Specializing in pediatric and athletic patients is child’s play for this Garden State chiropractor
Taking an impassioned approach to chiropractic, Kathleen D. Baumgardner, DC, aims to set ablaze her local healthcare market. But that is not the reason the fire department parks its hook-and-ladder units for 1 day in May outside her Marlton, NJ, office. The firefighters are on hand—along with police and other public safety officials—to help Baumgardner present Kids’ Day International, a mixture of fun and education aimed at making the community’s children better protected.
A Walk on the Child Side
“Kids’ Day is an annual program developed a few years ago by chiropractors advocating children’s health and now marketed by Future Perfect Inc to promote health, safety, and environmental awareness to youngsters,” says Baumgardner, who became a supporter of this program about 2 years ago.
In staging the event, Baumgardner solicits the participation of tenants in the same professional building that houses her practice. These neighbors include a dentist, optometrist, and other allied health care providers (several of whom have since become sources of patient referrals for Baumgardner, and vice versa).
“We each have something to offer the kids,” she says. “From me, they receive a free spinal scan and posture check, then they go to the dentist and have their teeth examined. After that, they go to the optometrist for an eye check, and so on. The police fingerprint the children for identification purposes in the event they become lost or abducted.”
Much entertainment also takes place on Kids’ Day. There is a demonstration of the police canine team, and the youngsters are permitted to inspect the fire trucks and paramedic ambulances. Additionally, horse owners from nearby rural areas set up a corral and offer pony rides. Local sports teams get in on the excitement as well by staging various contests for the children. For the adults, an auction is staged to raise funds for an important charity (at last year’s event, the auction pulled in proceeds of about $1,000).
It may not be intended as such, but Kids’ Day clearly qualifies as an exercise in practice building, something at which Baumgardner excels. However, Kids’ Day is but a once-a-year event. Among the more frequently conducted activities she relies on to foster growth is giving lectures at employee workshops, civic group meetings and health fairs. “I always tailor my presentation to whatever the need of the audience is, but I always couch that within the framework of chiropractic care and health and wellness,” Baumgardner says.
Step into my Office
Many of those presentations take place out in the community, although Baumgardner prefers hosting groups in her own office. “My facility is a selling point in itself and an enhancement of the credibility of my presented message.”
Her practice—Health Goals Chiropractic Center—measures 3,400 sq ft, with eight adjusting rooms and sections for X-ray and patient education. In the past year, Baumgardner has added to the facility’s technologic armamentarium by acquiring a subluxation station—a surface EMG and thermography unit and a digital posture-analysis system.
“Patients love the way the EMG scans allow them to see at a glance the progress they’re making over time,” she says. “They become eager to undergo reexamination just for that reason, which is great from my perspective because that helps us maintain reexamination schedules and procedures. In short, this and the other pieces I’ve purchased are great practice building tools, as well as excellent diagnostic and patient education technology.”
During a comprehensive initial examination, Baumgardner uses an inclinometer to determine specific range of motion of the cervical spine.
A favorite practice building technique of Baumgardner’s is simply to provide patients with a comprehensive examination. “My exam runs about 45 minutes and routinely covers vital signs, posture, range of motion, applied-kinesiology muscle testing, orthopedic-neurologic tests, scans, and, if advisable, X-rays,” she says. “The second-day procedure is a very comprehensive oral and written report of findings. Depending on what’s in that report, I’m going to recommend corrective care and plant the seeds for ultimately getting the patient into a maintenance or wellness program. Once in that wellness program, I continue planting seeds by conducting a reexamination once every 4 months and providing a report of findings each time.”
Baumgardner tests lower extremity range of motion and flexibility to determine a program of care.
Another tool for building the practice is patient advocacy. At Health Goals Chiropractic Center is the patient advocate to ensure that those receiving care also receive all the information necessary to comply with the health and wellness plan Baumgardner has developed—as well as be able to pass along health insights to family and friends. “The patient advocate system,” she says, “also provides checks and balances internally so that each patient receives the most efficient and comprehensive care possible.”
Accentuate the Positive
Patient advocacy is particularly important in light of the practice’s growing involvement with managed care, now about 30% of revenues—and still climbing. “Originally, prior to managed care, I had a practice that was 65% cash, 20% personal injury, and 15% group insurance,” she tells. “Cash today is still the biggest slice of the revenue pie chart, but less so than it was. Workers’ compensation and personal injury are together currently less than 5%.”
However, unlike many of her colleagues, Baumgardner views the rising tide of managed care as an opportunity rather than a bane. “Managed care represents a portal of entry to chiropractic for many people who need chiropractic care,” she says. “There are a lot of negatives to managed care where practitioners are concerned, but I refuse to regard managed care itself as a negative. I’m only going to think of it in terms of a challenge that requires me to do my best to turn it into a positive.”
She is making good progress in that regard. For instance, by implementing and closely adhering to strict procedures for dealing with insurance companies, Baumgardner has been able to achieve a collection rate of almost 100% on claims submitted. “My staff and I have done this by first studying the mechanics of the insurance industry,” she says. “We’ve attended many seminars on billing and coding processes. We’ve learned how to identify and anticipate the payment-avoidance tactics of the insurance companies, so we’re always staying one step ahead of them and working hard to submit clean, error-free, and bullet-proof bills. It’s a labor-intensive process—even with the help of computers—but it’s well worth the effort.”
A Good Sport A professional ambition of Kathleen D. Baumgardner, DC, was to become a team physician for various amateur and professional sports organizations. Her first foray into that arena came in 1988, when—with the help of the American Chiropractic Association (ACA) Sports Council—she was chosen to be the official onsite doctor for a New Jersey swim team. That same year she also became the doctor-in-attendance at a national arm wrestling competition in Atlantic City, NJ, and at a collegiate powerlifting contest in Philadelphia.  Patient receives rehabilitative sport-specific exercise instruction to strengthen areas of involvement.
Since 1992, she has been involved with the Garden State Games, first as a chiropractic coordinator and now, as sports injury treatment director. “The Garden State Games are a stepping stone for athletes who dream of going on to compete in the Olympics,” she explains. Being in the Olympics is Baumgardner’s dream as well, not as an athlete, but as part of the US team’s health entourage. A much earlier dream of hers was simply to be a chiropractor. As a child, Baumgardner remembers when her mother suffered a bout of migraine headaches, dizziness, and loss of vision. The physicians who examined her suspected a brain tumor, but tests revealed nothing. They prescribed valium. Baumgardner’s mother declined to take the medication, fearing it would leave her unable to attend to her children. In desperation, she took the advice of a friend who suggested she try a chiropractor. That did the trick. “The chiropractor worked a miracle for my mom, and so she started taking us kids to the chiropractor,” Baumgardner recalls. “And this is what inspired me to become a chiropractor myself. In high school, my mother went to work in the chiropractor’s office and then became his office manager, and I spent all my free time in high school hanging out in his office and studying his books and literature.” After completing high school and set on a career in chiropractic, Baumgardner attended Bucknell University in Pennsylvania, a school with a very strong science focus. While there, she participated in its athletic training program. In 1983, Baumgardner went on to Logan College of Chiropractic and, on the side, worked as an athletic trainer for a St Louis community sports program. The next year, after graduating in 1986, she opened her private practice in partnership with another doctor (whom Baumgardner bought out in 1999), and continued her athletics-oriented education. In 1988, she became certified as a chiropractic sports physician through the ACA; in 1997, she achieved the status of diplomate of the American Chiropractic Board of Sports Physicians. Then in 1990, she earned the title of certified aerobic instructor from the American Fitness and Aerobic Association, and in 1992, she became a certified personal trainer. “I obtained those particular certifications in order to better communicate with aerobic instructors and personal trainers whom I feel can make very significant contributions to a chiropractic practice,” she says. I felt having this level of communication was important, since so many of my patients—after becoming educated about health and wellness goals—were signing up at fitness clubs and taking aerobics classes and hiring personal trainers. By extension, that made those instructors and trainers part of the practice team. As such, I needed to understand where they’re coming from and, at the same time, be someone they could recognize as a colleague so that we could work in harmony in terms of taking care of the patient.” |
Practice of Champions
Baumgardner sees patients ranging in age from newborns to the aged. Pediatrics makes up about 25% of the caseload. Sports-related injuries account for at least that same percentage.
While the demographics of the practice are about evenly split between men and women, Baumgardner herself sees more women (the men she does not see receive care from her in-office male associate). “I work closely with local obstetricians and gynecologists in caring for women, and I see a lot of female athletes, particularly as a result of providing coverage to our local high schools and working closely with athletic trainers,” she says.
Baumgardner hews to the view that everyone has at least some athletic potential and, as such, needs to train regularly in order to realize that potential. “Young or old, fit or not, everyone is capable of doing some level of exercise that will be beneficial to his or her cardiovascular system and that will improve flexibility and increase strength,” she contends. “It could be something as simple as walking and stretching.”
As an athlete herself (lacrosse has been her game since high school), Baumgardner says patients who engage in sports are among the most rewarding with which a chiropractor can work. “They’re very dedicated to becoming healthy and staying that way so that they can play their sport well or get back in the game quickly after an injury,” she says. “Athletes have a unique personality, and you have to really understand it in order to truly help them. If they pull a hamstring, you can’t tell them to get rest until it’s better; they’re not going to comply with that. So you’ve got to give them options—cardiovascular training, pool exercises, machine exercises, all with detailed guidelines—that will enable them to make rapid progress and feel a sense of accomplishment.”
Patients come to Baumgardner by way of referral from primary care medical doctors and from favorable word-of-mouth from satisfied patients. “We plant the seeds to encourage referrals in the future, and we go out of our way to thank those who do refer,” she reveals.
The only time Baumgardner formally advertises her practice is as a favor to someone under her care. “If a patient asks me to purchase space in the program for her daughter’s school play, I’ll do so without hesitation,” she says. “But as for ads that I run of my own initiative to build the practice, no. I don’t even have a Yellow Pages ad. An exception would be if I write an article in a local publication—then I’ll take out an ad just as a way to thank the publisher and show my support.”
Stuff and No-Nonsense
One of the attractions of Health Goals Chiropractic Center is Baumgardner’s no-nonsense approach to the delivery of care. “We are very procedure-based and, as our name implies, goal-oriented,” she says. “To me, chiropractic care is wellness care. My job is to get my patients to understand that and take them out of the pain-model of thinking. In so doing, they’re going to be able to set and achieve health and wellness goals. The only way I can do that, however, is by making sure all of us in this office are adhering to the same procedures and are always quality-conscious.”
Targeting weight loss is among the more popular programs Baumgardner offers. She started it about a year ago. Today, 35 of her patients are regular participants, faithfully attending the once-a-week meetings. “This is a terrific vehicle for not only helping people shed pounds and stay lean, but also for educating them about proper nutrition,” she says.
Baumgardner indicates that she would like to eventually expand her adjunctive services, which already include massage and physical therapy, in order to transform her practice into a true wellness center. “I hope to achieve that status within the next 3 years,” she says. “At that time, I want to be offering more nutrition services, along with personal training and fitness, and perhaps even homeopathy.”
Above all, Baumgardner wants Health Goals Chiropractic Center to continue being a place known for making health and wellness fun. Kids’ Day is a perfect example of how this is so. “Last year, even though it rained, some 250 children showed up because they didn’t want to miss out,” she says. “We just moved everything that we could indoors and carried on as planned. Everyone had a great time. A friend of mine who is in marketing told me it was a very good sign that so many children and parents came by, in spite of the downpour.”
This year, Baumgardner is hoping for blue skies and a much bigger crowd—at least 400. “The fire department,” she says, “is considering bringing a portable building that they torch to teach rookies how to fight fires—that would be a real showstopper.”
Just like Baumgardner’s entire practice.
Rich Smith is a contributing writer for Chiropractic Products.
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