This is a guest blog post by Dr. Pat Gentempo, who’s an internationally renowned visionary, lecturer, business leader and author. He’s the founder and CEO of Action Potential Holdings, Inc., a holding company with investments in numerous companies in the world of health and wellness.

Dr. Gentempo has also founded and co-founded several successful businesses including Chiropractic Leadership Alliance (CLA), which has over 8,000 chiropractic clients on 6 continents and Creating Wellness Alliance which boasts over 300 Creating Wellness Centers worldwide.

With Dr. Troy Dukowitz, he’s launched FreeForm, a company committed to ending insurance dependency in the chiropractic profession. 

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To be or not to be… Insurance Dependent?

As a chiropractor, do you ask yourself this question or do you avoid it? Thinking about it is scary. Avoiding it is scarier. I have been around this profession for over 2 decades and have functioned at the highest levels of politics and leadership.

I have seen the changes and the things that don’t change.

Back in the Clinton era was the first time that I started talking about DC’s getting off of the ‘insurance diet’.

For the most part, everyone in the field today has been weaned on this diet of third party pay and the idea of letting go of it and practicing out of the system breeds a degree of terror.

What I can tell you with full certainty today is that the biggest death-threat to the chiropractic profession and to your practice is insurance dependency.

Case in point…

I received a call from a colleague in Pennsylvania recently stating that the main insurer in his area just announced they are reducing their chiropractic benefits by over 50%.

A majority of his practice members utilize this insurance to pay for their care.

“How am I going to survive?” he cried. “By pulling yourself together, getting your headspace right, and fully committing to converting to a non-insurance dependent (NID) practice.” I replied.

It is important to make the distinction between a ‘cash practice’ and a NID practice.

In an NID practice, you still may ‘take’ some insurance, but the practice is not dependent on it. Meaning, if the insurance goes away, you sleep at night.

Or, you are not afraid to buy a new home because of the capricious nature of insurance reimbursement. Cash practice means you have no involvement with insurance in your practice. In other words, 100% NID. A good place to end up, but not a starting point for most.

At the risk of sounding arrogant, I am telling you now that if you practice in the United States, this isn’t even a choice anymore. It is a necessity.

You may ask, “Well what about Obamacare?

I thought we were in the package and that everyone would have to have insurance. Isn’t this the dawning of a new better reimbursement era for chiropractors?”

Well, the sad truth is that it has become a state issue as to whether chiropractic is going to be a part of the “essential benefits package” and many states have already said, “No”.

And for the states that are including it, you would be foolish to think that it will continue year over year and won’t change. Or that they will cover much.

Further, many employers and individuals are opting to pay the fine for not having coverage rather than the ever increasing price for having it.

It’s a mess. It is way under-funded.

Trying to bank your career and the security of your family on it reminds me of the lemmings charging enthusiastically toward the cliff. So enough of the doom and gloom. Let’s talk about the silver lining in all this…

I am intimately familiar with several NID practices, many of which collect over $1,000,000 per year with low overheads. Some over $3,000,000 per year in collections.

The majority are in the $400,000 – $750,000 range.

Good, solid, profitable, fun practices.

You can do it too. And you should. I have helped several of these practices make the conversion. I can tell you it is simple. Not easy, but simple.

There is a 7-Step process to make the conversion. These include:

1. Knowing Reality. “All pain starts with ones unwillingness to admit reality.”

2. Headspace Conversion. “Head first, all else follows.”

3. Team Conversion. “You and your team must be aligned with the objective of non-insurance dependence.”

4. Financial Conversion: “You must be in control of how you get paid.”

5. Procedural Conversion. “Procedures and actions must align with intent and purpose.”

6. Educational Conversion. “The only way to succeed in a non-insurance dependent practice is to educate like crazy.”

7. Marketing Conversion. “Non-insurance dependence is all about bringing in the ‘right’ kind of patients.”

There’s a lot here for sure and the process of conversion is exactly that, a process. I don’t recommend cold-turkey. I’ve seen it and it ‘ain’t pretty’.

With Dr. Troy Dukowitz and our FreeForm project, I am on a mission to end insurance dependency in chiropractic. Period. It must be done and the time is now. Join this movement.

Free yourself. Love the better future you will create for yourself, family and community. For more information on how to get started, visit this link.

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