How would you like to be able to turn every new patient into a chiropractic family member for life? Wouldn't it be great if everyone who came into your office knew about chiropractic and used it in the same way you and your family do - as a part of their lifestyle?
The key to turning a new chiropractic patient into a new chiropractic family is to educate them about vertebral subluxations and how they impact people's lives at every stage of growth and development. Consider a pregnant woman and the forces that are put on a baby in the womb. My son, Cory, had the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck twice during the later stages of his gestational period. Do you think being in the womb with that kind of stress on the cervical spine might have caused him to be subluxated? You'd better believe it. Of course, he was adjusted immediately after he was born.
The birth process itself can be, and often is, traumatic. The pulling and twisting on the spine, the stretching of the neck ... these things can contribute to and cause vertebral subluxations. Is it OK to have that child born into the world and remain subluxated? And how many more weeks should we allow that child to remain that way? Hopefully, your answer is zero weeks.
What about when you started learning to walk - how many times do you think you fell each day? Do you think the accumulation of all these falls over time could have caused your spine to be subluxated with negative neurological impacts?
How about kids who play soccer, football, baseball and basketball? Hundreds of thousands of them end up in the emergency room each year with severe injuries that require immediate medical attention. Do you think these children suffer from subluxations as well? Absolutely. And what about those injuries that weren't emergencies? Do you think those people have experienced subluxations? Definitely. How many weeks should we allow them to live subluxated?
Young adults in high school and college have added emotional and hormonal changes going on inside their bodies. Do you think they will experience subluxations? What about brothers and sisters who love to wrestle each other to the ground or jump from trees? All of these activities, events and life experiences can contribute to and cause vertebral subluxations. How many weeks should we allow them to live subluxated?
What about when you became an adult? Do you remember the growth and development that came with starting a new job and raising a family? These stresses cause and contribute to vertebral subluxations that can have a neurological impact on a person's quality of life. How many weeks should we allow parents to be subluxated?
Then there's the midlife stage. Think about the life changes that go on during these stages of growth and development. All of these changes alter the normal biomechanics of the spine and the nervous system, which can cause and contribute to chronic vertebral subluxations and countless degenerative symptoms and diseases down the road. How many weeks should we allow these individuals, who are truly just getting into the prime of their life, to remain subluxated?
What about grandparents and great-grandparents with severely arthritic spines and symptoms and diseases that are the result of deficient nerve supply? Don't these people deserve to live a more active, disease-free quality of life? How many weeks should we allow them to remain subluxated and live to less than their full potential?
So, how many more weeks will you wait to start turning your new patients into new chiropractic families? You can begin by educating your current patient base. Make sure you educate them about how subluxations affect people's lives and health at every stage of growth and development. Once they learn this, lifetime chiropractic care and family wellness will become their natural choice. It just makes sense.
Remember, your practice will mirror what you teach your patients and community. So, if you want to change your practice, change what you teach. Just make sure you're ready for the results. Generations of families will come to your office for adjustments, all at the same time. Patients will pay you regardless of whether they are insured. People will bring you cookies at Christmas, and remember you and your family on birthdays.
Your patients deserve this kind of care. You deserve this success, love, joy and appreciation. Don't settle for anything less. Educate your patients about family wellness and lifetime chiropractic care, and build the family practice of your dreams.
When I graduated from chiropractic college in 1981 and started practice, I heard it all, and very little was positive. “You are a quack; you do not know what a subluxation is; you couldn’t get into a real health care program, so you chose the one that is slightly above a mail-order degree; you have no proof that chiropractic works; Are you really licensed?”, and so much more.
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A central challenge in creating our identity is that chiropractic is a method of care, not a technique or procedure. This is an important concept for us to promote. Our patients are treated with lifestyle modification, exercise, nutritional supplements, diet and a whole-body approach to accelerate the natural healing process. We are not simply CMT providers.
The results of a global survey released late last year (2023) unveiled some startling findings among medical and nursing students. The “Clinician of the Future: 2023 Education Edition” surveyed 2,212 students, of which 446 were in the United States, from 91 countries.
