You may have heard me say that we created a million dollar practice by accident, which is more fact than fiction.  I was helped so dramatically by Chiropractic that I wanted to help others as I had been helped.  As I studied the process by which we created such a successful practice, and helping others to create their own successful wellness practice, I have mentioned many times that my wife, Claudette, and I were just the right combination.  Jim Collins, in Good To Great, says that if you are to thrive, you have to 1) have passion for what you do, 2) be the best in the world at it and 3) your work has to drive the economic engine to stay in business and create a profit center in each aspect of your business.

I certainly have the passion and constantly work and study to be the best I can be and Claudette was the economic stabilizer and bean-counter that made it work almost perfectly.  We created a million dollar + practice and collected an additional $300,000 annually in nutrition sales.

From the movie Field of Dreams… “If you build it, they will come.”  We used the flywheel effect before we knew its name, which is that we helped one person after another, causing them to refer family and friends from near and far.  One happy patient sent another that sent another, which sent another.  We built a referral practice that yielded 50 to 70 new patients per month without any external advertising.  We always did internal education, created the WOW with each treatment and did show and tell all day, every day.

What about a CASH PRACTICE?  We have advocated that you can create a wellness practice that people will pay cash for and we have had many patients do just that.  In fact, the last few years of my practice people had to pay $250 cash up front to lock in their appointment because we had a waiting list of 33 to 35 on average.  However when patients had insurance, we worked with them by billing their insurance company for them or giving them super bills.

Many states still have good insurance and patients want to take advantage of their coverage.  Some of our Certified Brimhall Practitioners are totally cash like Dr. Lee and Dr. Campbell.  Dr. Brett Brimhall is 80% cash and some of his associates have been 50% or more insurance.  I, personally, always did some insurance, personal injury, and industrial injuries when they came in.  I wanted to paint this picture clear so as to not be misunderstood that I created a “Million Dollar Cash Practice.”  It certainly can be done, but ours was a mixture of both cash and insurance.

This week, I want to concentrate on what works to create a profitable Wellness Practice.  Brandy Beeson as one of our wellness coaches goes into offices and does what is called an in-office evaluation where she evaluates every aspect of the practice from billing, coding, sending tracers, training office personal, hiring, firing, increasing profitability, etc.  When she reviews some of her findings with me, I nearly need a tranquilizer.  I have become acutely aware, from her in-house evaluations, that we have to make sure you all know how to do the procedures properly and that you are implementing the practices that create your success.

Brandy tells me that doctors are not using the DVD’s or CD’s to educate their patients and wonder why they do not come in for the necessary care.  Many are not giving the Report of Findings booklet that we have prepared with years of research and development.  In fact, many are not even doing a written report of findings of any kind.  Some are not recommending multiple appointments or giving their patients a multiple appointment calendar. Others are not giving package recommendations for the Nutri-West nutrition, laser, footbaths, Magnetic Pulse treatments (EM-90) or multiple office visits, etc.

Two doctors are in jail right now, convicted of fraud.  One group has been asked to pay back $240,000, and one doc was told he had to pay back $40,000.  Fortunately, Brandy was able to get this $40,000 reduced to $5,000 with less than three hours of research time.  She only charges $150 per hour for a pay-per-call service, or you can have her as part of your management team and raise your efficiency and income every month.  In this day and age it is of utmost importance to know and follow all of the rules of proper treatment of all Six Steps to Wellness, documentation, coding and “crossing every t” and “dotting every i.”  In the second part of this series we will have our coding and billing professional Brandy Beeson (303-242-8901), give us some insights on what must be done to get proper payment and insure you are in total legal and moral compliance.  We have her as part of almost every seminar we teach now because we have found she and these techniques and systems are part of our secret weapons of a successful cash or insurance practice.  Come and see us in Kansas City July 18-20.

Practitioners:  when we say, “If you build it, they will come,” we mean it.  You have to build the whole wellness practice approach that we have found to be so effective.  There is not only one right way but there are right ways and these right way practices help you to be the best in the world, keep your passion high, and give the kind of service that gets the results needed to keep you profitable.

So this wraps up part one.  Next week we will give you the rest of the story.  Remember: if you do one thing right, you have linear growth, but if you do many things right, you grow exponentially.

Yours in Health and Wellness,

John W Brimhall, DC and the Wellness Team