EPISODE 398: Protecting Your Practice If You Get Hurt

Hey, chiropractors. We're ready for another Modern Chiropractic Marketing Show with Dr. Kevin Christie, where we discuss the latest in marketing strategies, contact marketing, direct response marketing, and business development with some of the leading experts in the industry. 

Welcome doc to another episode here. This will be a solo round and it's a topic that was brought up during one of our group coaching calls. And I was like, you know what, that that's a good podcast episode. I'd like to share that out to as many people as possible. And, uh, that's the beauty of, of some of the group coaching calls we do is we come up with great ideas and we can share some of those with you to help, help grow.

And in this case, protect you a little bit. But, um, before we dive into how to protect yourself in case you get hurt. Uh, or probably at some point get hurt. Uh, before we dive into that, I want to let you know that you can sign up for our, uh, 30 K per month online course. This is a substantial online course.

It's going to take eight weeks. We're going to give you one lesson per week. We're putting a lot of effort and thought into it. And. With action steps and resources. It's not just one of those kind of run through and get overwhelmed by a short little course. [00:01:00] It doesn't really give you any direction or guidance.

Uh, and so we're, we're really excited about this. We've put a lot of effort into it. You can check that out at bit. ly bit. ly forward slash. MCM 30 K. That's the number 30, the letter K. Uh, you can find this on our website, modern chiropractic marketing. com. You can check out the show notes, go to the Facebook group, modern chiropractic marketing.

Uh, you can find it, but we are going to have a cohort of chiropractors that want to set a goal of, uh, reaching that 30, 000 per month revenue and why that's so important and what that does. For you, but at the same time, again, we're, we want to be patient centered. We want to be ethical. We want to be. Doing anything that's just money based but the reality of it is is too many Chiropractors are struggling with the revenue and they're getting burned out because of it They're not seeing the growth that they envisioned and they're questioning why they even got into chiropractic and that's what's happening [00:02:00] Uh, we're trying to solve that for you and get you on the road.

You know, if your revenue is 12, 000 a month right now, uh, 30, 000 a month might not happen in six months, but you can get a big step forward and at least have a path to get there in a couple of years. Some of you are at 20, Uh, bump to get up there. Some of you are way past that, and this would still be good for you.

Uh, maybe you need to go from 50, 000 a month to 65, 000 a month, and a lot of the fundamentals in this course are going to help you get there. And so check that out again at bit. ly forward slash MCM 30 K number 30 letter K and join us there. You will not regret it. All right. So. Uh, what happens when you get injured first to tell a story about when I, uh, I got my hand bit by a shark in the keys.

It's not really true, but I like to tell it that way because it sounds better than what really happened to me, uh, back in [00:03:00] 2010. 17. I believe it was. I wanted to go down to Key Largo, Florida. I wanted to run a hotel for a night, go there during the day, stay the night and leave some time the next day.

Midday brought all my strategic coach stuff there. I wanted to really kind of look at the last three years where I. Made progress where I failed really do a lot of, um, reading and thinking on that kind of just an escape a little bit to, to reset. And I was going to go all out. Uh, I wasn't even going to go and do anything fun down there.

I got a nice cool little cottage on the water. I even brought my own food. I didn't want to go out to eat. I just wanted to hunker down and. and get deep. And so I went to this little Italian market where I lived and got some, some food, some provisions, one would say, and one was a can of tuna fish. Um, never forget that can of tuna fish.

And it wasn't your standard can of tuna. [00:04:00] And I got down there. I had to wait a couple hours to check in. So it's just relaxing on the bay there. And finally I was getting hungry. Finally was able to check into my room, uh, about 2 30 PM. I go in there and I get this can of tuna fish out. And it's one of those pool tabs and, uh, I'm pulling, it's not really going pulling, pulling.

And as you can imagine, finally released and like a little circular saw this tab just sliced open my hand. And unfortunately for me, It didn't cut any tendons, which I had done when I was nine. So it was definitely a little bit of a panic moment for me. I sliced a couple of tendons in my fingers, uh, when I was nine, as you can imagine, it was elaborate surgery and rehab after that lost my third grade year cause I couldn't write and had to do verbal tutoring for, for, uh, nine months, not, not a good time for an active.

you know, third grader. And so luckily I just needed stitches at [00:05:00] a, go to the hospital and do all that. But the tendons were intact. Uh, but I couldn't practice for two weeks. And, um, you know, it was one of those things where luckily I did have an associate. And so that is, um, you know, my story of, of getting injured and missing work.

And a lot of chiropractors have that story. And a lot of you, um, you know, it's something that you have to consider. And so I wanted to have this episode where we talk about a strategy of, of how to protect yourself if you were to get hurt. And we're not talking about long term disability in this particular episode.

We're talking about just, you got hurt, you're going to get better at some point, but you could miss a week. a month or even longer. And so what do you do in that sense? You know, obviously I had an associate or if you have a partner doctor, you're in a good situation. That's a big layer of protection for you.

Now, um, if you're both at capacity and one's out, yeah, you're going to lose some business in that scenario as well, but you're not going to lose all your [00:06:00] revenue. So having a, another doctor. Is, uh, obviously a good first line of defense. If you don't have that, I would start, you know, even for the vacation stuff, I would start looking for a good locum that you can rely on consistently.

So that would be my second piece of advice is, uh, find a good locum that will also help you out, uh, with, with vacations that you take. And so the locum tenons can be of use for you and definitely in a need or a pinch if you get hurt. Or, you know, let's. Let's even, um, put it this way, right? If you're a female chiropractor and you own the practice and you're the only doctor pregnancy, obviously it's not an injury, but it's a short term situation where you're not going to be able to practice.

And so you've got to be thinking about it that way as well. The, the next thing to consider, the third thing to consider would be an Aflac or, or a, Whatever else type of short term disability, this is [00:07:00] for exactly this type of situation. So all of you should to get a short term disability plan that will cover you if you were to get hurt or I, they even have it for, um, for hospitalizations and pregnancies, I believe.

So check out that. I know Aflac is one that a lot of people utilize. There might be other ones that I'm not aware of, but look at a short term disability plan. disability plan. Okay. Next is this is why you would have an emergency savings two months at least of all of your clinic expenses in an emergency savings account.

This is, this would be an emergency, right? If you, uh, got by a shark in the keys, like I did, um, uh, you would, uh, in this two weeks, it would be nice to have emergency savings to cover that if you're by yourself. So get that emergency savings going next is have a. unused line of credit, especially if you don't have a [00:08:00] healthy, um, emergency savings.

This could be a good little buffer for you. Try not to use it unless it's an emergency. So an unused line of credit would be another line of defense. And, and then lastly, just honestly, you know, You got to avoid dangerous activities. I know that's tricky, but if you don't have these layers of protection, uh, maybe don't do it.

Like I didn't ski snow ski for many years because I didn't feel confident in my snow skiing. And, uh, And it's something that, uh, I, it's got a higher risk. We know that. And I didn't want to miss work if I got injured substantially. And so I, I didn't do it for quite a long time. Now I feel like I got a lot of different layers protection and I went snow skiing and whitefish Montana in 2023.

And I'll. Be going to Park City, Utah with our West mastermind, which you can join. We have some space if you'd like, uh, go to modern chiropractic marketing. com to check that out. There's a tab for mastermind, but we'll be in Park City, [00:09:00] Utah in February and I will be skiing. Uh, but yeah, you got to, you know, consider where you're at in life and practice and can you afford to get hurt?

And if you can't afford to get hurt, there's certain activities that are on the high end of getting hurt and you want to make sure that doesn't happen. So avoid that save you a lot of heartache, right? So just to summarize. The reality of life is you could get hurt and you may not be able to work. And so it's good to have a, you know, a partner doc, an associate doc.

If you don't have that, find a good locum, definitely have a short term disability plan, start getting that emergency savings going. Look into an unused line of credit and potentially avoid dangerous activities. And if you have that in place, you've got a lot of peace of mind and you've got layers of protection for your practice.

So make sure you have that. All right. That is my, and there's might be some other ways that you could think of to, of, to, um, have some protection. Reach out to me if there's something I missed always [00:10:00] looking to learn. Uh, but this is what I look at as a guide. good safe plan in case you were to get injured.

All right. Have a great rest of the week and talk to you soon.