Overrated Career: Chiropractor

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I wish I would have read articles like this before my wife and I both went to chiro school. Now $400,000 later, we are screwed.

Baker DC of KY 2:31PM May 07, 2012

I love reading things like this because it's always the first year chiropractors that claim they are doing so well and their practice is continuously growing. Well, come to me in a few years when you plateau and your on sites like this complaining like all the other chiropractors that have been practicing for more than 5 years. The problem we have is that there are too many scam artist out there running unethical practices chasing ambulances and fails claim filing to make money. After being in practice for 11 years and seeing my best years are behind me financially I look at first year docs and feel bad for them when they hit a low point like I and many others have. Especially when you decide to buy an establishe doc who is retiring and after 3 years decides he/she wants to start practicing again and you can't do anything legally to stop them. For me, he decided to open 2 miles down the road from me and begin to solicited old patients when he sees them out at a local restaurant or at Walmart. Pretty sad! I paid good money and I am in a lot of debt just to see my practice go from seeing 100-125 patients in 3 days a week to 40 patients in 4 days a week at best. Oh, and by the way I am in an area where medical doctors work with chiros frequently. Also let's just for the heck of it add the fact that average insurance payment per visit is about $58 for major medical insurance and about $35 a visit for Medicare and medicaide. On average I have seen less and less reimbursement and realisticly the chiros that are wealthy now are the ones that practiced in the 80's and have invested well over the years. So if you ask me after practicing 11 years and not finding myself in any better financial shape then I was when I was in school, it really isn't worth it. I am just upset because in school and by the doctor I bought my practice from always said, be honest and work hard and you will succeed. Well, come to find out, like another good business model, the right marketing will get you the riches. The only problem with that is that it is getting much more difficult for chiropractors to market themselves legally these days. So if I could talk to anyone thinking of becoming a chiropractor I would say, be ready to work hard for little financial gain and limit the amount of money you borrow to get into this profession because it is not what the big schools make it out to be. Also don't listen to how great it was when your professors were in practice because there is a reason they don't practice any more and they are teaching. It's because they were not successful in practice and they can make more money teaching.

Dr. John of MA 8:20PM May 06, 2012

Hey Dr.Joe of FL, If chiropractic is such a great career why do they have the highest student loan default rate of any health care profession? Why are Chiropractic Colleges going out of business (Cleveland in LA & probably Life West will be next)? Anyone considering going to Chiropractic should google & read Greg Stanley's article "The Sustainability of Chiropractic"! They can also google & read "A warning for Pre-Chiropractic student's" by Willam Lattanze, D.C. (now a Medical Doctor.

Jack of TX 1:36PM March 30, 2012

A successful Chiropractic clinic takes more than good skills and results. Due to minimal referrals from other Health care professionals ,you must ,absolutely must be a good promoter of your services and continually reinvent yourself to find niches in the market and to continue to learn new techniques.
Its quite amusing to see people blame a profession for their failure. I fully understand the difficulties of starting and running a successful Chiropractic clinic as I have done so 6 times over the past five years( having multiple locations at times).
Also realizing that it is more competitive as ever ,however I think the person entering Chiropractic should have fully investigated the pros and cons of the profession and not go in blindly to waste time and 100k dollars in education. The grass is always greener on the other side.. If you wanted security you could have dedicate 12+ years of education (if you were accepted) in a Medical school to be a specialist..Are they really happy??
Why dont you ask a General practitioner if there happy with the financial rewards of their labor.. or hundreds of other professionals in various industries.
I truly believe the same people that fail in Chiropractic are the same people that would fail in any field that requires them to wear many hats at one time i.e. small businesses. The day of things being handed to you are over .Its time to work for a living my friend

Dr Joe of FL 2:05PM March 10, 2012

A successful Chiropractic clinic takes more than goof skills and results. Due to minimal referrals from other Health care professionals ,you must ,absolutely must be a good promoter of your services and continually reinvent yourself to find niches in the market and to continue to learn new techniques.
Its quite amusing to see people blame a profession for there failure. I fully understand the difficulties of starting and running a successful Chiropractic clinic as I have done so 6 times over the past five years( having multiple locations at times).
Also realizing that it is more competitive as ever ,however I think the person entering Chiropractor should have fully investigated the pros and cons of the profession and not go in blindly to waste time and 100k dollars in education. The grass is always greener on the other side.. If you wanted security you could have dedicate 12 years of education (if you were accepted) in a Medical school to be a specialist..
Why dont you ask a General practitioner if there happy with the finanancial rewards of their labor.. or hundreds of other professionals in various industries.
I truly believe the same people that fail in Chiropractic are the same people that would fail in any field that requires them to wear many hats at one time i.e. small businesses. The day of things being handed to yopu are over .Its time to work for your rewards .......

Dr Joe of FL 2:02PM March 10, 2012

If you want to sit around and wait all day for patients to hopefully show for there visit then yes go to chiropractic college. Worst profession out there. We're the bottom feeders..the profession will chew you up and spit you out. Anything involved with chiropractic is pure garbage...absolute gabage...

Slightly Stoopid of NY 12:32PM March 05, 2012

Very interesting article. It would be great if you waited until 2009 to see who consumer reports rated the best for treating back pain. Please check scienitific based research before you write these defaming articles. Chiropractic is the best for treating neck and back pain in all recent studies. Also, I was a 3.9 college student who wanted to be a Doctor of Chiropractic. I do earn 15-20 times the amount you posted. Maybe, interview a happy working Doctor of Chiropractic before defaming an entire profession. I always loved US News before reading thus article.

Dr Brad Bárez, DC of CA 10:47PM February 08, 2012

I just graduated. Today I applied to Academy Sports and Outdoors because I can make more money there than I can working in Chiropractic. The education is complete crap. I have an undergraduate degree from a real University and I was absolutely appalled by what was taking place. Students had copies of all the tests we took and the cheating was absolutely out of control. When I see people saying Chiro school is equivalent to Medical School, you have got to be kidding me. Oh, and any education before chiro school was rare. 3 years of chiro school makes you a Dr, ok?? What did I learn in Chiropractic school, still trying to figure that out, all I really remember is love everyone and fake it till you make it, ok, whatever that means. But this awesome idea cost me almost 200,000 dollars and like I said, today I applied to Academy. I took a position but quickly quit because I was being paid 12.50/hour for a 30 hour work week. Really, thats like 9 dollars an hour for a 40 hour work week. 7 years of college education and 200,000 dollars later and this is what I get. A title, and 9 bucks an hour. Not to mention all the frivolous charges that were being made that I couldnt associate myself with. Is it common in the real world to take cervical x-rays on all your sciatica patients? This is just the tip of the iceberg of all the fraud that was taking place in this office. What did I learn from this experience, if you want to make it in Chiropractic, rape peoples' insurance for all it is worth. Is that how some of you are making all that money. Great, but how am I, a new graduate supposed to get paid by insurance, thanks for ruining it for those of us with ethics. Tell me again that Chiropractors dont eat their young, yeah right, and the leaders of this profession might be the worst at it. Just take a look at what kind of cars and lavish lifestyles some of the leaders of this profession are living, at the students expense. In school we were told that only about 30% of graduates practice and this makes sense because about 30% of my class was either corrupt enough or had loaded parents that are going to take care of them and their practice financially. My experience with Chiropractic thus far has been horrible, but I am not giving up so dont call me a loser or a failure because I am going to try and make it. I dont have loaded parents and my ethics are intact so wish me luck, but with tight budgeting and close assistance working with a banker I hope to be able to open my own practice within a year or two. This profession needs to grow up, get organized, and stop calling stuff that ISNT chiropractic, chiropractic. I would never recommend someone go to chiropractic school and I hope to make some serious changes to this profession once I get going. Alot of you will not like what I have to say but I dont care because whats taking place now, from school to practice is severly messed up.

What a joke of ID 10:12PM February 07, 2012

I am a formerly practicing DC and currently in the military. As such, I travel around the country fairly often. I make it a point to visit a few chiropractic offices whenever I go somewhere. I will say that the vast majority of the offices I've been in are struggling at best. As chiropractors we tend to lie to eachother about how well practice is going, specifically how well we are being paid by ourselves. No one wants to be seen as a failure. My intent on visiting offices is two-fold: 1) get adjusted and 2) see the status of the profession across the country. Nearly every time I go into an office and ask how practice is going I get an answer something like, "It's doing pretty good." Then they start asking me about what I do and how much I make. Since I am in the military my pay is public record (with a little knowledge of my rank, how long I've been in and any extra pay I receive)" In short, when I tell them I make about $93K /yr their tone changes and the truth starts to come out. As a way to treat people, chiropractic is a fantastic method. But, as a profession it is still imature and stuck in the past. When practicing chiropractors and the "primarily self-proclaimed" leadership in chiropractic can't agree on what the profession is about, how can the public, government(s) or insurance companies?
There are some out there that are dong very well. Their ability to do well is certainly not based on their abilities as a chiropractor (completely different topic). It would appear that one's success is based on their ability to market their practice and the economy in the area in which the practice is located.
I will also say that while I practiced I provided coverage for well over 25 offices in a major city. I was appalled at some of the things I saw in some of those offices in order to get reimbursed. I saw my notes changed to bill for services I didn't perform (but the bill it anyway), front office staff asking me to sign super-bills indicating work that wasn't performed (but a standard item billed), no notes at all unless requested for - in which cae the DC would sit down and make-up the information based on the days the patient had been seen according to billing records. I was asked at one office to change the notes of the MD/PA to match what the DC office had as diagnosis and to include statements (from the MD) to recommend continuation of chiropractic treatments (PI cases).
I still feel that chiropractic has great potenetial, but only if as a profession we are able to come together. CAN'T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG?

DC MILITARY OFF of AZ 12:19PM January 31, 2012

Jim of MO...you "paid your own way through" in the 70's when it was very economical, even with inflation considered. You practiced in the 70's and 80's when reimbursements were good. You had circumstances that were different than they are now. Each of us has our own set of circumstances and our lives are all unique - thank goodness! Please step down off of the platform on which you are standing in judgement of those of us who are "recent" graduates and are trying hard to figure out how to hold on to our dream of helping people while making a decent living, pay off the debt, etc. I take responsibility for the choice to go to school and for the loans and the debt. I am not asking anyone for pity. I can only say that I know multiple chiropractors who graduated in 2008/2009 who have and are still seriously struggling to find their way and build their businesses (whether cash, insurance, traditional, nutrition, acupuncture or other types of practice) and can barely pay the bills but who are good, well-trained, genuine doctors with patients who love them whom they have helped significantly (myself included). I also know equally as many who are doing well. Though, I will say there seems to be a demarkation somewhere around 2006 - after that, graduates seem to be having more issues than those who came before. Even still, some from before are struggling too. I am not sure I would make the same choice over again, but if it is the only way I would have met my husband and the wonderful friends I have now, I would. Is this what I will do for the rest of my career? Probably always at least on a part-time basis because I enjoy it and if my efforts pay off, then full-time. But Jim, we live in a world requiring financial solvency and, being in my late 30's with $150K plus in student loans and a family to consider, I have to make the choices that are best for me. It is good for you to be in the position you are in - just please be careful about passing judgement. It is impossible to know someone else's life enough to do so with accuracy.
I have helped many and take to heart the well-being of each of my patients. Where I am at this moment is not where I thought I would be at this point. I work every day to move forward in my life. I think anyone going into healthcare right now is likely aware of the questionability of the entire picture/future. My husband is a chiropractor who believes whole heartedly in chiropractic and is a wonderful doctor and is currently back in school full-time (while still practicing) to become a PA. He is excited about that and and I am happy for him. People don't usually pursue careers in healthcare only because of money - we want to help people have good health so they can be happy - it is the same as what we want for ourselves and our loved ones! It is just difficult to know what to do when you are working hard and not seeing results. I wish great success for anyone with a good heart, good business practices, intelligence & intuition.

M.W. of MO 11:13PM January 28, 2012