Peer Talk: Impactful New Services, Products and Protocols

To help you enhance your practice and increase your bottom line, we ask practicing doctors of chiropractic, like you, for ideas and solutions that have been tested in real-world environments. In this issue, we asked: "What new technique, service, product, protocol or technology have you implemented in the last two years that has had the most positive impact on your practice?" Based on your responses, there are some common practices and new technology making a big impact.

Nutritional Education

With obesity on the rise nationally, many doctors of chiropractic are finding patients are finally becoming more receptive to nutritional education and treatment protocols. Dr. Danae Ochsmann (Northridge, Calif.) said, "our office booming despite the current economic recession since we added whole food nutrition, weight loss and detoxification programs to our practice. Our gross monthly revenue is up slightly over 45% and growing steadily."

Dr. Gerald Andreoli (Arlington Heights, Ill.) says nutritional counseling has been the key to his success. "Use the nutritional and systemic assessment questionnaires on all patients. From these, develop a problems list of health priorities and approach the patient to perform approprate laboratory tests. Them perform E/M visits for care/counseling for these problems. Run a parallel practice to your neuromusculoskeletal practice. This helps people more, essentially doubles your new patients and produces income for needed services and complaints."

Dr. Timothy Jackson (Citrus Heights, Calif.) believes that, "whole food supplements can make a huge difference and not cost huge amounts for the patients. I have had tremendous success in helping many patients regain their health through balancing their immune systems with regular chiropractic work while incorporating the energy work and nutrition from the other tools I have at my disposal.

Injection Therapy

For those doctors practicing in states that legally authorize a chiropractic physician to administer injections, there are several therapies that have provided successful despite the sluggish economy. Dr. Michael Taylor (Tulsa, Oklahoma) said: "Aside from the intravenous nutritional therapies, chelation and oxidative medicine techniques and trigger point injections that we provide, one therapy that we have recently implemented that hs found tremendous synergy with our more traditional chiropractic interventions is prolozone injection therapy for significnat osteoarthritis of the knee and/or hip.

He contines, "prolozone intra-articular injection therapy is one of the regenerative join injections available in the world today. The other is platelet rich plasma injections. These injections, utilizing all natural medicine agents, possess the unique quality of actually regenerating cartilage in the joint and in a large majority of cases, profoundly reduce the pain and restrictions assocaited with advanced osteoarthritis.

"Many of our patients who were comtemplating or scheduled for replacement surgery simply have cancelled their surgery or have no desire to pursue the surgery with the positive response that they receive from the prolozone injections combined with the chiropractic extremity manipulation and modalities."

Evaluating Stress Response

This was the most popular response and has been implemented by chiropractors nationwide who are using this protocol to achieve renewed success. Dr. Ricardo Jorge from Iowa said, "the diaglogue in the practice has shifted to quality of life and balance [since implementing stress response evaluations]. We have been able to integrate objective information with subjective experience observed in people in the practice. The dialogue with other health professionals has opened up and we are now invited to present to other groups and doing more long-term care with a variety of different people."

Dr. Jeff Sole (Toronto, Ontario): "It has provided me a certainty in my patient communication and more importantly a certainty in my clinical outcome measures that nothing previously has come close to providing. The dialogue in the office is different now and it's pure chiropractic - the stress response and the neurological subluxation. The most important technique I have adopted is KST. It's like chorpactice without dogma."

Dr. Brian Jensen (Roanoke, Virginia) believes it "provides a dynamic look at how the nervous system adapts (or doesn't) to stress by measuring brain waves, heart rate variability, galvanic skin conductance, respiration, heart rate, skin temperature and surface EMG. This gives me a much clearer picture of my patient's overall health and how to approach their care.

"It also has helped me change the coversation in the office away from a pain based discussion to a nervous system function based discussion. I still get great results helping my patients get out of pain, but now they understand much more clearly why an optimally functioning nervous system is important and we can actually measure the results with our re-evaluation. I stil utilize all of my chiropractic technique skills, but my care is now neurologically based instead of symptom based."

Vibration

Dr. David Gryfe (Toronto, Ontario): "We put a machine in our waiting area and posted some simple instructions and exercises that can be performed on the whole body vibration device. Our patients love it, tell others about it and want to come in every day to 'shake.' The evidence for this form of exercise is mounting and it represents a form of passive income while getting your patients active."

Keep It Simple

Dr. June Gentle (Fleming Island, Fla.) believes going back to the basics and keeping this simple is the best route to achieving and maintaining success. "The best advice I can give is to never cover up the adjustment with too many devices. Our purpose is to educate the patient and locate, reduce and correct the vertebral subluxation to improve body fuction and the quality of life. Having a new office now and keeping overhead low, I have a chiropractic and massage table, exercise ball, exercise mat and a massage chair. Keep it simple and focused."

Ultimately, it all comes down to providing the best possible care for patients. Dr. Jackson continues his advice by recommending doctors "give up the big office and overhead, find a way to simplify and service the needs of your patients. They will get better and trust you by sending you their friends and family. It cuts down on your overhead, you make more, and the patients get great results having your focus and time. It's a win-win situation all the way around."

"Patients don't seem to care about how many letters I have after my name, they just want my knowledge and experience to translate into better health for them," said Dr. Jackson.