The Official Decompression Summit Recap!

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, and we are going to bring you something that I think will educate you well. It will teach you about some important concepts about practice, and we're coming off of an exciting event that we're going to kind of recap for you. So I'll let Dr. Vince recap that for you.

Yeah, well, so our title for this, this podcast is the Decompression Summit Certification Official Recap. So, we just got back. Well, I got back Monday. I think Dr. Kyle probably got back Sunday. But, we just finished the 2025 version of the Decompression Summit certification. So, you can see how tired I am from this event because it's hard to talk. But, it was a fantastic event. It went from Friday to Sunday. We got phenomenal feedback from it. We had about 109 doctors and staff. So, I think it was 80 doctors and the rest were staff. Um, and, uh, there was just an incredible energy at the event. It started at the happy hour Friday night. Doc, I feel like people were like just vibrating on a very high frequency.

It was our 3rd year of it, and this was the year, for whatever reason, and I'm not totally sure I understand why, but there was just this buzz in the room, this energy, this vibe, however you want to phrase it, but The bottom line is the doctors that were there were excited to be there. They had great anticipation of the summit. And not to brag, but I think we delivered the goods this year. And from the feedback that we're getting, and it was a worthwhile, transformative summit for those that attended. And I've heard no different.

Yeah, 100%. And, you know, I've talked to several clients this week already that were there. I think we probably had from our roster about 25 clients show up because this is open to the public, right? So this is open to Specialized Practice clients, it's open to Hill DT clients because it's the— the summit is hosted by Specialized Practice and Hill DT, um, and it's open to doctors with other tables and with other coaches. So, um, it was, uh, just a great event. Our goal with the summit when we started So I had attended, you know, I'd spoke at other events, I had attended other decompression-specific events, and frankly walked away from them, all of them, unimpressed. And not trying to throw shade, I'm just being honest. I just wasn't impressed with what, uh, the caliber of the education out there for spinal decompression. Here you have one of the most valuable niches In our industry, right? One of the best ways you can help someone with a, you know, bulging, herniated, or degenerative disc— one of the best ways you can grow your practice, add cash services, decrease the physical toll on your body. And we just have, you know, kind of a lot of fluff out there. So, uh, what, you know, back in— I think it was '22— Dr. Pankinen had reached out to me and said, hey, you should You know, you should talk to Jeff VanderWal at Hill. I think you guys would get along quite well, and you both have the same vision for putting something together that's going to really deliver at a very high level clinical excellence, marketing, systems training, staff training. And that's really what this has evolved into.

Yeah, and I think it, it takes a little while to maybe work out a few kinks here and there, but I think This has accomplished what I had envisioned, putting 2 wonderful entities together in a beautiful relationship and bringing out the best in clinical training and the marketing and the systems, like Dr. Leone stated, so that the attender of this conference is gonna walk away and have several things that they can start implementing Monday morning. and walk away feeling like, wow, this was one of the best, if not the best seminar I've ever been to. And we, we've had several doctors that have said that very same thing. And so it's a, it's a beautiful marriage.

Yeah, yeah, it absolutely is. Really like Jeff and Dr. Burkhardt at Hill DT. Um, and, uh, I just, again, I think that when you have, um, the commitment to excellence and to deliver at a very high level, not just a big sales presentation. Um, I mean, look, don't get me wrong, I want to sell my coaching services. Jeff wants to sell Hill Tables. Um, the vendors that are sponsors— Cutting Edge, PiezoWave, Acuity— you know, they all want to, you know, they want to sell their services, they want to grow their businesses too. But that's all a lot easier when the attendees really get high-quality information that they can implement on Monday. So, that being said, let's dive into our recap of the summit, and let you kind of lead the charge there, Dr. Pankinen.

Yeah, I'll just briefly recap a few of the presentations that I have, and then I'll let Dr. Leone recap what he presented, and just go over a few of the highlights that the listener here today can take home and implement some things of their own. So the first thing I went into is I did an hour-long presentation on the latest and greatest of spinal decompression research, and I broke it down to 3 categories: biomechanics, outcome studies, and then practical application. And we went over several different studies under each category, but the bottom line message is this: if you are in the world of niches It's important, doctors, to keep up to date with the latest research because that's just part of being an expert. And patients have questions. How does this decompression work? You know, what are my odds of success? And you need to have an understanding of the literature and the research that's been done so you can confidently answer those questions and not just make things up as you go along.

And that's not a— that's not the sign of a true expert when you're just making stuff up as you go?

I— the last time I checked, it wasn't anyway. Yeah, I mean, let's face it, we all get asked questions in clinical practice sometimes we don't know the answer to, and, and sometimes it's better just to say I don't know than it is to make something up. But bottom line is If you're going to call yourself an expert, it's more than just owning a decompression table. If you're a true spine decompression expert, you also have to be fluent on the literature that is available because that's going to also give you more inner confidence. So I touched on that a fair amount. The next thing I talked about—

By the way, before you jump, before you go on the next one, um, We would love for you guys to attend the summit next year. We already have it set, September 25th to 27th at the Omni Las Colinas, beautiful hotel. Um, but this is what we do at Specialized Practice, right? We provide the research, we provide the clinical training. Dr. Pankinen works one-on-one with our doctors to create true experts. So if you feel like you don't have quite the goods, and, and by the way, Uh, I commend you if you can admit that, if you can set your ego aside. I have a lot of respect for that because, uh, it's not an ego contest. It's about just becoming the best doctor you can be. So that's what we do, you know, we create true experts. And like I said, Dr. Pankinen is, is our clinical director and is, uh, the one that works one-on-one with doctors. And I can't tell you how many compliments I get on, uh, his role at the company.

I just talked to— thank you for that. And I just actually had a consult with a doctor a couple hours ago that's a new client with Specialized Practice, and that was one of the main reasons that he joined Specialized Practice. He says, I need help with cases, I need one-on-one instruction, I need help when I get those challenging cases that come through the door and maybe that aren't improving as well as I want. What do I do? And so We went through a lot of things today. I was on the phone with him about things he can change. We went over his protocol, and, uh, he was, uh, he was pretty happy when we were done with him today. He got a lot out of it, and it's starting to build his confidence. That's the big key.

Yep.

Second thing we went over, uh, on my part, we talked about the medical options for spine pain. So we did decompression, which is our baby. We showed the research on that, and then we went over things like drug therapy, epidural steroid injection therapy, radiofrequency ablation, spinal cord stimulators, and surgery. Well, why, you might ask? Well, patients have questions about those things. If they're going to consider a spinal decompression program, they're also going to want to know what other— all their alternatives are. And what their odds of success in those things are. So we dove deep into some of those things and showed, you know what, at the end of the day, what we have to offer, our non-drug and non-surgical approaches, way outperform, way outshine anything that medicine has to offer. One of the key statistics I shared was with spinal surgery. A surgeon considers a spinal surgery success if their patient gets 50% relief. And so we as non-surgical specialists, that's what our goal would be too, to get them at least 50% or more relief. We talked quite a bit about how steroid injections are actually being used off-label. They're not even FDA approved for spine pain.

Exactly. Crazy.

It is crazy. And yet these things are being handed out like candy every day.

And it's just become the norm. Like, it's like it's not even questioned.

Not even questioned. And then the other thing is these radio frequency ablations. These are— these are in my area at least— these are becoming more and more prevalent all the time. And the research—

which—

so we shared the research on those, and it's Let's just say they just came off a new study where they are totally advising against using steroid injections, radiofrequency ablation, basically because the studies on them show they're basically worthless. At best, at best, they get short-term effects, but they also come with potential downside as well. So anyway, We went into that so that you can fluently answer patients' questions, and then also statistics on surgical success and surgical failure rates. And so these are important because people ask, what about surgery, doctor? Yeah, and we got to be able to fluently answer that. And then the final thing—

Wait, I want to pop in there. So why is it so important to have an understanding of what the other medical interventions are? In, in my talks, we talked about the last spinal decompression marketing plan you'll ever need. And we went through 7 pillars, um, of basically how to create preeminence in your marketplace, how to be the true expert, how to be the guy or the gal that is on the tip of the tongue when someone is thinking about, I gotta, you know, I'm either considering surgery or doing something else, right? They should be thinking of you. And so in my program or my talk at the summit was how do we, first of all, what are those 7 pillars? And then how do we implement those effectively? And in fact, this weekend, I'm working on doing a deep masterclass dive because I only had 45 minutes. I gave up my second slot to Brad Gibb, who's a wealth expert, and talked about how do you create what he calls a wealth ladder to a self-funded retirement, which is a really cool concept. I can't explain it. So, if you weren't there, then that's unfortunate. But he was a phenomenal speaker. And so, that's why I gave him a slot because I had seen him speak before. I'm like, I got to get this guy here. I mean, I feel like if you all know Garrett Gunderson, he's wrote tons of books and he has a big financial services company. I see Brad Gibb as like kind of Garrett Gunderson, like 5 years ago, you know, before he kind of got like huge. Um, but, uh, the point being is what Dr. Kyle's talking about, um, it dovetails into the marketing because in any given market, right, it could be back pain, it could be, uh, people looking for— it doesn't matter, whatever, doodads and gizmos and that type of crap. Point being, in any given market, there are 3% that are problem aware and solution aware. Right, only 3%. So, if you've wondered like why you started with an agency and it did well and then tanked after, you know, 2, 3 months, it's because they scraped off the 3%. But 37% of the market is problem aware, right? They know they have a disc, but they are in research mode, right? So, they— so, that's how and that's why we do the 7 pillars is because now we got to dive into and penetrate that deeper market, that 37%.

Yeah.

of these people in research mode. And guess what? They're looking at all these ideas and concepts and options that Dr. Pankinen is talking about. So don't you think that would be helpful if they came into your practice and you were fluent in all these other options, all these other medical interventions, and then you can debunk them, not only saving them time, energy, money, probably, you know, pain and frustration, and then steer them into spinal decompression? 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.

That is brilliant what you just said. That couldn't have said it better, and, uh, that is precisely what I was trying to teach doctors to do, and Uh, I think they got it. They got the point of it.

Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so that third one—

The next one, the final thing I did is I did, uh, the World Class Cervical and Lumbar Exam. And that was just basically showing doctors exactly the exams I do for cervical lumbar patients and the flow in the order that I take the exams through. So showing them Demonstrating to them how that works in clinical practice. And you might be thinking, well, I'm a doc, I know how to do, you know, exam and stuff. But I don't think most doctors realize the importance if you're going to be an expert and you're going to attract these types of more challenging cases of spinal stenosis, lumbar disc herniations, and things like that. You have to do something to differentiate yourself. So one, you gotta do an exam because you just gotta know what the heck is wrong with the patient, right?

I'm still shocked. I hear doctors, they don't do an exam, they just kind of eyeball it. It's like, just totally surprising. But yes, I feel like the exam, that is your golden opportunity to position yourself as an expert because honestly, the bar is pretty low.

The bar is pretty low. A lot of doctors aren't doing exams beyond just palpation, or even— even while medical doctors, general practitioners, they don't know how to do musculoskeletal exams, period, anyways. But the exam that we taught will even far exceed what a typical orthopedic or neurosurgeon would do in clinical practice, where they generally just rely on imaging. And imaging is important, docs, But you can't rely on that solely. You have to marry your exam findings with your imaging findings to see if they correlate to come to an exact diagnosis of the patient, which then you can then from that determine if they are decompression candidate. So we had doctors that came to the summit that actually came up to me and said, this is the reason that I'm here, is because they wanted to learn these skills and these exams and then take them home and teach them to their associate doctors and so forth. And so that was the, the big thing I wanted to convey is, is the importance of the exam and then giving the patient the wow experience because they've never had an exam like that before. And, uh, it was, uh, we got a lot of good feedback on that as well.

And you did that year 1 but not year 2, and so that's why we brought it back. So now I want to go over So, just recap. We recapped what Dr. Kyle presented, talked about what I did, Dr. Burkhart did, Mastering the 3. What did he call that? It was like the 3 pillars of spinal decompression.

Yeah.

Basically, it was decompression A to Z. And, Dr. Burkhart's brilliant. I just think he's just a fantastic doctor, super successful practice. And, Uh, when it comes to decompression, uh, another true expert. Um, but I want to just go over some of the feedback, both positive and negative, or positive and constructive, that we got back. So one, overall very positive, right? There was, um, I, I didn't— literally didn't talk to one individual that said, um, that, you know, they didn't feel like it was worth coming. Like, they were all thrilled. Um, what interestingly, I just talked to a new client from the summit. She was her feedback was, well, you know, it allowed me to be who I actually want to be, which was really interesting, right? Because Dr. Burkhardt told the, the joke, it's like, how many straight chiropractors does it take to change a light bulb? And he's like, change. So, um, her coaching group that she's been with for 10 years, um, you know, I don't know if they like poo-pooed or frowned upon like, you know, niches like decompression, but it didn't sound like it was encouraged. And so, you know, obviously for us, we're patient-centered, um, and we want the best therapy for, you know, whoever walks in the door. But anyways, so positive feedback overall, very positive. Um, felt like our reputation, you know, has expanded. You know, that's part of the goal for specialized practice is get our name out there to more doctors. I feel like that was Um, uh, uh, achieved. Uh, one constructive feedback was it was a little cramped because it was sold out this year. And so, by the way, this is a massive ballroom. Um, and so half of it was the presentation, the other half was CA training and, um, lunch. And so now we, we've already talked to the hotel. Candy, our event coordinator, Jeff's wife, Um, already secured for next year, September 25th to 27th. So put it on the calendar, 2026. But now we're going to open up that entire room. So I think the entire room holds about 220. Um, and so we had 110 or 109, something like that this year. Um, and so we're gonna cap it around 150, but space out the tables more so it's much more comfortable. Some doctors are saying they're, they're a little It was a little tight, not crazy, but just just a little bit. You know, so that was some constructive feedback. We got to announce Dr. Vinnie Cornejo as a new coach at Specialized Practice. That was exciting. So we always do a private dinner, private client dinner on Saturday night. So we got a limo bus. You know, thirty of us somehow fit into that, and everyone was singing. Went to Nuri Steakhouse. Had a fantastic time. You know, Dr. Pankinen, I was at dinner 2 nights ago with a friend of mine who owns and runs a $100 million construction company.

Okay.

And I was showing him pictures of our dinner and he's like, wow, there's nothing like that in Seattle. And he was so impressed with that. Now, Bellevue's a little different. Bellevue has some nice places, but point being, he was very impressed with our private room. So that was a lot of fun. And, uh, some of the feedback, also constructive, was like, we would love a little bit more content or training on ROF and systems. So now we do have Holly Burkhardt doing staff training, and Dr.

Mm-hmm.

Penkinen and I also jumped in and did some frequently asked questions training for about 45 minutes with staff. That was well received also. But ROF, so I did ROF in year 1, didn't— wait, no, did it last year, didn't do it this year. So we got feedback that they would like that. So what we're considering doing is opening up Friday. So right now, in the last 3 years, we did happy hour. So everyone just fly in Friday, we do a happy hour Friday night, train all day Saturday, and then Sunday 8 to 12. So what we're considering doing is opening up Friday. train from, say, 2 to 6 or 3 to 6 so that we can keep Brad Gibb because Brad wants to come back as the wealth expert. And then we can add in systems, marketing, ROF on Friday. So that's kind of what I got in terms of feedback, both good and constructive, and kind of our plans moving forward.

Yeah, I love the idea of expanding into a bigger area. I thought it felt a little cramped as well. But we'll, uh, we can solve that quite easily.

Very easily.

And I think for those that decide to come next year, especially if they weren't at this year's, Brad Gibb, he is a phenom. I was very impressed with him. And that's, you know, all the doctors there are looking to up their clinical game, to understand how to do— implement decompression And ultimately, as you get more successful with that, hey, hopefully you're going to help people, but you're also going to increase your own finances as well. And you know what? Most chiropractors are pretty good at helping people. We're not so good at business, and we're not so good at our finances and managing that. And I'm, I'm right there. And so to have somebody on our team that can educate our doctors and And help them to manage their finances, to protect their assets, to lower their tax burdens, to, to have a— does they have their concept of a chief wealth officer? I thought that was a unique concept that he brought forth.

Mm-hmm.

So I've been digging into his website and I got a request for a one-on-one coming up with them already. And, uh, I think that's a big thing. That's, that's a differentiator of our summit compared to others. And, uh, other feedback I got was that it inspired them to be a better doctor. That's what I got.

I love that.

It inspired them to be the doctor that they've always wanted to be, but maybe they've gotten maybe just a little bit lazy, maybe stuck in a rut in practice.

Yeah.

And so I got feedback from doctors, I want to, I want to learn this research, I want to do better exams, I want to, I want to just be a better doctor as a result of the summit. And hey, if that's what they came back with, to me that's mission accomplished.

Yeah, 100%. And you know, we— I love that doctors come to the summit with that intention and, uh, and have that transformative experience. We see that almost every day with with some of our clients. They've been in practice for 30, 35 years, and when they kind of add these— this niche or these niches, um, you know, I can think of one doctor in particular, Dr. Smith. He's already shared, like, he, he came to the summit. He's been a client for, I think, like 7 or 8 months, but he was about ready to get out of practice. You know, I think he was— he's been in practice for about 30 years, um, and he was pretty much ready to sell or just close the doors. And in the past 7 months, he's doubled his— minimally doubled his practice. He's added these niches. Um, he's built his team up now, and he's having so much fun. Just a different person. Another client, Dr. Michael Schaefer, last year— again, now he was— he's been in practice for about 35 years. He's— he was ready to close the doors 100%. Like, he— anyways, this year Whoa, 100% different man. Like, just full of energy, enthusiasm, confidence, happy, excited about practice. So that's the power of these niches and really diving into becoming that true expert, going to that next level, reinvesting in yourself, being a part of a phenomenal community of doctors that are all highly ethical and highly motivated. So it's exciting times right now, you know, at Specialized Practice and the Summit Both. And, you know, we invite you to come out next year. Again, September 25th to 27th in Las Colinas, which is a suburb of Dallas. We'd love to have you. Highly recommend. You know, we'll be doing the initial invite in, I think, May. We'll do an early bird discount. But this thing's going to sell out again. Again, we're going to— we got to cap it at 150-ish. But I think that's probably the number, 150. So, When you see that, I highly recommend you get it as soon as possible. We had at least, you know, several doctors trying to get into the event after, you know, it sold out, which— because we sold out, I think, August 1st, you know. So anyways, any closing thoughts there, Dr. Kyle, uh, from your experience?

One other quick testimonial. My uncle, Dr. Vince Pankinen, who's been in practice over 30 years, probably pushing 40, And, uh, he has started to practice the way Dr. Vince and I teach the last year or two, specializing in niches. And he's having his— at the end of his career, I mean, he's almost 65, he was having his best collections ever. And he said, this is the most fun I've had in practice.

Mm-hmm.

And Dr. Schaefer and Dr. Smith have all made similar statements to that, how much fun they have practicing the way that we teach and focusing on niches. So, uh, I think that says a lot.

100%. So, um, thank you to all of our clients and everyone that attended the Decompression Summit. Um, and to all you listening, hope this recap was helpful for you. Some of you may have been at the event. I know Dr. Michael Lee is listening to this podcast because he says he listens to every podcast. So, uh, shout out to Dr. Michael Lee. You still need to become a client. I don't know what you're doing, but, uh, figure it out. Anyways, shout out to him and his wife Lauren. Anyways, they're great people even if they're not clients yet. But for Dr. Pankinen, I'm Dr. Vince Leone. Thanks so much for listening. We'll see you all on the next episode. Take care. 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.