An interesting occurrence in my office last month got me to thinking about how we run our practices. Several month ago, I referred one of our families to another chiropractor thinking that the location of the new office would allow the family to get chiropractic more regularly. Shortly thereafter they returned to my office only to tell me that the chiropractor had told them that should come weekly for the rest of their lives. However, the chiropractor added that if they were not willing to do that, he did not, or actually would not, accept them as practice members.
Obviously, in examining the pros and cons of this approach, there is one significant pro to this approach, practice members are assured better care. If we can see people on a weekly basis, correcting their subluxations before they are present for more than a week, they will most certainly be getting more out of life. That is the biggest pro. There are also pros for the chiropractor, probably the biggest of which is practice members that are generally healthier, who have less medical conditions, and thereby less complaints. That is logical since people who get adjusted weekly generally are healthier. There will be consistency to the practice and a regularity of income. Once the practice is established there will be less stress to acquire new people to solve the revolving door syndrome. That in turn would save on marketing and advertising. It is simply an easier, more enjoyable way to practice.
The cons, on the other hand, are rather simple. For practice members the con is that they may not actually get under care or get under the care of a therapeutic chiropractor who will never teach them what chiropractic is and only reinforce the idea that it is for symptomatic relief. If they can’t find a chiropractor who will care for them on an altered or irregular schedule, they may not get care at all. Neither option is in the best interest of their life or health. For the chiropractor, the negative is that he or she will probably never build as large a practice as they want or see the maximum number of people they are capable of seeing. I do not know of any chiropractor practicing in this manner whose practice is completely full and the practice will definitely grow at a slower rate than others. Chiropractors, in general, are simply not attracting very many new people to the office (especially if you eliminate the new people who are just switching chiropractors, which represent over 50% of all new people in most practices). Practicing in this manner, you eliminate not only those coming for relief care as do many straight chiropractors but also those who want lifetime care but can not or will not commit to weekly care. I do not exercise as regularly as I should. But I know that even my inconsistent exercise program is better than none at all. What is more, my hope is that the more I exercise the more I will desire to do it on a regular basis. Might the same things be said about irregular chiropractic care? Given the natural attrition of a practice (moving away, death, going off to college, etc.), the major con with this type of practice is the slowness of growth, perhaps too slow to sustain the newer practitioner until he or she gets out from under chiropractic college/student loan debt.
I believe if you really examine the pros and cons of this issue you will find that in the end the decision to only accept people who come once a week is a selfish one. We do it because that is the type of practice we really want. To a certain extent we should all have the kind of practice we want. I would like to have only those people who come in every week, with no complaints. Someday, perhaps I will. But, I will have to be a better communicator and be totally confident that people understand the principle. At this point I do not believe everyone can get it within an hour, on the first visit. That is another reason I am reluctant to put a requirement on them.
No one wants a practice full of “bad” practice members but we all have some. We would not think of discriminating against someone because of race or religion but is not this discriminating against the ignorant? Is serving only those people that we want to serve really a service? Of course, it is perfectly within one’s right to refuse service to anyone, but in a profession (objective straight chiropractic) that claims to be service-oriented, that seems a little self-serving.
With all that said, I believe it is possible that chiropractors can get to a place in their lives or practices where they will want to start cutting back, and unless they are going to take on associates they will have to limit the number of people seen. If that time occurs, then it is perfectly understandable that they create certain limitations and requirements in the office. If one of those requirements is that the person comes in every week, then that is understandable. However, for most of us that day is far away, if it comes at all. v17n4