm not saying there's a problem with it, but if you're a pain management Chiropractic clinic, find a [00:21:00] partner, find a clinic nearby that does wellness and maintenance care, so you can keep those patients in the Chiropractic loop.

Because I think that's what's important. We create a real. Thriving, uh, ability to thrive problem when we stay in the pain management era, unless that's what you do. Okay? But if you're just advertising for low back pain and you're bringing patients in and after six visits or so, they're out of pain, and so they're telling you probably that, well, I'm out of pain.

I guess I don't need to come back. And you're saying, okay, well call us when you need us. That's a tough practice to be in. That's what the dentist found out. They found out that if we wait for people to have tooth pain, then we're gonna be sitting around a lot. So they flipped the model and they decided, you know what?

We're really more about. Health and maintenance care. Let's get those patients in here a couple of times a year. [00:22:00] Let's teach 'em how to use the toothbrush correctly at home. In between visits and Chiropractic care is the same way. A lot of people probably don't realize this, but many years ago there was a great study, I think it was in spine, and don't quote me on this, I think it was McGraw and Gil who did this, but don't, don't quote me on that part.

That's not the important part. The important part is this study indicated that. People who have spine related pain, they can get out of pain pretty readily, but the underlying problem takes about 18 months to go away. 18 months. The number's important. We'll come back to that in a second. It takes about 18 months for the pro, for the condition to fully heal, and that's if you do everything correctly.

Mm-hmm. That's if you don't go back to work and do the repetitive motions. That's if you don't go back to playing sports, that's if you don't go back to sitting at the computer all day. This is why people need Chiropractic care because the spine related pain is just the warning light that something underneath [00:23:00] is going on that's gonna take at least 18 months to heal and probably longer.

Yet, we're letting them go after a month or two. So we need to be explaining to people, just like the dentist explained to us, that there are chemicals and particles working against the health of your teeth. At every moment of every day. This is why it's important to brush. This is why it's important to floss.

This is why it's important to get regular checkups. Now, we don't have a toothbrush necessarily that we can give patients, so our checkup period needs to be a little quicker. Our cadence needs to be a little faster, but the principles are exactly the same.

The Importance of Wellness in Chiropractic Care

Dr. Troy Fox : Yeah, and you made a really important point right there that I really like for, because there are some folks that are like, that are really stuck on. A pain [00:24:00] based model. And like we said, if that's what you do in your practice, no worries. But if you're really trying to make a change, think of it this way, when dentistry made the change to wellness, yes, it was a good financial choice to their practices.

We see it everywhere, right? But was it better for the patient? Oh my gosh, I'm so much happier that I go in and I actually. Have a much better chance of not having a massive cavity or needing, you know, having a cracked tooth or something crazy like that because I take better care of my teeth and I get it checked, and I also catch problems early on before they become a bigger problem.

Yeah. That to me is huge. And that's the same thing we can do in Chiropractic. 

Dr. Michael Perusich: It is, I go four times a year to my dentist, and I know we're not talking about dentistry, but I go four times a year to my dentist. And I'm not gonna necessarily say how old I am, but I'm, I'm old enough, but knock on wood, I've never had a cavity.

Why are we letting our [00:25:00] patients get cavities, if you will, in their spine by not offering that level of treatment that they need, that the research suggests. And oh, by the way, you're probably still wondering about the 18 to 18 months 

Dr. Troy Fox : mm-hmm. 

Dr. Michael Perusich: That I mentioned. Isn't it ironic that's about the average time it takes for an orthodontist to move your teeth when they put braces on?

It's ironic. So if it takes that long for spine related pain to heal and it takes that long for braces to move the teeth, why don't we implore the same ideas that the dentist did? Because the principles are exactly the same. And I think if we could promote more of this idea of Chiropractic wellness, if you got pain, come on in.

We're great at pain, we're gonna get you outta pain. But I'm gonna tell you about what happens after pain. I'm not gonna let you get stuck on the idea of pain. I'm gonna let you get stuck on the idea of function. When you come to [00:26:00] me, and this is probably the difference between you and I and a lot of other doctors, is we don't focus on pain, we focus on function.

So you come to me, you tell me you got eight outta 10 low back pain. I don't care. And I will tell patients, I don't really care about your pain. I care about what you can do. Well, doc, it's harder to heck to go play golf. Great. Then let's make golf the goal, not the pain. And let's make sure that not only getting you back to playing golf is important, but let's make sure that you can play golf for as long as you want.

That's maintenance care, 

Dr. Troy Fox : and that's called ramping into wellness. And that's a very easy thing to do once you've done it a few times. It's simple. You ramp into it. You walk into it very easily and the patient understands that. When you get to that point, they also realize that you care about them long term.

Dr. Michael Perusich: Long term, and I, 

Dr. Troy Fox : I tell every patient that I'm so concerned about your long term. I'm not concerned as [00:27:00] much about your pain because I know. We're gonna have an effect on your pain in most cases. Now there, there's a few cases here and there that just don't respond. We all know that. Sure. But I'm worried about your long term.

So from a functional standpoint, if I talk the talk from day one and I'm also walking the walk, my staff gets adjusted. I'm getting adjusted 'cause there are chiropractors out there, folks I've met you that don't get adjusted. What in the world are you doing? What, what, do you not understand the concept or is there something else going on?

I implore you to take a deep dive into the benefits of Chiropractic Care if you, yourself as a Chiropractic are not getting adjusted on a frequent basis. 

Dr. Michael Perusich: Yeah, come see your Troy or I, and we'll, we'll talk to you about the importance of ongoing care. We'll talk physiology. Well you do. 

Dr. Troy Fox : Yeah. We'll talk physiology because I, you know, I think we, we understand that, but that's, you know, you've gotta sprinkle in a little bit of like you did some analogies.

Sure. Like [00:28:00] the dental care analogies. Sure. And I think there's definitely a good argument, especially with everybody being smarter than they've ever been because of Google and AI and all that. I think there's a very good argument for throwing in some physiology in there. Sure. Because I think it's important that our patients understand that we understand how their bodies work, even if they don't get everything that you say.

Dr. Michael Perusich: Sure. You know, throw in a quick little reference to Wolf's law. Yeah. Normal tissue under abnormal pressure remodels, boom. Yep. That's what's going on with your body, period. Yep. End of the story. Gosh, you made that 

Dr. Troy Fox : simple. 

Dr. Michael Perusich: And it takes five seconds. Five seconds, and all of a sudden the patient's going, oh, hey, dark.

What? What was that? That physiological law thing that you mentioned, right? Yeah. It was Wolf's law. I'm gonna go look that up. I've had patients do that. Yeah. And they come back in and they go, oh my God. You're right. I know, I know. Okay. We need to take another quick break. We'll be right back.

[00:29:00] 

Dr. Michael Perusich: We're kind of on our soapbox today, which I don't know that, that's unusual, so No, we'll be right. We'll be right back. Okay. 

Sharing Personal Wellness Stories with Patients

Dr. Michael Perusich: Welcome back everybody. We're talking about failure to thrive and maybe why for some of us this phenomenon happens. Maybe our messaging is just off a little bit, and I believe that the wellness story behind Chiropractic is so lip and powerful that I.

I think it blows the doors off of any practice that learns how to use that story, if you will, just like it did for you. And I, I mean that if you boil it down, if you ask me to boil it down to what did I do that made my practice so hugely successful is I told the wellness story, [00:30:00] boom. I mean that, that, that's really it.

I told the wellness story, how it's helped me, how it's helped my family, how it helps my staff. I can't tell you how many patients came into my practice and would ask me, Dr. Dr. Bri, do you get adjusted? Well, yeah. Sit down. Let me tell you about me getting adjusted. You know, I started in Chiropractic because I was in pain back when I was in high school playing football.

But you know, once I was out of pain, I started going every week or two, especially when I was playing sports. It saved me. And I've been a Chiropractic patient ever since then. And you know, it's, it's a revelation to patients when they hear that, that, oh my gosh, the doctor gets adjusted every week. 

Dr. Troy Fox : And sprinkle that in with your patients when you're in during adjusting hours and you're working with patients.

Yeah. You know, when a patient says, oh my gosh, that feels so much better that you release that in my, you know, right upper. What do they want? Call it shoulder. Shoulder. I, right upper shoulder. You release that right there and I'm like, I love or my lower [00:31:00] back. Yeah. And I, I, I love to throw out at that point, you know what, I had a spot very similar to that.

That was when I laid down on the table and my doctor palpated me earlier this week when I got adjusted. That felt very similar to that. Oh my gosh. It felt so good when it released. I'm so happy for you. Yeah. And they're like I, I, I talk about my adjustments and my care. I talk about how I live a wellness lifestyle on a regular basis.

Always. Yeah. Patients wanna know that you're practicing what you preach. 

Dr. Michael Perusich: And if you, if you stick with the pain message and a patient walks in in pain, you can't have that same conversation because patient knows you're not in pain. Yeah. I mean, probably not in pain. Yeah. And so there's no empathy there, but you create a immediate empathy and an immediate, empathetic conversation with a patient.

When you say something [00:32:00] like, what you just said, Troy, and you share, oh, I've had that same issue. In fact, just last week, my, my Chiropractic adjusted to that. And then, you know, the next question is, oh my gosh, you get adjusted. Where do you go? You know, they always 

Dr. Troy Fox : ask, where do you go? That's like the number one question.

Dr. Michael Perusich: And I would always say somebody not quite as good as me, but there you go. You know, and I, I was joking obviously, but but I think opening up the box of that wellness message, don't be afraid to talk about it. You know? And I, I was actually talking to a doctor just the other day who told me that, he, his average treatment plan is about six visits. And I said, why? He said, well, that's about the time they get out of pain. Mm-hmm. Oh, you don't move them into maintenance? No. Never really have. How come? I guess it doesn't go with my philosophy. And I said, well, explain to me you guess it doesn't. And he said.

I just don't know that I want to have the conversation and wrestle with them over having to pay for something that they don't [00:33:00] feel like they need. And I said, whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait a minute. How do you know they don't feel like they need it? Well, they didn't bring it up to me. They brought up their low back pain, but they didn't bring up staying in maintenance care doctors.

Be the leader, have the conversation with the patient. If you wanna, if you want to. Talk to patients and educate patients about Chiropractic care. I think the best message is the Chiropractic Wellness story. 

Dr. Troy Fox : Hands down. I would agree. And I think it's an easy story once you get comfortable with it, but be real with patients.

If you're getting adjusted on a regular basis and it's for function and it's not for pain, which most of us as chiropractors are. Yeah. Why are we not sharing that with our patients? Our patients? In a lot of cases, think about it this way, if you start talking about a specific nutritional product that you sell in your practice that you take and you've had great benefit let's use a B vitamin, for example. Yeah. Oh my gosh. I started this new B vitamin and I've [00:34:00] gotten great results from that. They'll go, now, what brand was that? Yeah. Where do I get that at? They are interested in what you're doing, especially if you promote that lifestyle.

So in other words, if I promote that I'm being healthy and tell you how I'm being healthy, now my patients want what I have. Yeah. If I, if I purvey that now, if I only purvey that, I don't really ever get adjusted either. I get where you're coming from because I, you know, I just, I, I don't have the time.

You know, I'm so busy, I'm so busy with patients. I get adjusted about once every three months when I hurt really bad. And, 

Dr. Michael Perusich: you know, I probably should, I probably should do better. That's, or I haven't, I haven't been in pain in years, so, you know, it's been forever since I was, that's 

Dr. Troy Fox : not, yeah, that's not the message we're, we're telling.

And I guarantee you, most of you are not telling that message either. Most of you would get adjusted more often if you could get out of the office and get together with another Chiropractic if you're a solo practitioner. Those of you in group practice, lucky you. I mean, fantastic. Right? But if you're in a [00:35:00] solo practice, I would get adjusted even more than once a week if I had the opportunity.

Sure. Absolutely. I absolutely love what it does for me, and so if I'm purveying that to my patients, now all of a sudden they're interested in what I've got. They want some of that. So think of it that way, just like a nutritional product, if you talk highly of your own care and what you're getting.

They're probably not gonna go, Hey, where do you go get Chiropractic Care, Adam, I'm going there. They probably probably not. We hope that your skillset is fantastic, and I know most of you are, if not all of you are we're all a little different in how we adjust to sometimes there are patients that we do see, like a checker's move, moved to another Chiropractic.

I've had it happen to me before. We all have Yeah. At some point or another. But if you're telling that story. About what you do for Chiropractic care. You will intrigue them and they will, we just as nature of, as humans, we want what other people have. [00:36:00] 

Dr. Michael Perusich: Absolutely. True story. True story. And you, you mentioned, you mentioned nutrition.

Patients would ask me, why? Why should I take that supplement? 'cause I do. Yeah. Doctor, why? Why should I sleep on that pillow? Because I do. It's the best pillow I've ever had. 

Dr. Troy Fox : Yep. 

Dr. Michael Perusich: And it would fly off the shelves. Just because I was, I didn't have to spend a lot of time explaining it because I do that.

That was my pat answer. 

Dr. Troy Fox : It's so funny about the pillows, especially because I do, is that sells more pillows. Yeah. Otherwise they just sit up there. Right. When you start talking about pillows, oh, you might benefit from a pillow. Oh, what pillow do you use? That one right up front? Yeah. Oh, okay. Greatest 

Dr. Michael Perusich: skill ever.

Yeah, greatest skill ever. And they go home with one and they come back two days later and get another one because their spouse stole the one they took home the first day. 

Dr. Troy Fox : Had that happen last week. It's a true story. You know it, it happens all the time. I think sometimes when we tell things, I think sometimes you guys are like, [00:37:00] yeah, right.

But literally last week I had a patient come in and here's the crazy thing, I didn't sell them a pillow. They bought a pillow. Then came back and told me I bought a pillow. I'm getting another one today because my wife stole my pillow already. She loves it. 

Dr. Michael Perusich: And I'm like, good for her. My staff was just in the habit of telling everybody they bought a pillow, you better buy two.

I'm just, I'm forewarning you. And they would come back a few days later and said, oh yeah, you were right. I should have bought two. 

Dr. Troy Fox : And then at six months, when you're ready for another pillar or a year, just depending upon if you've got a fat head or not. No, I don't. Patients that, but you know, six months to a year when you replace that pillow and it starts to break down a little bit, I always tell people, your guests, they're not quite as important as you.

So they don't need a brand new pillow. Yeah. I would recommend you rotate those pillows out to your guest room. So your guest room guests, we have cervical pillows for all our guests. I think a lot of chiropractors do. Oh yeah. But that's exactly, and now I have patients doing the same [00:38:00] thing and they, I had a patient just about three weeks ago that came in and said.

Man, I had family come and stay with me last week and I said, was it fun? Was it stressful? You know, what was it? Tell me all about it. 'cause they're getting ready to get on the table. And I kind of wanted to know what I was dealing with that day. And they're like. Well, you know, it was stressful because of this and because of that.

But let me tell you, they were raving about those pillows in the guest room. And I'm like, which pillows are those? I, I kind of thought I knew. And they're like, those are the pillows that we bought from you. And then we bought new ones a few months ago and moved those to the guest room. And so, that's just a small example.

It's a product. But the service that we sell in Chiropractic care in a lot of cases is infectious. Why spouses tend to come in and why are we afraid when we're working with patients? 

Dr. Michael Perusich: It's infectious and it's long-term. Are Chiropractic is not meant to be short-term care. 

Dr. Troy Fox : Why are we not offering that? When people come in, you know, at the dentist's office, again, [00:39:00] we go back to that.

Who does your family use for a dentist when you're the only one that's in that dentist's office? They always ask that question. They're not afraid to ask 'cause they wanna make sure that you're getting dental care. Oh, you're going down the street to another dentist. Okay, fantastic. We don't need to be negative about it.

It's great if they're getting care. So I have, I have several patients that one spouse comes to me and the other goes to a different Chiropractic just before they started that. And they're comfortable with that. And eventually, sometimes they come to me eventually, sometimes they don't. Yeah, it's okay.

But I think the infectious nature of that as well is something that we need to share with patients. If we're gonna create a wellness lifestyle, we have to promote the fact that we are involved in wellness, not just walk around the office asking people, how's your low back pain today? I think it's really important that we showcase our lifestyle.

Dr. Michael Perusich: I totally agree. So docs out there, if you're in the failure to thrive mode, let's get you out of it. [00:40:00] That's what we do at Kats Consultants. We, we probably ought to just. Change our tagline to helping you thrive instead of fail, but seriously to, to be fully serious. If you're having trouble with things like this or you want more help, if you wanna learn more about how to deliver that wellness story message so it sticks and you create lifetime patients, give us a call.

Go to our website, kats consultants.com. Our phone number's on there. You can make an appointment just to, if you just wanna talk to one of us for a few minutes about your practice and how we might be able to help. We are zero pressure. You can become a member or not become a member. We just wanna see doctors do as well or better than we did in practice.

So please don't hesitate. I'm seeing too many doctors out there struggling. Mm-hmm. And you shouldn't be. So trying anything down. I agree with 

Dr. Troy Fox : you a thousand percent. That's that failure to thrive thing is, is not just a conversation topic. It it, it involves the whole profession. And we so desperately wanna see you guys be successful because the more, [00:41:00] the more of you that we help.

The more patients that get treated effectively and have better lives. So we, and the more we 

Dr. Michael Perusich: look up this profession, 

Dr. Troy Fox : We're inadvertently involved in helping tens of thousands of patients have a better life. And yes, we help the profession at the same time, which I think is so important. 

Dr. Michael Perusich: So important.

Alright everybody, thanks for tuning into the soapbox podcast. Oh wait, the Chiropractic Podcast, brought to you by Kats Consultants and Chiro health USA. We appreciate all of you listening and tuning in every week. And, uh, just be sure to like, and subscribe and share this podcast with everybody. We're growing like crazy and it's because of you guys out there.

So, alright, everybody from all of us here at Kats Consultants, we'll see you next time. See ya.