I’m Dr. Frank Sovinsky.  Welcome to another episode and DC Mentors V-blog.

I’m continuing my conversation with Dr. Nathan Unruh because we have so many topics, you being an author, you being involved in leadership in your chiropractic association, I mean not just leadership as a word, you know, we’re all leaders and we’re all servants in our practices but you’ve taken it and kind of gone nuts with it because that’s how you think.  You think on the level, “I’m here to serve, put me in coach.”

I think you have, not only from your physical stature, but from the stature of the things you’ve accomplished already in your career.  You have a positioning point where you can look through the woods and you can say, “Here’s what I see coming,” and earlier you said you want to protect the chiropractic profession.  On the topic of this home health thing, what do you want to teach us?

Dr. Unruh – Over the last few years we’ve been seeing a lot of things changing.  Up to this point, in my chiropractic practice, we’ve been a heavy insurance based model, but we’re seeing deductibles are going up, the fees for services are being reimbursed lower or not being reimbursed at all.  Patient visits are being limited.  The insurance companies, they have to change their model because of what’s coming down the pipe from the Government.

Dr. Sovinsky –   So, I’ve never heard anybody express that from the insurance company’s point of view because everybody usually thinks insurance is bad and chiropractic practice is good.  So when you say insurance has to change their model you really got my attention.  What do you mean?

Dr. Unruh – Well with the current environment, with what’s going on here in the United States, this idea about the “medical home” will dramatically affect who’s making the decisions, who’s making the decisions for the patient’s care, who’s also going to be paying it and how’s that money going to get disbursed?

Dr. Sovinsky – Back up just a second.   I just hear people thinking, “OK, I got a medical home.”  That’s a metaphor for an organization that’s going to be delivering healthcare.  Is that how you would describe it?  It’s not a home, people are not in the same physical proximity, correct?

Dr. Unruh – Correct.  Within the “medical home” there are a number of people who are going to be invited to play within this “home.”  They’re not going to be physically all in one area.  It’s like a mini mall.  Are you going to be involved in that or not?  And I’m going to be the guy who’s going to decide whether or not you are.  And right now we don’t know, as chiropractors, if we are going to be invited to that mini mall, if you will.  So I think there’s some work to be done if we’re going to be included.  But as I looked at that and I looked at the insurance companies and what’s being changed, the models changing, whether or not we like it.  So versus having to make a decision in a state of duress I started looking around and tried to be strategic and that’s what brought me to DC Mentorsand looking at the model you guys teach.  You coach and mentor chiropractors  to build their practices to be viable no matter what happens with insurance.

Dr. Sovinsky  – Nice.  In Michael Gerber’s book, “The Most Successful Small Businesses in the World,” one of the principles in there is that it’s our duty, as a small business owner and as a leader with stakeholders, to make our businesses viable in all economic environments.  So the inside I hear today is protecting the chiropractic profession by saying to everybody,  “Really, wake up.”  This is not like scare tactics. I’ve never been about scaring anyone.  We’ve been talking about this model, we teach this model because that’s how we practice(d).   It’s the model of being viable, of being able to exist as a small business owner, sensitive to the reimbursement model, but not dependent upon it.

Dr. Unruh – And regarding the scare component, Chiropractors are scared.  What’s going to happen to my practice?

Get a look at it with a bright light on it and be very optimistic.  It could be a very good thing for our profession.

Dr. Sovinsky – I want to actually have you give me evidence as to why you think that.  I know you’ve been thinking about it, but I’m going to carry that in another conversation.

Dr. Unruh – Great.