Well, the short answer is you’ve got to tell them, and the long answer is you just have to tell them. They’re not going to know. Putting wellness in your name is not in and of itself going to teach them.

I’m going to interpret this question as how important is it for you to represent that, to literally live the wellness lifestyle yourself, and I think it’s critical. Not just for the patient, but for you and your certainty, because you can’t sell something you don’t own. You can’t even give it away if you don’t own it.

It depends on your model. If you’re accepting them based upon pain, educating them based upon pain, inferring, “How you doing, how you feeling? Pain better? then you go from there to corrective care, but still emphasize, “Does that hurt a little bit less? Are you feeling a little bit better?” And now you get to wellness care, “Doesn’t feel so bad anymore, does it?”… that’s a tough sell.

To transition from pain to wellness you have to be really clear with people so they understand the difference between the three models.  They need to understand when they’re in relief and why they’re in relief, what makes them now in corrective, and how long they’re going to be there and what are the indicators.  They also need to understand what is the magic number or indicator that allows them to go to wellness and what does that actually mean?

I started sowing seeds immediately upon the consultation. In fact, one of the very things I said after I explained things is, “We’re going to go do our examination, and I’m going to find out exactly what it will take to prepare you for lifetime wellness care.” I just threw those words out. People didn’t respond to it, I didn’t want them to respond to it, but I wanted to sow a seed.

I’m certain the answer is yes, but I don’t see it very often because there are typically too many contradictions that exist within the practice and then exist within the patient’s mind, and people get confused. When there’s confusion, there is no clarity, and when there’s no clarity, there’s very little value.

First of all, it’s an important thought because if you really, truly want to be congruent then you don’t want to be out there marketing back pain, and then trying to convert people into wellness patients. We all know that people are out there looking for wellness; they just don’t equate chiropractic with wellness.

Some of the things you can do is to

First, you have to define what a true wellness practice is for you. Can you just offer a component of wellness? I’d say yes. Is it better to offer more components of wellness but not dilute yourself? Of course. How do you do that?

Well, one of the ways is

That’s a great question because wellness doesn’t really mean anything to anybody, yet everyone is using it. Everybody. Hospitals are using it. Gyms are using it. Massage therapists are using it. Chiropractors are using it.

There are tremendous resources out there, especially now. Dr. Jason Deitch’s, Discover Wellness: How Staying Well Can Make You Rich, is an amazing book to give to patients. I find it very valuable to