Chiropractice Made Perfect – Part 2
(Originally posted July 16, 2014 by Dr. Bill)
It has been a long time since I have written here. A lot has been happening. It has been a busy time with big changes. And I have some exciting announcements to make.
In 2012, Kiana and I decided we really needed to spend more time with family and friends in the States. We still love living and practicing in the Bahamas and do not want to give it up completely. So we decided to find a way to have both.
We spent almost two years searching for the right home. Although it was a joyful thing, the actual logistics of making the move, establishing a new practice, and adjusting to life back in the USA after over a decade of island living has not been easy.
I will now be splitting my time between my new home in Mount Dora and my beloved Abaco islands. I have established a new practice, the Koch Wellness Center, in Mount Dora, Florida, and will continue to see patients in both places. But I want to do more and having a home in Florida will make it easier for me to pursue the next phase of my career.
Chiropractic has been my love and passion for 50 years. I love being a DC and feel blessed to have had this great profession that has given me such a wonderful, fulfilling life with material success and the joy and satisfaction of not just helping people, but of changing lives.
Now I want to give back to my profession. I have a deep desire to share what I have learned during my half century of experience. So I will now be spending more time on my other two passions: writing and teaching.
While I plan to keep doing what I do, to continue to take care of my patients as long as I can still move, I want to be able to reach more people — to help more patients than I can possibly take care of myself. Helping other DCs to learn and grow professionally will allow me to have a positive impact on so many, not only the doctors but also their patients.
I now want to share my expertise and experience with the younger generation of DCs, to help them help more people and enjoy the kind of success I have experienced.
I would especially like to be able to help young chiropractors, new to the profession or students about to graduate and enter the profession for the first time. I want to help them become the very best doctors they can be. I would like to be able to help them with the transition into their new career, to mentor them in a way that will help clarify any confusion, focus their career goals and to teach them some of the technique secrets that I have acquired and perfected over almost 50 years of practice.
Many of these young docs will be starting their careers with a huge debt burden in the form of college loans. And if they want to start their own practice, they face all the expenses of starting a new business, which could mean taking on a lot more debt. It can be daunting to get out in the world with the desire to start a practice when the costs involved in doing so can be so high.
Getting deeper in debt is never a good idea, but in today’s economic climate it is especially scary. The politics of healthcare and the new and constantly changing state of the insurance industry create more and more uncertainty, and make it harder and harder to plan and to know how to proceed.
I want to share my personal philosophy of practice and my own business model, which I think, could really help with many of these issues. I do not believe starting a practice needs to be exorbitantly expensive.
I am a strong advocate of getting back to the basics – to what made our profession succeed and grow in the first place: great technique practiced by a skilled and “patient focused” doctor in a very personalized way with the goal of getting great results quickly. And I believe this kind of practice can be successfully established with very little overhead and without taking on a huge debt load.
I have done this myself, having started 4 unique practices, all of them successful. I want to share my experience so that others may benefit and in the hope that it will shorten their learning curve and eliminate a lot of the “trial and error” aspects of starting a new business. Especially the errors part.
During my long career I certainly have made my share of mistakes. I have learned a lot along the way. It was a bumpy road. I want to help pave the way for new docs, smoothing the road they travel, helping them avoid the bumps, potholes and pitfalls by sharing my own experience, my mistakes and my solutions for success.
Spending more time in Florida will allow me to do this more easily.
Which brings me to my next announcement: I am pleased to announce that I have been chosen by the Florida Chiropractic Association to be on the program at their National Convention August 21-24 in Orlando, Florida. (http://www.fcachiro.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=433&Itemid=62)
My presentation is scheduled for Friday the 22nd from 10:20 AM to noon and is titled, “Back to Basics: Practice from Above Down/Inside Out.” I will be discussing the importance of the initial consultation in establishing the doctor/patient relationship; and will then demonstrate the way I examine and treat a new patient using an interactive, multi-technique approach that actively engages them in every step.
My sponsor for the event is Impac, Inc. (http://www.impacinc.net/) and I will be spending a lot of time at their booth answering questions, doing demonstrations and signing copies of my new book Conversations with Chiropractic Technique Masters.
I look forward to meeting many of you at this fantastic annual event.
Dr. William H. Koch, DC
