The Top 5 Researched Benefits of Chiropractic

New research has showcased an array of health benefits you can expect after receiving chiropractic adjustments.

Whether you are an elite athlete, weekend warrior, battling back from an injury, or just looking to live your best life- chiropractic has been shown to provide many benefits that can improve your quality of life.

Get the 5 Top Benefits as a Patient Friendly Handout!

1. Pain Reduction

The first benefit of chiropractic care may be the most impactful- reducing your pain. Before you are living your optimal life, you have to be free of pain.

Multiple research studies have shown that chiropractic is considered one of the most safe and effective treatments to reduce pain from your neck, low back, and more. Even if you are suffering from spinal stenosis, disc herniations, or foraminal encroachment- chiropractic may be able to help.

““Patients with symptomatic MRI-confirmed cervical disk herniations treated with SMT to the level of herniation reported high levels of clinically relevant improvement at 2 weeks, 1 month, and 3 months after the first treatment.””

— Outcomes from Magnetic Resonance Imaging-Confirmed Symptomatic Cervical Disk Herniation Patients Treated with High-Velocity, Low-Amplitude Spinal Manipulative Therapy. Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics. October 2013

““Most of the patients who were considered surgical candidates for the treatment of radiculopathy from LDH improved with standardized spinal manipulative care to the same degree as those who had undergone surgery. Of those who failed spinal manipulation treatment, subsequent surgical intervention provided excellent outcome.””

— Manipulation or Microdiskectomy for Sciatica? A Prospective Randomized Clinical Study. Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics. Volume 33, Number 8. October 2010

2. Reduce the Frequency, Severity, and Intensity of Headaches

The second health benefit of chiropractic care, especially important if you have struggled with chronic headaches. Researchers have discovered that chiropractic care can reduce the frequency and intensity of headaches.

With over 20 million people suffering from headaches every day, this is a massive development in healthcare! The most common type of headaches includes; tension headaches and migraines. Tension headaches often include neck pain, muscle pain, and facial pain. Migraines are usually throbbing, can cause nausea and light sensitivity, and some even include an aura.

““With regard to the weekly register on frequency and intensity of pain, these parameters showed significant improvement in the groups with manipulation and combined treatment...””

— Efficacy of Manual and Manipulative Therapy in the Perception of Pain and Cervical Motion in Patients with Tension-Type Headache: A Randomized, Controlled Clinical Trial. Journal of Chiropractic Medicine. (2014) 13, 4-13

3. Improved Function and Quality of Life

Many people don't go to the doctor when they have pain. They go to the doctor when that pain interferes with their quality of life!

If you have a healthcare issue that is keeping you for enjoying your hobbies, hanging out with friends and family, and limit your ability to perform well at work- then you are likely going to start researching on Google and eventually call a doctor to get answers.

Fortunately, getting back to your active lifestyle, and improving your quality of life (or in science-speak, "functional ability") is one proven benefits of chiropractic care.

4. Reduced Medication Usage

Reducing medication use, and specifically opioids are one of the primary focuses of our healthcare world today.

Each day over 100 people die due to an opioid overdose. And it's not only affecting addicts and junkies. A majority of opioid deaths come from people who were taking medications prescribed by their doctor.

Not only are these medications addictive and deadly, but in many cases, they are ineffective at helping people recover from spine pain, which is why most people start taking them. This vicious cycle leads people to take MORE medication an attempt to find relief, which only increases the likelihood of an adverse event or addiction.

There is a better way. Researchers have discovered that people who receive chiropractic care are 49% less likely to fill an opioid prescription. And, in my opinion, if we were able to reduce opioid use by nearly 50% just be helping people get well with chiropractic care- this world would be a different place!

Even what many people consider to be "safe" medications like NSAID's contribute to over 100,000 hospitalizations, and over 3,000 deaths each year. Drugs should rarely be viewed as a first line treatment for spinal pain. Your body is designed to move and recover- so going to a doctor focused on movement and recovery seems like a good idea to not only reduce your medication use but to get the best results possible.

“patients who visited a chiropractor for a musculoskeletal pain condition were 49% less likely to receive an opioid prescription than their counterparts who went to other healthcare providers.”

— MedScape- Chiropractic Care Tied to Significant Reduction in Opioid Scripts

5. Sports Performance Improvements

Did you know that every major sports team has a chiropractor available to their athletes to help with injury prevention and sports performance?

That's right, teams in the NFL, MLB, NBA, and NHL all have chiropractors integrated into their healthcare team to keep their athletes performing at their top level all season long.

No one can perform their best when in pain, so chiropractors are used to keeping the athletes feeling good, but with a focus and eye towards sport-specific performance.

Working with the athletes on flexibility, biomechanics, and range of motion, and sport-focused training is critical to raising the bar of performance.

““The increased V-wave amplitudes observed in the current study possibly reflect an increased cortical drive in the cortico-spinal pathways and corresponding increased excitability of the motoneuron following spinal manipulation.””

— The effects of a single session of spinal manipulation on strength and cortical drive in athletes. European Journal of Applied Physiology. January 2018

Quite frankly, whether you are working at an office or whether you are on the professional sports field, a balance of strength and flexibility is one of the top keys to stay well long term.

So those are the five significant benefits of chiropractic care. If you've experienced any of those, please comment down below let us know, or if you have any questions, I'm happy to answer those as well.

Get the 5 Top Benefits as a Patient Friendly Handout!

Stroke, Chiropractic, and the Annals of Internal Medicine | The Evidence Based Chiropractor

Chiropractic care and the risk of having a stroke. Is there a link? Or is it fake news?

Earlier this year, the Annals of Internal Medicine released a new research review which set to examine any possible link between cervical artery dissection (stroke) and chiropractic adjustments (spinal manipulation).

They also released a risk assessment strategy for all clinicians and doctors to use when examining patients who may be presenting with stroke-like signs and symptoms.

The paper, "A risk-benefit assessment strategy to exclude cervical artery dissection in manual spinal therapy: A comprehensive review," looked back at all of the literature around stroke and manual adjustments or manipulation. They found no direct causation between getting an adjustment and having a stroke. There's never been any literature to support causation.

Get a FREE Chiropractic & Stroke Research Brief

Why is there so much confusion?

The researchers believe it may start with the patients presenting symptoms. The symptoms that cause many people to visit a chiropractor (neck pain, headache, etc.) are also some of the most common symptoms associated with a stroke in progress. So how can you tell the difference?

Let's take it from the top.

A cervical artery dissection occurs when a tear in the internal carotid or vertebral artery results in an intradural hematoma, aneurysm, or dilation. The incidence of cervical artery dissection is very low at less than 3/100,000 people per year.

Cervical artery dissection incidence is less than 3/100,000 people per year

There isn't a practicing chiropractor that hasn't been asked about the possible link between stroke and adjustments. Why? It's believed that overzealous neurologists may be a primary factor. Historically, they have produced a majority of the case reports which attempt to "prove" an adjustment caused a stroke. However, these case reports are highly subjective, have never been able to prove causation, and contain none of the data needed to show a link between the adjustment and the stroke.

I don't believe it's because neurologists don't like chiropractors, but these case reports (which are extremely rare) are very sensational and often are picked up by news organizations and discussed as if it was a randomized clinical trial.

Previous research has shown that the probability of a stroke is the same if you see a chiropractor or a primary care doctor. As such, there's no established causation between cervical spine manipulation and an increased risk of a cervical artery dissection.

Here are a few key findings from this paper:

"The World Health Organization regards manual mobilization and or spinal manipulative treatment conducted by chiropractors to be a safe and effective treatment with few mild transient effects."

"several extensive cohort studies and meta-analysis have found no excess risk of CAD, resulting in secondary ischemic stroke for chiropractics empty compared to primary care follow up."

"History taking, especially regarding the time of symptom onset is the single most important factor for detecting subtle symptoms of a CAD."

As we continue to understand more about identifying a potential cervical artery dissection, it seems as though a thorough history is critical.

Chiropractors, primary care doctors, and orthopedic specialists all learn a variety of orthopedic tests to be used as a screening tool for CAD. Unfortunately, these orthopedic tests are not very reliable or sensitive. The latest literature indicates that using history taking assessment tool may be a much better option than these antiquated tests to determine CAD.

The assessment begins with classifying environmental risks and inherited risks. A few examples of environmental risks would be a recent acute infection, vitamin deficiency, low body mass index, low cholesterol, or smoking. Examples of inherited risks are a medical history of arterial anomalies, fibromuscular dysplasia, connective tissue disorders, etc.

This assessment strategy is a fantastic tool because it can be used as a step by step guide to identify patients at risk and make better medical decisions.

Click here to see the paper on PubMed and access the entire assessment strategy

We highlighted this research for members of The Evidence Based Chiropractor as their research brief in April. Our docs use it as a way to build trust, build relationships, and build referral network with other healthcare providers in their community.

Get a FREE Chiropractic & Stroke Research Brief

One of the most significant concerns that many medical doctors have with chiropractic revolves around safety. You can overcome this friction through education and outreach. That's why I'd encourage you to become a member of The Evidence Based Chiropractor. We focus on bridging the gap and helping you build referral relationships.

The Ultimate Chiropractic Email Guide [with 2 free newsletter templates]

Let's get real. Email is a necessity in your practice.

Not sure about that?

Is there anything else that allows you to press a single button and deliver thousands of personalized messages to someone which stimulate referrals, build trust/rapport, and increase retention?

Didn't think so.

Most chiropractors attempting to market their practice

To use email to market your practice effectively there are three campaigns or sequences that you need to have in your practice.

You may already be thinking- these tools are complex.

• Do I use MailChimp or Constant Contact? (spoiler alert: NEITHER)

• What's automation?

• How do I create the content?

These exact questions are the stumbling blocks for a lot of chiropractors (so you’re not alone). Historically, email tools and systems are somewhat complicated. If you don't come from a tech/entrepreneur or marketing background, email software can seem confusing.

I understand where you're coming from. By spending tons of time and money at conferences around the world, I was able to discover how to make the tools simple and adapt it perfectly for a chiropractic practice like yours.

Over the past eight years, I've sent millions (literally) of emails between The Smart Chiropractor, ChiroEmails, The Evidence Based Chiropractor, and my private practice.

After sending all those email's, I have discovered and learned a predictable and great way to build a business.

To get started, let’s take a look at the anatomy of a successful email campaign because regardless if you’re using email for on-boarding, re-activation, or events there are a few critical elements you should be aware of. While some of these elements may seem obvious, they are routinely not executed on which can results in low open rates, click through rates and poor engagement.

3 Keys of a Successful Chiropractic Email Campaign

1. Have a super compelling subject/headline

2. Deliver engagement, entertainment, and education

3. Craft a solid call to action

#1- Have a super compelling headline

A compelling headline doesn’t (and shouldn’t) be sensational or cheesy. But, it does need to speak to the pain points or interest of your reader. For instance, an example of a great headline would be, “How to Find Lasting Relief from Disc Herniations”...

That's pretty compelling! Your reader probably doesn’t want short term relief right. They want lasting relief. And that intrigue, the potential benefit, will make it much more likely they will open the email then if the headline just said, “Disc Herniations.”

The goal of these subject line or the headline is straightforward. The singular goal is to get the person to open the email.

Get a FREE Email Newsletter Template Here

#2: Deliver engagement, entertainment, and education

Key point number is direct addresses the “copy” or body of your email. Your goal is to deliver engaging, entertaining, and educational information.

The body of your email is an excellent place to showcase the science of what you do as a chiropractor. It's a unique opportunity to showcase all the benefits that they may receive by coming into your practice.

You may choose to have a short paragraph as with do with The Smart Chiropractor content powered by ChiroEmails which explains the bottom line, why it matters, and the next steps they can take. A great email usually isn’t more than 250-500 words- this is NOT the place to start composing the next great American novel. And, if you happen to have an in-depth topic, you can always ‘tease” it with a few hundred words in the email and then link back to the whole long-form piece on your website which drives additional traffic and helps with SEO.

Get Your FREE On-Boarding Email

#3: Craft a solid call to action

The third key of a successful email campaign is your call to action. In marketing, a “call to action” means the next steps you would like the reader to take. A call to action does NOT need to be a coupon code or deep discount of your services. Having a sale or discounting your care is not the same as having a call to action. Remember, your emails should constantly be proving education, engagement, and entertainment. By creating a situation where your reader knows, trusts, and likes you-you will be in a position to offer your services without having to resort to deep discount and coupons. Your goal is to create such an experience that they are ready and will to take the next step.

So what are some examples of an excellent call to action for a chiropractic email?

Your call to action could be as simple as asking your reader to connect with you on Facebook for daily health tips. If you’ve just started a Youtube Channel, you could also encourage them to subscribe to the channel to never miss your weekly Research That Matters TV episode highlighting the latest healthcare research and why it matters to them. Just because your call to action may be subtle does not mean it won’t be effective.

As you can see, your call to action is an excellent opportunity to drive your readers to other platforms and increase your engagement there. But don’t be afraid to ask for a call either. You may use something like, “if you’ve suffered from (condition outlined in email) then give us a call today to get on the road to relief.” A solid call to action can ignite patient re-activations, stimulate engagement, and help people feel closer to your office.

Now that you know the three keys to attract more new patients with email let's break down a little bit of the technical stuff and make it easy for you to get started.

What exactly is a campaign or automation?

A campaign or automation is when you upload the patient's email address one time, and then a series of emails go out over time- automatically. It could be a specific series of condition-based emails, an onboarding sequence, or a long term nurture campaign — either way, the system does all the heavy lifting. You set the email once- and place it on cruise control after that! In theory, you could have a patient get hundreds, or even thousands of emails over the years with you only having to press a single button. Now, that's the kind of efficiency I can get behind!

Let's dive into the three campaigns that are crucial for your practice.

I’m going to open up the ChiroEmails playbook for you.

The first email campaign mirrors the first step a patient takes in your office- onboarding.

The 3 Chiropractic Email Campaigns You Need in Your Practice Now!

1. The On-Boarding Chiropractic Email Sequence

An engaging onboarding campaign will contain 5-7 emails over the first 10-14 days after the first visit a patient has in your practice. This is THE most crucial time to reduce friction, establish trust, and start getting results.

You probably do a great job getting results, but most docs struggle with establishing trust and reducing friction.

Here are a few of the key topics we focus on with our ChiroEmails onboarding sequence that has been super successful.

• Welcome to the practice

• Addressing frequently asked questions

• Reinforcing your care plan

• Providing Social proof and testimonials

• Obtaining referrals and testimonials

• and more…

Essentially the goal of the onboarding campaign is to reduce friction. Friction and confusion during the first week or two of a patients time in your practice is the top reason for patient noncompliance, no shows, and dropouts.

You need to be proactive in helping people understand why they're in your practice and how can you help them. An excellent onboarding sequence accomplishes, and that is what we build out a complete onboarding sequence in ChiroEmails, and I'd suggest you do the same.

Get Your FREE On-Boarding Email

#2. The Reactivation (aka Newsletter) Chiropractic Email Sequence

The second sequence that you have to have is a reactivation, drip, or nurture campaign.

Is your head spinning?

Let’s break it down and make it easy.

So what do I mean by that I mean long term drip or nurture?

A reactivation, drip or nurture sequence all mean the same thing to me. They are all examples of an email sequence that reaches out to your patient list one time per week. For example, one week your subject may be, “Is the pain in my arm coming from my neck?”, the next one might be “How to find lasting relief from a disc herniation.”

By sending weekly emails with educational, engaging, and entertaining content, you will be able to stay top of mind with your patient base which is critical when building a pipeline of consistent reactivations from the people who already know, trust, and like you.

Our members of ChiroEmails have been hugely successful in stimulating reactivations using this approach. And the real beauty is that we build it all out for you. We write all the content. We build all the automation. We’ve seen docs with a list as small as 400 inactive patients get four to six reactivation per week based upon our carefully crafted Research That Matters reactivation campaign.

Get a FREE Email Newsletter Template Here

#3. The Chiropractic Event Email Sequence (Online/Offline)

The third automation you should have is based upon driving people to your online and offline events.

Every event you hold should have an invite sequence reaching out to your patients and inviting them to attend. We recommend a four email sequence- request (1 week before the event), reminder (2 days before the event), day of reminder (day of the event), and replay/follow up (the day after the event).

And don’t forget that your email list can help drive more people to engage with you on social media.

If your Facebook page isn't exactly rocking, and your engagement is low, you can encourage people from your email list to follow and engage.

Or perhaps 2,000 past patients and only 200 fans on Facebook. Something isn’t adding up! I’d be willing to bet 90% of those people had a great result in your practice. Email enables you to connect, engage, and rekindle your relationship with those people while helping boost your social media numbers (for example- by sending an excellent email that inspires them to like your Facebook pages based on your great call to action :) )

I hope that this blog post has shown you how important your email list. In my opinion, it’s your most valuable asset.

If you have any questions- shoot me a message here.

If you want to have a full service, done for your email system with a killer onboarding sequence, all of the weekly Research That Matters content build for you, and an event sequence that will drive more people to your online and offline events become a member of ChiroEmails here.

How to Send Awesome Chiropractic Email Newsletters

Imagine being able to hit one button and have an endless string of communication reach your patients which stimulates reactivations, builds trust, and gets more new patients via referral in your front door.

Does that sound too good to be true?

Chiropractic email newsletters can accomplish it all and more.

Get Your FREE Email Newsletter Template

The biggest questions most chiropractors have is: why should I do them ( I think we just solved that one), how often you should send them (once a week is an ideal cadence) and how to get the best return on investment.

In today's healthcare marketplace, you have to be sending an email newsletter to the people in your audience.

What do I mean by the audience? I mean the people in your community, your new patients and your past or in-active patients. Everybody on your email list should be getting an email newsletter updating them on the happenings in your office but also showcasing benefits that you provide directly for them in their life.

Key Point #1: When sending an email newsletter make it about your audience.

Gone are the days of a monthly newsletter showcasing what's going on in your practice (you're not still doing that are you?)

Quite frankly very little of your audience cares about that. What they care about are their pain points and challenges. What are they are experiencing in their life? Your email newsletter should focus upon those pain points and the items of interest to the people in your audience. An example of that will be this if your audience is all cross fitters you probably don't want to highlight a geriatric research study for them. There is friction there. It just doesn't make sense. So understand your audience understand your ideal patient and serve them. The information that they are already looking for online there is no better place to do that than your email newsletter.

Key Point #2: Send your email newsletter 1x week.

Once per week is the perfect cadence to send your email newsletter. It gets your name in front of your audience often enough without being annoying. By sending each week, you have four touch points a month which allows you to showcase news and happenings while also really focusing on the benefits that you and your practice can provide for them.

Key Point #3: Have a call to action

Finally, number three is that in each weekly email newsletter you should have a helpful link or a call to action. A call to action is simply an action step that you want to reader to take. For instance, if you are trying to grow your YouTube channel, then place a link in a few of your emails letting people know they will be able to learn more about how to x, y, or z by subscribing to your Youtube channel. The bottom line is that you need to make sure you are directing people to take action. If your goal from a particular email is to have that individual pick up the phone and call you to make sure that your phone number is linked in a way that they can touch it on their cell phone and it automatically dials your front desk. Those little extra steps will help you see drastically more return on investment with your weekly email newsletters.

So again the three things to keep in mind:

• It's all about your audience- showcase the benefits that your office can provide to them educate entertain and engage with those individuals.

• A weekly cadence is best. That's going to give you 52 touch points throughout the year which is enough to make an impact

• Be sure to have a strong call to action and link in each email that you send out. You might be trying to drive more traffic to your website, drive more traffic to YouTube, get people to subscribe to your podcast, or maybe even fill out a form or a questionnaire that provides you more information to serve them even better content.

If you have those three action steps as part of your email newsletter system, you'll be in a great position to grow your practice, build your brand, and make a more significant impact with the people in your community.

If you have any questions about email newsletters then comment down below!

Get Your FREE Email Newsletter Template

Want a full automated solution (all the automations and content DONE FOR YOU?)- check out ChiroEmails here. 

Chiropractic Email Marketing ( + FREE Templates)

Chiropractic Email: How you can improve your conversion, retention, and new patient flow!

Get Your FREE Email Template HERE

What do the most successful chiropractic practices in the world do every day to get more patients, build trust with new patients, and stimulate a crazy amount of reactivations from their database?

The answer is more simple than you probably expect…

…it’s email!

Email allows you to build trust, improve new patient compliance, and stimulate the reactivations that essential to sustainable and predictable practice growth.

The problem is that email programs are brutal to use. They are confusing, setting up automations takes forever, and getting the content right is tough.

I think it’s time for a change.

Join me for a this webinar where I am going to make email easy for chiropractors. Step by step I am going to break down email marketing for chiropractors, and show you exactly what you can do to get started and start getting results.

As someone who has sent hundreds of thousands of emails (including this one!) to both chiropractors and chiropractic patients, I’m going to take all everything I’ve learned an put it into an action-packed webinar designed to help you get the most out of email.

You know you need to be delivering messages every week to your inactive patients to stimulate consistent reactivations. I want to show you how to make it easy and I’ll even be giving away a few email templates to get started.

Learn more at www.ChiroEmails.com

Why is email so important?

Well, fill in the blank: Each week I generate patient re-activations by ____________________

If you answered anything but “reaching out to my inactive patients weekly with content that is valuable (to them), builds goodwill, and has a casual call-to-action,” then you are missing out.

Automated email is crucial for your practice to thrive in 2019 and beyond.

But very few chiropractors get started with automated email because the old software systems are complex, confusing, AND they don’t have any chiropractic specific content built in (sound familiar?)

What if there was a way to automate your lead generation, new patient onboarding, and patient re-activations?

There is…meet ChiroEmails.

The Real Problem

Streamlining and automating email follow-up is usually super tricky. The systems are hard to use, the learning curve is steep, and pretty much no one (except for us :) ) creates excellent content for chiropractors that inspires action by your community and patients.

How ChiroEmails Changes Everything.

ChiroEmail’s is the first automated chiropractic email marketing system build by chiropractors and for chiropractors. It has been developed to warm up your leads to help them convert, welcome you new patients by building trust and rapport, and re-activate your past patients by providing follow up sequence that is dripping (geeky pun: in the marketing world a follow-up series of emails is known as a drip sequence) with value to them.

It’s automated email marketing for smart chiropractors.

Now that you know a bit more about ChiroEmails, we’ve had an exclusive offer for you!

As a special thank you for being part to The Evidence Based Chiropractor, we are doing a limed early access period where we’re offering a special price of just $149.00/mo for the entire ChiroEmail’s system.

Get Your FREE Email Template HERE

Learn more at ChiroEmails