COLUMN BUSINESS TALK Where’s the beef? I Digging deeper into business challenges facing chiropractors BY ANTHONY LOMBARDI This oversupply has been responsi-with errors and poorly researched material. I respect Dr. Wickes, so I ble for the many raw and unfair asso-took it upon myself to work harder to ciate opportunities that many new find facts that are even more sugges-DCs encounter after graduation. tive of the improvements that must According to the U.S. Health Re-occur in business training programs at sources and Services Administration (HRSA), chiropractors represent 31 per chiropractic colleges. I will simply list a series of facts, so that cent of health professionals who have defaulted on student loan grants from you may draw your own conclusions. A study published in March 2014 in 1978-1999. Dentists represent 18 per the Journal of the Canadian Chiroprac-cent and medical doctors 24 per cent. tic Association concluded and rein-In October 1999, May 2010 and forced the premise that new graduates January 2012, more than 50 per cent are unprepared for practice. of the individuals on HRSA’s default “Chiropractic students enter the list had attended chiropractic college. profession within a context of a com-Inversely proportional to this, the av-petitive healthcare market, possibly erage annual income of practicing saturated consumer demand for chi-chiropractors has been dropping ropractic services, and tightened sal-steadily: ary prospects,” the report said. In August 2010, Chiropractic & Oste-In the U.S.: opathy reported that of the California 1989 -$101,000 (Source: American chiropractors who started practicing in Chiropractic Association) the early 1990s, almost 30 per cent of 1997-$86,500 (Source: American them were leaving the profession due to Chiropractic Association) oversaturation in the state with the 2010 -$87,000 ( Chiropractic Econom-ics and U.S. Bureau of Labor highest population of chiro-practors. We have an Statistics) In Ontario, Canada’s prov-overabun-ince with the highest popula-In Canada: dance of tion of chiropractors, the 2001: $144,254.50 (Source: chiropractors, JCCA, 2005, salary data for College of Chiropractors of Ontario (CCO) reported that but not enough Ontario) the number of chiropractors chiropractic 2015: $70,000(Source: Pay-in the province rose dramati-users, and a Scale, salary data for Toronto) cally from 3,886 in 2009 to brand with an 2015: $66,531 (Source: Pay-4,723 in 2015, an increase of identity crisis Scale, salary data for Canada) that lacks 23 per cent. These statistics make sense The utilization rate and proper busi-population of Ontario did ness training. if you consider that the num-ber of chiropractors has been Back to school not increase at all during In his letter to the editor in October, this same period, which is a contrib-steadily increasing, while utilization CMCC president Dr. David Wickes uting factor to the oversaturation of rate has generally stayed the same – referred to my articles as being riddled chiropractors in the province. meaning more chiropractors are fishing from an unchanging patient DR. ANTHONY LOMBARDI, DC, is consultant to athletes in the NFL, CFL and NHL, and founder of the pool. Hamilton Back Clinic in Hamilton, Ont. He teaches his fundamental EXSTORE Assessment System and New York Chiropractic College conducts practice-building workshops to health professionals. Visit exstore.ca for information. conducts ongoing chiropractic 14 Canadian Chiropractor April 2016 www.canadianchiropractor.ca n the October 2015 issue, I wrote an article entitled, “Business is Life,” which outlined the oversat-uration of chiropractors in On-tario and some of the academic business deficiencies new graduates are facing once they leave chiropractic college. I received over 300 emails from chiropractors and educators – some of whom chastised me, but the vast ma-jority commended my efforts. Regardless, there is a need for busi-ness practice reform in Ontario. And, over the last five months, I have been preparing this article so I can stimu-late serious conversations that can lead to tangible business practice solutions. In short, we have an overabundance of chiropractors, but not enough chi-ropractic users, and a brand with an identity crisis that lacks proper aca-demic business training. Ontario chiropractors and students need to understand: 1. why chiropractic schools finally need to be responsible and reform their academic business programs in the face of overwhelming evi-dence that they are not doing their part to prepare graduates for finan-cial success; 2. what drives the chiropractic utiliza-tion rate – and how to improve it; 3. how we can use what we learn to find long-term solutions that pro-mote growth and development of our practices.
Chiropractic + Naturopathic Doctor April 2016: Page 14
