For Frankfort, Ill-based chiropractor J. Aaron Wolfe, DC, specializing in chiropractic medicine and athletic training is a bow to the realities of the future and chiropractic’s natural role on the sports field.

Wolfe has parlayed his skills into a successful marketing tool for his practice—a tool that keeps his practice rolls and coffers full.

Sports Experience
Like many chiropractors, Wolfe’s first experience with the athletic-training and chiropractic field came when he needed its services. A lacrosse player in high school, he injured his right shoulder and rehabilitated with the help of a medical doctor. Later, in college, he received a similar injury to his left shoulder while playing flag football with a group of friends. After the latter injury, he solicited the services of a local chiropractor and “saw how fast I got better,” he says. While in chiropractic school, he took prerequisites for an athletic training license at a nearby university. He also volunteered in the chiropractor’s office when he was not studying. “It was the perfect combination of [disciplines],” Wolfe says, though he admits that, “People thought I was crazy and was wasting my time.”

Volunteer Career
Wolfe’s first chiropractic-athletic experiences were strictly voluntary in nature, but they felt like jobs. These were at local high schools, where he acted alternately (depending on the school’s need) as either an athletic trainer or a team doctor. His first position as a chiropractor for a sports team was not a result of him approaching an organization, but as a result of the team looking specifically for a chiropractor and athletic trainer.

The advertisement was for USA Baseball’s 1997 Junior Olympics team. And though he was officially “hired” as an athletic trainer, the coaches wanted a chiropractor.

“The coaches felt that chiropractic was needed by the players,” Wolfe says. Even though it was a volunteer position, he had to go through an extensive screening and interviewing process.

Wolfe worked with USA Baseball through 1999. He currently volunteers as the team chiropractor at the US Olympics Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colo.

Not all of Wolfe’s athletic pursuits are voluntary. He is paid—albeit a small amount—by several high schools and professional teams. Among the professional athletic groups that he works with are the Chicago Storm of the Major Indoor Soccer League, the Chicago Fire Major League Soccer Team, and AVP Pro Beach Volleyball. In addition to serving sports teams, Wolfe also serves as chiropractor and corporate sponsor of the Steppenwolf Theatre, which happens to be across the street from his main office.

For the sports teams, Wolfe generally provides a chiropractic evaluation of the players, supplementing the general physical the team orthopedist will perform.

Prior to a game, Wolfe will check the players’ spines and make sure that they are in balance. Many times, his diagnosis of a misalignment is simply a confirmation of what the athletes already know. “Most athletes are so in tune with their bodies, they already know what needs to be done,” he says.

Caring for a team is very much a group effort, and Wolfe is very aware of his role within the team’s medical organization, waxing philosophical about it. “The athletic trainers have a toolbox of treatments at their disposal. I’m a tool in that toolbox,” he says.

Typically, Wolfe uses the diversified technique on his athletic patients, but he also uses a Thompson drop table. The latter is particularly useful for treating soccer players, because they tend to experience more hip problems than other athletes.

During games, Wolfe uses his athletic training and first-aid knowledge more than his chiropractic knowledge. “I have a lot of experience with treating on-the-field injuries,” he says.

If a player requires chiropractic care as a result of an injury, treatment waits until after a thorough evaluation. One of the reasons is that an x-ray machine is not usually available to take an image of the injured area. Acute care is reserved for the next day after Wolfe sees how the injured area does after it is stretched out.

Working with sports teams may have not profited Wolfe directly—organizations that pay do so at a very low level—but the indirect benefits are undeniable.

Market Advantage
Wolfe uses his status as team chiropractor to effectively sell his practice to potential patients and referral sources. The office voice mail at his practice, Sports and Spine Rehab, reminds callers that Wolfe is the team chiropractor for the Chicago Fire, a position he has held since 1998.

His marketing efforts include appearances on local radio programs and a television commercial, in addition to speaking engagements. But these are really just adjuncts to his work with the teams. Wolfe is clear that helping the community has benefits for the practice. The payoff, however, is not the result of a calculated mercenary plan. It is simply the result of becoming known in the community and interacting one on one with potential patients and referral sources. “Being associated with sports teams adds credibility to what you do,” Wolfe says. “And it has really helped in the office.”

He notes that beyond getting patients in the door, he uses his experiences with athletes to help patients relate to their injuries. “Most people like sports, and they understand when you put their injury in sports terms,” he says.

This relationship of chiropractic to sports helps market the practice. Several of the teams Wolfe is associated with have a long history in the community. By being part of these teams, he shows his potential patients that he is associated with something solid and respectable in the community.

Having direct access to potential patients, such as those on school teams, is helpful because many of the young players and their parents already know about chiropractic. He is often able to capture the young players and their parents as patients.

Medical doctors also send patients to Wolfe. Most of these referred patients are postsurgical cases. Wolfe says that he should be getting more of these patients, but physical therapists often attempt to treat these patients with quasi-chiropractic techniques that are not effective. Wolfe believes that physical therapists and chiropractors should work together as a team instead of competing. As an athletic trainer, Wolfe acknowledges the benefits of physical therapy, but as a chiropractor, he knows that these patients would do better under his care. It is simply a matter of awareness on the part of the physician. “They’re just learning about chiropractic,” he says. “But it is sometimes hard to educate them.”

Though Wolfe has made a name for himself as a team chiropractor, he has also established a thriving practice.

Dotting the Landscape
Wolfe works primarily out of his Sports and Spine Rehab office. However, he owns three other offices under the name Planet Chiropractic in Chicago, Hoffman Estates, and West Dundee, Ill.

The Sports and Spine Rehab facility consists of two levels. The upstairs level is a 1,200-square-foot chiropractic office that sees between 230 and 250 patients per week and generates $70,000 per month. The chiropractic suite consists of three treatment rooms, an examination room, and an x-ray room. In addition to Wolfe, another chiropractor sees patients.

The downstairs level also consists of a 1,200-square-foot space, which is reserved for athletic rehabilitation. This part of the office is managed by two athletic trainers. Among the equipment they use are leg-press machines, therapy balls, and therapy bands. Wolfe describes what he does in the office as “straddling the line between rehabilitation and chiropractic adjustment.”

The practice philosophy combines educating patients about avoiding further injury and providing chiropractic adjustments. In the office, he says his most typical adjustment techniques are Thompson and Activator. The four offices have six chiropractors in addition to Wolfe. These chiropractors also act as team chiropractors to local sports teams and high schools.

Wolfe says that the office is now focused primarily on the chiropractic side of the business. The Planet Chiropractic offices also focus primarily on chiropractic.

This is reflected in the fact that Wolfe offers other chiropractic services in addition to adjustments—massage therapy and nutritional counseling.

But Wolfe has found that competition has become tougher in the last few years.

Competitive Care
Wolfe describes the Chicago chiropractic market as “competitive.” And this extends now to the area of providing chiropractic care to sports teams.

Wolfe says the idea of having a team chiropractor is more common now than when he started out in the mid-1990s. A greater public awareness of chiropractic has made it easier to become a team chiropractor, he says.

Because of this awareness, the team chiropractic concept has become more competitive. The market is flooded with chiropractors offering their services to sports teams. “Before, teams were searching for help. Now, it’s a business,” Wolfe says. This means he has to be much more strategic, actively pursuing and wooing teams he really wants to work with. He says that, even with the added competition, every year he is able to work with the teams that he really wants to work with.

Wolfe has used his skills to help the community and develop his practice. But he has also turned them to noble causes that have helped those with needs.

Citizen of the World
Near the end of the Bosnian War in 1999, one of Wolfe’s patients told him that he was going to be helping a local dentist set up an orphanage in the war-torn region. Wolfe told the patient that he would like to do something to help. A few weeks later, the chiropractor found himself in Bosnia giving chiropractic care to war orphans. “I was the busiest person there,” he says.

Wolfe returned the following year, and today the orphanage boasts a full-time chiropractor.

But Wolfe’s altruism was also felt at home as well. Following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the Chicago-based chiropractor traveled to ground zero in New York and offered his skills to the recovery workers. The New York Chiropractic Council had alerted him to the need for chiropractors there.

He quickly became Red Cross certified and was at the scene of the attack within days, along with a battalion of volunteer nurses, chiropractors, paramedics, and other health professionals. He was there for 2 different weeks between September 11 and October 19, and “did chiropractic care around the clock,” he says.

While he has shown himself to be a citizen of the world, Wolfe is still committed to his community. In the immediate future, he plans to continue to provide chiropractic care to local high schools and look for other teams to help. “There are still lots of teams that need chiropractic,” he says.

One of his dreams—one that he pursues every year—is to provide chiropractic care to the Chicago Cubs. If history is any measure, then it is a dream that Wolfe will fulfill.

C.A. Wolski is a contributing writer for Chiropractic Products.