Dec 84 min read

The Silent Recession and What to Do About it in your Chiropractic Healthcare Practice

Updated: Dec 9

Goal Driven to succeed as an independent

If you had trouble hitting your practice goals in chiropractic this year, maybe it's not all you!

We could be in what has been called a "Silent Recession" that has not been reported by the big media.

Here are some facts:

Small Business Performance. Reports indicate that small businesses' revenue declined by 30-40% in 2024. A survey revealed that 52% of small businesses identified inflation as their primary challenge, while 29% cited revenue as their biggest concern.
Financial Pressures and Rising Costs. Clinics have experienced increased operational costs due to inflation, which has not been matched by increases in reimbursement rates from Medicare and Medicaid.
Health Insurance Tactics. I don't have to point this out to you, but Insurers are increasingly employing tactics that complicate reimbursement processes. These include:
- Prior Authorizations: Many insurers require prior approvals, delaying care and reimbursement and adding extra staff time to process.
- Claim Denials: Insurers deny claims or request additional documentation, which can lead to lengthy appeals processes.
- Delays in Processing: The overall processing time for claims has lengthened.

More broadly, your patients face challenges: inflation, rising interest rates, job insecurity and stagnant wages, homeownership barriers, and even geopolitical tensions.

Credit Access and Rejection Rates. The rejection rate for mortgage applications surged by 8.6 percentage points, reaching 20.7% in 2024, more than double the rate from 2019. Rejection rate for auto loans increased to 11.4%, marking the highest level since the data collection began in 2013. Rejection rate for credit card limit increases rose to 38.9%, up from 30.9% in 2023.
Cost of Borrowing. The cost of borrowing has escalated significantly, with average personal loan interest rates climbing to 12.31% in late 2024.
Consumer Sentiment and Financial Health. Despite low unemployment rates hovering around 3.7%, consumer sentiment remains pessimistic. A report noted that nearly 62% of households live paycheck to paycheck. Delinquency rates on credit card loans have risen by nearly 93% since late 2021. The University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index has also been trending downward, indicating a lack of confidence among consumers about their financial future.

WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT IN YOUR CHIROPRACTIC PRACTICE

The solution is to get better – clinically and administratively. Then, have fun doing more marketing.

1 Clinical Basics. How can you improve the quality of your outcomes and the patient's experience?

a. Fundamentals and principles. The doctors I have seen focus on the fundamentals and principles of what they deliver. They are almost scientific and geeky about what they do.

b. Intention. Some add in a non-physical aspect to healing, such as intention.

c. Purpose. And the best and practices I have seen also have a vibrant purpose to help each person they see and a goal to help as many as possible.

There are some doctors who teach the fundamentals of your style of care. Seek them out and regularly attend their training and coaching. Be curious. How can you improve outcomes?

This is your Unique Selling Proposition and this is also your marketing!

2 Administrative Basics. No matter how good your services are, you won't go far without expert organizational support. In some ways, this is more important than clinical expertise because if you are always coping with admin issues, you have no time or attention for quality care.

Coaching and training pay. This is why billions are spent each year on employee training. ($108 billion in 2023.)

Training your team internally. Also, attend seminars and take your staff.

But for private coaching, contact us. We are the oldest and most experienced coaching company of our kind. For over 35 years, we have been supporting doctors and their teams on a customzed basis.

And if you have a manager or a team member you want to train as a manager, get on our waiting list below. We train managers.

There is something else you can do:

Be a fighter! An activist.

ELIMINATION OF THE INDEPENDENT PRACTICE

In a meeting in WASHINGTON, D.C. earlier this year, doctors and health professionals at a Ways and Means Health Subcommittee hearing explained that Washington policies and regulations, coupled with high inflation, have contributed to the steady collapse of independent medical practices. "The result has been an alarming drop in the number of doctors in private practices."

Is this deliberate?

It does remind me of the book by Howard Wolinsky called Contain anWelld Eliminate, the Conspiracy to Destroy Chiropractic. After all, it would be to the advantage of the large pharma-medical industry to eliminate these pesky and non-submissive independent doctors and their independent practices.

Like you! ;- ) And now, like so many other MDs and other practitioners.