Spine surgeon Jeff Langmaid rejects the common 33-33-33 rule, where one-third of surgery patients improve, stay the same, or worsen. He claims his patients improve at 80-90% rates and argues these outcomes are exceptional, not typical across most providers.
Many surgeons out there have the 33-33-33 rule. 33% of their patients get better after a certain spine surgery, 33% are about the same, and 33% get worse. You and I would like cringe and probably go hide under a table and maybe change professions if that was our shooting percentage. Because if I asked you what percentage of patients see meaningful improvement in your practice, you're probably going to tell me 90% plus, 80% plus minimum. So we're playing at such a high level that many times seeing benefits that patients receive due to our care can seem expected to us rather than a surprise. As opposed to 66% of our patients getting worse or staying the same, we're like 85% get meaningfully better. So it's important to take a step back and understand that's unusual. That is not normal. The results that you see in your practice, don't happen that way in many other healthcare providers' practices or offices. So it's important to recognize that, to respect that, and also to understand, okay, we see this, but what's going on? How is this working? And how are we generating these incredible results, especially with chiropractors using various techniques, right?
