TNR Happenings December 2, 2019
Get your presents on the UPS truck!
We have so much joy en route to the Fort Peck Reservation. If you are not satisfied with the girth of your sleigh, you can donate money as often and as much as you please. Do it in your office’s name, your family’s name, or in remembrance of deceased relatives, pets, etc. We usually make a special stop at Super Wal-Mart to purchase last-minute gifts. Just a little more will put us over the top!
Did you hear the news?
Dr. Julie will be making the trip for this year’s Christmas on the Reservation! This will be her first time on the Reservation. She does all the work behind the scenes for Love Has No Color: the documentation and accounting of the 501(c)3, processing of donations, shipping, certificates for DCMEs in members’ offices, communications with donors, and corresponding with potential donors. This week she and Dr. Christy Lee will be meeting with the Charles River Apparel CEO to thank them for their generous donation of over 50 high-end (like North Face) winter coats. She will be taking lots of photos and videos of the kids while on the Reservation.
The Sacred Relationship Experience
The tickets will not last so don’t be shut out! The event is capped at 20 for logistical reasons. I have received a lot of positive feedback and almost half of the tickets are spoken for. The time to invest in your sacred relationships is before the proverbial sh%& hits the fan, not afterward. Also, we have had a few members mention that their spouses (mostly males, imagine that) will be away on business trips that weekend. The solution: come as a single. Your relationships will still be exponentially improved whether you come as a couple or as a single. Don’t force a person to attend who needs help; rather, bring an excited, open-minded person who wants to go to the next level with relationships. Please note: the December 30th deadline is to receive the discounted price. Waiting until December 30th to purchase a ticket does not guarantee a ticket will still be available. We have several members who are considering purchasing tickets for staff, family, siblings, etc. With most of our events, you can usually purchase a ticket right up to paying at the door. This experience is decidedly different for obvious reasons.
DCME is on January 18th
If there is an ability that separates DCs (all with the same degree I may add), it’s the internal mindset and ability to navigate difficult cases. Please see the article from the Mind of Miyagi. The highest case I am aware of in 2019 was over $15,000. Try finding one non-TNR member who has had a fraction of this ever placed in your hand, pre-paid. That’s only for one practice member for one year of care. The intent of DCME is reaching people who have fallen through the cracks and would never be helped either through medical or Chiropractic care because of the inadequacy of the recommendations, insurance limitations, and the ability of the doctor. It’s not an economic crutch to aid undervalued DCs. There is a whole world of new difficult cases that await you.
Practice tip of the week
Let your practice members see all the gifts and donations you raised for the kids. Let them see your humanitarian spirit. Let them know you can be trusted with something as sacred as their health and their children. If you are engaged on social media, this is a great platform to show what you’ve done. If you’re in a rural area then put pictures in the weekly newspaper or shoppers’ guide. It’s absolutely free publicity for your office. If you have a big screen TV in your office, have a slide show of pictures from events on the Reservation playing all day long. Spruce up your Love Has No Color wall. If you have donated 5% of your DCME patient payments to Love Has No Color, then hang the certificates on the wall and show them off!
From the Mind of Miyagi
A word about Bright Shiny Objects: This isn’t as much today with newer DCs, but years ago if you employed BSOs in your office, you were considered a sellout, a turncoat, a mixer, etc. But is it true? You be the judge. What I’ve noticed with helping DCs for two decades reach mid to high six figures and beyond is that before they had me in their corner with a complete system to help them, they were practicing to supposedly make money and not how they really wanted to practice. That’s a HUGE distinction.
They were dissuaded by the experts (who profit from BSOs) who said the real money was in PI or WC. So they followed the gurus or consultants to bloated overheads, had offices resembling a PT or rehab office, had massive arrogance, were hanging around people they didn’t like or respect (lawyers), and they lost the real meaning of why they became a DC in the first place. Some of them achieved a high-end lifestyle, but oh, what a price to pay. Most of them are held hostage by tedious, never-ending, unpaid paperwork, lots of administration babysitting, and the threat of audits or insurance harassment. The focus on patient care has all but been lost in their offices. Patients are reduced to just numbers and dollars to be collected.
What I’ve found in my experience is many DCs would truly like to practice above and beyond adult, pain relief, but they simply don’t know how to do so successfully. I’ve also found that with almost 100% of DCs who have purchased BSOs from computers to software, physical therapy equipment, spa equipment, and nutritional supplements, did it because they couldn’t make the income they desired or get clinical results with their adjustments. They actually thought at the time that all of these BSOs would help their patients but after awhile their clinical results crashed. Now they are forced to pay down more debt and they got into a cycle of jumping from one new patient solution to another. Go on E-Bay and you can buy a decompression machine for ten cents on the dollar.
Since when is becoming a once-in-a-lifetime DC not good enough to hold your interest, your passion, and your purpose. This lack of connection or not being all in is exposed in your office, sacred relationships, and of course, parenting. That’s what makes TNR-style DCs (specialists) so special and worth so much more than general Chiropractors. Treating practice members as sacred and valuable sure beats selling and closing any day. If you are relying on the next piece of software, computer billing system, newest pain relief therapy, or cannabis product to deliver you to the promised land, you’re missing the mark.
DCME confidential
Question 1: How do you prevent missing the teenagers and young adults that are at-risk. I recently misjudged a DCME for a regular case and chickened out with the recommendations.
Answer: You prevent missing at-risk cases by offering two levels of recommendations. Special care must be used (DCME training) as to when to have a parent in the room and when it’s not applicable. There are reasons why the average DC dares not swim in the dark, frigid, shark-infested waters of DCME cases.
Question 2: What do you do when a DCME patient has quit their care, demands their money back, and is trolling you on social media?
Answer: There are no simple solutions to complex problems. Replace them fast with many enthusiastic DCMEs who are grateful and will refer in many just like them. Whenever you attempt to help anybody, things can go sideways in a heartbeat. Every one of our training experiences has this as a theme. Disease is usually the name of the game, not health. You don’t need to believe like the majority. Wimps are not part of the sisterhood or brotherhood of warriors who help people that are many times unwilling and downright vicious.
