job description

Chiropractors focus on providing realignment of the spinal and nervous system. People often have conditions called subluxations (a bone slightly out of place in the spinal cord) that create interference in the nervous system. Now we know that the only way your brain is able to communicate with your body is through a vital network of nerves. Many of these nerves are actually housed inside the spinal cord, and they not only connect to muscles, ligaments, and tendons, where pain can originate, but those nerves also connect to your internal organs. Chiropractic helps to open the nerve channels. It's my job to open them through manual manipulations; it's the patient's job to keep them open by coming for visits based on what they want and what I recommend.

Take the thyroid gland, for example. It excretes hormones to tell your body what to do. If there's interference to the nerve channel that connects to your thyroid, it causes the gland to function improperly. This can cause hypothyroidism or hyperthyroidism, which are conditions medical doctors can treat very effectively, but they treat them in crisis care. Hopefully, the patients reach to me first to open up those nerve channels and keep things like the thyroid healthy enough that they never get to the crisis care point.

I am what I consider a health care provider. When I say that, I mean that there are two forms of treatment out there: health care and crisis care. When people go to the doctor, most of the time they're seeing the doctor for crisis care, which basically implies that they've already become symptomatic. When patients see me, they're seeing me for health care, because what I do as a chiropractor is all about prevention and maintenance, which it total health. The problem with crisis care is that we know anytime you've waited until the crisis point, you've waited too long and the problem may already be permanent. So what I do is literally provide health care.

I do crisis care because that is what we, as Americans, know as health care. So people are going to come in and see me for crisis care, such as pain, tenderness or inability to walk - the typical things they think a chiropractor is there for. They return for wellness, prevention, and maintenance, if that's what they want. My job is to educate patients, to tell them what options there are to health care what options there are through chiropractic, and then they decide what they want to do. But with health care, it's really a paradigm of making better choices about your lifestyle, making better choices, and following our D.R.E.A.M. philosophy: diet, rest, exercise, alignment and mental clarity. These are all aspects of health care, because health care is what happens consistently on a day-to-day basis.

education & career path

I played rugby in college. I literally broke my neck while I was playing in a game, and a chiropractor was the only person who ever helped me. I went through a whole gamut of other professionals, of people who were supposed to help me, but the injury left me with a bone out of place. The only way to fix the problem was to put that bone back into place, which is what chiropractors do. After a series of x-rays and examinations, we determined that chiropractic care was appropriate for me, and I went through a corrective chiropractic protocol. It changed my life so dramatically that I finished business school and went straight to chiropractic school.

My overall health went downhill after my neck injury, and someone told me to go see a chiropractor. I didn't know why I needed to see one. I'd already cracked my neck. Why did I need someone else to crack my neck?

I suggest having some kind of education beforehand. Nowadays, the chiropractic schools are requiring a bachelor's degree before entering chiropractic school. At the bare minimum, they're now requesting and/or mandating that you have a two year degree. Like any doctor, you need to take organic chemistry, general chemistry, and physics classes. You also need a few other courses to become well-rounded.

I strongly suggest a business degree, because I'm not just a doctor in my office. I wear many hats. One of the hats I wear is one of a business owner, so I need to have a generalized understanding of how to run a business, how to operate a business, numbers, fiscal year accounts, etc.

I interned in Diamond Bar. There was a doctor who operated a pretty big clinic, and he sustained an injury. He had a lot of patients and helped a ton of people, but he needed help with his practice because he was injured. That's where I came in. I was a referral. I was able to treat all of his patients because he could no longer serve all of them as well as he had in the past. I did everything, and I learned a ton about running a business and being a fantastic doctor.

Without a doubt. That internship was essential.

Yes, I've always been my own boss. Before I got my license, I worked for that doctor in Diamond Bar, but I did that as an internship and to learn the ropes. Internships are the best way to learn. But once I got my license that was it; I opened up my own practice.

I provide care for the L.A. Avengers, which is Los Angeles's only professional football team at the moment. I'm actually starting my seventh season with the team. I'm head chiropractor, and we have two chiropractors working there, so I'm the director of the entire chiropractic operation. I also help work with the University of Southern California Trojan Marching Band and the Angel City Derby Girls, which is Los Angeles's premiere roller derby team.

my day

I first wake up at about 5:30 in the morning, and I do what's called an "hour of power". I've dialed it down to a half hour, actually. It's all about setting up my day. We know this to be true: your beliefs create your reality. What I do in the morning is reset my beliefs and create my reality for the day, so that I have a positive outlook and confidence. There's no better way to start the day. I look at my goals, I look at my mission statement, I do an affirmation and I'll do visualizations of what will happen. How's my day going to go? What's my day going to be like?

You can literally make your day happen by visualizing it, because your mind is like a heat-seeking missile, and it will go where you direct it. The fact of the matter is that you need to train your mind, and that takes some discipline. It's not easy to wake up at 5 in the morning. I call it the 5 o'clock club.

We know that most people who are high achievers are doing stuff like this at some level. They're waking up in the morning, they're doing affirmations and visualizations, maybe some type of meditation or exercise. That's where it starts.

I head into the office. Driving to the office, I always listen to motivational tapes and things like that to fill my brain with the correct information. It takes me between 40 minutes to an hour to get to the office, because I travel from downtown Los Angeles to Beverly Hills. So when I get to the office, I'm up and raring to go. I walk into the office with a bounce in my step, so I have take my energy up to the necessary level. I always think to myself, "I know where I need to be, so who do I need to be to get there? What kind of person do I need to be to get there?" You have to structure things so that you can meet your goals, whether it's your personality, your attitude, a bounce in your step. These are all the things I form in my morning.

We have our morning meeting at about 7:30 a.m., thirty minutes before patients are scheduled to arrive. We go through our day, we examine our goals, what patients need, whether they need to be seen in a certain room. I do that with my front office manager, and she helps me schedule everything. So if I say I need to get adjusted that day, we put it in the book. We schedule meetings and handle everything in that half hour. After that, I begin seeing patients.

I'll take a lunch break. I try to take some time for myself because that's important to me, but sometimes the schedule doesn't allow for much personal time.

We see patients until about 6:00 p.m. I usually hang around, try to finish some paperwork and chart notes and then try to get home as soon as I can to see my daughter.

salary & lifestyle

I had to learn to network effectively, really. Because I'm in the business of running my own office and seeing patients, I had to lay the foundation first. Laying the foundation means planting seeds, and planting seeds means waiting for them to grow. And once they grow, develop and blossom, then you are in a good place. But first, you have to put out a lot of effort in developing your networks because your net worth is based on your networks. I'm in the business of chiropractic and health, but I'm also in the people business, so networks are incredibly important.

It's very profitable, and it's all based on the people you see, how many people you can help, and the information you can provide. The more information and value you put out there, the more people understand what you can do for them, and the more you're going to be rewarded. It's hard to give an exact number, because the number of patients fluctuates and I own my own business, so I don't earn a set salary. But it's a very good business, a fantastic business. (Editor's Note: swz.salary.com lists chiropractors' salaries as ranging between $65,000 and $98,500 annually.)

It's true, chiropractic care is becoming more widely accepted and more popular. One of the reasons for the popularity increase amongst insurance companies, professional athletes, and other people is that chiropractors have proven themselves in acute phase care, which is the type of health care everyone knows about. We do a fantastic job of alleviating pain without prescribing pills. Insurance companies have picked up on that research. As far as insurance companies are concerned, it's a matter of money. So if it costs less money, they're going to use it; pharmaceuticals these days are expensive. So we've proven ourselves in the health care realm.

One of the biggest reasons chiropractic not as well known is that, very simply put, natural health care is not advertised. People don't really know about health care, they know about "not sick" care, meaning if you have pain or a problem, then you go to the doctor. That's "not sick" care because insurance providers, pharmaceutical companies, and doctors want you to be "not sick" rather than healthy. I maintain a good business because 90% of my patients are referred to me through word of mouth. Referrals make the best patients anyway, because these are the people that know somebody else has gotten a great result, so they come to see us for great results as well.

pros, cons & trends

The pros are that I am my own boss. Nobody tells me what to do or how to operate. That's great; it's a tremendous feeling. I don't really think of this as a "job," because a job is not something that I like to do. This is more of a lifestyle, and all I'm doing is giving the information, opening my mouth and letting people know about chiropractic. It's more of a hobby than it is a job, and what's cool about it is that I'm getting paid for it.

One of the cons would be that you have extra work to do because having your own office does mean that you wear many different hats. You're an accountant, a manager, an emergency light bulb repairman and a computer technician. You're a motivator, a leader, a doctor. So I have to be fantastic at each one of the jobs I perform. If this ball is going to roll right, each aspect has to be covered 100% with precision and expertise.

It all happens a little at a time. You can't do it all at once. I've been in this business now for 8 years, and since day one, I've always strived for excellence. I'm always pushing myself, and that's what it takes. If you push yourself and you know where you want to go, then all you need to do is create a game plan on how to get there. What I strongly suggest for everyone, whether it's for chiropractic or anything else, is to have a goal, and do some basic goal setting so that that goal becomes your North Star, your guiding influence. Once you create that goal, you create a game plan on what you need to do to reach that goal. You need to add emotion to it. How are you going to feel when you reach that goal? You have to think of benefits. What's going to happen? ?How is your life going to change and improve when you reach that goal? These are all things that I have done, and still do on a day-to-day basis.

advice

I think the best advice that I can give for anybody, is that no matter what you do, it needs to be congruent with your values. Be truthful and honest with yourself about what your values are. If you know what your values are, you can let that value be your North Star. From there, everything else will come… your goals, your vision, your purpose. Once all of that is clarified, then your life becomes clear and you're unstoppable. That's a fact.

I wish somebody had told me not to accept insurance. The industry is by far the toughest to deal with. When I deal with patients, I'm also dealing with their insurance and everybody expects me to know exactly what his insurance covers, the policy limitations, etc. For the most part, I don't know, because insurance policies always seem to change, and it's an ongoing battle. Sometimes, if we get it wrong or don't say something right, patients get irritated with us. If companies don't pay, we have collect payment from the patient, and it becomes a huge issue. Getting people well and on track to making lifestyle changes for them, that's the easy part. I feel I'm an expert at it. But dealing with insurance, getting paid by insurance and waiting for the mailman to come in with payment became a hassle I chose not to deal with anymore.

We check insurance to find out what benefits are offered to each patient, so that all the patients are fully informed. Most of the time, I try to find out whether the patient wants me to base their health care on their insurance coverage, or if they want me to base their health care on what I think they really need. To collect payment, we give patients a super bill (a bill explaining all of the services and charges), and they use that to get reimbursed by their insurance company, rather than having me submit the bill. I think that chriorpractors have to do whatever is necessary to avoid accepting insurance, so that they can help people without playing the insurance game, which is a different model. That's the "not sick" model. Insurance companies don't want you to be healthy. It's about them having bags and bags of money, because they want you to be just "not sick".

It's a four-year school, but is sometimes broken down into three years. Those schools have trimester systems. There are other options of getting advanced degrees. I obtained a human biology degree as well.

The best thing to do is to talk to a chiropractor, because then you're going to get advice from someone who has real world experience. But talk to a successful chiropractor, because there are plenty of chiropractors who aren't successful. Those aren't the people to see. Talk to the people who are successful, who are doing the right thing, who have the motivation and the passion. Then you can go online and search for chiropractic schools. Get interviews with administration people, take tours, things like that. But the best information is going to come from a chiropractor.

The type of person who succeeds in this field is a people person. People skills are very important and really can't be taught. Someone who has great people skills will also have great bedside manner, as well as great communication skills. Everything that I do on a day-to-day basis is based on communication. Whether it's my body language, facial expressions, or what I say and how I say it, I communicate constantly. Communication skills can be learned, but you have to be willing to get out there and talk to people, because natural health care isn't advertised, so how the heck are you going to get the message out there? You have to open your mouth; that's where people skills come in.