Harvard Health, Johns Hopkins and Chiropractic | Podcast Ep. 58

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Hello and welcome to the Evidence Based Chiropractor. I am your host, Dr. Jeff Langmeid. Welcome to 2017. I hope you've settled in and certainly if you did not catch our recap of 2016, we released that just a couple weeks ago in podcast form. So check that out. Recap of 2016. But today it's all about 2017. It's all about Harvard, Johns Hopkins University and chiropractic care. And yes, you heard that correct. Harvard Health, John Hopkins University and chiropractic care. So yes, Harvard Health and John Hopkins University both have pages on their medical websites that reference chiropractic care in a great way. As a matter of fact, I posted on Facebook both of the articles in the last few days and they went absolutely ballistic. I think they've reached over 15 or 20,000 people in the last few days. Tons of shares, likes and comments abound. So also, if you're listening to this or watching this and you haven't had the opportunity to check that out and share it, then they're awesome resources to share. You can find it directly@facebook.com the evidencebasedchiropractor. So what's the message behind these articles and why do we care as chiropractors? Well, the thing that struck me and what I think we're gonna get down to today, the important thing, the important notion and the take home message that you can use in your talks, in your relationship building with your patients and other physicians in your community, is both of the articles truly focus on function? Absolutely. They feature the F word of function, which is an important criteria for multiple reasons. Function is imperative because it's a tenet of chiropractic care. It's not all about pain relief. It's about improving quality of life. It's about peak performance and it certainly is about making sure that we attain the highest level of human health and conditioning, ie, function. Both articles feature the word function, which I think is unbelievably important for us as chiropractors. The other part about this that I think is extremely important is both shine a light, in my opinion, in a very positive way. I think if you're listening to this as a chiropractor and you're maybe 50, 60 years old or older, you could not imagine a time when Harvard Health or Johns Hopkins University would have an article featuring chiropractic care as a mainstay on their websites that promotes chiropractic care in a positive fashion. It just would have been unheard of. And that I think really gets to the reason why the articles went off like complete wildfire on Facebook. So I'm going to bring out a quote from what they found at Harvard because I think it really nails home the message of what we're getting through today. And Harvard found quote, Chiropractic is a healthcare system that holds that the structure of the body, particularly the spine, affects the function of every part of the body. Chiropractors try to correct the body's alignment to relieve pain and improve function and help the body heal itself. So that is really striking and really powerful to me. I actually featured that quote in our weekly kind of marketing and health update newsletter that goes out to everybody that subscribes at the evidence based Chiropractor. And it really hit home for me and I wanted to share it with everyone because again, I think that if we look back 5 years, 10 years, 15 years and certainly more than that, we would have been very hard pressed to find this sort of data and this sort of information publicly available from these institutions. And not only do they talk about pain relief, not only do they talk about chiropractic and a little bit of the history, you know, by hand and things of that nature, and focusing really on spinal manipulation or adjustments, which I think is the core of core component to what we do as chiropractors is adjust patients. But certainly they also touch again on function. And function is important for multiple reasons. Function is important because it really showcases what we've always aspired to as chiropractors. We want to help people live the best life they can by multiple means. And being able to improve function is an absolutely essential component of that mission and of that goal. The other component with function is that this kind of gets a little bit outside the box. But as we go more towards for everybody that doesn't have a cash practice, and I know statistically a majority of chiropractors accept some insurance coverage, some PI, perhaps some work comp and certainly some cash, but a majority of chiropractors still have some major mips, some third party reimbursement in their office, and what we're seeing with the transition in healthcare for more towards an outcome based model and a patient satisfaction model, I think really falls in line with what we do as chiropractors. And we're going to have a great opportunity, if we position appropriately to make sure that we have as much leverage as possible moving forward with healthcare reimbursement. Now, this is going to be a tricky thing. It's certainly not going to be solved on this podcast today. And there's multiple factors and we'll have multiple foes, so to speak, or multiple people that are going to be trying to edge in. But I really think that the functional component of chiropractic care can't be discounted. And anything that we have at this point in time, resources, text, research papers and certainly when major institutions and universities talk about chiropractic and function as being intertwined, it really gives us a leg up if we are able to leverage appropriately to make sure that we're getting the best reimbursements. We already know the research showcases we have unbelievable patient satisfaction within chiropractic. Patients love coming to see chiropractors. The challenge that we have as chiropractic physicians, as chiropractors sometimes is getting patients in the door. We're still looking at maybe 10% of the total United States or population, 10% of the United States population, certainly much, much lower than that on a worldwide scale that comes into our offices for care. Now, we know that that number should be significantly higher. Where should it be? Well, that's up for discussion, but it should be much, much, much, much higher. And when we're able to perhaps showcase high satisfaction, showcase better function, showcase the plethora of items that we're able to do, and certainly the adjustment, the hallmark of what we do, and the results that patients get from it, we're going to have a potent mix that to get the best reimbursement possible in the changing landscape of insurance reimbursement. So articles like this just get me excited. When I'm able to see Johns Hopkins University, when I'm able to see Harvard Health, when I'm able to see major, major health institutions and publications come out and talk about chiropractic in a positive way or in a real way, it really gets me excited. And to be honest with you, it's what I see each and every day. Some of you listening know a little bit about my story, but I practice at the largest spine surgery provider in the world, to be honest with you, and really with that. The reason I'm there is because they have a lot of interest and I have a lot of interest in making sure that chiropractic care is represented, that conservative care is represented, and certainly the build out ultimately of a nationwide conservative care program. That's where I'm at and where I'm going. But one thing I'll tell you as kind of an offshoot to that is I work with multiple Johns Hopkins trained neurosurgeons and I was shocked. My first day in the practice, I sat with one of our neurosurgeons who was doing a thoracic case. And in that thoracic case we were talking. It was going to be a laminectomy. It was going to be a laminotomy technically, but it was going to be a decompression of a thoracic nerve root. He brought up to me about, hey, here's the dorsal root ganglion, here's the rib head, here's where things are occurring. An anterior chiropractic adjustment typically works, but when it doesn't, that's when I'm looking for xyz. To say that I was flabbergasted at that moment would be an understatement. I was absolutely shocked. I was thrilled and I was very interested. He was using true chiropractic terminology and really in terms of function and then pain reduction on a dorsal root ganglion and literally was using the term anterior thoracic adjustment. So the wheels are turning. There's a lot more people open to what we do than we've had in the past. And I expect that 10% max, 10% utilization to keep climbing. But we need to take an active role to make sure that that happens. Now, our members, every month at the Evidence Based Chiropractor, our membership program, they are getting the goods, they're getting the tools, the resources, everything that they need to get more patients into their practice. The benefits are more confidence, more clarity, a better understanding of what they're doing and a better way to communicate that to other providers in their community. That's what our members get each and every month. If you're interested in growing your practice and are serious about it in 2017, then I encourage you and I ask of you, check out the evidencebasedchiropractor.com you won't be disappointed. There are free tools and resources, but our membership program is the best in the business, bar none. So please check that out. One other thing before we wrap up today. If you've been listening to the podcast, there's a few thousand chiropractors that listen to this each and every week. One. Thank you. I really appreciate your time, your attention, and your desire to learn more about what's going on in the healthcare world. And number two, I would love your feedback on how we are doing. You can send that to me directly. Jeffevidencebasedchiropractor.com or even better, go in itunes and leave us a rating or feedback. It helps more chiropractors find us. It helps spread the message. It gets the podcast higher in the itunes standings which also helps more non chiropractors find out more about chiropractic care. So I hope you have a great week in practice. Doc and I will talk to you soon.

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