Two Oregon DCs save a failing practice with a subluxation analysis system
Robert Taylor, DC, and Kristy Taylor, DC, with their office manager, Carrie Washington, who helps to keep the practice running smoothly.
Theirs was a chiropractic practice headed for total failure.
“We were sailing a sinking ship, for sure,” confesses Oregon chiropractor Kristy Taylor, DC. Adds husband Robert Taylor, DC, “Patients were few and far between. Those we did manage to attract, we weren’t seeing them get anywhere near as well as we hoped. It was all so incredibly frustrating.”
So poorly faring was the Taylors’ Klamath Falls practice that they gave serious consideration to chucking their careers and starting over in a different line of work, possibly the restaurant business. At that point, just 2 years after launching their practice amid great expectations, even jobs as lowly waiters or dishwashers looked better by comparison to what they had going as chiropractors.
Then, out of sheer desperation, the Taylors gambled the last of their cash on the purchase of a surface EMG (sEMG) thermography device or a subluxation analysis system after hearing that this particular apparatus could not only help people get well, but also generate surprising numbers of satisfied-patient referrals.
To their delight, the system delivered as promised. In short order, the empty waiting room grew crowded. Eventually, the Taylors turned the financial corner, the impending demise of their practice averted.
“By being able to offer subluxation scans and graphical reports-of-finding, we were providing the patient with a powerful motivation for wanting to come in and for wanting to keep coming back, something other than for treatment of a complaint of pain,” says Robert. “With the sEMG device, the patient can see for himself or herself that he or she has a problem and can watch the progress being made in getting well.”
Kristy says the subluxation system also helped resuscitate the practice by stimulating word-of-mouth promotion.
“Patients were taking their subluxation scans home and showing them around to family and friends, which led to a lot of positive discussion about health issues and, more specifically, about us,” she says. “It still does.”
Change Within, Change Without
Restoring their practice—Back To Health Alliance LLC—to fiscal health also required that the Taylors look at themselves in a completely different light.
“We learned that you have to change yourself from within if you want real success,” says Kristy, referring to the instruction provided by coaches the two hired to help whip their practice into shape. “We started working on areas of ourselves that needed to be changed. For example, in the past, we were reluctant to confront many of our patients with the hard truths they needed to hear in order to get on the path to good health. By failing to tell them those truths, we were selling ourselves short as practitioners and as a human beings. We were also selling the profession short.”
Another aspect of themselves the Taylors found necessary to change revolved around their general lack of courage where the setting of expectations was concerned. Says Robert Taylor, “We’ve had to learn how to get beyond the fear of setting expectations that are high. As long as you are ready, willing and able to do whatever it takes to satisfy an expectation, you will be okay. Nowadays, we aren’t afraid to expect success—either from ourselves or from our patients.”
Success for the Taylors increasingly means moving toward a cash-based practice. Currently, out-of-pocket payments account for 30% of total revenues, up from 15% in 2001. The bulk of their practice income, however, still derives from private insurance—roughly 45% of the total (Medicare, personal injury and workers’ compensation together represent 25%). To dissuade patients from using insurance, the Taylors frequently lay bare for them the deficiencies of PPOs, HMOs, and the like when it comes to paying for chiropractic care.
“We tell our patients, ‘look, there’s no such thing as ‘health’ insurance. Your plan is only going to cover you when you’re sick or hurting, and that’s not what chiropractic is all about.’ At least it’s not where we’re concerned,” Robert says. “The message we give everyone is that if you’re concerned about your health, you need to come in more frequently than the 12 times a year your insurance company allows. You can only come in more frequently if you take financial responsibility yourself, and that means paying cash.”
Regardless of how patients pay for services, the Taylors make a point of showering them with feelings of felicity. That is one more way they further the growth of their practice.
“We really love our patients,” says Kristy. “And we go to great lengths to show how much we care. For example, if a patient informs us of a tragedy at home, we send flowers and condolences. Here in the office, I make it a point to give each of my patients a big hug when I greet them and again when they’re leaving. I think people really appreciate that. There’s no better way to communicate how much someone means to you than to give them a friendly hug. It makes them feel very good about coming to see you.”
And if they feel good about you, they are bound to tell that to their friends and encourage them to drop by your office for treatment, she indicates.
A sizable number of Back To Health Chiropractic Alliance’s patients are women in the 30–55 age bracket. Although there are patients of both sexes from the very young to the very old, it is the midlife female most coveted by the Taylors.
“We’re trying to build a wellness practice, and this is the demographic most receptive to the concept of preventive care,” Robert explains.
About 1,000 patients are seen during the span of a month by the couple. Their goal is to double that volume within the next year.
| Take the Town by Storm |
| In 1998, when Robert Taylor, DC, and his practice-partner wife, Kristy Taylor, DC, arrived in Klamath Falls, Ore, the market seemed to favor them in at least a few regards. For one, the ratio of chiropractors in relation to the city’s population was about half that of the national average. “It was not a crowded place here at all,” Robert recalls.  For another, the Taylors were young, ambitious and full of dreams—just the sort of heady mix required to propel any new business venture to lofty heights.
But there also was a downside to practicing in Klamath Falls. Earlier in its history, the city was a throbbing hub of logging and milling. By the time the Taylors hung their shingle there, the local industrial base was a mere shadow of its former self, due in large part to the severe shrinkage of logging in the region and the corresponding closure of many of the mills. Moreover, the Taylors had chosen to move to a city in which they were complete strangers: he was Texas bred, while she came from Kentucky by way of West Virginia. (They met and fell in love while attending the University of Kentucky as premed students who later abandoned the idea of becoming allopathic physicians after separately becoming disillusioned with that field’s inability to solve their individual health problems.) “We wanted to live and practice in Klamath Falls because it suited us so well,” says Robert. “Back in 1997, when Kristy and I were graduating from Texas Chiropractic College, we thought about where we might like to situate ourselves. We had visited Klamath Falls once during a school break; that’s how we knew about it. What we were looking for was to be in a town big enough to support our practice but still small enough that we could feel intimately connected with the community. We also wanted to be in an area that offered plenty of recreation amenities, for example, a good-sized lake because I’m into sailboat racing. We researched a lot of possibilities; it was Klamath Falls that perfectly filled the bill.” In advance of their move to Klamath Falls, the Taylors wrote letters to every chiropractor in the area, hoping to convince one to take them on as associates. “We ended up with an offer to participate as independent contractors in an established practice,” says Robert. “In retrospect, this worked out to be a very good way for us to break into the market.” It allowed the Taylors to enjoy a level of autonomy not possible had they instead joined a practice as associates. Also, their costs were substantially less than if they had opened a practice of their own. “We only had to pay out a percentage of our collections,” Robert remembers. “We didn’t have to invest money in facilities and equipment. It meant we could start out with a very comfortable level of risk.” The Taylors continued in their independent contractor relationship for the next 2 years. After attending a chiropractic-success seminar, they were encouraged to venture off as full-fledged practitioners with offices belonging only to them. They opened the doors to their Back to Health Chiropractic Alliance, LLC, in early 2001. |
Room to Grow
Once the Taylors achieve their growth goal, it is possible they may expand further by franchising their system of care. This would entail creation of turnkey-practice packages sold to beginning (and even seasoned) chiropractors who want the freedom and rewards of being in private practice but who also want to secure those blessings with the least time spent attending the school of hard knocks.
Robert Taylor adjusts his pediatric patient in the treatment room of Back to Health’s new 3,500 square-foot office. This will give the Taylors room to add other practitioners, such as a naturopath.
“We think success as we’ve come to know it can be very easily reproduced,” Kristy contends. “We still have a long way to go though before any of this is put into motion.”
For now, the most pressing concern involves settling into their new 3,500-square-foot facility. Until late in 2003, Back To Health Chiropractic Alliance operated from a leased space about half that size in a retail strip center.
“Our new location is near the city’s main hospital and is surrounded by offices occupied by medical doctors,” says Robert. “We think this will make us more accessible to prospective patients and will stimulate referrals from the medical community.
“It will also give us extra room so that we can bring aboard other types of practitioners, starting with the addition of a naturopath. We see the advantage of having a naturopath with the ability to offer a different, enhanced approach toward wellness. As chiropractors, we basically take care of one thing, subluxations. A naturopath, on the other hand, can take care of a lot of other things that may not respond to chiropractic intervention.
“It will make us more of a one-stop shop,” he says.
(Already woven into the practice are a pair of massage therapists.)
Still, in the view of the Taylors, the move counting for much more has been their fundamental shift from a pain-based practice to one that is wellness-based.
“That made all the difference in the world,” says Robert. “Because of that, and because we now have the right tools and attitudes, I can actually say I now wake up in the morning excited to go to work. We now have patients coming in and telling us they feel great and want to keep feeling great. We’re only too happy to oblige.” CP
Rich Smith is a contributing writer for Chiropractic Products.
Resources
