Overrated Career: Chiropractor

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