5 Dangerous Trends Affecting Chiropractors in 2022 (and what to do about it)

Hey everyone, Dr. Vince Leone here from Specialized Practice Consulting. We help doctors add and grow high-value cash services, what I call high-ticket niches like spinal decompression, peripheral neuropathy, chronic knee pain. And what this does is allows doctors to decrease reliance on insurance, work smarter, not harder, make more cash versus insurance revenue. And ultimately, it's a smarter and more elegant way to practice, especially if you're in year 15, 20, 25, even Okay, so now this is a truncated version of a webinar I did at the beginning of the year, the 5 Dangerous Trends. That's what I want to talk about today, the 5 dangerous trends affecting chiropractors in 2022 and beyond. And so we're going to get through these quickly because I just want to get you the information so that it can be on your radar. And this is how you protect yourself and your practice and your family in the years to come because Lord knows with a pandemic and now with a war, things are unstable right now and they're probably going to get worse before they get better. So we need to take steps now to protect ourselves. Now, where did this information come from? NCMIC, ChiroEcon, Dynamic Chiropractor, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, hundreds of calls with colleagues and clients and prospective clients. And, you know, and 7-figure colleagues. So, dangerous trend, let's just dive right in. Dangerous trend number 1, lack of fundamental business skills. Now, they didn't teach us business skills in chiropractic school. I was fortunate in a sense that chiropractic was my second career. I studied business in college. I was in business prior to transitioning to chiropractic, so I had those fundamental business skills, but most doctors don't, unfortunately. So what is the result of this? We have shoddy paperwork, right? Staff that's untrained. We have lack of systems so that things happen the same way every single time, that every patient gets outstanding service and outcomes. It creates a lack of savings because you're not making enough money No extra time, no extra money, and it feels like you're on this, you know, this wheel, the hamster wheel. So, and unfortunately, this makes doctors in this particular situation easy targets for audits. And right now, if you don't know, the government doesn't have any money. We are upside down, and they are hiring massive amounts of new accountants to bolster the IRS. Now, why? 'Cause they're gonna go after, they're gonna go after as many people as possible, but, you know, they're gonna go after doctors. I have 2 clients, this is a totally separate issue, in Medicare audits, but the point being is when you run your business properly, you don't have a concern about an audit, but when it's slipshod, all that type of stuff, then it is an issue. Next, dangerous trend number 2. Lack of prestige in the healthcare community. You know, from most healthcare community participants, you know, MDs, DCs, dentists, orthopedists, physical therapists, you know, a lot of people view us as the low man on the totem pole because we're just, we're backcrackers, right? And that is a terrible position to be in. When we're in chiropractic school, it's a totally different story, but once we leave, we realize that there is a real bias in the community, and it's unfortunate 'cause, you know, the vast majority of chiropractors, their heart is in the right place. They wanna help people, but the problem is, is there's just such a poor information display from our profession. In other words, we have not communicated what we do effectively It's been, you know, a dispersion. Some Chiro's want to do this, some want to do this, some want to do this. There's like 3 different organizations. It's a joke. So if we can't really nail down what we do, then how can the public be clear on what we do? So this has resulted in just unclear what the heck they do. And so But it creates a lack of prestige in the community, and that has a real effect, whether you want to admit it or not. Most doctors, if they're being honest with themselves, they can admit that. But a lot— it's just affecting a lot of doctors whether they want to admit it or not. Now think about the student that comes out of school with $200,000 in debt. They're putting— they're essentially having to take an associate position that they're paying peanuts 2, that doesn't make them feel any better, right? So, so that's, that's a, it's a very dangerous trend that no one's talking about. It's uncomfortable, but it's absolutely in effect. Dangerous trend number 3 is most chiropractors are commodities right now. What is a commodity? It's when you have a lot of options for a particular solution. Soap. It's a very good example of a commodity. There's lots of types of soap. Most of it is very, very cheap, and they all kind of do the same thing. Does that sound familiar? The problem with this is it's a race to the bottom, and that's why you have places like The Joint winning, because they, not only did they go to the bottom in terms of price point, but they laid it in systems, right? So that they, you know, when they do, patients do go in, they do get a good experience at a low, low price. So why would they go to someone that they don't a great experience and they're paying more for, right? So that's a massive trend and a really bad thing, bad position to be in is when you're just one of 30 or 40 chiropractors in your town and you have no way to differentiate yourself. Not good. So, okay, so really quickly, who am I? I mean, if you're on my list, you probably know who I am. You know, built a 7-figure niche practice, wrote 2 books on high-ticket niches. I'm the founder and owner of Specialized Practice Consulting, the Profit Niche Practice. Helped manage $4 million in advertising over 5 years for 3 niche practices, all doing 7 figures. And now I do full-time consulting since 2018. If you're interested in just going down the rabbit hole, if you don't have a niche yet and you are interested in learning more, go to my YouTube channel. 8,400 minutes, it's well over that viewed. It's probably one of the most viewed channels for chiropractic, certainly in the high-ticket niche space. I don't think there's anyone else teaching as much as I am, so go there. If you're interested, go to my YouTube channel, just search Dr. Vince Leone. You will find a wealth of information. I started doing videos back in 2018, I think it was. It's a great place to just learn for free on all aspects of these niches and what you can do to protect yourself. You know, I've been on TV and blah, blah, blah, but this is the whole point with these niches and why I'm talking about these dangerous trends is 'cause the niches is the solution, okay? And we'll go into how that is and why that is, but the reason why we want to do this is to create more freedom for ourselves. Freedom of time, so we're not chained to the office. Freedom of energy, so that we don't beat up our body until we exit our practice. And freedom of wealth, so that we can actually enjoy our life now, provide for our family, and enjoy the time that we're here in practice. Our practice really should serve us versus us serve it. And this, again, certainly for our family. That's my kids. You know, that was Hollywood Studios on the left. Maui on the right, we like to go there. But, you know, like Dr. Pankinen, he's been with me since 20— early '21, I think it is. And he's just crushing it. He's— I mean, look at that. You get this, this, these texts. It's awesome. Dr. Fanger, you know, before he started with me, he had some of the equipment, but his, his enrollment rate or conversion rate was like 20%. And within 30 days, he bumped up to 61%, and he's continuing to crush it. Now, let's dive into the 4th and 5th dangerous trends. Number 4 is lack of consistent, fundamental, and innovative marketing skills. As business owners, if you look at, say, the VC space, you're gonna do a startup, the CEO, He is responsible for going and finding money to fund that business. As an owner of a small business, you are responsible for generating revenue for your business. If your business does not have cash flow, you're dead. You're dead in the water because now— because the bills don't stop coming, and you know that, right? So cash flow is to a business like blood flow is to the body. And so And how do we increase cash flow? More new patients, right? So we have to embrace marketing. We have to have a plan. And, you know, it's like it has never been cheaper. And that's why I just have one here. It's never been cheaper to market. Now, do you still have to pay for it in some capacity? Yeah, because you should have non-paid marketing avenues, whether that's email, internal workshops, physician referrals, social media, YouTube, Insta, you know, all those different channels, but paid, right? Facebook, Google, YouTube, Instagram, newspaper, radio, TV, whatever. But you should have a minimum of 2 to 3 non-paid avenues and 2 to 3 paid avenues, because what you want is a diversity in terms of your new patient flow. I just had a doctor call me yesterday and he's like, oh my gosh, my Facebook account got shut down. Can you help me with Google and YouTube? Yes, I can. But don't put yourself in that position in the future. You've got to have more than one avenue of new patients. So in $0 to $1 million, there's this guy. He's a kind of a famous business writer. His name is Michael What the heck's his name? Well, it's escaping me. It doesn't matter. He wrote Ready Fire Aim. Great book. But in that book, he's like, hey, until you're up to a million dollars in revenue, your number one goal should be sales, right? Generating revenue for your practice or your business, whatever it may be. And I get it. I get it. I get it. You're the doctor. You're like, hey, I don't. I don't have time to do that. You have time because a lot of doctors are working three and a half days a week. I mean, I can't tell you how many doctors that say they wanna make more money and they say they wanna build their business, but they're only in there 3.5 days a week. It's like, how bad do you want it? You know, if you're taking Thursday and half of Friday off and then you have the whole weekend off, and then, but you're not making what you wanna make, you have to question your commitment to how bad you want it because that's a lot of time that you could either be putting into marketing or being in the clinic or out, You know, in the community or whatever it may be. So, so that's dangerous trend number 4, not really embracing marketing and, and being the, you know, the master of the new patient generation. And then dangerous trend number 5 is insurance. I mean, raise your hand if you think insurance is gonna get better over the next 10 years. No way, man. It sucks right now. They're making us jump through hoops, more and more hoops for smaller and smaller checks. They don't like us. They don't want to pay us. And, you know, insurance can still— there's still good insurance out there, of course, but there used to be lots of good insurance, right? Now there's only a few good insurances. So do you think it's going to expand again? No, it's going to keep getting smaller and smaller, right? And they're going to make you work harder and harder. Now they have preauthorization, you know, 6 visits, and then you have to go ahead and basically reapply for more visits. Essentially, they're guiding patient care. It's a total joke. So the point being is, I'm not saying you have to get out of insurance. What I'm saying is you need to decrease your reliance on insurance, right? And you have to have additional revenue streams so that you are not at the mercy of these companies that do not like us, period. So that's dangerous trend number 5. And hey, here's a bonus: COVID, right? So this is one pandemic. Is there going to be another pandemic? Who knows? Is there going to be vaccine mandates? Who knows? If there is, will you comply? If not, what are you going to do? So this goes back to if you don't, right, then hey, do you have the business skills to hire an associate and essentially run and manage the whole thing, know the marketing, have high-ticket services, have a closer? You know what I'm saying? It's possible, but this is another threat, what's happening right now. So don't shoot the messenger. I know we've just talked about kind of, uh, some, some serious stuff for, you know, the last 10 minutes, but, but look, I'm just, I'm just relaying the information as I see it, as I've experienced it, as I've, you know, heard it. So, um, the, uh, I'm not the enemy. I'm, I'm on your side. I want you to do better. I want you to grow your practice. I want you to protect yourself and your practice. I want you to have the life that you want to have. Um, but if you, you know, if you're not— if you don't recognize these things and then act on it, then, you know, then that's— there's, there's consequences for that, right? So what I do is I help doctors Add high-value cash services or high-ticket niches because it combats all those things, right? You're not a commodity. All of a sudden you're a specialist. You can charge a high price for it so you have more revenue. It's cash services so you don't have to worry about insurance. And you're gonna increase your business acumen because all of a sudden now you're, you know, you level up. You have to level up, okay? You can't just buy a decompression table or a laser or whatever it may be and call yourself an expert. Right? That's like me buying a fancy Porsche and saying, I'm a race car driver, look at me. No, I would crash the darn thing, right? No, you have to actually become an expert, right? And what we have done is create a system that makes that process fast and easy, but you still need to level up your skill sets. And again, that's what we help you do. But if you try to do it on your own, it's like running through a forest with a blindfold on. I've already done that. It wasn't fun, but I learned, and that's why I turn around and teach doctors. So if you're a doctor If you're a doctor and you're looking for a predictable way to protect and grow your practice into the future, expand cash-based services, work smarter to create more freedom of time, wealth, energy, this is it. Because what happens, what we do is we take a doctor who is currently a generalist and we transform them into a specialist. And when you do that, when you become a specialist, just like A neurosurgeon, just like an orthopedic surgeon. You address a big problem with a unique solution, and that creates exponential success. Okay, very simple. Here's some questions I get. Doc, isn't the equipment expensive? Good news, it has come down dramatically over the last 10 years, so that is not an issue. There's always financing, but the point being is you invest 10 or 15 grand into a piece of equipment It's paid off in like 60 to 90 days. It's a no-brainer. Next one is, doesn't take a lot of time. It would if you tried to do it on your own, 100%. But again, that's why we put together our system that helps doctors fast-track this, usually within 90 days. What if I have a hard time converting patients into high-value cash care plans? Well, you probably will if you've only done insurance up to this point. You try to do it on your own, yeah, it's going to be tough for you. But again, we have the solution for this because we've done it time and time again. First with me sitting in front of knee-to-knee with patients offering care plans at $6,000, $7,000, $8,000. Now I turn around and have given you the keys to the model that worked and allowed us to grow a practice to $200,000 a month. Okay? So, when you become a specialist, it gets very simple. These are the 4 things that matter. You have to own your niche. In other words, you have to truly be an expert. You have to hone your protocol so that you can actually deliver life-changing results to your patients. 2 or 3, you have to embrace marketing and be able to generate those ongoing consultations from a variety of sources. And 4, perform those consultations, right? And when I say consultation, that's your consult, exam, and report of findings. So like Dr. Jim crushing it. with neuropathy. Dr. Simmons, you know, he added decompression, crushing it. This is Dr. Gilbert, he's in California. We use what we call education-first advertising. This is the only thing I found that really cuts through the noise. There's so much noise in the marketplace, so we have to reach out to patients, let them know what we do, but educate them in the process. And when you educate people, you become A teacher, right? And teachers are leaders. So, and just like this doc, this patient drove from 30 to 40 minutes away, 20 miles, probably past 20 chiropractors on the way. So, who is this perfect for? Well, it's perfect for obviously a practice owner, and you want to leverage your expertise, you'd like to increase your case fees, you want to reduce your workload, put less stress on your body, and you want more high-paying patients. That's super simple. And I'm always on the lookout for dream clients. Our practice, our business is growing quickly, but that doesn't mean we want to slow down. We want to embrace that momentum and get more doctors on board with these niches because there's— and by the way, if you think the decompression niche is saturated, please think again. It's not saturated, not even close, right? Because most doctors that buy a table try to go on their own and fail. So, that's where you step in with the systems, with the technology, with the strategies, with the marketing to do it correctly. So, 3 types of great clients. They want high-quality patients that are willing to invest in their health, right? They want more high-value case fees and they're willing to invest in themselves. You've got to have skin in the game, guys. Okay, if you're not willing to invest in yourself, no patient's going to invest in you. It's just a principle of life. Who is this not for? It's not really for doctors that are just starting out, right? Because you kind of need to have your feet under you a little bit. It's not for doctors that make excuses or complain. It's not for doctors that are kind of stuck in information gathering mode. They're just kind of like they're webinar junkies. And it's not for doctors that aren't serious about adding $10,000 up to $50,000 a month in cash. So the first step, set up a consultation and We're— I'm, you know, this is very simple. This is gonna be a quick phone call. Just, I'm gonna link this in the comments, uh, in the notes below so you can just click on it. But this is my calendar, calendly.com/drvinceleone/15minute. This is gonna be a quick call. So we're, you and I are gonna jump on a call. We'll know pretty quickly whether it makes sense, and if it does, we'll schedule a more in-depth call between the two of us. So I hope this has been helpful for you. And go ahead and click the link below and let's go ahead and jump on a call and see if I can help you, right, to add a high-ticket niche to your practice. I'm Dr. Vince Leone with Specialized Practice Consulting. Take care.