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Why we're more stressed than ever...and how chiropractic care can help.

8/30/2018

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Grrrr…Ughhh…and Eek!
 
Those are the sounds we make – often inadevertantly – when we’re stressed out, under fire from the trials and tribulations of our workaday lives. And let’s face it: we’re feeling stressed more than ever before, despite the fact that our daily lives are also probably safer and more comfortable than any time in human existance. 
 
In fact, stress is such a serious concern in today’s society that it has debilitating effects on our work, home life, relationships, and definitely on our health.
 
According to Norman Anderson, CEO of the American Psychological Association, “Stress could easily become our next public health crisis.” 
 
Chiropractors are often on the front line of identifying and heping to alleviate stress, which is a golden opportunity to be of greater value to your patients and improving their lives mesasurably.
 
So, today we’re going to bring you some basic facts and stats about stress. 
 
We’ll also touch upon how chiropractic care is proven to reduce stress as well as alleviate its symptoms.
 
We encourage you to share this information with your social media followers, patients, audience, friends and love ones!
 
Soon, they’ll all be saying ahhh, ohhhh and haha, instead! 
 
Stress is our body’s natural alarm system
Throughout the evolution of the human species, stress severed a crucial role. In fact, abnormal external stressors on the body indicated that a person’s very survival was at stake, triggering a strong and instantaneous response. Called the Fight or Flight Response, stress was a good thing because without it, our species wouldn’t have survived. 
 
Stress in modern humankind

But these days, we’re far less likely to get eaten by a dinosaur. In fact, the modern man or woman has very few life or death situations in everyday life, yet our fight or flight response is still just as acute. Too often, that fight or flight response is activated unnecessarily, and yet we can't turn it off at will, causing serious health concerns.
 
Things like everyday work-related pressures, relationship turmoil, anxieties, money concerns, information overload, road rage, etc., as well as exacerbated by a lack of sleep, not enough exercise, bad nutrition, and other toxins can trigger high levels of stress. 
 
How stress affects our system
When the stress response system is triggered, our body, mind, and senses go on hyper-alert, ready to fight off (or flee from) any attacker. As our sense take in stimuli that our mind interpret, a part of the brain called the hypothalamus responds, flooding our body with stress hormones (including cortisol) that override our normal state of functioning while at rest. Our sympathetic nervous system (SNS) is stimulated, resulting in a faster heartbeat, a huge boost of adrenaline, greater muscle response, and even the release of opioid compounds which reduce our ability to feel pain at normal levels.
 
While this is critical in emergencies, it’s usually unnecessary in our modern-day life for most of us. However, this over-stressed state leaves our body depleted and overtaxed, in desperate need of recovery. But when we don’t allow it to recover –or the same acute stress response is activated again shortly, the consequences on our health can be dire. 
 
As we'll document throughout these blogs, acute stress can change the neurochemical makeup of our body, inhibiting normal systems and functions.
 
The three channels of stress in our bodies
Our bodies have three basic “channels” through which we perceive, register, and manifest stress: environment, body, and emotions. 
 
Environmental stress:

These are the stressors on our body that we take in from all around us, like pollution, chemicals from pesticides, packaging, and cleaning products, etc. 
 
In fact, it’s estimated that every day, our bodies are subject to several thousand toxins simultaneously! 
 
Body stress:
Stressors on our system include illnesses, lack of sleep, poor nutrition, toxic habits like smoking, drinking too excess and doing drugs, lack of exercise, among others.
 
Emotional stress:

Our bodies also manifest all of the rigors and physical symptoms of stress based on our emotions How we perceive and intrepid things and our feelings are one of the biggest contributors to our stress and anxiety, and also our ability to properly deal with these external stimuli. But the good news is that, with conscious practice, we also have control over how we interpret and filter our experiences, thoughts, and viewpoints about life.
 
The warning signs of chronic stress

Most of us are aware of the sensation of typical everyday stress, but chronic stress is much more serious, with significant effects. In fact, here are some warning signs of chronic stress:
 
  • Memory problems
  • Difficulty concentrating
  • Feeling anxious or irritable
  • Depression or inescapable deep moods
  • Random aches and pains
  • Headaches
  • Light sensitivity
  • Digestive problems
  • Chest pains
  • Sleeping disorders
  • Frequently feeling overwhelmed
  • Procrastinating and neglecting responsibilities
  • Relying on other substances to relax or sleep, including drugs and alcohol 
 
 Remember that there's a profound difference between normal stress and deeper psychological disorders. To clarify, we are talking about the spectrum of stress that most people experience, not the extremes that need more in-depth treatment. About 10-20% of patients suffer from severe anxiety or depression indicative of a major psychiatric disorder. But the vast majority of us feel what's called "everyday psychological stress."
 
Chiropractic care is proven to reduce stress as well as alleviate its symptoms
One of the most comprehensive studies into the link between chiropractic care and stress management took place in Japan in 2011. Scientists in that country tested to see if chiropractic treatments altered stress levels in 12 men and women who were suffering neck pain. Instead of looking at generalities and the subjects' overall health, they narrowed in on specific empirical data used PET scans to monitor brain activity, saliva samples to measure hormone changes, and other tests of the nervous system.
 
(For anyone who wishes to look up the study, it’s official name is “Cerebral metabolic changes in men after chiropractic spinal manipulation for neck pain,” and it was published in Alternative Therapies in 2011, November/December; 17 (6): 12-17.
 
After these patients received a series of chiropractic neck adjustments, the scientists found that the parts of the patients’ brains that were responsible for pain processing and stress reactions were actually altered in a positive fashion. The results of these chiropractic treatments were that the patients had significantly reduced cortisol levels, known as the “stress hormone” because if its effect on stress levels in the body. The longer-term effects of chiropractic were just as encouraging in the study, as the subjects reported lower pain scores and a better quality of life over time. 
 
The conclusion of the study was that chiropractic adjustments directly impact how our bodies interpret and cope with stress, pain, and other responses, leaving us in a much healthier state. 

 

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What you should track in your chiropractic practice.

8/23/2018

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“If you can’t measure it, then don’t tell me about it.”

That’s one of the favorite sayings by Dr. Charles Ward, who ran the largest and most successful chiropractic practice in the world at one point, and now shares his significant wisdom and resources so other DCs can thrive, too.
 
If you've ever attended one of Dr. Ward’s practice building sessions, enjoyed his coaching, or just had a conversation, you’ll know that he’s passionate about helping DCs grow their practices, and tracking worthwhile numbers is always a good start.
 
By tracking, documenting, and analyzing these important numbers that encompass office visits, new patients, overhead, collections, insurance payments, etc., you can not only measure the true health and profitability of your practice butset a baseline for growth.

Tracking these numbers are at the core of any practice’s self-evaluation!
 
Common statistics to track include: 
 
Number of office visits, New Patients, Collections, and Services over a certain time period.
 
Office visits:
How many patients walk through your practice front door.
 
New Patients: 
Of all your patients this week, month, and year, how many of them are new to your practice and services?
 
Collections:
How much money are you bringing into the practice, whether payment comes as cash, checks, credit card payments, or from insurance companies and third-party or private sources?
 
Services:
How much do you charge for each of your chiropractic services?
 
(Note: These numbers allow you to calculate important metrics like collections/visit and services/visit.)
 
Ratios and formulas to compute:
 
Cost per patient visit:
It’s also crucial to dig deeper with the Cost Per Visit, which comes from your overhead divided by the number of patient visits. With this, you’ll have the real cost to serve a single patient in your office, each time they visit.
 
Case Average:
The statistic calculates something interesting and useful – the value of every new patient that comes to your practice over the course of their lifetime. We can figure it out by taking the amount you collect and then dividing it by the number of new patients.
 
Overhead Percentage:
If we simply divide our sum for monthly overhead by our monthly collections, we find the percentage of gross income that your practice is operating at. Of course, we can also measure Overhead Percentage on a weekly, quarterly, or yearly basis.
 
This is also a great statistic to track if you do something to that reduces your office expenses or overhead and want to see how it affects your bottom line.
 
Cost per Visit: 
If we take our Total Practice Overhead and divide it by the Total Number of Office Visits, we obtain the Cost Per Visit every time a patient walks through the front door. If you’re giving away sessions, offering discounts or running promotions, this will help you see the true financial impact.
 
Stick Rate:
Stick Rate is a measurement of how long your patients stay with you, and what proportion stay under your care long enough to reach certain parameters. For instance, you can measure the Stick Rate of how many patients make it to 30 days, 60 days, or 90 days with treatment and visitations, or even extend out to three years or a whole decade.
 
You can also measure the Stick Rate for the percentage of patients who make it to their first PE, or come in for an annual re-exam.
 
PVA:
Of course, every chiropractor knows this statistics very well, as PVA is the important Patient Visit Average. By taking the total number of office visits (for a defined period, like one year) and dividing that by the number of new patients who started care during that same period, you can essentially track how many of your patients are new.
 
Why is PVA so important? It gives you an understanding of the influx of new patients to your office every week, month, year, etc. – which is a clear indicator of a vital and healthy practice that's always growing.



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Hurt on the job: 15 Things you should know about work-related injuries - and how chiropractors can help.

8/14/2018

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Chiropractors see a lot of patients, but there are usually a limited number of root causes for their pain and health issues. Today, we’re going to examine one reason why a significant number of patients walk through your practice doors: workplace accidents and injuries.

By internalizing and sharing these facts and statistics, chiropractors can realize a grand opportunity tto reach out to employers and serve the community - all while growing their practice. 
 
We combed through data by OSHA, the U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics, American Society of Safety Engineers, and a comprehensive study by Liberty Mutual to come up with these 15 relevant stats:
 
1. Over 50% of all nonfatal workplace injuries are caused by overextension or falling.
 
2. In fact, 1 in 4 reported workplace injuries are caused by overextension.
 
3. The top 10 causes of disabling injuries include:
  1. 25.4% Overextension
  2. 15.8% Falls on the same level
  3. 10.7% Falls to a lower level
  4. 10.5% Bodily reaction
  5. 9.3% Struck by object
  6. 4.3% Highway incident
  7. 4.1% Caught in/compressed by machine or equipment
  8. 4.0% Struck against object
  9. 3.9% Repetitive motion
  10. 1.2% Assault/violent act
 
4. The direct costs of disabling workplace injuries:
  1. $15.08 billion Overextension
  2. $10.17 billion Falls on the same level
  3. $5.4 billion Falls to a lower level
  4. $5.31 billion Bodily reaction
  5. $4.64 billion Struck by object
  6. $2.18 billion Highway incident
  7. $2.04 billion Caught in/compressed by machine or equipment
  8. $2.01 billion Struck against object
  9. $1.97 billion Repetitive motion
  10. $0.59 billion Assault/violent act
 
5. The fastest growing instances of workplace injuries over the last 15 years include:
+34.2% Same level fall
+10.2% Fall lower level
+9.4% Struck by object
 
6. The fastest decline in workplace injuries over the last 15 years include:
-40% Repetitive motion
-19.8% Highway incident
-13.4% Struck against object
 
7. The most dangerous industries (measured by nonfatal occupational injuries per 100 full-time employees) include:
7.3 Air transportation
6.9 Beverage and tobacco product manufacturing
6.6 Couriers and messengers
5.0 Transportation and warehousing
4.7 Education and health services
4.4 Manufacturing
4.0 Leisure and hospitality
4.0 Natural resources and mining
3.9 Retail trade
3.9 Construction
2.5 Utilities
 
8. Direct costs of all disabling work-related injuries equaled $61.88 billion in 2015.
 
9. That cost of direct workers’ compensation costs to U.S. businesses adds up to $1 billion per week.
 
10. However, indirect costs of injuries are estimated at possibly 20 times that of the direct costs!
 
11. In 2015, 4,836 workers were killed on the job.
 
12. That comes to an average of more than 93 deaths per week or more than 13 deaths every single day.
 
13. Of all workplace fatalities in private industry in 2015, 21.4% were in the construction field. That means that 1 in 5 workplace deaths happened in the construction field.
 
14. The top causes of construction workplace fatalities occurred in the “Fatal Four” categories: 
38.8% Falls
9.6% Struck by object
8.6% Electrocutions
7.2% Caught in between/crushed by object
 
15. These Fatal Four were responsible for almost two-thirds (64.2%) of all construction workplace fatalities in 2015.
 
 

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Understanding Facebook's algorithm can help you get the most out of your marketing

8/9/2018

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Chiropractors often turn to Facebook as a means to connect and engage with potential patients. In fact, it's a crucial platform for just about any marketing, with more than a billion Facebook users in the world and 128 million active users every day in the United States. But you also have some stiff competition, with 18 million business pages on Facebook – many of them belonging to other health professionals – not to mention people doing business via their personal profiles.  
 
Just getting the attention of your Facebook friends and followers is half the battle, with the average user seeing about 1,500 stories and pieces of content showing up on their News Feed with every visit.
 
So, how can DCs ensure that the content they post is reaching the greatest number of users?
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It’s important to understand how (and why) Facebook content appears on a user’s timeline. In fact, each social media platform has its own algorithm for determining the placement and relevance (and, therefore, exposure) of your posts and content. And no algorithm is more complex than Facebook’s, with more than 100,000 factors that play into how each and every photo, post, or update ranks with other users. 
 
While it would be impossible to evaluate them all, we do know that posts are given preference based on how other users react to them in certain ways. 
 
Facebook’s algorithm has also undergone recent changes, moving on from a system called Edge Rank that followed a (slightly) simpler formula.
 
Edge Rank gave prevalence to content based on: 
 
    •    Affinity: the closeness of the relationship between the person (or page) that posted the content and the viewer.
 
    •    Weight: the more Facebook users who viewed, liked, commented, and shared the content, the higher it would rank.
 
    •    Decay: recent and current content was given more weight in their algorithm than older posts.
 
Posts in your Facebook News Feed will also rank based on:
 
    1    With your friends and family first.
    2    Informational posts
    3    Posts that entertain.
 
Furthermore, posts are weighted according to these factors:
 
-Average time spent on content.
Websites rank much higher on Google when viewers spend more time on them, as the search engine algorithm deems them more useful and helpful to users. The same is true with Facebook, which rates a post by the average amount of time a user spends viewing or engaging with the post. (For instance, a video post will rank higher if the average user watches the whole thing instead of clicking away in the first few seconds.) 
 
-When it’s posted.
Posts that go live at peak times (when more users are online and using Facebook) receive more weight. So, posting in the middle of the night may mean you have less competition for your viewers’ attention, but it will also rank worse with Facebook’s algorithm.
 
Type of content.
Facebook assigns a different value to various forms of content. For instance, we know that live video gets priority with their algorithm, followed by video, then posts with photos, posts with links, and, finally, all text. Furthermore, Facebook gives credence to those who post a variety of content, mixing it up and not posting the same form all the time.
 
The completeness of your page profile.
If we’re talking about a business page (not your personal account), the more fields you fill out and the more complete it is, the higher your content will rank. That makes sense as it signals to Facebook that your business is legitimate, and you’ve invested more effort and care into your page.
 
How informative the post is.
Facebook’s algorithm underwent some significant changes in 2016 and again in 2018, revamping how it perceives informational posts. But what still holds true is that useful, informative, and factual (hopefully!) posts show up higher on other users’ timelines.
 
Clicking on ads.
Facebook's algorithm for how ads show up in your timeline is totally different than how organic content appears, but the latter is somewhat influenced by the former. So, if you click on an ad for fishing rods and a friend posts a photo and story about their day at the lake fishing, it will more likely show up higher on your timeline.
 
Your device and even wi-fi speed.
I didn't know this, but Facebook actually gauges what device you're using and takes into consideration the strength of your wi-fi signal! They do that because certain content (like high-res live video) requires a strong internet signal and also may not be playable on older smartphones or mobile devices.
 
Last Actor & Story Bumping.
Facebook recently rolled out two innovations. Last Actor measures your last 50 Facebook interactions and uses that as a guide for what to show on your feed next. Meanwhile, Story Bumping actually gives older posts a chance to reappear in News Feeds when they get new likes, comments, and other interaction.
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96% Of chiropractors miss out on these invaluable tax savings for business owners.

8/2/2018

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It’s not how much you make, but how much you keep.
 
That’s fundamental financial advice whether you’re a college graduate first entering the workforce, a hard-working couple trying to run a household, or someone who is looking to invest towards retirement. That’s also sage financial advice for chiropractors, who find it harder than ever to separate themselves from the competition and grow a thriving practice - that’s also highly lucrative. 
 
Therefore, it’s critical that DCs take advantage of every legal deduction & tax credit come tax time. You work so hard and invest so much into your practice, so why not reward yourself with every dollar possible that you can keep in your pocket? 
 
Yet, so many chiropractors are not taking full advantage of the tax advantages available to them, and all business owners. Utilizing the right write-offs and tax programs can make the difference between a healthy, consistently profitable practice or money pit that only seems to break even – or worse.
 
Yes, yes, you use a good CPA or tax professional to file your taxes. I'm sure they're doing a fantastic job and you should keep using their services. But the fact is that this year's tax codes span 74,608 pages – and that's just the federal tax codes, which is 187 times longer than they were a century ago. In addition, there are new amendments, supplements and other changes every year.
 
But the good news is that within that massive volume of tax codes lays some hidden gems that can save significant money for most business owners with employees – including chiropractors. 
 
According to Noah Carrazco of Innovative Tax Solutions in Sacramento, California, “Dentists, pharmacies and even chiropractic practices see a great benefit from these hiring incentives and credits. For our chiropractor clients that have employees, we’ve been able to generate a significant amount of tax credits, saving them money and really helping their bottom line.”
 
There are scores of business & individual tax credits and hiring incentives available like the Research & Development Credits (R&D), but today we’ll introduce you to one of the most prominent ones that help chiropractors, a Federal Hiring Credit called the Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC).
 
You can see the IRS page on the WOTC here:
https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/work-opportunity-tax-credit-1
 
The WOTC was first enacted with the Small Business Job Protection Act of 1996 in an effort to promote hiring among certain target demographics. The WOTC is now administered directly by the Federal Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Department, which maintains several WOTC Centers throughout the U.S. 
 
The benefit? The WOTC issues a tax credit that can be used to offset an entity’s (or individual’s) Federal income tax liability, offering a dollar for dollar reduction in your tax liability with up to $9,600 of qualified credits for each employee that meets the criteria. The WOTC can be carried forward for up to 20 years and carried back for 1 year. 
 
Let me reiterate that fact: you can still file for the WOTC on a prior year return, so it’s possible that you haven’t missed the boat if you’ve already filed your 2015 taxes (we certainly hope you have!). 
 
There are also plenty of tax incentive programs on the state level, like the California Competes credit or the New Employment Credit (NEC) in California, and others in each state. 
 
"We see a significant reduction in tax liability for our clients," adds Carrazco, whose firm is one of the industry leaders in tax credits, working for a spectrum of clients from Fortune 500 companies to mom-and-pop small businesses. "I don't know why more business owners don't take advantage of these available credits."
 
That leads to a great question: why don’t more people know about these tax credits and take advantage of them? 
 
Of course the IRS isn’t going to spend time and money publicizing these credits themselves, effectively taking revenue out of their own pockets. Additionally, with the complexity of just the basic tax codes, it’s nearly impossible for the average CPA or tax preparer to handle compliance (tax preparation) work AND specialize in niche tax credits, like the WOTC, R&D & many others. 
 
Please excuse the medical analogy, but it’s sort of like a MD being a family physician and a neurosurgeon at the same time. In fact, many well-established and larger tax firms do offer tax credit work, but they often outsource it to firms like Innovative Tax Solutions, working in tandem as a team to leave no stone unturned when it comes to saving their clients money. 
 
So to be very clear, we encourage you to KEEP your current CPA or tax preparer. 
 
Also, make sure to use only a reputable firm (you want to be careful to avoid the tax credit "consultant" firms in the industry that only pick the lowest hanging fruit when it comes to these credits, but charge more) to piggyback on their compliance work, finding and utilizing these highly specialized credits.
 
If the hope for hundreds, thousands, or tens of thousands of dollars in tax incentives and credits isn’t enticing enough for you, consider that any good firm will work on a contingency basis, which means you only pay IF and WHEN they find you tax credits that you’re eligible for. 
 
Basically, you only pay a percentage of the dollar amount you save or get back – a no-risk proposition. If you don’t save money, you pay nothing.
 
But just like with any financial advice, don’t take our word for it (we’re certainly not tax experts!). Instead, do your own research and ask plenty of questions. Feel free to broach this subject with your current CPA but remember that many of them aren’t up to date on the intricacies of the federal and state hiring incentives and credits – or may not even be aware of them at all. 
 
So as a value-add to our chiropractor friends and clients, we've arranged for a complimentary cons[G11] ultation with Carrazco – Innovative Tax Solutions, who will be willing to look at your individual situation to see if you might be eligible and for how much, as well as answer your important questions.
 
Just remember your good friends at Innate Legacy when you start keeping more of your hard-earned money every year!
 



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