June 2005

How to succeed in practice without doing anything

by Dr. Jonathan T. Amdur

I have been a practicing chiropractor for more than 14 years and a chiropractic patient for 29 years. I've seen the many miracles chiropractic has to offer, as well as had my health and life changed as a result of chiropractic care. I'd like to address an inherent problem in our practices that so many offices and DCs suffer from nationwide.

As a profession, we have many areas of focus, different techniques, different reasons for adjusting, and all work extremely well. If that's the case, then why do some doctors in some places do phenomenally well, and in the same town an equally qualified doctor can barely survive?

I'm not writing to suggest the latest marketing phenomena, the correct script, or even the right consulting firm. All of these are external materials and concepts that will help one to succeed in practice, yet they are not the central reason for success or failure. Truly, it's wise to learn from more experienced, successful doctors and emulate their success, to work with a consultant to help keep you on track. Yet, ultimately the success comes from inside. Innate intelligence is real and it can drive and energize your practice to the point that you merely have to expect your patients to come to you and to miraculously heal.

Over the years, I have tried many different marketing programs, screenings, lectures, dinners, talks, telemarketing, gym programs, and a myriad of other tools in search of the "right one." What I've learned from this is that these work well when I expect them to work well. Expectation is far more powerful than any program, procedure, script, consultant, or even the skill of the doctor. If you expect success every time you touch a patient, or do an event, or expect a new patient when the phone rings, you send an invisible message to your subconscious mind and the universe that it will happen.

We have a standing line each time the phone rings in our office: "new patient." That's what we expect and many times we are correct. The key is to think BIG. Once that happens, it's as if all the chains and blocks fall away. You become free to achieve at the edge of your own mind.

We now have had the biggest jump in our healings, patient visits, and financials since we truly expanded our vision of our capabilities. For example, if you see 80 visits per week and collect $50,000 per year, your vision can expand to 400 visits per week, where you're collecting $600,000 per year (these are arbitrary numbers, you need to calculate what that gives you based on your fees or what you want to charge). Don't go small or you will stay small.

What I'm trying to illustrate is that we as chiropractors get stuck in insurance matters, staff problems, patient scheduling problems, marketing and overhead issues, and we forget to clear our minds to allow ourselves to succeed. Here and now, all chiropractors have permission to think and believe large, and to reach massive amounts of people and to heal all those in the world with subluxations by releasing the innate intelligence in all we touch!

The success of our profession doesn't depend on insurance company reimbursement, so why do we continually fight for a system that has a small vision for us? We're trying to squeeze into something smaller than our profession. It's honorable and necessary to fight for rights of practice but what are we trying to prove by getting insurance to reimburse better or more fairly? This is small thinking. We need to see the greater picture. Insurance will collapse and people will still need chiropractic. Let's give them chiropractic now.

See your patients cheerfully paying for your care without regard to insurance. They do in my office because I expect them to. People ask me all the time how I do it, and I tell them I finally got tired of being afraid to expect the payment from them and started asking them for the money for their care. This only worked because I believed and expected that we (my wife and I practice together) gave the best care around and that it was worth far more than my price for an adjustment. I also expect all my patients to heal miraculously. Why not? It doesn't cost me anything to think big, only to think small.

A conversation I had with a patient the other day triggered my writing this. We had a quote on a board that said, "Life is simple, you get what you expect, so expect big." He turned to me and asked, "Why do that, when I'm just going to be disappointed?" What a telling question. This person hates his job, is depressed most of the time and is generally miserable. I wonder why? I think this is what happens to us as chiropractors. We believe that if we think too big and don't get there, then we'll be disappointed, so why try?

It all comes down to faith. Look into your heart without judgment each day, ask what your mission is, meditate on it and when it comes, dive in. Don't doubt yourself out of it, believe it! Once your mind is stretched it never goes back to its original size.

I'm expecting our profession to rise up, get out of the insurance game and back into healing, with full faith that we'll change peoples lives, massive amounts of people! We mustn't fear or do too much. We simply need to change our thinking and the doing will come from that.

You don't have to do anything, just expect with full faith, that the practice of your dreams will come to you and it will. The world needs us all to succeed massively in order to have the world become a better place! Expect larger every day.

(Jonathan T. Amdur, DC, received his BA degree in biology from the University of Delaware and is a graduate of New York Chiropractic College. He currently practices in Babylon, Long Island along with his wife Cathy Anne Amdur, DC. Dr. Amdur is also an adjunct faculty member at Hofstra University where he teaches nutrition and adjunct faculty at The New York College for Health profession where he teaches pathology, anatomy and physiology. He can be reached via e‑mail at amdurchiro@cs.com or by phone at 631‑321‑6300.)