Dr. Allen Miner: Everybody, I’m Dr. Allen Miner here with the UAC Best Practices Podcast. The whole point of this is in a few minutes you can listen in and get a nugget to what successful practitioners are doing from every corner of our profession and all kinds of different practices. And so, let me introduce my co-host, Dr. Brian Capra. Welcome Dr. Brian.
Dr. Brian Capra: Thanks, doc. I appreciate you. Yeah, we have an awesome guest today. Dr. Joe Esposito, who I have to think back. It’s got to be like, almost as long as I’ve been in practice, I’ve crossed paths with Joe. And gotten to know him over the years. And fascinating guy. Successful in many ways with business, not just practice. God, I have to try to pick some of the things to be able to tell him between your franchise opportunity, the nutrition, supplement, company you built. And there’s so many things we can probably dive into here. But we’ve only got a limited amount of time. So, like Allen said, this is about Best Practice of a nugget. Something that, with all your vast experience that you can think of that, “Hey, I wish I knew this 20 years ago or that years ago. Building companies that have scaled. Maybe you can give docs a little bit of nugget.” What comes to mind for you? As far as the best practice for docs today?
Dr. Joe Esposito: It’s a great question. I leaned on Allen yesterday, like, well, so what do you want me to talk about? And…
Dr. Brian Capra: It’s too much information. That’s your problem. Yeah.
Dr. Joe Esposito: Any nugget That’s front of mind is what I was thinking about. And right now, I’ve been really, really looking at the different aspects of the businesses that we run. And really looking at limiting variables and realizing that when I look at my clinical way of managing nutritional formula or a patient is like, you’re taking them down an algorithm in your mind. So, like you’re following them through and you’re saying this or that, yes or no, and you’re trying to get them somewhere. And I realized, especially if we talk about integrated practices, more service, well there’s, the issue with it is just too many variables. So, the first question we figured out is, everyone tries to individually sell everything. So you have chiropractic, you got rehab, you got shockwave, you got decompression. It’s like, this guy needs these three.
Dr. Joe Esposito: That guy needs those two. First thing we have to decide is what is a procedure? So, you have a service offering that includes three things. You don’t want to independently sell them. It’s all in one package. Or are you making a recommendation of something outside of it? Does that make sense, guys? Where it’s like you have so integrated, it’s like, is that one package or is that have to be individually? And once everything’s individually sold, it becomes a nightmare. You have too many people accountable to too many KPIs and it’s hard. So, my view is three verticals inside one, you may have a package of four integrated services, if that makes sense. But too many people are diversifying too wide.
Dr. Allen Miner: Yeah. We’re seeing a lot of the clinics today over on the Chiro Match Maker side. The most successful clinics are, they’re almost always built around solid chiropractic care. But then there is decompression, there’s soft wave, there’s regenerative, there’s functional health, there’s nutrition and a lot of other services. But those seem to be the most popular neuropathy, obviously, has been a big one. And it’s always interesting to watch how people try to quarterback, because people come for one of those services. And then how do they… If they’re coming to you for shockwave, how does that fold into the system? And then not to mention what’s the marketing. because those are all different marketing messages.
Dr. Allen Miner: And so, you’re, if I’m hearing you right, Joe, you’re saying better to have sort of a package deal. This is what we take care of. Here’s the things included and includes these three things. And just to bring, and let’s give some background. You run a franchise of clinics. So, you have dozens and dozens of clinics. So, you’re, you need a way to systemize and streamline. You can’t have every clinic wearing every different hat. And so, what I think I hear you saying is you found one package that sort of becomes the foundation, and then when they go outside of that package, you’ll get a little more a la carte. Am I hearing that right?
Dr. Joe Esposito: Yeah. So…
Dr. Brian Capra: Or are they bundles? Like would you classify them as bundles and technology? That’s, we have a bundling concept.
Dr. Joe Esposito: Yeah. So, if is shock way part of the chiropractic offering or not? Or is it a separate, is it an upsell or is it a separate vertical of marketing? And that’s where I don’t think the average chiro is really quantifying. Like they just get a new machine and it’s like, okay, I got this thing. Well, who’s responsible? What’s a KPI? What’s the budget to drive that? Or is it in a policy? And my example would be nutrition. Obviously, I’ve been doing nutrition 25 years, and when people make a decision should they get nutrition, it’s usually a 20% to 28% utilization. When you take everyone that walks in that’s inflamed muscle spasm and in pain, and everyone gets a protocol of nutrients in the initial care plan because of the people that are walking in the door, you get 3X to 5X, your return, no extra sale, no more communication. It just becomes protocol. So that’s one of my, this is one example I would have is that’s right in the care plan, the first, nutrient program. Does that make sense as a…
Dr. Allen Miner: Yeah.
Dr. Brian Capra: Mm-Hmm.
Dr. Joe Esposito: A way of thinking about it. And the second part of integration of healthcare and removing variables is since COVID, the virtual components acceptable now. I had a friend who was painting his dining room table, and he had a neurology appointment. He forgot about it. So, he called the office, and she says, don’t worry about it. Let’s just get on with the phone. He put the phone on the corner, and he kept painting his table and doing whatever he is doing. And she goes, perfect exam. I watched your balance, your coordination, you were on one foot, you switched hands, you talked to me, perfect exam. And he was like, isn’t that wild that I did an exam with my neurologist while I was working on something in my living room?
Dr. Allen Miner: Probably a lot more real-world effective example.
Dr. Joe Esposito: That’s pretty cool. But now you get psychology, you have, everything’s acceptable. So, with the nutritional piece, it’s starting to become acceptable and doing things like beta testing with Genesis and other companies is saying, “Can we get that third leg through an email or a text through a video series?” And I think it’s more acceptable now in healthcare than it was before COVID. I’m sure you guys agree with that.
Dr. Brian Capra: Yeah. It’s Absolutely.
Dr. Allen Miner: We’ve found a way to build that we call the value stack. And how do we differentiate ourselves from the joint or another clinic and for us that’s layering in an educational course, supplements at home exercises. So, there’s still, in our clinics getting chiropractic in the office. That’s the only service we offer. But we’re able to significantly increase our price point because it’s not just chiropractic. It’s an entire corrective care system that includes Peter Marone’s pillow, Tabbers postural exercise program, a course that we’ve done, workshops, supplementation. It’s this whole package deal that now people aren’t comparing us to somebody who’s charging very little for an adjustment. It, it puts us in a different category. And I think that what I, the market’s ready for that people want a solution.
Dr. Allen Miner: And then I think the marketing message is, how specific can you be? That’s the challenge we always have with chiropractic because we influence the nervous system. We impact every system in the body. It’s always been a challenge for me to narrow down our message to just one thing. I don’t want to be known as the guy who treats headaches. We’ve always had large family practices. But when you’re marketing, it really is helpful when you can address that one thing. And here’s what differentiates us and here’s the different components and here’s why you should come to us versus somebody else and why we’re experts. Yeah.
Dr. Brian Capra: Yeah. Well, just to second that too, we’ve seen an increase in, believe it or not, telehealth in, we added telehealth to Genesis. And there’s an increase in, you wouldn’t even think of it as a chiropractor. Actually, one of my salespeople said to me when she first heard about it, she said, “You know, it’s useless for chiropractors.” And she was a chiropractor actually. I said, “Well, think about how many practices do functional nutrition now, or just the convenience of meeting a doctor and doing a history or… ” the fact that, and that did change after COVID. That was my point, is that it changed drastically where no chiropractor was ever asking us about telehealth.
Dr. Allen Miner: Makes me wonder, are there any models out there where anybody does their day one via telehealth?
Dr. Joe Esposito: You certainly can now.
Dr. Allen Miner: Yeah. I haven’t heard that. The only downside is you can’t do your X-rays, your scans, if you’re doing any kind of examination your data collecting would be difficult or impossible.
Dr. Brian Capra: I mean, you could definitely do your report of findings, right?
Dr. Allen Miner: Yeah. I have heard of some of functional and like maybe neuropathy programs where they’re doing that… Some big $15,000 programs they’re doing over telehealth. So, there’s something there.
Dr. Joe Esposito: I know…
Dr. Brian Capra: Get a Functional…
Dr. Joe Esposito: I think right now the…
Dr. Brian Capra: The function, sorry, Joe, go ahead.
Dr. Joe Esposito: No, I was saying, I think I was talking to Stu, I think testing offsite day two chiropractic closes and a couple of the clinics I know the chains are doing virtual support finance.
Dr. Allen Miner: Yeah. So have them come in for the day one, get all the data, the examination stuff, but then the only knock to that is usually you close people on a day two. So that’s kind of interesting. How do you close them? And then they’re not there to get an adjustment. Yeah.
Dr. Joe Esposito: I think it’s offsite day two, and then they schedule the adjustment. Maybe they just separate them.
Dr. Brian Capra: Yeah. Take a payment, schedule the adjustment and you’re all set. But if you imagine the functional side of things, nutrition function, nutrition side, which I know is a big part of what you do, Joe, is that’s drastically changing things because you can have patients come into your, who are patients of yours that move, and you don’t lose the patient because their geography changed. They retain, their retention goes up. It’s a big, it’s a shift without a doubt.
Dr. Joe Esposito: That’s what we’re seeing is on the nutrient side. The biggest traction we’ve gotten in a decade is doing surveyor lab test to that custom nutrient program that’s updated every six months, automatically offsite. And the patients get the kit that the retention is oddly high. I know it’s higher because you don’t have to open different bottles, and you can’t price it. because you can’t take a box of unique six supplements and go to Costco and say, “How do I replace this?” Like, you can with a bowl of fish. So, it’s hard to replace and it’s so convenient and it’s customized. So, I think it’s those three pieces that make it out of the office and a long continuity of revenue. So, I’m pretty excited about that.
Dr. Allen Miner: That’s such an easy ancillary add-on too, now that you guys are tying it into blood work. For years chiropractors, I remember standard process, it would be a questionnaire and you kind of try to match, which I think are probably pretty accurate, actually. But there’s just something now where the chiropractor can get the blood work, have something like you guys analyze it, customize a supplement package. It just makes your offerings more sticky. And people bonded to you. And to your point, Brian maybe they have to physically find another chiropractor if they leave, but now at least maybe you still retain them as a, as a functional health client. And again, it’s another referral source, for what we do. So, this is a good example. We didn’t mention up top, Joe’s, supplement company is called Aceva, and his chain of chiropractic clinics are AlignLife. Joe, really quick before, I’ve got one other question for you, but, if people want to find about Aceva or AlignLife, where do they find you?
Dr. Joe Esposito: Yeah, you just go to either one of those sites and just, post a question and yeah, we’ll definitely get back to you and give you some insights. On the nutrition side, both sides, we’ll do an audit. So, on a line life side audit marketing systems operations to give you showcase gaps that maybe we could fill. And on the Aceva side, we just do a consultation to see what you want to do on the integrated side, kind of build a pro forma, put a little business mind around it to make sure that we can deliver not only the clinical, which we all want, but the revenue generation too. So.
Dr. Allen Miner: Yeah. That’s awesome. One.
Dr. Brian Capra: Last, question. Yeah. Oh, go ahead Allen. I know that’s your, that’s your favorite.
[laughter]
Dr. Allen Miner: UAC Joe, what’s UAC meant for you? Why have you been in it? Why have you stayed in it? You’ve been a member now for as long as I can remember. You’ve been around at least a decade or more.
Dr. Joe Esposito: I don’t know. I think, the first time I left UAC, I remember texting Patrick, Gentempo and just said, I found my home of chiropractors because I was tired of the seminars, the bragging seminars, we’re all competing with things. This is just high-end people that were had humility and just inspiration and I just felt really truly at home. So, for me it’s been, I’ve got so much business out of it, but to trump, that’s the friendships that I have.
Dr. Allen Miner: Awesome. Yep.
Dr. Brian Capra: Awesome man.
Dr. Allen Miner: Same here. Same here. Joe. We love it. Appreciate you man. Thanks for your time today.
Dr. Brian Capra: Love you brother.
Dr. Joe Esposito: Thanks guys. Love you guys.
Dr. Brian Capra: Talk soon, Joe. Okay.
Dr. Allen Miner: See you guys. Bye.
