fbpx
SmartInjuryDoctors are Aligned with Insurance Company Needs

SmartInjuryDoctors are Aligned with Insurance Company Needs

SmartInjuryDoctors are Aligned with Insurance Company Needs

SmartInjuryDoctors are aligned with the insurance company needs. That may sound a little bit interesting, but I train doctors all over the country, with attorney groups and with groups where insurers were present.  The thing that has always baffled me is that the injury market is such an adversarial market. This is because there is so much confusion in the market.  As a trainer of doctors and lawyers on ligament injuries, one of the things that I found fascinating is that my role in this market is to help doctors to identify really significant injuries to the ligaments early so that you can get great outcomes with the patient.

In the personal injury market, everyone is looking at the injuries and the resolution process. And it is an interesting process. I have doctors that approach me in seminars and say, “Well, how do I make attorneys more money so they refer to me?” My answer is “Well gosh, your actual job in the market is to reduce insurance benefits. You’re more aligned with the insurance carrier than you may believe.”

I was in the injury market for a time as a young practitioner and I used to think the insurance companies were hard to deal with or constantly trying to cut my bill even though my bill was legitimate. They are always using independent medical examination and utilization reviews. Then I would have to write a rebuttal.  It was a bit traumatic for me at the time because I didn’t like the paperwork aspect of it.

What I liked was treating patients, diagnosing their condition accurately, and getting great results with them. One day, I had this big ‘aha’ moment.  The thought that came to me was that my purpose and my goals were perfectly aligned with the insurance carriers’ purpose and goals. I’m going to explain that to you really simply.

For example, a patient came into my office and they were in a wheelchair due to a low back injury that they received in a car accident and they couldn’t walk. They went for 4-6 months’ worth of care in my clinic and now they were able to run a 5K, they had no chronic pain, and they had no activity of daily living that was interfered with at all by their trauma. They could do everything they did prior to the trauma and they had no disability of any kind.

My role was complete and my role significantly reduced down the future benefits need of the patient. And that’s my role as a doctor. That’s any doctors that are really good at injury work. Our role is to reduce down future benefit needs. That’s our job. Our job is not to take an injury and make the patient so that they need care for the rest of their life. That’s not our job. In some situations, patients can need care for the rest of their life. I am a licensed Doctor of Chiropractic and I believe very much in wellness care, elective care that patients choose to actually help maintain their spines, but that’s significantly different than what the insurer’s responsible for in an injury scenario.

In an injury scenario, that insurance carrier, for the most part for the types of injuries that we deal with spinal soft tissue injuries, patients that don’t fully recover, may need future care. And that future care can be argued and needs to be paid for by the insurance carrier that’s insuring the person that caused the injury in the first place. But the bottom line is, my role as a really good injury doctor is to reduce the benefits need. It’s to reduce the long-term benefit needs. It’s to minimize it significantly. If I can minimize it completely, that’s my job. That’s my role. That’s what I teach our smart injury doctors is their role.

We may be one of the only groups in the country that teaches that. What draws attention to you is that your job as a doctor is to get great patient results. Your job is to do this as efficiently and as cost-effectively as you possibly can. If you can do that, especially in the back and neck injuries and you can minimize the cost significantly, you should be the most sought-after doctor in the market.

Employers will be searching for you. Insurers eventually should be searching for you. Patients should definitely be searching for you and attorneys should be searching for you because your goal as a doctor that actually can accurately diagnose what the patient has and then treat them to a great result, in a relatively short, and when I say relatively short, I consider three to six months to be relatively short, amount of time.

According to research, 50% of patients with significant ligament injuries are going to be chronic. If you can get them not to be chronic and you can do that in a relatively short amount of time and in a cost-effective manner, you become one of the most sought after doctors in the market today.

What is nice about that is that you learn to sleep extremely well because you realize your purpose and your drive are actually aligned with everybody in the market. It’s aligned with exactly what the patient wants. It’s aligned with exactly what the insurer wants. It’s aligned actually exactly what the attorneys want. It’s aligned with what employers would be looking for. It’s aligned with everyone in the market. When you’re aligned with everybody in the market and you’re producing a valuable service that everybody in the market wants, it makes it a whole lot easier.

Now I’m going to tell you a funny story and this is problematic for all of us in the injury market that do really good work. I was asked to speak with a very large defense medical defense firm in Michigan years back. I went and spoke on ligament injuries. I had only an hour. I gave a very good talk and I thought, okay, why would insurers want somebody who points out objectively a patient’s injuries? Why would they want me to speak on ligament injuries? This is the most costly injuries that there are. And then I realized, okay, remember Jeff, your purpose and your goal is very much aligned with what the insurers need.

There were approximately 100-150 people in the room. And I started off the talk with the fact that half of you in the room right now are probably suffering with some form of chronic pain. And the reason why you suffer with it is because you don’t have a doctor that knows how to accurately diagnose it because it’s a ligament condition. If you’re suffering with any kind of back, back-related, neck related problems, you’re suffering with a ligament condition that’s gone undiagnosed. And I gave this talk and I had a lot of case managers and defense firm people and utilization reviewers come up to me afterward and say, “Well, Dr. Cronk, how do I find this kind of doctor?”

A representative from one of the major insurance carriers came up and said, “Well, Dr. Cronk, how do you explain, I’ve got four months’ worth of chiropractic care and a $42,000 bill.” And I said, “Well, okay, I don’t know. That sounds excessive to me. I don’t know anything about the specifics of it. But you have your internal fraud detection procedures that you can use to reduce that. Let me follow up and ask you a question. Why do you treat the good doctors exactly the way that you treat the bad doctors?” I asked a preliminary question, “Are there good doctors?” And she said, “Yes.” And I said, “Well then why do the insurance carriers treat all doctors the same as if they’re all bad? You have to reward the actual good injury work when it is occurring. You have to reward the behavior that you want.”

When I talk about the new injury market, I am referring to the new injury markets that is about innovation. It should be about getting great results with patients right away and not being so inefficient in the market. The medical/chiropractic/osteopathic/physical therapy market needs to become a much more efficient market. It needs to get a lot better results very quickly with these neck and back injuries.

If you get great results in a short amount of time, you are very much aligned with the insurance carrier, so why are you adversarial with them? Now, I realize they do things that are kind of different and they can do things that are adversarial and they can outright attack good doctors. I understand that. But if you’re doing the right things and you’re attacked, you can withstand the attack. It changed me when I started to realize that the insurance carriers themselves were not the enemy.

And take a look today when you’re sitting there and you’re thinking about what I just mentioned, think about this person, he’s in a wheelchair, six months later, he’s running a 10K run and he has no problems. I’ve seriously minimized his long-term insurance benefit needs. And that’s my job as a doctor. That’s your job as a doctor. And again, that’s what I teach in our SmartInjuryDoctor’s program.

For more information on Spinal Ligament Injuries please check us out at http://www.smartinjurydoctor.comor check out our SmartInjuryDoctors® Podcasts on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Stitcher.

For information on spinal ligament testing by board-certified medical radiologists go to www.thespinalkinetics.com

Want to learn more about Smartinjurydoctor's Program?

Reach Us

Want to know more? We are happy to receive a message from you.

246 Tierney Drive, Suite 1,
New Richmond, WI 54017

1-800-940-6513, ext 700

Leave A Message

CONTACT US

Smart Injury Doctors
701 Richards Ave
Clearwater Florida 33755

[email protected]
Call Lee Ann at 1-800-940-6513, ext 700

SEARCH THIS SITE

© 2019 Biocybernetics Inc.

Good Injury Patients are Not Interested in the Money

Good Injury Patients are Not Interested in the Money

There is a misconception out there about injury patients.

In the 17 years that I practiced chiropractic, I never once spoke to a patient about the money that they were going to receive or how much money. I do remember one time a patient asking me how much money they thought this injury was worth in my experience. I told him I had no idea, and I didn’t, because injuries can be all over the place. My job is about recovery.  It is about being a doctor.

Every time I hear colleagues say, “Look, the patients are just interested in the money,” I always contest that. I may be naive. I may be a doctor that is just too optimistic.  Patients interested in the money was never my experience.

If that is your experience out there, if you are treating patients that are coming in and saying, “Well, doc, how much do you think I’m going to make?” I really would be questioning my marketing strategy.

That may alienate some colleagues right now, and that’s not what I want to do. What I want is for you to understand is that marketing is attracting who you want and repelling who you don’t want. Your marketing and how it represents you determines the type of patients you will attract.  I have talked about this in my podcasts and articles many, many times.  

In my own private practice, I would not want patients who are thinking about how much money are they going to make on their injuries because to me, that’s another intention.

I wanted the people that are injured that are completely 100% focused on finding the best doctor that they can possibly find because their sole interest at this point is just recovering, just getting better.

That’s the way the injury market should be.

Again, I’ve spoken with consultants before and I’ve heard other doctors in the field and it’s always, “Jeff, you’re so naive. You got to talk to doctors about the money. You got to talk about the money because all the patients want is money.” I maintain that is not true.

I think that when a doctor is talking to a patient about settlement money that they possibly can get from the insurance carrier, I think it is ludicrous. I don’t think that’s a good practice at all. I think what that does is it draws the type of patient who is looking at the money.

The best way to respond to patients like this is, “Look, I have no idea. That’s between you, the insurance company. That’s between you and an attorney. That’s between you and that process. My job here with you is to take your injuries and get them to a great recovery, and that’s what I’m interested in. Now, if you’re interested in that, you’re interested in fully getting committed to fully recover quickly, fast, effectively, if at all possible, then I’m in. If that’s not your intention, you may not be in the right center. You may not be working with the right doctor. I may not be the doctor for you”.

That’s how strongly I feel about that because what I wanted to have and what I want doctors that are Smart Injury Doctors to have, is a practice where they’re attracting people who are injured and are looking for the best doctors to actually work with so that they can get a full recovery.

Think about it, if you have someone that you love, a son, a daughter, a wife, a significant other, a girlfriend, a boyfriend, a mom, a dad, a sister, a brother, somebody that you really care about and they get injured, say, in a car accident and now they have neck pain and they are getting migraine headaches.
Your first thought generally is not, oh my, gosh, they’re going to make so much money in an insurance settlement. This is so great for them.

Or, let me just send them over to this guy I’ve heard he’s really good at getting claim values up and he’s good at making sure that patients need long-term benefits.

That’s not the doctor you’re going to look for, for a loved one. If you wouldn’t look for that doctor for a loved one, don’t be that doctor.

Be that doctor that people would search out for. The doctor for a 19-year-old daughter who had major spinal ligament injuries to her neck. Now she is getting migraine headaches. Be the doctor sought after that really understands this so that she doesn’t suffer with these for the rest of their life. Because she is someone’s daughter, someone’s sister, someone’s girlfriend, someone’s mother. She deserves the best possible care

Now you’re going to tell me that they are interested in $1,500, $2,000, $10,000? How much would you pay? How much money would somebody have to you receive to have headaches for the rest of their life? How much would they need to receive to have migraine headaches for the rest of their life? How much for chronic pain for the rest of their life?

I don’t think there’s enough money in the settlement amounts that you’re dealing with.

Simply said, they are not in it for the money

If they are, it may be the wrong patients for you. Those to me are the patients that maybe are doing some questionable things or possibly are also restricting or retarding their care and their results.

I am old school. Maybe I’m optimistic, but I believe that there is a new market based on results. It’s a market based on searching for and finding SmartInjuryDoctors  The doctors that can get great results quickly, cost effectively, and can seriously reduce down long-term benefit need.

Whether it’s through work comp for an employer or  auto insurance carrier, or cash payers. These people are all interested in finding doctors that can get truly great results.

That is what I was interested in. It always grates me when I hear doctors talking about these injury patients are just interested in the money. That’s a real low look at human beings in my experience.

Now it can be true. Like I said, if it’s true in your practice right now and you want to change that, then you have to look at how you’re marketing and how you are being perceived.

Because if that’s how you are being perceived, if an injury patient is saying,  I just got into an auto accident and you know what? I can make some money on this. I heard there’s this really good doctor that helps you make money on these cases, so I’m going to go to that doctor. If that’s how that doctor is perceived, that’s what he’s going to attract.

That to me is not a very purpose-driven injury practice. That’s not why I got into being a doctor in the first place. I don’t think it’s why a lot of you became doctors either.

If you’re in a practice like that, it’s marketing that will get you out of it. I’ll tell you what.

It feels so good to have a practice that you are making a difference in peoples lives.

Like I said, in my 17 years, I had one guy ask me one time about the money.

Some doctors would say, oh my, God, that’s crazy, but I also know there’s some of you out there that are saying, you know what? That’s my practice too. If that is your practice and you are capable of getting great results.

I don’t think that the average injury patients first thought is, “Okay, I’m injured. I’m going to make some money here.” That’s not their first thought.

Their first thought is, “Hey, I’m injured. How do I get help? I don’t want this. I don’t want to have this for the rest of my life.” Again, doctors, think about if you have a loved one, where would you send them?

You’d need a great doctor.

You need a SmartInjuryDoctor. 

All I’m saying today is be that great doctor.

Be that great doctor that everybody would look for. Strive for that and you will really excel in the injury market.

For more information on Spinal Ligament Injuries please check us out at http://www.smartinjurydoctor.comor check out our SmartInjuryDoctors® Podcasts on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Stitcher.

For information on spinal ligament testing by board certified medical radiologists go to www.thespinalkinetics.com

Want to learn more about Smartinjurydoctor's Program?

Reach Us

Want to know more? We are happy to receive a message from you.

246 Tierney Drive, Suite 1,
New Richmond, WI 54017

1-800-940-6513, ext 700

Leave A Message

CONTACT US

Smart Injury Doctors
701 Richards Ave
Clearwater Florida 33755

[email protected]
Call Lee Ann at 1-800-940-6513, ext 700

SEARCH THIS SITE

© 2019 Biocybernetics Inc.

Basic Injury Recommendations to Enhance Patient Results

Basic Injury Recommendations to Enhance Patient Results

Basic Injury Recommendations to Enhance Patient Results

I talk a lot about how spinal ligament injuries are the number one cause of chronic pain and disability in the world today because they are.

Spinal instability is the number one cause of lumbar problems, cervical problems. It’s the number one cause of the headaches.

There are basic recommendations that you can do to improve your injury results with these patients.

Communication to your patient is a key factor. These injuries are the primary cause of chronic pain. They must understand that their injury recovery is not to be taken lightly.

Patients that have ligament injuries have a 50% chance of never fully recovering. According to the latest research, 30% of those patients are going to have a significant disability. These ligament injuries are the leading cause of long-term residual complaints. You cannot impress upon the patient enough how serious their injury is.

Educating them that during their recovery time, there are some general things that they could do to help themselves.  You will need their help. Their compliance with your treatment program, their active participation in their own recovery is the key to optimal results.

You are treating them, not an insurance company, or their attorney. Everything you do is geared to assist them with optimal recovery. Let them know that you use state of the art imaging procedures in order to assess these injuries. That’s how significant they are.

Tell them that you use the top board-certified medical radiologists in the world to locate and identify these injuries to assist you with what are called excessive motion tests. Let them know that this treatment plan that you created is individualized to them and to their needs. It is very important to comply with the schedule because you are trying to help them to meet the goal of recovery.

If you’ve got them under a dose schedule care, that dosing of the schedule care is very important,  If they need to change an appointment, they must work it out to come in the amount of times you put in their program.

They need to know that if something on the plan is not consistent with producing results for them, they need to communicate and let you know right away.

They may have need for supportive care. Let them know this at the very beginning while you do your initial exam. When patients have ligament conditions, ligament injuries, they can need ongoing supportive chiropractic spinal care on a regular basis.

Regular basis might be twice a year, it might be once a year, it might be five times a year, might be six times a year. But patients do better long-term with maintaining a spine. This is called supportive care because it maintains the ability to keep the symptom away.

A general and vital recommendation is proper body hydration. Proper hydration is essential in the wound healing stage.

The lack of body hydration will halt cellular migration, decrease oxygenation to blood, and vastly delay the wound treatment process. The majority of patients in the market today are dehydrated. You need to get them to drink more water. Now that sounds really, really simple, but there’s so few doctors that do it. In the Smart Injury Doctors program, we have a thing called the Smart Injury Recommendations. Those recommendations are basic things to the patient’s recovery.

Typically, the body fluctuates from 60 to 70% of the total weight is water. To maintain that positive level of hydration, you need to have no less than 64 ounces of water be consumed on a daily basis. The recommendation is half your body weight in ounces a day. Now, if a person weighs 300 pounds, that’s 150 ounces. If they weighed 400 pounds, it’s 200 ounces. If they weighed 100 pounds, it’s 50 ounces. You must get them to hydrate and be hydrated.

Another recommendation to injury recovery is proper sleep. When patients have a spinal instability, they could have neck pain, lower back pain, shoulder pain, scapular pain, pain radiating down their arms, pain radiating down the legs, numbness, tingling, sense of weakness or heaviness in the legs, numbness or tingling or a sense of weakness or heaviness in the arms, headaches, migraine headaches, facial pain, ear pain, visual disturbances, ringing in the ear, difficulty swallowing, difficulty breathing, bladder or bowel dysfunction, sexual dysfunction, severe fatigue, loss of voice, disturbances in concentration, disturbance in memory.

These are common symptoms. Some are more common than others but they all can cause, especially when we’re talking about pain, to start to reduce their ability to sleep.

Your body needs to sleep because that’s when it repairs. You must work with them to make sure that they are getting good sleep. When your body’s tired, also, it’s usually seeking ways to create more energy. This can lead to cravings for sugary, fatty foods, things that are not good for your body, things that are not good for your sleep cycle, so you got to get them to work on sleep.

When we look at an adult today, it’s recommended by the Mayo Clinic, that optimal sleep for an adult is seven to nine hours a night. If you got a 14 to 17-year-old, it’s eight to 10 hours. If you’ve got a six to 13-year-old, it’s nine to 11. Three to five is 10 to 13. Two years, it’s about a 11 to 12 hours a night, plus one to two-hour afternoon nap. 12 months, about 10 hours at night plus four hours of naps. Newborns, 14 to 17 hours a day. So, you can see as the body is growing it needs more sleep. When the body is in repair it needs more sleep.

The patients should be educated that there are three stages of correction in the body.

Phase one is called the inflammatory phase. That’s first four days, that’s when the injury is pain, painful. There’s a lot of heat, there’s swelling, it draws the healing chemicals to the area.

Then from day four to 21 we call this phase two, it’s called the proliferation phase. That where the damaged tissue is gotten rid of and new temporary tissue is being built and new blood supply lines are also being formed.

Then we have from 21 days to two years, a remodeling phase where permanent tissue is being built, replacing the temporary tissue. All tissue is then remodeled for optimal function. This is what’s occurring. Again, that is why hydration and sleep are so important.

Another recommendation is to educate the patient about an anti-inflammatory diet. Inflammation can cause injuries to be retarded in the repair process and it can cause ongoing chronicity.

What should they eat? More anti-inflammatory fats, like fish oil, flaxseed oil, avocados, fish, mackerel, salmon, sardines, olive oil, mixed nuts, seeds. They should eat fewer pro-inflammatory things like processed foods, high in saturated fat, vegetable oils like corn oil, sunflower oil, safflower oil, soybean oil, foods with trans fats, those are fried foods.

They can eat more pineapple, it has a lot of bromelain in it. They can eat more garlic, they can eat more curcumin or turmeric or curry powder, more cacao, teas and berries. These are things that are in the anti-inflammatory area. Any of your vegetables are anti-inflammatory.

Additionally, they need to eat adequate protein. A balanced diet would be one third fat intake from saturated fat, one third from monounsaturated, and one third from polyunsaturated fat.

Bottom line is you want good fats, you want great vegetables, and you want things that are anti-inflammatory. There is herbs that you can take in order to do that, garlic is one of them, curcumin is one of them, turmeric, curry, cacao.

Educating your patients on these basics things will help and assist in their long term recovery. Because remember, when you’re treating that patient, you’re treating that patient’s future, you want that patient’s future to be the best possible future for them.

There are the three general things. Hydration is excellent. Sleep and anti-inflammatory diet. These are three things that you can add to whatever else you’re doing in your clinic that will significantly improve your results and make your patients healthier.

As a result of that, they’ll get better results, you’ll have better referrals, you’ll have a better reputation These are things that are very, very easy to put into a clinic.

In the Smart Injury Doctors program, we have a form called the Smart Injury Recommendations that go over these three basic recommendations.

 

https://www.smartinjurydoctors.com/
https://www.thespinalkinetics.com

Want to learn more about Smartinjurydoctor's Program?

Reach Us

Want to know more? We are happy to receive a message from you.

246 Tierney Drive, Suite 1,
New Richmond, WI 54017

1-800-940-6513, ext 700

Leave A Message

CONTACT US

Smart Injury Doctors
701 Richards Ave
Clearwater Florida 33755

[email protected]
Call Lee Ann at 1-800-940-6513, ext 700

SEARCH THIS SITE

© 2019 Biocybernetics Inc.

Three Simple Tips for Getting Better Spinal Injury Recoveries

Three Simple Tips for Getting Better Spinal Injury Recoveries

Three Simple Tips for Getting Better Spinal Injury Recoveries

Injury recovery, especially in the spinal ligament injury market is significant because 50% of the patients that received this type of injury will not fully recover, and 30% of them will have a significant amount of problems associated with that type of an injury.

These injuries are not the sexiest injuries in the market, but they are the most common injuries in the market. They cost the most amount of money. They cause the largest amount of personal trauma and trials and tribulations simply because so many people with these types of injuries result in a chronic outcome.  As a matter of fact, if we have 4 million auto accidents or auto injuries in this country, 2 million people every year are going to become chronic as a result of those injuries.

When you are dealing with patients, you want to get the best results.  I’m not going to get into specifics of adjusting for chiropractors or type of modality you’re going to use or anything similar. I’m going to start with some very, very general tips for you. In a Smart Injury Doctor’s Program, we call these Smart Injury Recommendations and they’re just some very, very general recommendations.

We know that when a person has a spinal ligament injury, they need to take this injury quite seriously. Your approach to that patient, your level of professionalism, your level of certainty, your level of handling the patient, will guide their response to their injury and compliance in their care.

Spinal ligament injury conditions can cause them problems. It is a fairly permanent condition. It can cause an unstable segment or segments for a long time to come. The patient needs to take their initial treatment very seriously because that’s where you’re going to try to reduce down their risks for long term residual complaints and get them a great, great result.

One of the first things that you should be discuss is dehydration. When your body is not receiving the amount of fluids and the amount of water that it needs, it takes a toll on injury recovery. It slows it down, making recovery not as swift. Remember, water is the primary way that oxygen and nutrients get delivered directly to a spinal injury. Dehydration is one of the most common reasons why cell function becomes disrupted, no matter what. Essentially if you lack fluids, you’re going to create a delay in recovery and less optimal result of recovery.

Typically the body fluctuates from anywhere to 60% of its total weight is actually water. So how much water do you want the person to consume? About half their body weight in ounces of water every single day. They will improve their injury results if they are hydrated.  If they drink coffee, they need  to offset that cup of coffee with an extra cup of water. You want them drinking water. It’s a very general recommendation that basically hits home. Hydration.

The next Smart Injury Recommendations is proper sleep. Sleep is so misunderstood. But if we look at the course of injuries and how injuries heal successfully, they have to have healthy tissue growth. They have to repair the damaged tissue and now have healthy tissue growth. According to the National Sleep Foundation, growth and repair of tissue occurs in the third and fourth stages of sleep, which after you’ve completed about 70% of your rest, that’s when those stages happen. This means that your patient needs  to get an uninterrupted night of sleep. It’s crucial.

So what’s enough sleep? According to Mayo Clinic, the optimum sleep for adults is 7 to 9 to hours. A teenager, needs 8 to 10 hours. That’s what required in order for optimal healing to occur. Optimal healing and the repair of tissue occurs in the later stages of sleep.

The third recommendation that our doctors recommend, is they need to eat a healthy diet. You want them to consume a good non-inflammatory diet. One that is reduces inflammation. Consuming more anti-inflammatory fats. These fats are fish, salmon, sardines, olive oil mix and nuts and seeds, avocados, flaxseed oil, fish oil. Staying away from processed foods that are high in saturated fats. Vegetable oils, like corn, safflower, sunflower, soybean oils, or foods with trans fats. Those are high inflammatory foods.  Also include anything that is a leafy green vegetables, highly anti-inflammatory. Anything that’s a vegetable that’s grown above the ground is highly anti-inflammatory.

There are also some spices that are anti-inflammatory, like bromelain from pineapple, garlic, curcumin, turmeric, curry powder, cocoa, tea and berries. They provide anti-inflammatory substance and they also provide a lot of nutrients. They’re nutrient dense, and that’s what the body needs when it’s going to repair.

You don’t just recommend these three, you follow up by asking about it in your re-examinations. Especially if you have a patient that’s not progressing in a manner that you deem to be appropriate for what you normally see under your care.

It is easy to just talk to the patient about better sleep, better hydration, and better diet at least while they are going through your treatment program. If they adopt these habits, you’ve created a healthier patient. You’ve created a much healthier patient. That’s one of the things that as you as an injury provider can significantly help and influence a person to become healthier and now they can also look at long term things that keep their health such as ongoing care, supportive care in your clinic.

All of us have a spine. A spine is like the teeth, if you don’t maintain it, you’re not going to get as much mileage out of it. People should take their spinal health very seriously and you as an injury provider can seriously influence that.

Three simple recommendations.

Hydration

Enough Sleep

Anti-Inflammatory Diet

 

In the Smart Injury Doctors Program, we call these Smart Injury Recommendations. There’s other recommendations that you can give the patient to get better outcomes, but these are three simple things that you want to go over with the patient that will improve your injury results.

 

https://www.smartinjurydoctors.com/
https://www.thespinalkinetics.com

Want to learn more about Smartinjurydoctor's Program?

Reach Us

Want to know more? We are happy to receive a message from you.

246 Tierney Drive, Suite 1,
New Richmond, WI 54017

1-800-940-6513, ext 700

Leave A Message

CONTACT US

Smart Injury Doctors
701 Richards Ave
Clearwater Florida 33755

[email protected]
Call Lee Ann at 1-800-940-6513, ext 700

SEARCH THIS SITE

© 2019 Biocybernetics Inc.

Why Don’t Chiropractic Colleges Teach Standard Injury Workup?

Why Don’t Chiropractic Colleges Teach Standard Injury Workup?

Why Don’t Chiropractic Colleges Teach Standard Injury Workup?

My question is why don’t chiropractic schools in this country actually teach their students how to do a standard spinal injury evaluation?  This topic may seem a little bit controversial, but it needs to be addressed.

It not just chiropractic colleges who are remiss, it is also missing in osteopathic colleges and medical colleges. But since chiropractors are the spine specialists and trauma to the spine is the number one cause of chronic pain and disability, the market needs experts in this particular area. So why in the world would the chiropractic colleges not teach standard spinal injury assessments?

Doctors of Chiropractic are not taught how to determine the severity and location of a simple ligament injury.  They are not being taught about the fact that there are two ways to image a ligament injury, depending on what ligament is damaged.

If you have a disc herniation, you’re going to use obviously an MRI. But the fact is, there are 220 specialized ligaments that hold the spine together.

If you have damage to the supporting ligaments around the disc, shear force injuries, they cause excessive motion in the spine. That excessive motion of the spine is how you determine the severity and location of the actual ligament injuries.

If you have a C4/C5 motion unit and you have severe excessive 3.9 millimeters of translation back and forth movement, due to the supporting ligaments now being damaged due to the trauma. And at four and five we know that the fifth cervical nerve exits, we know that that would cause a possible motor problem. We would have possibly a deltoid muscle weakness. We would have the lateral side of the arm, either hyper or hypo sensitive. We want to check that dermatome so we know where the C5 dermatome is. If we knew what muscles are involved and we can test for the particular level.

For an examination procedure, we have a hypersensitivity or a hypo sensitivity at the C5 dermatome and we have a C5 muscle that’s testing weak, then we should immediately want to know, what’s the C4/C5 motion unit like? That’s the main motion unit. Could be the one above or the one below that as well. But is that damaged?

If it’s damaged, the ligaments are damaged and you’re going to see excessive motion. If there’s excessive motion, how much excessive motion is there? Is it mild, moderate or severe?

Because if we have excessive motion that causes a motor sensory or pain problem, we have in the old terms clinically a chiropractic subluxation, which means misalignment or misalignment pattern. The mismotion pattern that causes a nerve condition.

It’s also called a spinal instability in medicine, meaning excessive motion that now causes a motor sensory or pain problem.


And it’s the easiest thing in the world to do a workup on. It’s the easiest thing to image and it’s the easiest thing to standardize in injury practices across the country. But it’s not being done.

The fact is that 90% of the patients out there are in chronic pain, do not have a pathoanatomic cause.

We have experts like William Maurice, the head of the Ohio State Biodynamics Laboratory who is a leading researcher in spinal biomechanics and spinal pressures in the world. His book is called The Working Back System where he’s trying to help solve the problem of low back lumbar spine.  This is the number one cause of disability, lumbar injuries, cervical injuries are the number four and cervical injuries also lead to the number six leading cause of chronic pain and disability, which are headaches.

He cites eight out of nine, or 90% of the patients who have a low back disability, do not have an exact path though anatomic caused identified by doctors that basically are treating the patient, creating a huge expense for employers and Workers Comp., for example

One of the things that is needed in the market itself is the simple understanding of how to determine the severity and location of these ligament injuries that are so expensive to the employers. Employers should be demanding it.  

If I’m going to use a Doctor of Chiropractic, they need to know how to do a standard examination for these types of injuries.

If I’m going to use a medical doctor, or an osteopath, then they need to be able to understand, and standardly work up these injuries, because it’s the misdiagnosis or the the lack of diagnosis, that creates an environment of substandard.  

Remember, if you’re going to change something, you must get down to the cause of what it is before you’re going to get great results in changing it.

If you don’t know what the injuries are and you were not taught to standardly workup an injury, you were not taught how to determine the severity and location of a simple ligament injury.

It is not and never has been just writing a cervical sprain down on a diagnosis code.

For somebody today to say, “Well, this patient has a cervical or lumbar sprain and that’s their diagnosis.” That’s like somebody having a leg injury and having the doctor say they have a lower extremity sprain.

The first thing anybody should be asking is, “Well, where is the sprain? Where is the ligament injury? How bad is it and where is it?”

If have you had a leg sprain, you’d say, “Well, where in the leg?”

In the knee, how bad is it? Well, it’s a grade three sprain. It’s a grade three ligament problem.

This is how I identified it. This is how we imaged it. This is what we’re doing to treat it.

It is the first step to great injury results. I don’t care if you’re an employer,  a patient, or a doctor,  the first thing that has to occur in order for you to get good results is you have to identify the severity and location of the injuries.

And we have to be able to do that standardly.

Right now there are 60,000, 80,000, 90,000 chiropractors out there, my colleagues, none were trained in a one year, six month program and how to determine the severity and location of a simple ligament injury. That injury that causes the most amount of problems in the market today. So if you’re a student today at a chiropractic college, you should be asking your educators why they’re not teaching you that.

That would be like dentists coming out and not knowing how to locate the severity and location of dental decay. Of course when you go to dental school, you’re going to be able to determine the severity and location of, of dental decay of tooth decay. So why in the world would you be in a health market, in a health care educational program today, and not know how to determine the severity location of a spinal ligament injury?


It just blows my mind that that’s occurring. It occurred for me, I graduated from Palmer College one of the oldest colleges in chiropractic in the country. I graduated in 1988 and I was never trained how to do it.

 I know to this day when I asked students that are coming out of all of the chiropractic colleges and just say, “Okay, simply tell me how to determine if a ligament is damaged in the spine.” Remember the spine is the main thing that Doctors of Chiropractic deal with.

If ligament damage is the number one cause of pain and disability in the world today, how do you determine the severity and location of a patient that’s just injured their ligaments? How do you know where it is and how bad it is?

If you don’t know where and how bad, how are you going to get successful results with it? If you’re getting some successful results with it, think about how much more successful you could be if you knew the severity and location of the condition.

If all doctors were trained in it, that would change the environment in the United States.

Chiropractic, my profession is very small. When groups do research, the research of the markets about a $14 to $15 billion market. It’s a very small market. It’s like a third of 1% of the total healthcare dollars spent are spent in the profession of chiropractic.

It is very, very small. It represents less than a third of 1% of the total healthcare dollars spent. That is 14-15 billion in medicine, back problems, low back problems in 2010 we approximately $253 billion.

Medical doctors in the market today, weren’t trained either on how to determine the severity and location of a simple ligament injury. It is not occurring in the medical market either. And it needs to be occurring with every doctor.

Because the more that you understand, you will be able to accurately and swiftly know the diagnosis. Leading to the use of conservative care procedures that are highly successful for this type condition. Lessening or eliminating patients suffering from long term chronic problems that could have been prevented.


Chronic pain and problems are devastating to injury patients emotionally and financially.

It hinders their ability to work, it hinders their ability to be successful in their family, and to participate in normal activities of daily living.  

It doesn’t have to be that way. We have to get much better. We have to become Smart Injury Doctors and use accurate and objective testing for ligament injuries and diagnosis and treat quickly and with confidence.


Remember, you can’t misalign a spine. You cannot have a hyperlordotic cervical spine or reverse cervical curve, a PLRC5, without ligament damage. Therefore, you must understand about ligament damage

If you’re going to be trading in these things, particularly in the injury market, if you haven’t learned how to determine the severity and location of a simple ligament injury, that is what the Smart Injury Doctors program is for. You go to www.Smartinjurydoctor.com and you become a specialist.

We’re creating a group of doctors, chiropractic doctors, medical doctors, and osteopaths, that fully understand the urgent need for accurate objective testing and swift and accurate diagnosis.

Come in and learn about ligament injuries. We are the leading group of injury specialist.  It is where we are training doctors to have that level of understanding.

You should have been educated in this deep understanding in your basic training, so should’ve I, but unfortunately,  it’s not there.

We must get it outside of our formal education.

Become a Smart Injury Doctor and lead the way into the future of injury care.

Want to learn more about Smartinjurydoctor's Program?

Reach Us

Want to know more? We are happy to receive a message from you.

246 Tierney Drive, Suite 1,
New Richmond, WI 54017

1-800-940-6513, ext 700

Leave A Message

CONTACT US

Smart Injury Doctors
701 Richards Ave
Clearwater Florida 33755

[email protected]
Call Lee Ann at 1-800-940-6513, ext 700

SEARCH THIS SITE

© 2019 Biocybernetics Inc.

The Importance of the Consultation for any injury’s First Visit

The Importance of the Consultation for any injury’s First Visit

The Importance of the Consultation for any injury’s First Visit

An injury patient has entered your clinic, filled out paperwork, has given your staff insurance information, they are now ready to meet you, their doctor. They want to find out a few things. For example, How are you as the doctor? How concerned are you? How much time do you take? Am I important or is this doctor organizing a thousand different things in his head?  Your new patient can perceive these things, so you need to be switched ON!

So many doctors make the error of not understanding or stressing the importance of the very first consultation they have with an injury patient.  This is the first time that the patient’s going to interact with their doctor for any amount of time.  When a patient has a spinal ligament injury, 50% of these patients never fully recover, and of that 50% that don’t fully recover, 30% have a significant condition associated with it.

This person is literally turning over their life to you. It is up to you to make this a very, very important visit. This visit is also the visit that sets the tone for compliance, that sets the tone for how much they trust you, that sets the tone for how much they’re going to refer you to others.

                                Therefore, at that point in time, this patient must be the only thing in your mind. Your complete focus, razor sharp, should be on the patient.  As a priority, you must document every single symptom that they feel is associated with this condition. If they have head pain, stiffness, neck pain, back pain, arm pain, numbness, tingling, they don’t sleep very well, if they have cognitive dysfunction,  don’t feel like they’re thinking clearly, they feel like they’re foggy, they feel like they’re afraid of driving, they feel depressed, anything what so ever it may be, whether it be a list of 10 or 15 or 20 things, it’s very, very important that you get each and every one of them down.

 

To help you do so, we have in the Smart Injury Doctor’s Program, a form called a Smart Injury Symptom Tracker, and that Symptom Tracker allows you to put every single thing that the patient is saying that they have as a result of this injury in one simple, easy to use form

                                Take your time during this consult. Explore in detail all of the symptoms, how it effects them, their families, their co-workers. It literally takes minutes, but it’s very, very important. What your end result should be is a patient that feels completely duplicated and understood.

Another reason you do this so thoroughly is if you may miss a symptom and its details. For example, they may shoulder pain and you listed it.  On exam three days later, when you’re asking them how they’re doing or on a patient review form a month later and they don’t put the shoulder pain, you know they have improved. 

You only know this if exam was done in a systematic, thorough way. If a patient says, “I don’t know, I’m not doing that good.” You look at your list of 15 things that they listed initially. Now they’ve only listed seven things. That means eight of the things that they originally listed have dropped off the list. That’s the improvement that’s occurring, but because the patient still has these seven things, they don’t think they’re doing that well.

You need to have a way to track the symptoms so that each time you’re basically saying, “Hey, how’s the shoulder?” “The shoulder pain’s completely gone.” “Okay, initially you said headaches, but you’re not listing that you have headaches here now.” “Yeah, it’s pretty cool. I mean, I had headaches for two weeks, but the headaches are completely gone now.” They can see you care, you are interested in their improvement and can show that improvement has occurred. All of this by following a Smart Injury format.

                                A patient in that re- eval is going to feel more confident in his doctor if the duplication and documentation of his original difficulties are correct and the patient will be more compliant as well.  This patient will be telling all of his friends about you, talk you up to his attorney and this will all lead to more and more referrals.

Another important area is if the patient has any active preexisting conditions, things that they’re actively being treated for, under care for, that are in the same area or are very similar to what they have now.

                                So an example of that, the patient had neck pain a month ago and was seeing a doctor for this problem. At this doctor, they had taken x-rays, showing they had severe degenerative disc disease, began taking naproxen for this significant neck pain which the doctor had listed and diagnosed, and is now under active care and treatment. This is listed as an active preexisting condition.

An active pre-existing condition is uncommon. The majority of preexisting conditions are called dormant preexisting conditions. They too must be listed. You must list for example, if they are diabetic, have a high blood pressure, or have a problem with their weight.  Any number or pre-existing conditions can be a complicating factor in the patients treatment.

There will be a difference in results and the time of recovery between a 26 year old who has no body fat, works out at a gym three times a week and is a vegan and the person that say is 45 years old, has high blood pressures, is obese, doesn’t work out at all and has a horrible diet.

Another documentation factor is was there any delay or gap in care?  Find out and document what was happening. Were they actively treating themselves? They might say, “Well doctor, I didn’t think it was… I thought it would go away. I thought I could help it myself. I thought if I stretched, if I did ice, if I did over the counter medication.”All of these are active care procedures need to be listed because the patient was trying to do self care, which is active care. It’s a form of active care and it failed.

Another important consultation item is that you cover is ligament damage. In a  consultation it’s very easy to say, to transition, “In a moment we’re going to be doing an examination procedure and in that examination procedure I’m going to be looking for things to help me determine the severity and location of any injuries that you have.”

“Ligaments are the tissue that holds these vertebrae together and in alignment and when they’re damaged they can cause all kinds of problems. They cause instabilities to occur.” During  examination procedures you will to be testing for the effect of ligament damage. Specialized x-rays called stress x-rays will then determine the severity and location of any ligament injuries

Their confidence in you and your team will be so high if you properly assess their symptoms, duplicating documenting them.  Note any pre existing conditions, properly diagnosis and follow up with documentation of any changes and gaps in care. They will  feel cared for and tell their friends, their family, their attorney, their co- workers, and you and your staff.

It is so simple:

Become a Smart Injury Doctor

Use the Smart Injury Symptom Tracker Form

Note any Pre Existing Conditions

Do a comprehensive Examination

Use the Gap in Care Form as needed

If these things are done in a timely manner with total duplication of the patient and properly documented at the time of the event, is a time saver.  Never again say, “Oh, I’m in deposition now. I have to get all of my notes together.”

Join us, become a Smart Injury Doctor We would love to have you on our team.

For more information on Spinal Ligament Injuries please check us out at http://www.smartinjurydoctor.comor check out our SmartInjuryDoctors® Podcasts on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Stitcher.

For information on spinal ligament testing by board certified medical radiologists go to www.thespinalkinetics.com

Want to learn more about Smartinjurydoctor's Program?

Reach Us

Want to know more? We are happy to receive a message from you.

246 Tierney Drive, Suite 1,
New Richmond, WI 54017

1-800-940-6513, ext 700

Leave A Message

CONTACT US

Smart Injury Doctors
701 Richards Ave
Clearwater Florida 33755

[email protected]
Call Lee Ann at 1-800-940-6513, ext 700

SEARCH THIS SITE

© 2019 Biocybernetics Inc.