Why Concierge Chiropractic?

The main question I get asked when speaking about my business to other individuals is "How did you decide on doing house calls?" or something of that nature. The truth is, there are many reasons I wanted to start up a Concierge/House-call/Mobile Chiropractic business. Let's discuss!

Convenience

For one, why not?! In the present moment we are all living in, we have the ability to stream a movie in the comfort of our own home; we are able to order groceries; we are able to buy any type of retail products and have them sent to our house within just a few days. Most goods and services are able to be attained by doing a simple Google© search by just using a few keywords, and within seconds you have millions of search results. Many times you won't even make it to page 2 of the search results because you already found exactly what you have been looking for. Back in my childhood, if you wanted to find a service such as a lawyer, physician, etc, you had to go through the Yellow Pages book by the first letter association for what you were looking for. Now, Google© finishes your sentences. If you wanted to be able to buy groceries or buy any retail products, you would have to a market or a mall. Google© and Amazon© changed the game when it comes to the way we simply accomplish purchasing and searching habits of our lifestyle. In this regard, why not have your Physician be able to be available to you when needed for help?!

Same Concept, Different Time

In addition to the convenience aspect of services, another aspect to be considered strongly is that it's not a new concept, it just simply went out of style for no explained reason. Almost half a century ago, if a member of your family had fallen ill, they would call their Doctor, and the Doctor would bring their medical bag, white coat, and stethoscope over to the home of their patient. It is rare nowadays to see this same phenomenon occur, whether it is based upon liability, insurance, time, or simply a lack of willingness to do so. We also have a very different health status as a culture in the present day compared to 50-60 years ago, but that is another story (or blog post) for another day. Nevertheless, people still appreciated the care of their physician to come over to their homes to be able to tend to their loved one(s). With chiropractic care, it's not too much different in that regard, it's just a different approach with more natural-based/conservative measures first.

Time

Having worked in a clinical setting as an Associate/Independent Contractor for the last 2.5 years by this point, I had realized what worked in that model and where it faltered. The benefit of having a concierge service is in large part due to the fact that we are able to take careful precautions when treating patients and finding out their specific needs. Even while in practice within a clinical setting, I always maintained my duty to be able to provide my 100% efforts in order to help patients who were struggling with different ailments. However, there was always this feeling that there would be something missing from the patient's care that may have been overlooked, and it could be an "X-factor" of what specifically was causing their particular dysfunction(s) in the first place. Therefore, I would have to request that patients would have to come in several times in a week just to be able to take care of their issues. This would cause many patients to get irritated that they would have to take more time from their schedule to come in and get more aspects of their health fixed and would generally lead to a lot of frustration because people in pain are rarely patient or understanding. Mind you, this has been my experience working in a very working-class/blue collar area where it is mostly insurance-based, however, the sentiment is the same. Many of the patients I would see for the first visit, who had also seen a chiropractor in the past, would comment that the examination was much more thorough than what they had experienced previously. I would be very surprised to hear this because these were just common procedures I had learned while in Chiropractic school that had merit to prove reasonable courses of action to help make a care plan for the individual. However, coming back around to the main topic here, time would be an issue because we would have to "cherry pick" different aspects of their health history of their chief complaint and figure all of this out within a 45 minute period. Chiropractors sometimes do not get the best reputation in the general public due to the amount of YouTube© videos showing "adjustments" or hearing about particular horror stories involving 1 individual getting a stroke from a neck adjustment. Therefore, it does not give us a proper "cultural authority" when it comes to modern healthcare because of the way we are portrayed as barbaric in society. The truth is so far removed from this concept, and be assured that chiropractic care is very safe when and ONLY when a proper history and proper examination of the patient is taken. In a concierge setting, we allow ourselves to make sure that not only do we ask a lot of questions, but we answer a lot of them too.

Education/Conscious Awareness

In parlaying off the last part about time, one of the most if not THE most important aspect of a concierge service is EDUCATION. Empowering individuals is the most powerful tool to get people to understand that they can conquer anything they want to with the right discipline and strategy. When a person builds confidence in themselves, they not only affect themselves in a positive manner, but they affect everyone around them in a positive manner as well. The expression "knowledge is power" is very relevant in this analogy. People want to understand WHY they are having pain; why they are having dysfunction; why they are not recovering quickly; and especially HOW do they get it fixed. The word “doctor” is derived from the Latin, docco, which means “to teach.” But the word “teacher,” as well as the word “learning,” means different things to many people. There seems to be agreement, however, that if more citizens had more knowledge, and the will to act in certain areas, we would have healthier communities. To understand our habits and how our habits contribute to our pain or dysfunctional characteristics of our body gives an individual a conscious awareness of why they are having issues in the first place. If nobody is there to tell them why these pains and aches are occurring or what the source is, that would become very frustrating, and it would lead to a lack of trust in the Physician helping them. But every decent Physician should always strive to gain 3 things from their patients: 1) Faith, 2) Confidence, and 3) Belief. Without these 3 aspects, it will be a struggle to get the patient back to a proper balancing of their health because there has to be a bond between patient and physician and it is a team effort. A concierge service allows this educational aspect a lot more because of everything we've spoken up to this point.

Autonomy

One of the biggest reasons I became a chiropractic physician in the first place is because it gave  a whole realm of issues that could be examined and fixed based off a simple philosophy- "Structure affects function". Everyone should be in agreement with that statement because whether it's for your house, your car, or especially your own body it applies flawlessly. Take for example if a patient had asthma- instead of going the chemical health route of managing a person's asthma with an inhaler, our thought process as a chiropractor would be to check and correct parts of the upper cervical spine and the upper thoracic spine for mis-alignments of what we term "subluxations" since those spinal segments directly affect the function and performance of the lungs and breathing. If an individual was having constipation- we could always converse about food choices or daily physical activity since that would directly affect the motion of the intestines, but instead of having the patient take laxatives to stimulate movement of the bowels we would check the hips, pelvis, and lumbar spine which also directly affect the nerves involved with the nervous system innervation that stimulates the bowels. There are so many ailments that can be helped by chiropractic, and within a concierge service, we can also discuss: emotional factors, soft tissue dysfunction, nutritional needs, and even proper movement patterns to build motor coordination to help complement the initial chiropractic care the patient received.

At the end of the day, it all comes down to "Did the job get completed correctly?" Quality is always a first priority when it comes to any service, and concierge care is no different. If you have been not getting the answers you need as to what aspects of your life are affected, you may need to seek out different care. The days of retail medicine are not working out well for the Doctors or the Patients, and it's really unfortunate for everyone involved. We all need to start thinking more logical in terms of our money, our health, and our quality of life. And we are here to help you get started on that journey.

I hope you have enjoyed reading this post. If you have any questions regarding anything in a concierge model of practice I always encourage discussion. I only mean well when discussing the experiences in the field of chiropractic, and these are merely my own experiences through just my eyes. This is a very new concept, but it's important to enjoy the journey as much as the destination, and it's important to remember that. Thank you for your time!

Dr. Adam McBride, BS, DC, PAK