Four Things Chiropractors Do Better Than Physiotherapists

*Disclaimer- This post is not a commentary on the efficacy or ethics of either chiropractic or physiotherapy treatments. Neither is it intended to incite conflict between the professions.

Regardless of your thoughts about over servicing, prepayments and the safety of repeated end-range, high velocity cervical manipulations- the chiropractic community have embraced certain aspects of their private practice better than physiotherapists. Here are four that stand out.

1. Understanding that education of the public is the best and most ethical form of marketing.

As a child, I knew good posture was important and that taking care of your spine was an investment in your future. How did I know this? My parent's chiropractor had educational videos running in their waiting room and sent out regular newsletters. This was in the 90's. Physiotherapists are now just getting into blogging and videos while chiropractors have been embracing this for well over thirty years. The messages were so effective, I can still remember them. I've heard the stories of practitioners scaring patients into treatments through threats of ending up in a wheelchair (Incidentally, I've heard first hand stories of physiotherapists saying similar things to patients too). Fear-mongering does not count as education, but education is where we should all be looking first and foremost. Not to say how much better we are than the physios down the street, but how physiotherapy can help the community as a whole. If we were doing this right, people wouldn't be continually asking "so you do massage, right?".

It doesn't matter if you outsource this and are sending the same message as the clinic down the street. The important thing is that more of the public know what physiotherapy can do for them.

2. On that note, chiropractors know they are not competing with each other.

Our biggest barrier to success is not the clinic down the road. To compete with them as our primary objective is to simply shuffle patients already seeking physiotherapy from one clinic to another. The greatest challenge and potential benefit to physiotherapists is mobilising the public who are not receiving care and could really use it.

Search engine rankings are a basic criteria to being found and in a sense are the one area where you are directly competing with other clinics, but beyond that your marketing should be towards uplifting the physiotherapy profession, not elevating yourself by dragging other therapists down. Perhaps this is because chiropractors have historically been at odds with the medical profession and many times have had to fight for survival, they know their existence depends on being unified as a group.

This is not to say that we shouldn't be holding each other to a higher standard clinically. Challenging ourselves to be more critical of ourselves as a whole should be a unifying process, this could mean banding together with local clinics to explore these issues - not reporting each other to the board for minor advertising infractions.

If you're not sure what I mean about holding each other to a higher clinical standard, then you probably haven't read any of Adam Meakin's blogs yet. (Available here)

3. They have embraced private practice as a necessity to providing care and are not afraid of business and profits.

Part of the stigma that exists in physiotherapy around marketing and feeling uneasy with being 'salesy' comes from the fact that we are divided into public and private sectors and most of our university training is geared towards public health with private practice mentioned as a kind of 'other' that you might one day be part of. This division doesn't exist for chiropractors and the only way for them to provide their services is in the private forum, so it's ok to want to be good at it. Unprofitable businesses cannot afford to operate for long and create a stressful environment for employees, particularly those on commission payments. Profitable businesses allow business owners to step back from the treatment room and provide mentorship and guidance to junior physiotherapists, sharing their knowledge rather than leaving junior therapists to their own devices. Profitable businesses can also afford to pay staff properly, providing stable income, regular CPD, sick and holiday pay to their employees and increase staff retention.

4. They're not afraid to focus on maintenance and prevention.

Over-servicing..... It's a touchy subject (Here's a blog about that topic). I'm not saying I agree with 6 months of prepaid treatment, I don't and I'd be surprised if the majority of chiropractors approved of that. There are questionable practices that arise from all industries if the right person meets the right incentives. However it sometimes seems physiotherapists are so worried about overtreating, they miss the big picture. In health it is commonly stated that prevention is better than the cure and physiotherapists are well placed help people to manage their pain in a proactive rather than reactive way, yet it's not a primary practice in physiotherapy. If we could use our skills to help patients stay healthier for longer or avoid injury altogether, this would be a nobel aspiration.