Dr. Clay Gasparovich | Business Process Mastery
In this conversation, Dr. Clay Gosparovitch shares his journey from graduating from chiropractic school to establishing a successful practice. He discusses the importance of clinical competency, patient care, and communication in building a thriving business. Clay emphasizes the need for a supportive team and the balance between work and personal life. He also explores future opportunities in health coaching and consulting, highlighting the evolving landscape of patient care. In this conversation, Clay and Beau Beard discuss the intricacies of building a sustainable chiropractic practice, emphasizing the importance of team dynamics, financial awareness, and the balance between patient care and business operations. They explore how to create a positive patient experience while maintaining a profitable practice, and offer advice for aspiring clinicians on navigating the business side of healthcare. The discussion highlights the need for a solid plan and the willingness to adapt to succeed in the competitive healthcare landscape.
Full Transcript
Beau Beard (00:00.224)
Yeah, we're already recording.
Clay (00:01.113)
Okay. I was going to say I've got until I've got an appointment at 1130. I can be a little late for it. So I can go until about 1140 at the probably the max. Okay. And then my dog's in the background, dude. So as you know,
Beau Beard (00:10.172)
we'll be good. Hold on.
Beau Beard (00:17.108)
Maddox walked into my podcast the other day. I was in my office at home and the door just goes, and I was like.
Clay (00:25.143)
My dog's, I don't think you'd be able to see him, but the back door's right there.
Beau Beard (00:25.198)
Good morning.
Beau Beard (00:29.506)
you're good. Even if you have to get up. mean, literally the also the AI in this is insane. It'll cut out gaps and stuff. It's nuts. Yeah. So let's get rolling. well, I'm, not going to go get some, Joe bro intro from my, my guests today because, I guess he is my Joe bro, but no long time friend and I don't do introductions anyways. So it just seemed weird. but yeah, today, Dr. Clay Gosparovitch, he'll be telling you a little bit about his past, but
Clay (00:36.985)
That's nice.
So...
Beau Beard (00:58.702)
Uh, I already know a lot of this stuff, so I'm going to try to draw some things out of you that are, know, maybe our listeners don't know that I do. So I got to watch things that I'm already like aware of. Um, but the first thing I wanted to kind of say besides things coming or thanks for coming on the podcast is, you know, you're in a very different spot now than how long have you been in practice? 16 years. Yeah. So, you know, rewind to, you know, we both graduated from Logan.
Clay (01:09.293)
Right on.
Clay (01:20.089)
16 years now, yeah.
Beau Beard (01:28.662)
rewind to graduating from Logan and because we have a lot of young listeners, students and stuff. Did you have a job lined up coming out of Cairo school? And we'll, we'll, we'll cover that topic and why I'm asking that question.
Clay (01:38.615)
Yeah. OK. Yeah, so the yes, I did. I worked for a group in like sort of uptown Charlotte that was kind of a sports Cairo group. And I had done a bunch of interviews while in my while in Triton and then got that felt like that was the best opportunity and and best opportunity. There's there he goes. That was that was Hank. That was me.
Beau Beard (01:51.31)
Mm-hmm.
Beau Beard (02:00.952)
And that's you, who was that?
Okay. Clay has two dogs, so we'll be hearing from throughout the podcast here.
Clay (02:07.915)
We'll have to decide if I go put them in their kennel or not. We'll see. But yeah, so I had something lined up and it was a great associate position. I worked there for almost two years.
Beau Beard (02:16.876)
Yeah, I asked that because to get this started before we go through like your career track, because again, the theme of this season is how did clinical success or clinical competency lead to success? And then how has that opened other doors for whatever you're doing like currently? But what I find, you we have a lot of shadows and interns that roll through here. it like it stresses me out because they'll be a month to from graduating and they're so like, I don't know what I'm doing. And I'm like, and I also want to bring up
Clay (02:44.042)
That's a panic attack from me.
Beau Beard (02:45.932)
Yeah, think a key for like, Clay's not from the Charlotte area. like, it's not like he had these like opportunities because he was from here and knew what was coming. Like he had to go, you know, set these things up by glad handing and meeting people and yeah. So how, did you figure out like, I knew you wanted to move to Charlotte, but how did you meet the green apple group and like, how'd get that?
Clay (02:57.518)
Right.
Clay (03:04.057)
I, was a grind. I think six months prior to graduation, maybe slightly for now, we sort of had figured out a few areas that we were interested in Charlotte being one of them. And we just started sending out emails to these individuals. Hey, I'm looking for a potential associate position. Do you have any, any interest or any need love to interview love to come meet and I must've put at least 30 emails back then at least maybe more, there and Tampa.
Charleston, Atlanta at the time. So all kind of Southeast cities is what we were kind of looking at. And then that was the best opportunity, but I ran around and interviewed at a bunch of different places. That was just the best fit for me. And then ultimately my wife who had some opportunities in Charlotte as well.
Beau Beard (03:35.438)
Mm-hmm.
Beau Beard (03:51.576)
Yeah, which I mean, your wife obviously is going to play a bigger role as we go through your career track and maybe, you know, what you were able to do. But so, two years at green apple or as an associate.
Clay (04:01.497)
Yeah, not quite, but close. Yeah, 19, 20 months.
Beau Beard (04:04.174)
Okay, yeah. And high volume, like how many people were you seeing a week? Do you remember?
Clay (04:10.913)
Yeah, that's interesting because it kind of developed over time, but I would say I probably ended around 125 appointments a week. So I don't know if that's considered high volume. I don't think I would consider that high volume. They were a pain in hindsight. They were a sports practice, but kind of focused on pain. Like they were a pain care center in my opinion. And I didn't know that at the time. And I, I w I don't know that they're that anymore. So I don't want to say something that I would kind of argue is maybe a negative from my point of view.
Beau Beard (04:20.61)
I would say medium, yeah.
Beau Beard (04:30.54)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Clay (04:41.905)
But they were interested in getting people better really quickly, which ended up being, you know, three weeks or less. The problem with that is, and then we could be like, you're good. And then we'd see them six months later or they'd, we'd come across them at an event and they'd be going to somebody else because we didn't have the juice. You know, we didn't have the special sauce at the time.
Beau Beard (05:02.466)
Well, and pin that because that's one of, and for those people listening, one of Clay's fortes, which we'll hit on, in my opinion, is like processes and like business protocols that, you know, not aren't, that can seem like a dirty connotation. Like people are like, gross. Like, I don't want to, like, what he's saying is keep people in your ecosystem so they don't just fall off care. And if you feel like your place is the best place for them, they should stay there regardless if that's something that you're like.
doing as a business process or you're just that good or maybe you're the only option in town, but we'll definitely come back to that. So I wanna put a pin in that. Oh, 100%. Okay, so a little less than two years as an associate, from what I know and you won't have to say dollars, but making decent money. So like that helped, I think, get you to where you were wanting to go to open your own place.
Clay (05:38.201)
Yeah, I was gonna say that that's worth unpacking for sure.
Clay (05:56.476)
Probably not. I mean, most of these guys know like you're coming out of school with lots of debt. And so you're you're checking some boxes on just getting things organized. So it probably took 18 months just to go. I'm paying what for what on student loans? You know, I remember laughing with you about that. Like, I'm what? So So no, I would say no, we I didn't collect enough money to sort of jump out on my own. I think it's one of those things you just you find a way. It's not like you had a giant nest egg. What's that?
Beau Beard (06:20.686)
What? Yeah, that's what I want to hit on. how did you like, what was the decision? I know you always want to open your own place, but like, what was the launching point? You're like, was it enough cash? Was it your wife's job that was going on that allowed you to do that combo of all this stuff?
Clay (06:37.209)
Right, it was probably twofold. One, the path within the clinic that I was working at was sort of ending. And so I kind of saw that coming, which means I had to make a choice to either jump into another group or kind of jump out on my own. And at that time I felt comfortable and not confident. then Joe, my wife, a job position that kind of allowed me to have some freedoms, right? Because we were no kids, small townhouse. Like we didn't need a lot.
Beau Beard (07:05.517)
Thanks
Clay (07:06.367)
And so, and we didn't have a lot. So yeah, I think that in concert with this was 2009, 10, 11. So economy was, everybody was looking for something. so money was, I think almost easier to get than maybe it is now. Right. Cause people were wanting you to try a thing because the economy was total shit.
Beau Beard (07:22.904)
Mm-hmm.
Beau Beard (07:28.258)
Yeah. that's, I wouldn't say like we just had an intern that passed through here and got a huge loan to start the practice, which I was a little like worried about the amount, but I was like, Oh, I can't believe you got that because it was a struggle for us in 2013, 14 to get a hundred thousand, not a struggle, but it was just a process to get a hundred grand to start something up. Okay. So you, you see kind of the writings on the wall with your associateship, like, Hey, I got to make a decision. You do make the decision.
Clay (07:36.536)
Yes.
Clay (07:47.459)
Mm.
Beau Beard (07:57.87)
Two big questions, like how did you land? So Clay's current practice is in Rock Hill, South Carolina, which if you're not familiar with that area, like a skip, hop, skip and a jump across the North Carolina, South Carolina border right there from Charlotte. How did you pick that area? And then also like give us just kind of the, what were some of the big steps like that you, know, like whether it was changing the clinical model or you knew exactly how you wanted to treat, like kind of give me some of that stuff.
Clay (08:22.443)
Right. So as far as determining location, think some of it came down to non-compete. So I just didn't feel like battling a clinic that had been good to me. So I pushed out of an area probably because of that. And then as a result, some areas became off limits and then other areas became more viable. And that area seemed like its own community without being a suburb of Charlotte. A couple other things, a couple other general boxes you check like,
demographic, are the school systems good? Anything you'd look for when you're looking for a house, right? Is the house nice? Is the school system good? Is it low crime? Are there job opportunities either there or locally? And all of those boxes checked. So we felt like it was a growing city. you know, the census stuff would have suggested that. And that was probably the reason for that. Among just cost and my ability to sort of rent space and things of that nature. then as far as
what I envisioned at the time from a treatment perspective, I kind of cut my teeth with that associateship to figure out what I did like, what I didn't like. I did like sports care. I like treating athletes. They're easier and they're more compliant. And although they might be whiny at the back end of care, right? But the whiny isn't because they're hurt. It's because they're like, well, I'm not a hundred percent. I'm 93%. I'm like, well, you win. So I liked that.
group and certainly the Rock Hill area had that as a, they have an athletic background and it's certainly an athletic community. So there's that. And then I realized I didn't want to do kind of pain management. I felt like this fall off was an issue. I also didn't want to do what at the time was considered the high volume, which was put people on, I don't know, what is it, 30 and 40 visit treatment plans. And which was the only model for wellness at the time.
or performance care, whatever you want to call it. think they called it maintenance back then, right? So you had that model, which was kind of the, just felt slimy, still feels slimy. And then you had this acute care model, which was like six to eight appointments. And I didn't feel like that was the thing. And so I was trying to create something in between that. So that was my concept. But otherwise I was still using kind of the big three at the time, which would have been
Clay (10:46.105)
NPI diversified, ART and Graston. And then I call it like a really tip of the iceberg rehab, HEP stuff, which was at the time what I felt like I had access to and then ultimately what I could actually manage. Right. Cause at the point it was just me and a CA. there you're limited. If you want to turn a profit.
You're limited on what rehab you can do. At least I was at the time, because there were no models out there that I was aware of that were charging, you know, $300 for an hour session. That just didn't exist back then from in my bubble, at least. And so didn't even, that wasn't even on my radar as a potential option.
Beau Beard (11:27.662)
So again, that has changed, which we'll get to in terms of like what you offer and what you can do just based on how you've built the clinic out. So when you first get rolling, just like trying to give like, you know, visual imagery of what's going on. So it's like you and a CA in there, appointment times at that time, similar, like 10 minute follow-up-ish, 10 to 12.
Clay (11:30.745)
All
Clay (11:47.959)
Yeah. 30 minute, day one, day twos and then 15 ish minute appointment times. And then it kind of.
Beau Beard (11:53.966)
Yeah. And in that time, I was like you said, in that time, like adjusting a little bit of soft tissue, rudimentary rehab, maybe giving them something to go home with, but not necessarily like hanging your hat on that. It's like, Hey, I'm to see you again, you know, twice a week for a couple of weeks and then start trailing off. Yeah.
Clay (12:08.183)
Right. Well, and that's why I liked the athletic group for that reason that because my HEP was weak and I knew it. They were a little bit more compliant about, if I did give them the three drills or whatever, know, McKenzie drills or everything type stuff or whatever, I kind of had the confidence that we're going to do it and do it well. If anything, they were going to do it too much. So it was nice working with that group or trying to work with that group at the time.
Beau Beard (12:33.132)
Yeah. So what, again, we don't have to say like details, but just from a 30,000 foot view, how long did it take that model? Cause again, you had a spouse who's working, some people, know, like my scenario, like two, miles of feet off one practice, but how long did it take that practice model to become profitable? Not from any money borrowed, just from literally like revenue overturning overhead.
Clay (12:40.141)
Yeah.
Clay (12:59.097)
Less than six months.
Beau Beard (13:01.87)
All right, so again, I mean, you mentioned something that everybody knows, but I think we get the debate now, I think becomes less of, I see less of like, is this a profitable model, right? Like, hey, I need to see this many people versus people get way more contentious about like what seems to be like a moral ethical thing. Like, you're not treating people appropriately if you're in the insurance model, seeing not high volume, but a moderate amount.
versus, I'm cash and I spend an hour with everybody. It's almost like you see like a divide because people feel like they stand on high ground, which I don't agree with at all. And sometimes I think it's backwards.
Clay (13:39.999)
Yeah, gosh, where do I start with that? So I think if the goal is patient care and then the outcome is profit, I think everybody wins. So I think as long as the goal is patient outcome, the reality is I was limited. I was also limited in my rehab knowledge. Had I had that knowledge then, I wonder if things would have been slightly different.
Beau Beard (13:53.39)
Mm-hmm.
Clay (14:05.017)
But as far as moral high ground, if you're doing the right things for people and you just don't have the access to the tools that I now have access to 14 years later, I mean, that is what it is. You're doing your best. And then ideally, if your clinical outcome is kind of getting pushed and hopefully you're referring out and co-managing. I mean, at the time I was co-managing with some PTs more regularly. I was referring out faster because I didn't have as much stuff, passive active therapy options at the office that we have now. And so you just had to lean on.
the community a little bit more to at least go with a model that was a little more, I would argue, little more profitable. I still don't see how the hour appointments really gets you there early on in practice. I like the idea of maybe growing into that for those that are very interested in spending that kind of time with an individual. But I think early on, think beggars can't be choosers. And I think you have to focus on
What's your core competency and what are you really good at? And at the time I was really good at, well, I felt like I was really confident at adjusting soft tissue work, some rehab.
Beau Beard (15:14.402)
Yeah, I mean, like I said, the theme of this season is clinical competency leading to success. Like you keep saying, well, I was limited. Well, you may have been limited in rehab, but also, you know, the further, and I'm, sure you parallel to somewhat, I don't know it words in your mouth, the further I get into practice, the more that we keep echoing in here and we're teaching new docs or interns. like, at the end of the day, like your rehab is still usually aimed at what?
making sure joints move, that tissue tone and trigger points are kind of gone as much as they can be, and then they have adequate motor control. Outside of the motor control aspect of that, I would say you are above average in clinical competency in the adjusting and stuff, because I mean, you were one of my kind of early mentors and I knew what you were doing. But then also, your competency also comes from overall being a physician, knowing like, this doesn't seem right, or I do need to refer out, or you're confident.
delivery of a treatment plan based on what you think's going on, which I think people might lack in now because they do lean too far on like the rehab part. They're like, I'm just rehabbing everybody. It's like, but do know what's wrong with them? Do you know the best way to manage this thing? Or is it just like everybody's doing, you know, DNS and FRC and that's just what we do.
Clay (16:23.841)
Right. And I probably should have said at the core of the competency has got to be communication, which seems like such a, like a, a buzzword maybe more recently, but man, it's back. You either, you either have it or you need to learn it and you got to learn it fast. So you either have the ability to communicate with a lot of different people. and I don't, I mean, other than people that are just naturally good at that. and those people probably already know who they are.
Beau Beard (16:37.55)
Mm-hmm.
Clay (16:53.221)
you're going to have to figure that out really fast. and I think the best way to do that is probably just, it's the grind, right? It's communicating with a lot of people all the time, putting yourself in sort of situations that you're uncomfortable with. but yeah, I felt that the 18 months ish or more at the group in Charlotte really allowed me to go, I don't want to say that again. Or, Ooh, I definitely want to say that again. Right.
Beau Beard (16:56.12)
Mm-hmm.
Beau Beard (17:15.31)
Mm-mm.
Clay (17:20.387)
Cause that really helps guide somebody on the path that you think's appropriate. But you know, you and I could both be right and you communicate it so much better. think you've mentioned Sloan being just like amazing at this shit, right? She says, she says jump, they say how high she didn't say anything different than us, but it was the tone or something, right? Now I'm older and my tone is I'm older. So I get to win on the you're frigging old and
Beau Beard (17:46.062)
Yup.
Clay (17:48.205)
People pay attention to you more when you're older and you, don't know, or season maybe, but when you're 26, get down to school or 28, there's some difficulty there that I think that really people need to appreciate. Maybe even take courses. I don't know. Maybe there's some, some coursework out there to sort of improve that component of your skill set. Cause it is absolutely, I think it was my number one in hindsight.
Beau Beard (17:56.142)
Mm-hmm.
Beau Beard (18:11.088)
and I have two things on that there and I'm blanking on the author's name, but there's a book called Super Communicators that is amazing. Cause this talk, just gives all these stories of examples of people who are either Nashorborn or built basically this ability to be really good at communicating. And then I always talk about books by Joe Navarro, like a CIA operative that just talks about body language and how he was reading that. And then what he decides to communicate, like how to communicate. And like, that's what we're doing all day long. And I've told you this before, and you didn't even kind of remember when I
shadowed you when I was still at Logan and you're just rolling through your day and you're in an appointment and it's kind of like kind of run a little long and all of sudden we get out of the office. You had said nothing to the patient like, I gotta go and run out of time, whatever. And you get out, you're like, I'm glad I cut that one off. And I was like, you didn't say anything. And you're like, yeah, I just kind of like shut down, like use some body language, like shut down so she wouldn't keep talking to me. was like, oh. Literally and you were like.
then I realized like, you're kind of just subtly doing that all day long. Cause you can't say, Hey, I gotta go. Cause that's rude. Or, you know, like, Hey, shut up. Like I'm not interested. You're like, yeah. Like you're using other tactics and whether that's conscious or subconscious. Like you said, some people are just better at that. But if you're not like better figure that out.
Clay (19:15.309)
Right.
Clay (19:25.504)
Right. Yeah. And I think it's something that people need to appreciate that can come off to your point, either rude or it can come off robotic. And so if you're working on it, just like anything, it's, it's robotic till it's not, or you, know, or you're just one of the lucky recipients to be better at that anyway. But if you're not, and you don't think you are, then you're definitely not. You either are or you're in the other category. So if you're in the other category, you got some work to do.
Beau Beard (19:47.726)
100%. Yeah. Okay. So we're, you're six, okay, let's go to six months. You're turning a little bit profit. You're not losing money. So that means we're almost three years into practice ish. So then as you start making a little bit of money in the clinic, what are some of the, like, what are some of the evolutions or things that you're like, Hey, this has to change. I got to add this staff person. Like we don't have to go piece by piece, but like,
Clay (20:12.631)
Right.
Beau Beard (20:13.422)
I don't know if there's a couple of milestones in your clinical journey here of to get to the model today, but if some of those stand out, what were they?
Clay (20:21.529)
I think the first five years were, the milestones were more subtle, right? It was probably bringing in more support staff to create more efficiencies between the flow of a patient in and around the office, right? So that flow was really important to me. And I think those were the bigger milestones realizing, okay, we just hit a bottleneck because we needed another CA to help.
Beau Beard (20:42.19)
Mm-hmm.
Clay (20:49.175)
support the front and then the back flow and flow between rooms, et cetera. So that was probably the big thing. Massage therapist was another milestone. We've had a lot of success and I feel like a lot of value with having a therapist on staff. So if I'm doing ART to a shoulder, but I really want just neck and mid back and shoulder done in a more macro level, then I found that really valuable. I think...
Beau Beard (21:04.11)
Mm-hmm.
Clay (21:17.344)
At least anecdotally, we found that pretty valuable in our experience over last 12 years. So that was probably another milestone within that first three years and certainly within the first five. And then probably the next thing was kind of this push to do more in office rehab and what that might look like and kind of playing with it, sort of experimenting with different things that would be not only time efficient for patients and for the staff, but also
clinically valuable, right? And so that was an interesting process over the course of kind of year three to seven, five to seven. And that's when we hit that we need more space. And so that was seven at year seven that became a big shift because space was required and then that opened up options.
Beau Beard (22:08.352)
And is your so when did you when did you build or buy your building that scenario? When was that seven?
Clay (22:13.817)
At seven years. Yeah, so we moved in to the new space at your like right at seven years. And that's when things started to shift to some of the bigger interests that we had, but we couldn't move forward with those without space. So.
Beau Beard (22:21.261)
Okay.
Beau Beard (22:31.054)
When I want to, I want to double click on something with your building though, because I'm one of Clay's good friends. I can call him a cheap ass, but in I'm going to paint this in a beneficial way that I think sometimes people overshoot. So you moved into a super nice space, build out the space, you know, a new build on land, all that stuff, but you didn't occupy all of the space in the building right away. And I think that was a really good move because you had future plans, but also like.
Clay (22:40.804)
yeah.
Beau Beard (23:00.78)
you didn't need it, so you opened up opportunities to kind of just explain that decision and what you did with that extra space for a while and also what you're doing with it now.
Clay (23:08.825)
OK, yeah. So we build out 3,000 square feet. We have the capacity to go to 8,500, 8,300, which we haven't yet and probably won't for another year or two. And then within that 3,000, I think we utilized 2 to 2,300 initially. And again, yeah, that did save us money. And we had the plans already structured, but we didn't build all of it.
The idea behind that was just simply to save money and I didn't think we needed it. And at the time I didn't really expect to hire Kairos. I really thought I was just going to do this one man band thing with a lot of support staff. Mostly because I didn't want, at the time I didn't think I wanted opinions around and so on and so forth. So that was kind of my trajectory. And I thought, okay, well, if I grow great and if I don't, okay, no big deal. And then what happened was.
Well, I guess what happened was kids. And we've talked about this before. So all of a sudden we had three kids within three years and I was never around. And my wife kind of smacked me in face, figuratively and literally probably, and said, you know, do you want to be an absent dad or do you want to be around? And I was like, well, I want to be around, you know, like, okay, whatever. And so we started figuring out what does that look like? And the only thing we could figure out was hiring a Cairo.
to basically buy back time. So even when we hired somebody, it was not in the thought to sort of grow and expand. It was really just to buy time back. That would have been at seven and a half years, I guess. So six years.
Beau Beard (24:44.056)
what year was that like into practice?
Beau Beard (24:50.146)
Okay. It's a lot of moving, a lot of growth or change and that like year seven,
Clay (24:55.361)
Yeah, a lot of growth from your 70 year, that 12 months was pretty, pretty memorable in probably a negative way, but only because it's a lot of stress. I mean,
Beau Beard (24:57.079)
you
Beau Beard (25:03.874)
Yeah. I got a of press calls during that year, if I remember right. Yeah.
Clay (25:08.609)
I'm sure I'm probably like, gosh, get me out of here. But, but we made a lot of mistakes, you know, I think, and I'll bring this up because I think it's relevant for people that might consider this in the future with their own practices. I hired somebody that was different than me, different practice methods, different clinical thought process, thinking that that would be a bigger net. I've got this sports group, you go to this group. It'll be great from a
from a growth perspective within the practice and so on and so forth. Well, that was a bad idea. Too many butting heads, too many clinical differences. And in fairness to him, I think he was great at what he did. It just was so different from what I did. We moved on. But anyway, I bring that up to say, listen, you're going to make some errors in judgment and not necessarily in a way that's bad for patient care, but just might not be bad.
Beau Beard (25:51.747)
Mm-hmm.
Clay (26:02.969)
might not be good for the business and that's okay. And so we kind of fumbled through that, found out that we really just wanted people within a certain sandbox clinically and then giving them access to options within that sandbox, which we feel pretty proud about now. But at the time we were fumbling through some things. I'm trying to decide if at that time you were in a space also that you were...
starting to hire people. Either way, it was really close because you started much earlier than I did. And you started with people from, you tell me if I'm wrong, but you started with people that were clinically similar, similar backgrounds.
Beau Beard (26:34.958)
Yeah.
Beau Beard (26:47.054)
Yeah. Yeah. Just because yeah, we, you know, one of our early preceptors just basically asked like, can I have a job? And I was like, Oh, uh, Sloan just happened to be pregnant. I landed a job of the pro athlete that I was going to be away. And it just, it literally was like, Oh yeah, it kind of makes sense. So I, again, there was nothing that I was like, we need to hire. I mean, we are in too big of a space for what Sloan and I needed at that time, honestly. And I was like, we just need to fill this thing up and use what it is. um,
it worked out and now it's kind of launched me into which if I can just segue for a second and I've talked to you about this a lot, like our business model, we have to have more doctors. Like it would not work to the level of income I want with Sloan, even Sloan and I, would be capped. But now I've realized like, we're a multiplier game with not seeing as many patient visits to you, but we still, know, 60 a week is kind of like good, like that's pretty hot in our office. And then if we do that, like,
Clay (27:19.065)
Please.
Beau Beard (27:41.294)
Doctors making good money, we get to make money off them. The clinic gets to make some money too. And like there's a sweet spot, but also for anybody that's mirrored our model or trying to what I've also had to realize, like there is a, I don't want to say razor thin, but there's a margin where your doctors that are working for you can be doing pretty good. And your clinic will be getting not helped by those doctors because the margin has to hit like a threshold and then tip over. And I've got to be very aware of that.
Um, as we lost one, one of those original doctors come in, came on staff and just kind of changed model. Like, Ooh. So again, you, I never realized that until I was like, Oh God, here we are. And here it's happened. It's like you said, you're to make wrong decisions. You fumble over it, you fix it. And then you're like, okay, I've got it. This is my model. I've got to stick with this thing now. Yeah.
Clay (28:27.117)
Yeah, would, for those that are listening, I would definitely say like, I had a little bit of paralysis by analysis, I think, and it was my wife that sort of smacked me around and said, just got to, you like you got it. You know, you're a grinder. You've got the capacity. Go make a mistake. So you definitely need, you know, you need that hype person in your corner just being like, you got this. You can do it.
Beau Beard (28:50.574)
Or in my case, I don't need a hype person. I need somebody to be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. And that's where Sloan is like, because I'm just like, oh yeah, I can do whatever I want like all the time. And oh, there's 24 hours? Cool. And then she's like, whoa, whoa. So like works both ways. But she is my ultimate fan too. if I, that's the beauty of it. If I was like, hey, I wanna, I'm only gonna treat people for $100,000 a year. I'm only gonna take on 10 clients. You go for it. And then maybe three months in, she goes, how's that working out?
I'm not awesome. You know, like, so yeah, I agree. Okay, so going through the model, so we're up to like, you know, you're in a new space, a building land you own, but you're not kind of, you're not throwing yourself into a full 8,500 square feet just because you don't feel like you're ready, which I think is a smart move. You got a dock. So over the next, you know, up to now, because again, now we're doubling that eight years later.
Clay (29:41.763)
Mm-hmm.
Beau Beard (29:45.174)
Let's skip ahead big time and then we'll work backwards again. So how many support staff are you at? How many doctors? And then what do you guys offer for the patient experience right now?
Clay (29:54.497)
Yeah, so we are, we've talked about this before. I'm really proud of patient experience. It's my, it's my number one. I'd say we are freaking awesome at that. but what that looks like from a team, we've got four docs, including myself, four massage therapists, a guy that runs our rehab, like a CSCS. We've got a functional med doc on staff and then one, two, three, four, five, six, seven support staff. Now there's kind of a hierarchy to the support staff. You've got a director, a manager.
a marketer, an insurance individual, and then three and a half CAs. And so it definitely takes a team to be that efficient. And we've made choices to a little bit of work-life balance. So we've made some decisions to make less and have more balance as a business. I think, I don't think I know we've made choices about that over the last couple of years.
Beau Beard (30:30.574)
Mm-hmm.
Clay (30:53.469)
which I've been happy with because now I'm just an involved with my family life as I am with my business life and, and couldn't be happier about that. it does. I have a joke with you probably the other day, like I'll work more because of it, but I'm working a little less now, but I'll have to work a little more on, you know, the back end of my career, which I'm totally fine with to be able to, you know, go to my kids' baseball or softball game and stuff like that. So I think those are choices that you don't foresee.
Beau Beard (31:08.098)
Yeah. Yup.
Clay (31:22.657)
until you're in it and to be able to adapt and not be so anchored to the idea that you had in your head. But yeah, that's so we're a group of, guess, 17 currently. And it's a good, it's a good number. Like we're maxed. We've got the right people in the right seats. You know, that it's that book Traction, maybe I love that book. Great book to get perspective on when you're starting to offload hats. Actually, I highly recommend that, but you probably read it, I'm sure.
Beau Beard (31:30.722)
Mm-hmm.
Beau Beard (31:43.192)
Mm-hmm. Yep.
Beau Beard (31:52.286)
I haven't, but actually Kyler Brown, who we just had on is actually in the fractional like CEO, which is tractions like coaching company, where they basically like fractional, like CEO CEOs, and they're kind of laying groundwork of like, Hey, these are the people you need in these seats, we can help you see it, but that's not our job. That's still your job to go, you know, execute.
Clay (31:59.725)
Mm-hmm.
Clay (32:12.001)
Right, well, and to our earlier question, you know, early on, you're a jack of everything, right? You're doing everything. You're taking out the trash, you're calling the electric company, you're treating the patient, and then you're helping put their shoes on. Like, it's all of it. And then you get to a point where you start trying to decide, well, what can I offload that I don't need to be doing anymore? And then what does that look like? And so, yeah, we're pretty proud to say over at least the last
Beau Beard (32:33.358)
Mm-hmm.
Clay (32:39.577)
couple years we've got right people, right seats, which means that I can do the handful of jobs that I do really well as opposed to doing all of them sort of maybe average.
Beau Beard (32:49.582)
Yeah. Well, again, for docs that are in business or want to get into business or whoever's listening to this. So I'm again, this is a very selfish season of the podcast because I'm in a, like I said, with losing a doctor earlier this year, kind of that ruffled our business plan and like, you know, just like open the kimono. Like this will be a down year for us in terms of like profit for the business, but like it's kind of a necessitated things. like, Oh, that hopefully doesn't happen again from what I learned and all it's already creating a better scenario.
But for those people kind of wondering, do you ever, like how much does it concern you? Like is there a, how much do you feel like it's a balancing act? So you got 17 people, right? And I saw how losing one doc kind of was just like, whoo, a hit, right? Do you ever worry? I know you worry, mean, I know who you are, but like how, how fallible is your system?
Clay (33:38.361)
Ha
Beau Beard (33:41.868)
Right? Like does it have redundancies built in? Do you feel like there's big gaps? You're like, Ooh, this does worry me that if this person left or the stock leaves or like how have you thought about
Clay (33:51.011)
right. So we, we are a little fat, so we don't, we don't run a thin team. We run a fat team and the way that like we have some wiggle room for issues, you know, people get sick, somebody leaves unexpectedly, things like that. So we have some capacity to, to adapt with the, with, with some change. And then we have fail safes if there's a lot of change, you know, if one doctor leaves, we got it.
Two doctors leave, I'm working more. Same thing with a CA. One CA leaves, we got it. Two CA's leave, somebody's working more. And then we'd have to, which we would hire somebody, but there's an on-ramping there that you know of. I was, and maybe you'd be surprised by this, because you know I am pretty frugal. So I liked a lean team, which meant cheaper. But over time, stress is not a friend of mine, and I don't love it.
So, I don't think anybody really does. It's just like, how well do you manage it? But I, you you can be a little fatter, which ultimately means less profit to the owner. but the, the, the stress reduction on that is massive. And so when you can, from a profitable standpoint and you've got a little cushion or whatever, would certainly recommend some level of, structured plans, you know, for exits or.
or fall out like you had said, stuff like that. We got quite a bit.
Beau Beard (35:21.496)
Yeah, and again, and I know people hear that and they're like, that must be nice to have a buffer ability to pay out a little bit more. like some people, yeah, you might not have the option, but you know, maybe it's not putting a bunch of money in savings is like a buffer. Maybe it's like, hey, you need a staff buffer, which then you're thinking in terms of like cashflow and revenue and yeah, it'd be great to have both, right? But like, you got to kind of know your practice and the cash cycles and things like that too.
Clay (35:47.543)
Right. And I think you asked me three years ago and I probably was a little too lean. you know, so you, the idea is that, you know, growth doesn't always have to be, I think people hear growth and think money in your pocket, but I think growth can mean all sorts of different things. can be mean balanced to instead of working 50 hour weeks, you're working 35 hour weeks, or instead of taking two weeks vacation, you're taking four weeks vacation. You know, so like we have had a lot of growth.
Beau Beard (35:59.363)
Mm-hmm.
Clay (36:14.677)
over the last five years, but not necessarily all of that bottom line profit, right? Because we've made choices to have less stress. I would argue that's a growth pattern for me. Work a little less growth pattern. Have a little cushion for stress management, stuff like that. So I think those are choices that people make based on the scenario they're in. You know, I think if I was a single guy with no kids, I'd probably cried a little bit more. Like you got the time.
Beau Beard (36:26.541)
Mm-hmm.
Clay (36:44.663)
You know, know, you're family of four now and shit's getting busier at home. And, and,
Beau Beard (36:51.042)
Yeah. Well, Sona and I were watching Black Rabbit on Netflix. It's Jude Law and my gosh, what's his name? Super funny. my gosh. Doesn't matter. Can't think of his name. He looks like a shaggy, just dirt bag in it. But anyways, Jude Law runs this restaurant and it's an amazing restaurant. It just gets three stars, you know, review, Michelin review and all this stuff. But he is like trying to go open a much nicer restaurant. Cause he's like, I don't want to be the last guy at the bar. I don't want to be doing this every night. Like I want to kind of.
create something that makes money when I'm not there basically, which is what all clinicians end up running into. So you kind of mentioned a little while ago that you've made decisions that haven't necessarily netted profit, but they've kind of bought you back time and decreased kind of maybe a stress allotment. And you kind of said, well, hey, now my trajectory for maybe the length of time I work has changed. would, yeah, I can't disagree with that, but I think we also don't know what we don't know and like creating a really, you know,
Clay (37:24.878)
Mm-hmm.
Beau Beard (37:49.006)
a fantastic clinic with a great patient experience and being business minded. I mean, you also don't know what opportunities will present themselves because you are constantly honing the thing, not just kind of letting yourself like get complacent. Like, oh, I'm making this amount of profit now I'm just going to kind of like hit the cruise button. You're not, you know, the clinic's not getting better even though it's making money or you're not changing your mindset about stuff. Cause you're like, this is just the way we do it. So I know you're never going to stop working in some capacity. You may say I'm going to retire, but we've even talked about like plans like after.
Clay (38:10.936)
All right.
Clay (38:18.595)
Mm-hmm.
Beau Beard (38:18.926)
So what, has some of that stuff changed? Because I know you, like health coaching has been a thing you've talked about and remote things for the future. Like what opportunities or what things would you like to be doing and beyond the clinic or is the clinic time dwindles down that are maybe different or in the same vein but still a little bit different than what you're doing now?
Clay (38:37.816)
Well, that's interesting. Yeah. So I'm doing the health coaching now. and I guess I just didn't bring that up. So that's already kind of a part of my weekly routine. and I think that's probably something that will continue to grow. It's an interest of mine. It seems to be a hole in, I think the medical system anyway, not just here locally, but maybe nationally. And that seems to be driving. I mean, you, you see all the functional medicine buzz out there and the health coaching buzz. And I think it's got legs.
So I'm interested in that. like doing it and then it's also remote option, which I'm it's alluring for me is as my kids will eventually age out of school and then it gives my wife and I some freedom to sort of maybe move and move in the sense of just Travel visit them etc. So I was trying to look at something that that allowed me a little bit more freedom for movement
We've talked about before with educational side of things, but if I was to teach, it'd be mostly on the business side. know, clinical structures, know, office efficiencies, stuff like that.
Beau Beard (39:46.03)
which I think you should do. So anybody listening, just bombard play. I'll just send out personal phone number, everything. So you can just force them into it by will. But like, I honestly think you, know, especially with students and people that like know they're gonna get into practice or have just started, like creating a really strong framework is, yeah, I get that there's management companies and all these things, but somebody that's done it, A, for a,
Clay (39:56.771)
Ha ha ha!
Beau Beard (40:15.694)
quite a long time with an emphasis on, you know, what is the patient outcome, the patient experience, and you still have to be profitable. I think you can get into scenarios where maybe one of those is more of a focus than the other, but I don't think there's a whole lot of people out there that are making sure that like all of those boxes are checked and kind of checked evenly. It's not, hey, let's max my profit and decrease that patient experience a little bit. It's like, like I said, you got to make decisions sometimes. It's like not bottom line decisions, just a better decision for practice growth, not money growth.
Clay (40:42.841)
Well, and you know, like I know, if the patient, and I say patient experience, because patient outcome, and I'll say it doesn't matter, but I'll extrapolate off that in a second. But patient experience, think is priority one, because if they have a great experience, then your clinical team wins financially, and the business should win financially as well. So everybody wins, which I love. And I say experience and outcome, because we've had plenty of people that have been like, I don't want to say failed care, but
Beau Beard (40:50.99)
I know where you're going.
Clay (41:12.729)
we've seen that they're not the right fit for what they need clinically. And so our job is the experience might be the efficiency and the speed at which they get that we get them in front of the right clinic or like doctors or co-management. So we're really proud of saying, we're not the fit. We're going to recognize that quite quickly and get you in front of the person that's going to get you better. So I always, I always challenge people, listen, you don't have to hit home runs on everybody, but you have to be there.
their beacon of direction all the time. And I think we're really good at that.
Beau Beard (41:50.798)
When, you said, especially nowadays where care is hyper specialized and siloed and people, I mean, how many people come into your office each day, you know, and you're like, I've seen five specialists or Hey, I was told this. And then somebody else told me this. And you're like, well, who's, who's kind of trying to create the, you know, the middle ground or be the quarterback or create some connections here. And sometimes that can be tough because that can put you in a divisive scenario where like, maybe I don't agree, but I'm going to try to play nice. Cause it's for, it's for the patient, right?
the end of the day and that's something I've had to learn is like, mean, just the other week I wanted to call a surgeon to like bite their head off about a decision that was made and it's like, that's what I want to do but does that help the patient that it's going to get a surgery from this person and like all that stuff and I'm like, okay, don't make the call. Doesn't matter that much to me, right, to me. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. Okay, so.
Clay (42:37.913)
Right.
Beau Beard (42:44.11)
You're doing health coaching, maybe that parlays and you're a beach bum on your computer, in between my ties, giving out health advice while you're putting on 40 LBs and just giggling about how much money you're making. Besides that, besides the business, possible consulting and coaching, is there anything else that you're just like, hey, is there a point, and this is not a lot of people's scenarios, but I'm just curious from yours because I do know your business life.
Clay (42:49.208)
Yes.
Clay (42:55.44)
No. Uh oh, I lost you.
Beau Beard (43:15.342)
how long would you, how much longer would you have to go on your current practice style amount of income you're making where you're like, dude, if I, I mean, I'm going to throw something crazy out there. I break my arm or have a shoulder surgery that I couldn't practice anymore that I could literally walk away and it'd still be fine. Like I don't have to do anything. Like if you built such an engine over the past 16 years, like, if I have five more years, I literally could walk away. I don't want to, I might not, but I could.
Clay (43:41.689)
I, you broke up there a little bit, but I think there's two questions in there. think initially that statement is well, if I, if I'm incapable of care, how would that look? Is that right?
Beau Beard (43:54.19)
Yeah, or just let's say life happens, something happens to a kid, a loved one, something that you never want to happen. You're just like, could I walk away and not absolutely have to just change my lifestyle 180 degrees?
Clay (43:56.889)
Right.
Clay (44:04.107)
Right. So I could walk away now, which I'm really, which is cool. Like the office.
Beau Beard (44:07.906)
And I knew that was the answer and I wanted people to hear that though because it gets back to, and I wanna ask you now, what do you think got you to that point? Obviously, we're not money, right? I know money is the thing that allows us to walk away. Like what's been the biggest key to getting you there?
Clay (44:25.369)
who probably office efficiencies, is probably up there. right people, right seat, which takes a little while. that's probably the two biggest things. And then once you insulate with a clinical team in this case for me directly, or for the, for kind of the hierarchy of support staff, having those, the, that, that hierarchy to help.
control a loss of an employee loss, like they leave, like quit or whatever. So yeah, we're pretty sheltered in the way that if I left for six months, the office would do great. Now you talk about finance, like I couldn't leave, like I'm not in a financial position to leave if that's what you were alluding to. Like I couldn't walk away and not work. That's not, I like to say that's the case, but that is not the case.
Beau Beard (45:08.526)
Mm-hmm.
Clay (45:22.517)
It's cost money, my man. But yeah, I'm pretty proud to say that it's only been a few years to where we can kind of, I could leave for six months and it would operate well. Yeah.
Beau Beard (45:36.92)
Yeah, again, the two, I think the two biggest cruxes of right now, and again, maybe you disagree with this or somebody out there disagrees, within the chiropractic PT realm is like I said that the division of like, know, patient care and making profit somehow got separated. They're like, you can't focus on that. Like it's gotta be, you know, low volume, lot of time. It could be cash. We're thinking, there's more money. But like I said, that's, there's a ceiling. How many people you can see in a day that are still.
And then the other side is the fact that it seems to be really hard for people to build a business or live within their means enough or whatever it is that gets them to a position where like, dude, I could leave like, or they're just like, I'm working until I fall dead or something, or that's the plan. So I, you know, it takes a lot of planning. Like I said, it's, there's a whole business logistics side of this thing that maybe people don't want to think about. let's say you, you're that person.
Clay (46:31.801)
Make this one.
Beau Beard (46:35.35)
Right? Just like we talked about communication, you know, you're good or you, if you don't think you are, you probably aren't. But let's say you're the person. I don't want to focus on the business side. I want to be a clinician. What is your advice? it, go work for somebody. Is it hire somebody to run your clinic? Like what's the, what's the play?
Clay (46:50.883)
Well, that's interesting. Yeah. Cause I was going to say hiring somebody to run your clinic would be interesting, but you'd still have the, you'd still have to have the, the, the money to sort of afford that, which I think is probably difficult because that, that individual is a, a pretty costly employee. maybe a, maybe a practice management group at that point, but you know how I feel about those groups a lot. haven't. Hmm. I don't know.
Beau Beard (47:16.012)
And still can be costly there. Might cost you almost just as as an employee. Yeah.
Clay (47:19.965)
I think that unfortunately, I think that people that are wanting to start their own clinic, like really that is a passion as opposed to just treating people. They want to treat people and run their own show. Then I think you have to get better at that business app. You you have to marry those in some capacity. You don't have to focus on profit, but you have to focus on plan. I mean, you don't have a freaking plan. What the hell are you talking about? Like it's the same thing for anything else that, know, they're a great triathlete.
Well, what you just decided I'm gonna swim today and I'm gonna run tomorrow. Like you gotta have a freaking plan. So I just, don't know why there's so much resistance to that. Is it like, I don't like numbers and people are whining about it. I don't like, I don't want to do math. Well, shut up and do the math.
Beau Beard (47:52.226)
Yeah.
Beau Beard (48:05.794)
I don't know exactly why. mean, I can imagine why. think sometimes it's like, seems it's went so far the other way from like we mentioned earlier, like, this was super high volume 300 people a week. Like, that's a little sleazy. that's very hard to create in my mind frame where that is for the patient. I think we've taken that so far that now New Doc students are like, if you focus on business and in any aspect, some people are like, this is just like, we're here for the patient. We're empathetic. We're gonna spend, and it's like,
Clay (48:21.89)
Right.
Beau Beard (48:35.886)
Well, A, you have to keep your doors open if you want to create access like that for people. So you, got to create a scenario. I think the other thing is like making that decision upfront. If you want to be a clinician, you want to be, you know, world-class, like you think you're going to be the next Pavel Kolash. like, you better go work for somebody. Like you better realize, Oh, I want to be a clinician. You, you don't have a hospital scenario as a chiropractor where you just go to work for somebody to make $450,000 a year. Like, but what I see is a lot of students come out and want to make a certain amount, but they want.
to be the ultimate clinician and then they think they have to open their own to make that amount of money and it's then you have these two conflicting things that it's like, I wanna be the clinician and I wanna make this much money. It's like, you can and I'm gonna be honest. I'm not trying to toot my own horn. I wanted to be the best clinician. I realized, my clinic has to look very different if I wanna keep growing clinically instead of just kinda, not that all of us aren't, but like on the level I want. And like you mentioned earlier, like,
you can work your way back into that cash model instead of maybe starting like that. I still see 30 minute follow ups. Do my other docs know, right? It's 20 minute, you know, 15, 20 minute follow ups. Our new patient, because I want to explore and like look at ideas, but I told them upfront, I don't recommend that if you want to make the amount of money that you and I think you should make, right? You've got to see more people. If they want to work themselves back into it, okay, albeit, or if they want to do pro bono stuff for, you know, kids that can't afford it, like you got to work your way.
can't start there.
Clay (50:06.233)
Yeah, I think twofold. I you have to be honest with yourself. if your interests are clinical prowess, I think they're unlike 10 plus years ago. I think there's a lot of opportunities out there, clinics like yours, clinics like mine, et cetera, that really give a lot of freedoms for these doctors in a way that can really check a financial box for them if they have a certain financial target and still clinically do what they want.
and not have to deal with the business. and I think be honest with who you are. Cause if you're like, if you don't like math, you're in trouble, right? Like in some capacity or like you're not willing that this is the other one. If you're not willing to work 60 hours a week, you're in trouble early, early on, early on, right? Like, but I was thinking of my, clinical team before we started this convo and you know, like
how do they perceive our office? And we are clinically equals. They come on, we hire them as clinical equals. have clinical meetings every Wednesday. We discuss strategy. What are you doing? What am I doing? you did this. That's a good idea. I should have done that. Hey, this isn't working. we'll feel really like clinical colleagues. think associate's a bad word. I don't like using the term because I think it
It doesn't make sense to me. Now, from a business perspective, we are not equals. I run the practice and they don't have to. So we're not, we're not in the same category, but clinically we're all on the same team. And I think, I think that's the thing that people worried about years ago that you're just going to get, what are they used to call like, eating your young or something like, you're going to end. And I didn't have that experience as an associate as a, as a, and, I wasn't treated like that during my associate ship. I was treated like.
One of the team, I don't think it was the best system. That would be my only complaint, but they treated me well. And I'm hoping that there's more clinics like that that exists. So the people that do just want to treat clinically for a half hour to an hour and do those longer term appointments and things. hope there's space for them out there. So they don't have to do the business stuff, but if you have an inkling, then you also have to know what that requires. And that requires interest in the business capacity of it. Cause it has nothing to do with.
Clay (52:34.721)
not giving your full focus to the patient has ever the total opposite. Like if you're not focusing on them, that your patient capacity is going to falter and people go, well, what do mean? Well, what if you're only seeing three people a day? Okay. So you're helping three people a day, 15 people a week. That sucks, man. Like I just can't, I can't get on board with that. Cause I'm just going to
Beau Beard (52:53.518)
I'm out.
Clay (52:58.233)
You've got your, you're clinically a powerhouse and you're treat, you're helping 15 people a day or 15 people a week. That just seems like you should be able to help so many more people. let's say it's a half hour to your math 60. Well, 60 is way more than 15 a week and 60, you're really making a difference in your community. In my opinion, you start doing that math. That's 3000 individuals in your community of a, you know, times year after year. That's a big deal and how that extrapolates into the community. So if you're not efficient,
Beau Beard (53:09.517)
Mm-hmm.
Clay (53:28.311)
with even your 30 minute or hour sessions, then you're not gonna have the capacity to treat in a way that is meaningful to the community. And if you don't think that matters, I think you're wrong. So.
Beau Beard (53:37.824)
Mm-hmm. Well, and something I want to reiterate that Clay and I, I mean, we won't get into the specifics money-wise that we've talked about numerous times is like, your model also has to match the, like, you know, we went back to where Clay decided to practice based on demographics and location. Like my model doesn't work where Clay's at if I stayed in insurance because of the reimbursements like that he's seeing, like, you would be again, a business dumb dumb.
to make the decision to be like, well, I'm gonna just do this practice, because this is what I wanna do without looking at where are you wanting to do that at? So if I go to, I know a Cairo that lives on a sailboat that treats everybody at Apple out in California and charge $450 a session. I couldn't, hey, if I lived on a sailboat, I'd live on some lake here in BFE. And then if I charge people $450, I would be seeing less than 15 people a week, or 15 people a week, because nobody could afford it.
Clay (54:10.894)
Mm-hmm.
Beau Beard (54:32.278)
It doesn't make sense. So you also have to match what you want to do with where you are. And that's one of my biggest piece of advice. People want to come, I'm always flattered, people want to come shadow here and I'm like, do you know where you want to go practice? Like, yeah, I'm to go back home. Why are you coming here? It's great to learn from me, but my practice style is based on where I'm at in reimbursements. If unless I'm like cash, what are you going to do when you go back? And then we, again, we get to the scenario, I don't know.
to create a plan, have to have information. And that goes back to, know, Clay didn't just say, well, I just chose Rock Hill because I like the name. Like there were reasons, right? There were reasons that you picked things to create a good patient experience. There are reasons that you build a team and there's reasons that you decided to buy back your time. It's like, wasn't just like, this is what I want to do now. And I, I feel like there's a lot of like decisions being made without a lot of information at hand with like the student and the new doc. That's just kind of something, a trend that I see.
Clay (55:30.573)
Well, don't have the pulse on the schools anymore like you probably do. So don't know what's being fed to them at the higher trimesters to see if they're sort of being challenged in that way. If they're sort of clinically kind of going, I think I want to run my own show. I hope that exposure is better than when we were doing it. Is it not?
Beau Beard (55:47.842)
Yeah, we didn't. Yeah, I had a business guy from University of Missouri that talked about business, not chiropractic business. And then you're like, you get out and you're like, like I got the business award from Logan and like, I didn't know it like that didn't give me anything. Like the plaque sitting in an attic somewhere, like it didn't matter at all. So yeah, I couldn't agree. So like if you have access to, you know, somebody like a clay, whether it's, you know, a chiropractor or not a chiropractor, somebody that's kind of
Clay (56:02.937)
Ha
Beau Beard (56:15.468)
has made it work and they've made it work not just with the focus on profit or not with this like, hey, I just have to have quality at all costs, right? To myself, my family and my community. I think that's somebody you need to tap on the shoulder and whether you got to pay them for their time or they happen to be just a mentor free of charge, you got to find somebody. And I know that you did early on too, right? You had a consultant at the get go and have had mentorship along the way. And yeah, is there anything else that comes to mind in terms of, cause again, the theme is you basically,
Clay (56:25.593)
Mm-hmm.
Clay (56:34.083)
No, I did.
Beau Beard (56:44.718)
You are still, mean, I still put you up there as, you know, super high on clinical competence, you know, a standout, even though you're kind of like, I'm not that high in the rehab game. It's, not about that to me. It's your clinical competence puts you at the center of each patient's care, right? Otherwise you, they wouldn't do that. They wouldn't, you wouldn't earn their trust and think they're poor. So is there any other piece of advice, whether it's business, clinical, this, that, or the other for, know, somebody that's listening, that's trying to be trying to do what you're doing, like trying to give a great patient experience and make
Clay (57:12.697)
Hmm.
Beau Beard (57:14.538)
know, good money in the process.
Clay (57:17.113)
yeah, there's probably a lot to say there. think some of what we've said over the course of hour, but, I think.
patient experience trumps patient outcome, which I didn't understand that 15 years ago, but I think that would be a big takeaway because I think people want to focus on the win being, got them better, I fixed them, it's me, I win. I think it's more like, how do I get them to whatever their goal metric is? And is that include me or not? And being really, really okay. I use an example I had.
referred a guy out for some concerns. had a AAA concern on an x-ray that I had taken years ago. And his GP called me, this was early on in practice, maybe two, that's going to be one year in, or two, three, one year into running my own show. And the GP called me, I'm thinking, or no, the cardiologist called me, thinking, God, I just, you know, like what's happened. And he thanked me and was shocked that we caught that. And you know, those are things that are pretty easy to find actually.
And so not a huge pat on my back, but my point is, is that individual who I did not treat, referred people to me four years before he moved out of the community. so I think some of your biggest wins are some people that you never actually treat. I think that's pretty powerful and it is worth saying out loud. I also think the other big thing that I wish I would have learned a little quicker is.
Beau Beard (58:36.184)
Mm-hmm.
Clay (58:54.041)
try not to focus on the financial costs of the patient. So if you think that their treatment requires X, don't pay attention to the cost. We grew up in the same town, right? So we were in a lower middle-class town, money mattered, everybody pinched pennies, you really paid attention. And I continued to use that sort of analysis throughout my, really forever, but I was...
putting or reflecting my own sort financial opinion on the patient early on, and I thought that was in hindsight wrong to do. They can make their own financial choices if you're, and I don't want a financial choice to create a bias to my clinical choice. And I did that a lot early on. I think we've talked about this before. so that would be my number one, number two. It's like,
I don't give a shit if it costs 10 grand or $100. You shouldn't care. You should say, well, they need this. I provide this. That's it. Now how you communicate that's maybe different based on the individual in front of you. But the reality is, is that shouldn't dictate your care. And if it does, I really think you got to try to rewind that. And I have helped my clinical team with that in particular. And I do think that they've had a lot more.
success with compliance and treatment outcomes because they didn't have to, or they didn't use that as a, I don't know if I would pay for that or I don't know if I could afford that. Well, it doesn't matter if you can afford it. It's what they figure out, what they deem as appropriate and necessary for them. You don't know if that knee injury puts them in a position where they can't work. And if they can't work, they can provide for their family. So they will pay you anything to get that fixed.
So I always say that was a, and not to that you're going to take advantage of that. I'm just saying don't let finances dictate patient care.
Beau Beard (01:00:56.28)
that's what I was gonna say, it plays both ways, which I think it's, know, in maybe some of these management groups, the focus becomes everybody falls into a schema that's based on how many visits because of the dollar amount, which then decreases both the patient experience and the outcomes, in my opinion, probably. And you're just saying, well, it shouldn't be the focus. And if it's not the focus, you're just doing what's best for the patient. And that's, mean, we couldn't end in a better way because...
Clay (01:00:59.202)
Exactly right.
Clay (01:01:09.496)
Right.
Clay (01:01:13.849)
That's right.
Beau Beard (01:01:22.926)
I guarantee you somebody out there listening because it's the internet and people, you know, sometimes suck. Oh, this guy's out here making good money, saying that he can run a fat, you know, crew and could leave now and, all the finances are good. Well, that's not my scenario. And then we would also follow them around for a day and practice. And they may be the person that's either overly concerned with like, Hey, like, you know, we're just going to do three visits. Like, let's just keep this like nice and easy. And that's just because they feel right that that person can't afford it or vice versa. They got coached to sell.
a 10 package cash upfront, you know, $5,000 package or something. And that's just what they're coached into. And both those patients leave feeling one feeling like maybe they were doing the best thing financially, but like, I don't know if that's really going to take care of my problem or not. Right. They're literally lacking confidence because, then the other one's like, this guy just seems like he wants my money, not me to get better. And if you, like I said, I that's easier said than done. I get that, especially like you said, based on where you come from, your own money scenarios throughout life.
Clay (01:02:12.439)
Right. Right.
Beau Beard (01:02:22.038)
Like what a great look into somebody that's been doing it for 16 years has been financially successful. So, you know, literally a beacon, like you mentioned in your community. mean, I know what you've done with Salonese within, you know, Rock Hill and even the surrounding area. So I think you've done it the right way. would, I know that you believe that, or you wouldn't keep doing it this way. And like I said, you may not be, you know, playing this giant social media game. So people may not be able to see behind the scenes a whole lot of what you're doing, but like,
Clay (01:02:51.065)
What mean, me not play social media? No.
Beau Beard (01:02:51.598)
But, you know, I put out a post a couple, about a month ago saying, hey, who would you want to see on this podcast for this upcoming season? And I'm gonna be honest, and maybe some people are just like, boomer. I didn't know half the people that people were mentioning, then I went and looked them up. They just have huge social media following. That does not mean that they're not successful in their clinic or in the real world. But again, you and I aren't,
Old or not old dogs were not new dogs in this game and I feel like I know a lot of people that are pretty successful or clinically competent have married that and I'm not saying if I haven't heard from you doesn't matter but like I just think it's interesting that like all of those people are just social media. So like in a kind of sneaky way it's like you don't need to like you heard a quote the can't remember who the author was that like if you have character you don't need reputation like you're not looking to like get it if you're like yeah I'm good like we're doing a good thing over here we don't need that part of it.
But I also would like Clay to be a resource for people in our community in terms of chiropractic for how he's done it and if you're interested. if you are interested, you can always go through me. I can direct you to Clay, however that is. And then also like go check out what they're doing on Sony's chiropractic's Instagram page, their website. There is some info out there and maybe we can all talk Clay into doing some actual like business consulting here sometime in the next near future before he actually retires and goes off to the beach and has never heard of again.
Clay (01:04:16.729)
Yeah, I'm transitioning to a flip phone so
Beau Beard (01:04:22.51)
And I don't think he's probably joking. So.
Clay (01:04:24.663)
I'm not. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Have them have, whoever I'm, I'm, I'm always open to chat and kind of discuss and, and hopefully this will shed some light and directions or just maybe give people an idea of, know, be real with yourself. Who are you? What are you willing to do or willing to give up or willing to push into? Cause it's not, you know, I, I know very few people that have made it, you know, where you and I are at.
today in just a number of years. think I have never seen that. Not to say that it doesn't exist, but I think people have to sort of expect that there is a little bit of a grind component to progressing through your career and kind of the things you want to do. So like give it some frigging time. Not everything comes Instagram fast, right? So I hope that people can be appreciative of the fact that like the journey's pretty fun.
Beau Beard (01:05:08.568)
Yeah, be patient.
Beau Beard (01:05:13.304)
Yeah, no nuts.
Clay (01:05:18.937)
then it's OK to not be where you want to be today, knowing that hopefully you're there at your 3, 5, 7, 9, et cetera. It takes a little bit of a lifetime.
Beau Beard (01:05:27.426)
Yeah. Good advice, even for me, because I lack patience, like the best of them. So we'll end it with that. So thanks again for doing this, man. It was awesome. Thank you.
Clay (01:05:35.863)
Hey, cheers, bro.
