Preview of the Decompression Summit Certification: The Future of Spinal Decompression

Hey there and welcome back. I'm Dr. Vince Leone, executive producer and co-host of the Practice Builders Podcast. With my partner in crime, Dr. Kyle Pankinen, we deliver proven strategies to help you grow fast, specialize with confidence, and build profitable staff-run practices. Let's go ahead and dive into today's episode now. Hello and welcome to the Practice Builders Podcast. My name is Dr. Vince Leone.

And I am Dr. Kyle Pankinen. The team is together today. We're gonna focus on, I think, what is gonna be a big event coming up this fall. It'll be our 4th annual event, and Dr. Leone will tell you what that is.

Absolutely. So today we are doing a preview of the Decompression Summit Certification 2026, the Future of Spinal Decompression. And as we record this, it's April 10th, and the early birds coming out on the 15th. And Doc, I'm super excited for this event. It's our 4th annual. We're growing every single year. And yeah, it's just a really exciting time. It's crazy that it's April and we're already prepping for it, but that's what we've found is necessary to really put on a first-class event.

Yeah, the excitement for this event seems to be growing year by year, not only amongst us, we love putting it on and a lot of work goes into it, but the crowd, the participants growing each year. The feedback we're getting is very impressive, very positive, and I think this is the premier event in our profession when it comes to spinal decompression, not only from a point of view of, you know, the camaraderie that doctors and the cohesiveness of these people, doctors working together to accomplish something in this field, but just the clinical side of it, the marketing business side of it. It's, uh, It's an unmatched event, in my humble opinion.

Yeah, and I would agree, obviously. Um, we had— I remember back in— so we— our first year was 2023, um, and it was back in 2022 Dr. Pankinen had connected me with Doc— uh, Dr. Tim Burkhardt and Jeff VanderWal over at Hill DT. And, you know, at Specialized Practice, we're agnostic in terms of spinal decompression tables. Our doctors have all types of tables. They have Hill DTs, they have Chattanooga and Docs and Accuspinas and DRX 9000. So as long as it's FDA cleared for decompression, you know, we support that. But just great people over at Hill, you know, Jeff and then Candy VanderWal, his wife helps. She basically is our event coordinator at this point. And our So, our mission with the Decompression Summit certification is to, one, present the most cutting-edge information about spinal decompression from a clinical standpoint, from a growth standpoint, and create just some camaraderie of doctors that are in this particular niche. Because, you know, it's interesting, Doc, like when doctors are in decompression and they're knee-deep in it, they just love decompression, right?

Yeah.

It again aligns perfectly with our scope of practice. We already have these patients in our clinic. And so, I feel like once doctors get a taste of decompression, they just love it and they just want to continue to learn how to grow it even further. So, we open this. There's a lot of doctors that come and they're quite advanced in decompression, but we also have a lot of doctors new to decompression. They want to start off on the right foot. So, we try to make it— valuable for doctors at all levels of spinal decompression.

Yeah, and I think as you'll see as we kind of go through the agenda today, we have a blend of topics that are gonna be, okay, I've been doing spinal decompression for a decade, I wanna hear something new that I've never heard before, and they're gonna get that at this conference. But then you got the doctor that, hey, I just bought my table 2 weeks ago, I'm a newbie at this, We're going to have separate outings for those folks as well to start them more at the foundational level so that they can build on that and get the basic knowledge. But some docs will say, well, I, I know everything there is to know about decompression. I've been doing this for 10 years. Trust me when I tell you there's going to be material that will be presented this year that will be new to you. Some of the research and so forth that's coming out is— this is gonna be, I think, our most cutting-edge or advanced summit that we're going to put on. So bottom line is there's something for every level of doctor at this summit.

Yeah, 100%. So just nuts and bolts. So it is in Las Colinas, Texas, which is a suburb of Dallas, beautiful little suburb of Dallas, Texas. We picked Dallas just because it's such an— it's an easy hub for everyone to get to, usually with a nonstop flight. So that's always nice. I have a special place in my heart for Dallas 'cause I went to Parker. So I really like the Dallas area. I love the food, love the people. So we really like going back there. Las Colinas, we're always at the Omni Hotel in Las Colinas. Beautiful hotel, huge hotel. They treat us right, first-class food. And so, September 25th through 27th, right? So, Friday is the 25th. We always do an evening happy hour, get to know you. So, you can work, you know, have a full day Thursday, come in Friday morning. So, it doesn't need to disrupt your schedule too much. But by the way, even if you did need to take a day off, this would be worth it. But we go then full bore all day Saturday. 8 to, I think, 8 to 5. Then we have another happy hour from 5 to 6, and then Sunday morning, 8 to noon, and then we are out of there. So it's really designed to pack a tremendous amount of information into that timeframe. We offer 9 continuing education credits, so you can pick up a good chunk of what you are required to have each year, which I know is valuable. Now, it's not, that's not in every single state. So I do want to just state that. And so you'll need the— it is the vast majority, but it's not every single state. So you will need to check on the registration page that your state is covered. All the states will be listed. All the ones that are kind of to be determined will be listed as well. If you don't see it there, it is not offered. And lots of doctors come that don't get credits, right? They're not worried about that. But just want to give a heads up on that. So let's kind of dive into an overview on what we'll be presenting, Dr. Kyle. So I always like to kick off the event. So I'll be introducing the summit and welcoming everybody. And by the way, first-class food, your breakfast and your lunch is always taken care of. So that is, you know, again, the hotel is just awesome, right? They just really take good care of us. There's always, you know, again, always breakfast and lunch. There's always snacks laid out and beverages and all that type of stuff. The happy hour is comped. So kind of a nice benefit that the only thing you really need to take care of is dinner. But anyways, let's go ahead and dive. We're, you know, still obviously fleshing out all the talks, but we have a good grasp on the, you know, the high-level overview. So, Dr. Kyle, why don't you go ahead? Kick us off Saturday morning. What's going on there?

Yeah, there'll be 2 main presenters on Saturday morning. So after Dr. Leone's introduction, then Dr. Burkhardt will be really kicking off the clinical talk, and he's going to do a talk, Spinal Decompression as the Foundation. Dr. Burkhardt is actually who I've learned probably the most from over the years for my own personal decompression. practice. He, he literally came into, uh, my clinic and spent an entire day with myself and my staff when we first started decompression over a decade ago and kind of taught us the nuts and bolts. So this, this first introductory talk will be some of the basics, but he's going to quickly evolve into more advanced topics. And, uh, Dr. Burkhardt, You could literally just put him up on stage for an entire day with no notes and he could talk about all things.

Yeah, absolutely.

Decompression. The guy is just a wealth of knowledge and, you know, 2 decades or plus of experience in doing it. And so he's gonna— you're gonna be sitting at the feet of, in a sense, the master, what I call, in the world of spinal decompression. I can't think of any doctor that I personally know that is more knowledgeable in this field of spinal decompression. And then, anything to add to that, Dr. Leone?

Well, the nice thing that we do is most doctors bring their staff as well because we have staff breakout sessions really throughout the day. And so, for instance, like when Dr. Burkhart is going over the foundation of spinal decompression, His wife, Holly Burkhardt, who is his, you know, basically his office manager and primary tech, she's amazing. I mean, she is just a rock star when it comes to, you know, handling patient care and all things around the table, et cetera. So she'll do a breakout session during that first part of the morning. She's just gonna actually do 2. So she'll be doing a systems and then she'll be doing a training specifically on the Hill as well. So, that's the— just want to throw that in there that, you know, there's going to be tremendous staff training available this weekend as well. And, you know, these— when decompression works the best, the staff is fully engaged, right? They are, you know, excited about patient care. They are engaged in patient care. They know frequent— you know, the answers to all the frequently asked questions. They really, you know, take on that role very seriously. And what that does is, A, it improves the patient experience, but it also takes a lot of stress off the doctor, right? The doctor, a lot of the, again, the daily activities associated with patient care is all taken care of. So they can kind of focus on whether it's adjusting or enrolling patients into care. So Holly's gonna be our primary staff trainer. And yeah, she's amazing.

She is amazing. She is one of the most skilled CAs and a great patient communicator. And so if you have staff that you want to up their game in the world of decompression, bring them with, because you're gonna— they're gonna be training under Holly Burkhardt, and she is great. Then we'll finish the morning up with— I'm gonna do a talk, docs, on the latest in spinal decompression. This will be All of the studies that have come out from what I finished up with last year at the Decompression Summit up until basically the few weeks before the summit this upcoming fall. You might think, well, is there enough research coming out? Let me tell you, docs, the research coming out on spinal decompression has really accelerated over the last 2 or 3 years. So I already have the talk developed With all the research that's come out since last fall, but I'll just keep adding to it as we get closer to the event. You might ask, why is the research important? If you're going to be at the forefront of spinal decompression, you need to know what the latest studies are showing because the studies will help guide you in decision-making. They'll guide you in communicating to patients. And every study I'm going to pull out kind of what I call clinical gems or pearls. And so you're going to, you're going to come away with, oh, I didn't have to read that whole study that Dr. Kyle did, but this is what I really need to know, is this 1 or 2 or 3 points from the study, which will be things that you'll take back to practice on Monday morning that will set you apart as further expert. On these topics. And, uh, so I always tell doctors, whatever it is you are doing in this world as far as your niche or what you like to focus on, you need to become an expert at that and keeping up with the research. If you're going to be in the world of decompression, you need to know what the studies are showing and keep up with them. So I'm going to help doctors do that. The other thing that we're going to talk about is we're going to do a kind of a radiology Uh, format where I'm going to show all the images of what common disc conditions look like on MRI, and we're going to break down the difference between a bulge, a herniation, a protrusion, an extrusion, a sequestration, all those. But then we're going to take it a step further and we're going to discuss each particular type of disc and how we would apply Protocol, patient selection, which cases are most likely to respond, which ones are going to be more challenging. And we're going to really do a, a good discussion on how we blend history, exam, and imaging findings together to come to the most logical conclusion or diagnosis for that patient. And then to apply what would be the best treatment for this particular condition. So it's going to be real hands-on, real, uh, real application to what doctors are going to see in their practices on Monday morning.

And I think that's just— that's such a critical component. And if there's one key, like, in, in all the years I've been doing, you know, treating decompression patients And coaching doctors on decompression, the most successful ones have the most confidence. It always comes down to confidence, right? Confidence that you can qualify the patient for care, confident that you can put them into a protocol that is research-backed and is going to deliver the results, confidence that you can overcome common objections to lead the patient to What even may be a little outside their comfort zone, investing out of pocket for these services, but because you know that their life is going to be radically changed for the better on the other side of their care plan. So, I don't, you know, I was on a call with a doctor the other day and I had, you know, I see this a lot, right? Relative, not relatively, very new to decompression, just bought a table in the last few months. Was asking ChatGPT how many visits that he should be offering his patients. And this was again, you know, he said, hey, I just need the marketing. I'm like, doc, I'm just going to be straight up with you. You need a lot more than just the marketing. If you're asking ChatGPT what you should be offering patients for care, it's borderline not doing your job. You're not an expert. Let's just say that you are not an expert if you're asking ChatGPT how to treat patients on decompression. So I love that we're diving into the research. The research is growing. Dr. Pankinen is, I think, one of the best doctors out there in terms of finding the best research that supports what we do. But it's out there and it's all over the place, right? University of South Florida, Pakistan, Egypt, South Korea. I mean, we are getting tremendous research that is just continuing to support, you know, what we do. So, so I think that's huge, right? So that's going to add to your confidence so that you can feel, uh, you know, the ability to deliver on your promise. If you don't have the confidence to feel like you can deliver the result for the patient, you're not going to be treating decompression patients very long, right? Because you won't be able to sell what you don't own. Patients will recognize that you don't know your stuff, and then your table will gather dust. So if that's you, just, just FYI, if that's you, just got a table and all you want to do is hire an ad agency, um, I, I beg you to reconsider. You've got to be an expert in this niche, just like, you know, you would be an expert in anything that you want to charge a high-value cash care plan for. So after that, so we'll have our first class lunch after Kyle's done— Dr., sorry, Dr. Pinkonen is done with his. Then we'll have our first class lunch. Um, again, that's, uh, you know, catered by the hotel. Uh, everyone always raves about the food. Um, and then I'm going to go into a, a 1-hour marketing talk. And so now last year, um, I did, uh, my presentation was The Last Decompression Marketing Plan You'll Ever Need. And while I thought it was phenomenal because it was all-encompassing— in other words, if you took that and just ran and implemented it, you'll never have any shortage of new patients— the problem was it was so much information, doctors' heads were spinning. They were, they were overwhelmed, right? So, you know, of course we always want to learn from, you know, our experiences. And so this marketing talk is going to be on one Very specific funnel that you can deploy. And the goal, and what we've seen in practice, it creates a very high-quality patient who already understands who you are, what the treatment is, what the investment is. So essentially, we're delivering— this funnel is going to deliver a very high-quality patient. So we are going to go soup to nuts on how to implement I'm going to call it the mystery funnel for right now because we're going to leave you in suspense. But it's a combination of artificial intelligence. It's a combination of multiple platforms to drive patients in from different social media platforms and more traditional platforms. So, I'm really excited about that because, you know, it's all, you know, Once doctors do have all the clinical side of things dialed in and they have the systems and they have the team trained, then, then it's a marketing, um, a marketing game and being able to saturate your community and drive in, you know, consistent high-quality patients. So I'm super excited about that. Now, while I am doing that, um, uh, we will have a breakout session on shockwave therapy. So we know shockwave's super popular these days. And so we'll have a breakout session on shockwave to help train your staff on how to be better technicians delivering that therapy.

By the way, docs, if you, uh, you might be the best clinician in your area, you might have tons of knowledge, you might have the best decompression table, but you might be struggling to get patients in the door. And so Marketing needs to be a part of these summits, and even though us doctors in the trenches maybe don't get all excited about marketing, you need to. You need it has to be a part of the equation if you're going to be a high-end decompression clinic and to reach those people that just simply don't know what you have to offer. And there's nobody that I know of in the profession that is more highly skilled and. has more insight into marketing than Dr. Leone. So you're going to be learning from the best, in my opinion. And then from there, we'll go back to Dr. Burkhart, and he is going to finish the afternoon with applications in advanced chiropractic practice implementation in your practice. And he's, he's really good at taking people through it. How are you going to process a patient basically from start to finish? A prospective case, getting them through a report of findings, getting them through the decompression protocol, how you track them as they go through, and then how you— decisions that you make with them as they end their protocol and the next steps that they go into. And that's where a lot of doctors really struggle, I find, is Okay, I'm at the end of the 24-visit protocol, now what? And he's really gonna help guide you through what decision-making needs to take place at those times. And then the final breakout of the— 2 final breakouts actually.

2 breakouts, we got 2 breakouts.

Is, uh, laser training. We always have— I was one of our sponsors, uh, Cutting Edge Laser, so they're gonna have their Yeah, and I wanted to—

I, you know, I meant to mention this before, so I apologize for cutting you off, Dr. Kyle, but—

No, fine.

I wanted to, um, thank our sponsors, our 2, um, gold sponsors who once again, uh, they're, uh— well, actually, Cutting Edge has been a gold sponsor since the beginning. Elevation is our other gold sponsor. They were also a gold sponsor last year, and they were a silver sponsor the year before. So just want to thank them for continuing to support us. You know, Harold over at Cutting Edge, co-CEO, good friend of mine, great guy. Marco over at Elevation. So we have great support there. But yeah, so we have the laser training as a breakout session, and that's during that, some of Dr. Burkhardt's training, and then I am going to do a breakout session on report of findings. And so again, we know that, you know, just like Dr. Kyle was saying, hey, you could have— you could be the best clinician, you could have the, the best marketing, um, best equipment, but if you aren't able to enroll patients into care, if you aren't able to create clarity and confidence for the patient in you and your services, well, they're not going to invest with you, right? They are not going to invest their hard-earned money if they don't, you know, have that— well, I always say borrow your belief. They don't have the belief in you and the— and your service to deliver the results. So I may be— I'm going to try to drag Dr. Pankinen into the ROF with me. We'll see if that's— that's, uh, the ROF training, see if that's possible. Um, but what— here's what's great. Some of you doctors don't do your, your financial training, and this is going to be It's gonna be all aspects of the ROF, but it'll be, you know, certainly on the financial, you know, how to, how to talk money, how to enroll patients into care ethically. So if you're not doing that, you could have your team member, what we typically call case managers, come to that breakout session for additional training there. Hey there, it's Dr. Vince, and if you're getting value from this episode, please make sure to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode. And if you know another doc who's ready to grow their practice, share this with them. It might be exactly what they need right now. Thank you in advance. And now back to the show.

Yeah, and those— some of these breakout sessions are going to be just for mostly for CAs, but then there's going to be a couple, 3 breakout sessions between Saturday and Sunday that the doctors will have the option. Do you want to stay in the main room for the main presentation, or do you want to go into a different room and, and go in for the breakout session? So one of the opportunities that doctors will have on Saturday will be to do the Report of Findings training, and if you've not been through that, this will be well worth your time. So that'll wrap up Saturday, then there'll be a little time after cocktail hour. And we'll have some vendors there. So if you want to go visit different booths with Cutting Edge, Elevation, and I'm assuming there's, there's usually 4 or 5 or 6 vendors there that we will have.

Yeah, by the way, speaking of that, if you are, you know, if you offer some type of complimentary service, um, obviously we don't want you competing with, um, you know, we don't want other consultants there competing specialized practice. We don't want other lasers there. We don't want other shockwaves there. So, but if you have a complementary service, it could be, you know, could be an accounting firm. It could be stats-driven, uh, you know, kind of a data tracker. I know that there's, you know, there's TrackStat, there's Lucro, there's BlueIQ. So there's lots of, uh, kind of complementary services out there. If you are interested to come in as a silver sponsor— there's no more gold sponsors left— but coming in as a silver sponsor where you'll have a booth, um, uh, it is a wonderful opportunity. We have just, you know, 100+ doctors and staff, very high-level doctors, um, a really good opportunity to get exposure to, um, you know, a great quality doctor.

Yeah, and that's why our sponsors that we have had, they come back year after year because, uh, They're exposed to a really high-end group of doctors. So that'll wrap up our Saturday.

And let's not forget, Dr. Penkin, the client dinner Saturday night.

Cannot forget about the client dinner. Big old ribeye, porterhouse, filet, whatever you want. Dr. Leone.

It's all on me.

Yeah, give me 2 of those. I would know.

Yeah, so Saturday night is always a lot of fun. You know, we book a Um, a party limo bus that, you know, seats about 30. Uh, we rent out a private room in a nice, uh, Dallas restaurant. Um, last year, I can't remember the name of that restaurant, but I'm going to try to get that same room. That was a— it was a beautiful location. Um, uh, the private room was awesome. The food was amazing. Um, and it was a steak and seafood restaurant, and, uh, it was just phenomenal. So I, yeah, I can't remember the name of it, but anyways, point being is if you are a client of Specialized Practice, you are invited on Saturday night, and it is a whole lot of fun.

It is. I look forward to it every year, and, uh, I'm a big steak guy, so that's right up my alley.

I remember in Scottsdale when you ordered like— what, what was that?

That was like It was a 22-ounce, 45-day-aged ribeye.

Oh my gosh, sounds amazing. And you ate the whole thing?

Ate the whole thing and enjoyed every bite of it.

Okay, so then that wraps up Saturday night. And then, and then we move into Sunday where Dr. Pankinen takes the main stage again. And I'll let him explain what he's going to go over.

Yeah, so these are 2 what I would call advanced talks. These are going to be on conditions that we as decompression docs, I think we're missing. So we're going to do about an hour-long talk on thoracic disc herniations, an overlooked condition for spinal decompression, especially if it's lower thoracic or upper thoracic discs. We can treat those with our spinal decompression tables and programs, but What the, what the person that's listening to us, what the doctors are going to learn is they're missing these in clinical practice. They're not recognizing the symptoms. They're missing— they're not examining these the way they should be to recognize that they're dealing with a patient with a thoracic disc. They're not— some of the symptoms that many times arise from these are atypical.

Mm-hmm.

And therefore, we're going to teach the doctors what the symptoms, the signs and symptoms are of thoracic disc, how to properly examine for these, and then how we would go about treating these. And so there's— every doctor that's going to be listening to this is going to think of a patient as I'm presenting. They're like, oh crap, I know what this patient has now, and I've been missing it this whole time. And they're gonna— they're gonna— it's gonna open up this whole new subset of patients in their practice that they're gonna start to be able to use decompression on to help thoracic disc herniations. And then the second talk is gonna be on pelvic pain and organic dysfunction. Gonna be an hour-long talk on that, or 45 minutes. It's called the Peapod Syndrome. And again, This is a condition that is caused by disc herniations in the lumbar spine, but their only symptom sometimes is pelvic pain or—

Wild.

Sexual dysfunction, gynecological, urological, gastrointestinal disturbances sometimes are their only symptoms, but it's coming from the lumbar spine and disc herniations there. And again, We as clinicians, we have these patients in our practice and we don't even know that they have a lumbar disc that's causing their problems, and they don't know it either. And they're going from doctor to doctor to doctor to try to figure out why they have irritable bowel syndrome or they have erectile dysfunction and different things like that, and the answer is in their spine and nobody is figuring it out. And so I'm gonna give a whole presentation on that that will allow us as doctors to better recognize these patients. And again, these are cases that we can help with decompression. So you're gonna leave the seminar with more opportunities to recognize and help more patients that can benefit from spinal decompression.

Uh, if you're listening to this, I hope that got you excited because this just opened up a whole new swath of potential decompression patients in your practice. These patients aren't telling you that they have these symptoms, but when you are first aware of the symptoms and the conditions and then the root cause of them, now what you can do is add that into your intake paperwork. So that it's like, boom, oh, red flag. Let's dig into this to see if we can address that with spinal decompression. What we're learning about spinal decompression is obviously it's phenomenal for bulging herniated and degenerative discs, but it has a wide range of uses in terms of spinal conditions.

Right.

And this is just one example. So, I mean, I think that talk alone is worth The cost of admission. So I'm super excited about that. And I know that during that time frame, Dr. Burkhardt is going to also be doing a breakout session on Hill DT protocols. Then we have a luggage break, right? So this is where, you know, just 30 minutes, you know, go check out of your room and just, just, you don't have to do it like first thing in the morning, right? Just like, hey, In the morning, just focus on getting ready and getting down to the talks. And then we give you a half an hour, go up, pack up your suitcase. Obviously, you can— there's a room to store it at right next to us in the, you know, in our presentation room. And then we're moving on to— on the main stage, I'll be talking about artificial intelligence and how to apply it and benefit from it. in your practice. So, we all know AI is moving rapidly. It's prevalent. And what, you know, I think a lot of doctors feel like they may be missing the boat a little bit, right? They may not be utilizing it and taking, you know, leveraging it so that they could, you know, save time, save money, generate more patients, you know, systemize, their workflows with patients, all that type of stuff. So this talk is going to kind of dive into that and give all of you the tools that you need, like what tools I'm using in practice, from a consulting side, and then what our doctors are using in practice. And so we're going to give you what tools that we recommend that you use. By the way, we don't obviously get any, you know, kickbacks or anything. These are just public tools, but we're just going to say, hey, These are the tools that we're using and recommending. This is how to use them, uh, and this is where to use them to, um, to make sure that you are, uh, taking advantage of AI in your practice. So we're really excited about that because it's, um, it's just a super hot topic right now. So, um, so that will be on the main stage from 10:30 to 11:30, and then we are going to then wrap it up with our Report Findings Roundtable. And essentially what this is, is this is just a broad Q&A.

Yes.

It's, you know, Dr. Pankinen gets up there, Dr. Burkhardt gets up there, I get up there, Holly gets up there, and it's just an open Q&A session from 11:30 to 12:00 to wrap up the event in totality. And so we just, you know, always recommend doctors, hey, if you don't ask your question during the talks, which you know, you're more than welcome to, um, sit, you know, write them down. And then that's— that Q&A session is always a lively discussion because it's, it's over everything we discussed. So all, uh, all topics are fair game, and it's a lot of fun, and it's a great way to end the event.

Yeah, absolutely. AI is so— I just literally started doing some things in the last couple months, totally blown away. Totally blown away with what you can do with it and how it can help you organize and make life and put presentations together. Just makes life a lot easier. So that's gonna be going on. There's one more breakout session in the morning, which is the— we'll do the— what's called the World Class Exam. So I'm gonna go over for any doctors that have not seen it before. I've done this at 2 of the past summits.

Yeah.

And so we don't want to keep showing it to all the doctors every year, but for those who have never seen it before, we'll have a breakout session where I'll teach you how I examine the cervical and lumbar spine. And I will say, not to toot my own horn, but I've had doctors tell me that this is, this is what has really made a huge difference in their case acceptance.

100%.

And in building confidence over the last several years. And so if you don't have a really high-end cervical lumbar exam and you're in the world of decompression, you're missing the boat. So this will hopefully help you get up to speed.

I, I will toot the horn for Dr. Pankinen because, um, I can't tell you how many clients have told me in confidence, you know what, my exam sucks. They're just very honest and they're like, I can't tell you how valuable this training has been and working with Dr. Pankinen and implementing the World Class Exam. I feel so confident that I can help these patients. I know what the primary pain generator is. I know what to recommend. Patients are telling me how impressed they are with the examination. They say they've never had an examination of that high quality. This is, you know, I really believe this is one of the key differentiators between you and everyone else in your, in your town. Everybody. Because I would, I would venture to guess about 90% of doctors out there do a really perfunctory— is that a word? Perfunctory exam with a couple orthopedic tests, little range of motion, you know, and like, hey, we're good to go. No, um, not if you're going to be an expert. Not if you're going to charge $5,000 a case and get it. So amazing training. And, you know, again, a lot of our doctors that are there, they've already had it, right? So they'll be at the AI session. But again, we're trying to open it up so that, you know, every, you know, wherever you're at in practice, you will have a training very specific for you. And that's going to wrap that up, right? That's the end of the summit. Everyone goes off and does their own thing. I usually go sit by the pool and have some type of fruity drink. But that is our overview of the Decompression Summit Certification 2026, the future of spinal decompression. And I'm fired up. It's going to be an amazing event. As always, I want to thank Candy VanderWal because she is our event coordinator and she does a phenomenal job. And so Very thankful for Candy, very thankful for Jeff VanderWal at Hill DT being our co-sponsor. So this is co-sponsored by Specialized Practice and Hill DT, and of course Dr. Burkhardt and Dr. Penkinen for presenting. So the email will be going out on the 15th, April 15th, that wonderful day where we get to pay the government bunches of money.

So We will. Yippee.

Yeah, yippee. So, so keep an eye out for that email. So that's the early birds who save, I think, about $100 for that. If you get in the early bird, the early bird lasts a month, April 15th through May 15th. And so, and I would say usually at least 30 or 40% of our attendees sign up in that. Wouldn't you say, Dr. Kyle?

Oh yeah, at least. There's always a surge right at the beginning and then it seems like there's a little lull. Then as it gets closer to the event, then there's another big surge and then it sells out.

100%. So any closing thoughts, Dr. Pinkerton? Your 4th year, our 4th year, very excited.

I'm super excited about it. It gets better each year, I feel. And we put, I know from my end, I'm putting more work into it and preparation than I ever have before. And because we want to keep advancing it and make it the best training available out there. So if you're in the world of decompression, if you're just starting your experience, you're just starting to even just think about getting into it, to me this is a no-brainer. You go to the summit and you're gonna, you're gonna enhance your skill set by many levels, no doubt about it.

And you do walk out with a certification that will be, you know, You need to take the test, right? So, take the test, you get the certification, it's mailed to you, frame it, put it in your office. When you go through this, you are, you know, you're miles ahead of the doctor who, again, just buys a table and tries to figure it out on their own. And so, I'm very excited as well. It's a lot of work to put these events on. Um, but it's always worth it in the end, and I'm just, uh, really looking forward to this one.

It's going to be great, and, uh, it's great camaraderie too, just to be together with that level of doctors.

That community is— I, I— that's one of the, the low-key major benefits is being around, um, other doctors either at your level or, or much further ahead of you. It's funny, a lot of times you don't even— you wouldn't realize the guy doing $250,000 a month. Um, but, uh, the point being is, um, it's a high-level group of doctors that comes to this. Um, they bring their team, their team is fired up. You come back, I always hear, you know, Dr. Vince, every time I come back, my— the next, the next week, the next month, huge, huge month in practice. Um, just because you come back on fire, team's on fire. Um, More confidence again. And, um, yeah, so, um, if you are, you know, even remotely on the fence, get off the fence, register. We'll see you there. And, um, so we'll go ahead and wrap up this episode previewing the Decompression Summit certification for 2026, the future of spinal decompression. So for Dr. Kyle Penkin, and I'm Dr. Vince Leone, this is the Practice Builders Podcast.

Thank you.

Thank you for listening, and we'll see you on the next episode. Hey, it's Dr. Vince again, and hope you enjoyed that episode. And if you're ready to grow your practice fast with high-value decompression patients, then the Decompression Accelerator could be a phenomenal option for you. This is our 90-day sprint to help you scale with proven systems, staff-driven protocols, and full marketing support, and it's all guaranteed. Spots are limited. Head to www.decompressionaccelerator.com to learn more.