Chiropractic Practice: The Double Edge Sword of A Pain Based Practice

Welcome to this Week’s Thrive in Five. I’m Dr. Bob Hoffman for The Masters Circle Global where legends are made in legendary practices are built. Today I want to discuss the double-edged sword of having a pain based practice. So let me start off by asking you a question. Since almost all of your new patients come in with a pain or a problem and you succeed in adjusting them and eliminating or reducing their pain or their problem, what motivates these patients to return once you succeeded at getting rid of their pain and making their pain, which was visible? Now invisible. You see, there’s nothing wrong with attracting new patients with pain, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with adjusting them to eliminate their pain. But this cannot be the foundation of your doctor patient relationship unless you want a ridiculously low PVA retention and compliance, or you want to constantly be stressed out that you need to keep attracting more and more and more new patients, or you want to become a crisis doctor and see a handful of people each day.

None of these are ideal ever, but certainly in today’s world. So I want you to recognize that pain is not the problem. Pain is an indication that there is a problem, and pain is the last thing that shows up in the disease process and the first thing that goes away in the healing process. So we need to communicate this and explain this to our patients because they don’t know today’s. Most successful chiropractors understand that the relationship can’t be based just on pain, because if the relationship was based on pain, one of two things always happens. Either you succeed in getting rid of their pain and the patient drops out of care happily, or you fail to get them out of pain quick enough and the patient drops out of care, unhappily. Either way, everybody loses, the patient loses you lose, and the chiropractic profession loses.

So what’s best in class in our profession today is different. What the most successful doctors do today is of course they acknowledge the pain. Of course, they’re attempting to do everything they can naturally and ethically to eliminate their pain. But they recognized that what brought the pain in was something visible. The patient came in with a pain which was visible, and as they get that pain to disappear and become invisible, they’re now on trial. So between the process of starting care and getting that patient out of pain, the most successful doctors today also find subclinical findings, things that the patient can’t see, feel, taste, or touch on their own. It could be something as simple as blood oxygen concentration through a pulse oximetry. It could be posture and making the connection that a balanced brain produces balanced posture and an imbalance. Brain creates imbalance posture.

Because posture is a neurological program far more than it is a mechanical problem. It could be things like heart rate variability or lab work, or an X-ray or MRI or balanced scales. The list is endless of finding ways to monitor and manage each individual patient with methods that have nothing to do with pain. Because once that pain goes away, more likely than not, the patient’s going to go away. So the key is to make the invisible, the subclinical findings visible and to pre-frame it and explain it in a way that it has significance to the patient. They understand it. For example, no patient is aware of blood oxygen concentration levels. The truth is most chiropractors aren’t aware of that. But when you have low blood oxygen going to your brain, your brain can’t possibly function at optimal. It will compromise your immune system and it makes it very challenging to heal.

Now, if the patient understood that and you were able to show the patient, or better yet, the patient were able to diagnose themselves by looking at their pulse ox reading, it has a huge positive impact, creating greater compliance, greater retention, greater long-term healing, and as a side effect makes it unbelievably easy for you to grow your practice. So these are the types of things we talk about, and it’s part of the six essentials. Now, by the way, on the screen right now is a QR code. I’m going to urge you to take out your phone, aim your camera at that QR code right now. Go ahead, do it because it’ll take you to the six essentials of a legendary practice, something we call the discovery form that will help you understand some of the strengths and some of the weaker areas of your practice. You always have the option. 

There’s no requirement to set up a consultation with us, and we’ll happily go over it with you and point out some of the major points of friction blocking you from growing your practice. No cost and no obligation. But please go ahead, take a picture of that QR code, complete the discovery form. There are six sections, all yes and no answers. It’ll take you less than two minutes to complete, but it can change your life and your practice for the better forever. We’ll see you next week with another Thrive in Five. Have a great day, everybody.

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