Good Neighbor Podcast: Union
Bringing Together Local Businesses and Residents of Northern Kentucky! Based in Union, KY....The Good Neighbor Podcast helps the residents of Northern Kentucky get to know local business owners as people. We allow the business owners and influencers in NKY to tell the stories of how they started their business and why. We hear about their families, their personal interests and why they love living in and serving resident of Northern Kentucky!
Good Neighbor Podcast: Union
From Football to Chiropractic Success: Dr. Bob Coppola's Journey of Healing and Entrepreneurship
Join us as Dr. Bob Coppola, the inspiring chiropractor behind All-Star Chiropractic, shares his compelling journey from aspiring law student to successful chiropractor. Discover how a pivotal moment with a distant cousin transformed his career path, ultimately leading to the establishment of four thriving chiropractic locations across Northern Kentucky. Dr. Coppola reveals the challenges and triumphs of building and expanding a practice while emphasizing the significance of posture and ergonomics in daily life. Drawing from his experience as a former college football player, he passionately advocates for drug-free pain management, particularly for athletes. His insights into conservative treatment options offer a fresh perspective for those seeking alternatives to medication and surgery.
In this episode, listeners will also hear touching personal stories of patients who found unexpected relief from chronic pain and migraines through chiropractic care. Dr. Coppola shares anecdotes of skeptics turned believers, illustrating the power of chiropractic adjustments in alleviating tension headaches and reducing migraine frequency. On a personal note, we delve into Dr. Coppola's family life, including heartwarming tales of his college romance with his wife, Colleen, and the joy of watching their children thrive in sports and academics. Plus, we explore their latest entrepreneurial venture—a charming bar boutique in Loveland that marries their love for wine with local charm. This episode promises an engaging blend of professional insights and personal narratives, offering a holistic view of balancing career aspirations with family life.
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, mike Murphy. Thank you, charlie. I am Mike Murphy, host of the Good Neighbor Podcast. We talk to local business owners and influencers so that you can get to know them as people and not just logos on a building or on a business card. And today we have with us not only a good neighbor, but a good guy too. He's somebody who I've known for a little while and I want those of you who don't know him to know him. He is Dr Bob Coppola, all-star Chiropractic. Bob, welcome to the show. Tell people who you are and tell us a little bit about All-Star Chiropractic.
Speaker 2:Sure, mike, thanks for having me on here. Yeah, we started All-Star Chiropractic in 2004, and we've kind of grown since then. We moved down the road about seven or eight years ago, but the first office was in Ellesmere. We moved here to Florence, but since then we opened up three more locations, so right now we are located in Florence, independence, hebron and Covington.
Speaker 1:Okay, do you have plans for a fifth, or are you just kind of like settled into your pocket right now and just rocking and rolling and grooving with the four you got?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean we're pretty happy right now. We have a great group of docs staff. You know that's everyone says nowadays. You know staff's the hardest thing to do and we're pretty fortunate. We have a great staff and all the locations and we're able to kind of hit a lot of northern Kentucky just with our blueprint of where we're located right now.
Speaker 1:um fifth location, I don't know if, if we did, it'd be closer towards the Campbell County side, because that's kind of where we're not at right now okay, I know, as a business owner, you've got you're, you know, never able, able to really shut your brain down and you're always kind of thinking next thing, next thing. But there's something to be said for sitting where you are and doing it right, while you're doing it, there's a lot of things you're into. We'll get around to it. And as far as the other docs go, I think I'd like to talk to them individually at some point, but for today it's all about Dr Bob, as long as you're okay with that, yeah, sure. So how did you get involved in chiropractic?
Speaker 2:um, I had a distant cousin who was a chiropractor and we've talked about it for years actually coming out of high school, I actually thought I was going to do the law school route and then, um, you know, playing football in college. Um, you know a lot of aches and pains. They give you some kind of medication or something just to kind of. You know playing football in college. You know a lot of aches and pains. They give you some kind of medication or something just to kind of you know, take the pain away. I kind of looked at it. As you know, I have a chance to work with athletes, which I love, a chance to work with people which I love, and then I'm able to use more of a drug free method to deliver my care for patients with types of pains like that.
Speaker 1:OK, well, you mentioned UC. You know you were an athlete, I believe you were a receiver when you played football. Is that correct? Yes, sir, yes. So I just picture. I picture receivers coming across the middle and just getting clobbered and kind of being defenseless and your body's kind of taking a beating, so I can understand the pain part of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we played on the old AstroTurf too. That AstroTurf was before they came out with the new stuff. That was tough on the body for sure. Since then you had one of the original Turfs.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, well, you seem to have come through it. Okay. I mean, you look fine, you're walking fine, I hope you feel fine. Good, so you know what percentage of your business comes from people who maybe have suffered an accident or injury, versus people that are just sort of feeling general aches and pains and they don't know what's going on and so they come in to kind of get checked out by you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure, mike, I'd say the majority of our patients more of that cumulative trauma they call it. So sitting at a computer over time and that kind of builds up. We do have our injuries and our accidents and our sports injuries for sure, but I'd say our average patient is that cumulative trauma that you know whether they developed some arthritic condition in their back or neck from sitting, but just posture and posture awareness. Especially with today's society with computers and phones. That's a big part of what we see here and it's not a lot of times it's hard to you know. Tell the patient exactly. They'll say it's not.
Speaker 2:A lot of times it's hard to tell the patient exactly. They'll say what did I do? Well, it's hard to say what you did. Here's what's wrong with you. But what did you do? If I follow you around the last 10 years I could probably tell you what you've been doing. But what you actually did to cause this pain it was just kind of building up over time. Usually it's when the patient kind of throws in the towel and they say all right, you know, advil is not working. Doing nothing's not working. So let's try a conservative approach before I go, try medicine or injections or even surgery.
Speaker 1:Well, daily Advil is no way to go through life. Anyways, yeah, we all, we all know that that's, you know, maybe a temporary thing, but yeah, we're all searching for the whys of why we have that pain and whatnot. For me, I know, um, my wife gets on me because she catches me doing the whole hunched down over my phone thing, you know. So I'm trying to be more conscious and aware of that. I guess we should take a step back, because I realized there might be people out there that really don't understand what chiropractic is. So, in terms of a definition, what is chiropractic?
Speaker 2:Sure, I mean lots of definitions if you would Google it. But to simplify it, I think I mean what we do is alleviate pain, just like if you went to your pain management doctor. We're trying to alleviate pain and improve function and kind of prove what people want to do in life and allow them to be able to do that pain-free. Just the delivery method's different. So if you're going to your medical doctor, the method may be medication or it might be an injection. So I mean, ultimately what chiropractic does is help people function better and with less pain. We just deliver it in different manners.
Speaker 2:So we're using our hands. We're using different therapies, some physical therapy type stuff like massage therapy, dry needling, whether it's exercises and stretches, but I mean chiropractic means effective treatment by hands. So we still want to get back to the root of what we do and use our hands to manipulate the spine and often it's to alleviate the pressure on a nerve. A lot of what people experience is nerve pressure and everything controlled by the body has to go through the spine, because it starts from the brain, comes down through the spinal cord and then exits at different, various levels in the spine. For example, if it's the lower cervical, the neck area that's going to control more of the arms, versus the lumbar spine. If someone's having radiating leg pain, pain shooting down their leg, it's likely coming from the lumbar spine. If someone's having a radiating leg pain, pain shooting down their leg, it's likely coming from the lumbar spine. So everything we do influences and affects the way the nerves travel to the body.
Speaker 1:Okay, so everybody really is different. You have to look at every case individually and figure out what's unique about that particular person and do a treatment plan for them specifically. Is that correct?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's probably my favorite part of the job. It's not, yeah, it's redundant in the fact that we treat pain, but no case is the same and I get to deal with people different ages, different causes of their injury, and that's I think that's probably the best part of my job, and just it keeps me active every day. Every day is different and that's what I love about it.
Speaker 1:So I I'm known to go down different YouTube rabbit holes. One that I've traveled down quite a bit is I get caught up watching chiropractors adjust people excuse me and I see the look on their faces. I see, you know, the quick movement, the cracking of the neck and the cracking of the back and all that stuff. And I say to myself, what's stopping a doc from snapping the neck of somebody Because it sounds violent? But I want you to put my mind at ease that that's not going to happen.
Speaker 2:Sure. So I'd say well for one in that term cracking the people saying crack my neck, doc. I mean we're not cracking anything. So we're actually moving the spine in a way that, yeah, you might get that popping sound. That popping sound really doesn't have to happen for us to accomplish what we're trying to do. But in essence he said ease your mind.
Speaker 2:So I heard a story once, a long time ago. I was at a seminar and the guy said he's talking to a medical doctor and he said why would I refer to you if you guys, what you do is it safe? Then he asked him he goes doctor and he said you know why would I refer to you if you guys, what you do is it's safe? Then he asked him he goes what do you think I pay in malpractice premiums? And the guy was you know, 50, 000, 60, 000 and it's considerably lower than that, to the point where when I tell people that they they're like you kidding me that's all you pay. So if the insurance companies think what we're doing is safe, then that's a pretty good indicator that what we're doing is safe. Now, there's risks to everything. There's risks with medication, with injections, with physical therapy, with exercises. But as far as our risk, it's so low that the insurance companies don't even charge us a lot to insure us.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, let's see If people want to come to you. One question I'm sure that they probably have is do you accept insurance, do you? I assume you do, and maybe you also help people that don't have insurance.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of chiropractors that don't accept insurance at all.
Speaker 2:A lot of times and I don't know this I'm not going to put words in their mouth but I think they either aren't happy with the insurance company, how they work with them, how they reimburse them To me. We're in an area where we're an insurance-heavy area and a lot of people are insured here and I feel like people want to use their insurance. So if we didn't take it just to put myself as an example I pay my insurance premiums. I want to go to a doctor that accepts my insurance. So we accept all health insurance, which is good. I'd say about only 10 to 15 percent of our patients that see us don't have insurance and we have affordable rates, which is very similar to what they would pay if they would use their insurance. So we try to keep that at an affordable rate because a lot of times people they're in between jobs so they have to go through or not go through insurance for a small period of time. So we try to be affordable that way for sure.
Speaker 1:So have you ever adjusted somebody and made their pain go away? And it's just like profoundly life-changing for them. Made their pain go away and it's just like profoundly life-changing for them. Do people get emotional? Do people cry, Do people like do you have a like, a like, a really cool, great story around that too? Like, I assume you have some really good stories.
Speaker 2:You mind sharing one of them? Yeah, I mean just just the other day. The patients I love the most are the ones that they're kind of skeptical and they don't quite understand or think that we're going to help them or they think it's going to be the kind of traditional thought behind chiropractic oh if I see you, I have to go see you every day forever. And then they come in and they get this amount of relief. They get right away. It's not necessarily crying but they're very grateful and I have people leave in the office and they say I tell everyone about you, dr Bob, like you're the only one that can help me. And that's the kind of stuff we love.
Speaker 2:But that initial patient, that skeptical one that is unsure if we're going to be able to help them, like even today. I had a new patient today and she got up and she's like I don't think she expected to feel much better after just the first treatment and she stood up and she kind of shook her body around. She's like she did what hurt before she got there. It hurt when she looked down and she was able to do that. She's like okay, there's no pain with that. So not necessarily an emotional response. Obviously you get your ones where you know they've had pain for 25 years. Those tend to be more of the emotional ones where they just they tried everything but I say, no, you didn't try everything or you wouldn't be here. So they come in and they're seeing us and I think that's more the ones where they're even so surprised that they get a little emotional sometimes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, somebody being in pain for 25 years. I can't even fathom that. I'm sure that those situations exist for a lot of reasons. But boy oh boy, I would have thought that you know, somewhere along the line they would have found relief somewhere.
Speaker 2:But I guess, yeah, I had a patient once had headaches every day for years, every single day, and it took several months with us, because I kind of tell people, the longer you wait, the longer it takes. So if you have pain for a longer period of time or headaches for a longer period of time, that's going to take a little longer, in my opinion, to fix it, just based on experience. But we got her to completely headache free and that was probably the most emotional patient ever was because she thought she's just going to suffer for headaches for the rest of her life.
Speaker 1:Wow. Well, there's nothing fun about headaches. I'm one of those people. Thank God I might get a headache one headache a year, if that. I have a son who suffers from migraines quite often. So somebody who suffers from migraines a lot, are they a candidate for a chiropractor to come in and just sort of maybe see what's going on? See what's going on.
Speaker 2:I mean it's definitely an option for people because usually with migraines, people that suffer from migraines usually suffer from tension headaches as well, and chiropractic does really well with tension headaches. So a lot of times if they get 10 headaches a month, three of those might be that migraine vascular type headache. Well, seven of those are tension. So I fixed seven other headaches and all of a sudden now I look like I cured your migraines. But really I think we're helping those ones that are related to the tension. Sometimes as a result of the migraine can lead to that tension, but we're definitely able to reduce those amount of headaches for sure.
Speaker 1:Okay, so pivoting here for a moment, I've met members of your family and I want to talk about family for a little bit. I've met members of your family and I want to talk about family for a little bit your wife Colleen. I've met her out and about a couple of places and you guys have been married for quite a while. I think it's 22 years now, right.
Speaker 2:Yep 22 years. It's past August yeah.
Speaker 1:How did you meet Colleen?
Speaker 2:It's funny. So, playing football at Cincinnati she was actually on the dance team. So we met there in the training room and, like I brought up why I went to chiropractic school being in the training room, but we met there for, like our postseason physicals and that's kind of how we met and really we've been together ever since. That was like 1998, I believe. Okay, yeah, it's been a long time.
Speaker 1:So that story is still being written year by year, and with that story comes kids.
Speaker 2:Your daughter, olivia, I know she's a gymnast at the University of Illinois, correct? Yes, yes, she's a sophomore there getting ready for second season, which starts in January.
Speaker 1:Okay, so how has she adapted to being further away and how have you adapted to having her be so far away?
Speaker 2:She's doing great. She's very strong-willed, independent, does well, even since a little kid. I always use a story like if the Home Alone movie if we ever left her home accidentally when she was a kid, she'd go to Kroger. She'd get everything she needed to cook something and she would do everything she needed to do to survive. And that's kind of her mentality and her independence. In college we're three and a half hours away, so we definitely see her more during season. I think she likes being three and a half hours away. Just for the recruiting process, I mean, we looked at schools as far as the state of Washington. So I think she's kind of now sinking in and she's like, okay, you know, this is a lot better than having to fly five hours and not be able to come home and a lot of times her and my wife, they'll meet in Indianapolis, which is a nice little meeting point to get her off campus and to get them together a little bit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Far enough away to be far away, but close enough to be close. Yeah, that makes sense. And then the youngest Anthony. He's still at Ryle, correct?
Speaker 2:Yeah, he's a junior at Ryle right now Baseball basketball for him.
Speaker 1:All right.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I see on occasion photos of him on social media, you know, during games and whatnot. So he seems to be rocking the world.
Speaker 2:Basketball season just kind of kicked in, for practice-wise, season will start after Thanksgiving. I think he would love to play baseball at the next level Basketball, I mean, he loves it. He's on the shorter side but he's a point guard, so as far as being able to excel at the next level, I think he really likes baseball and plays on a really competitive summer team and Ryle's team did really well last year too and made it to state and won a few games there, so that was great.
Speaker 1:So, since we're on personal topics, there's one thing I want to touch on that we won't get too deep into it, because I want to save it for a separate podcast, sure, and that is you guys have opened up a new venture up in the Loveland area, correct?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, we started. It's a bar boutique, if you will, but it's. My wife had a dream her whole life. She wanted to own her own boutique and we had an opportunity to take over a space in the downtown Loveland area, kind of in the square kind of. I always wanted to have my own wine bar, so this this kind of worked out to be both. So we have a boutique with a wine bar in there.
Speaker 2:So she kind of runs the boutique side I kind of run from afar. The wine side and the planning for it. I'm up there every once in a while and it's, it's fun. I call it my fun job. But then I say you know what, my chiropractic job is also my fun job. So it's hard to say one versus the other. But my fun job. So it's hard to say one versus the other, but kind of more of a passion project we called it. My daughter's name is Olivia Rose and my wife always wanted to open a boutique called Olivia Rose and this kind of made sense where Rose means love, we're in Loveland. Rose is a type of wine, so we came up with Rose Boutique and Wine Bar.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, nice, I still haven't been up there, but just because I'm busy, but I'm going to make time. So you're telling me, colleen, does she go up there every day?
Speaker 2:No, I'd say sometimes it's three or four days a week, sometimes it's two. I mean, we have a great staff up there as well and I think, just as far as owning a business and running a business, it doesn't really matter what type of business it is. If you know how to recruit good staff, you know how to do day-to-day operations of a business. So it's kind of a seamless transition. I mean, obviously we're learning a little bit of a new industry as far as retail and wine bar, but as far as just managing the business, I have 20 years experience doing that here and, like I said, we have great staff up there and we're about a 45 minute drive, so that's a little bit of a could be an issue, but a lot of our staff lives five minutes away.
Speaker 1:So that's really helpful and it's a beautiful area.
Speaker 2:I mean, that's an area that people like to go to and it's oh, I call it a Hallmark town. It's a Hallmark movie?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it does. It looks like a postcard, all right, well, I promise to make the trek up there.
Speaker 2:It's fun. We'd love to have you there. Yeah, I like telling people I'll take them on a wine journey. It's a lot of fun.
Speaker 1:And your basement at home is pretty cool too, so that's another place I have to. Yeah, we'll do the next podcast there? Oh, I would love that. I would love that. Okay, yeah, we'll just have to get the business handled before we get into any sort of bourbon or wine, but I'll take you up on it. Well, where, why, when, how you are, and I appreciate you taking time to sit with us and kind of giving us an understanding of where you've been, where you are and where you're going.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thanks for having me. I mean, this is always. I like telling the story, I like spreading the word about not even all-star chiropractic, but the chiropractic in general. Spreading the word about not even all-star chiropractic, but the chiropractic in general, because I think a couple of years ago I looked into the percentage of subscribers for a particular insurance company who use their chiropractic benefits and it was 9%. So if that would translate over to other insurance companies, which would translate over to just the population in general, I'd say it's less than 9% seek chiropractic care or use their benefits for chiropractic care. So I think by spreading the word about just chiropractic in general is going to help the profession, it's going to help our offices, it's going to help people find maybe an alternative to what they've been doing, to help with what they're going through.
Speaker 1:Well, you're not only doing the physical, doing the physical adjustments, you know the hands-on stuff, but education is a huge part of what you do. So I think, yeah, there's a lot of questions.
Speaker 2:People have a lot of questions and being able to kind of articulate an answer that they could understand in a way that affects them. They don't really care about the science behind it. They want to know hey, it hurts when I swing a golf club and I need to golf, so what can we do to fix that and why do I have pain? That's what they want to know.
Speaker 1:Okay. Well, there's plenty of questions people have. You never know what questions they have until they ask them and there's plenty of education to share. So I think you and I will sit down on occasion and do future podcasts and, just you know, educate little by little, share your expertise with the community, and I thank you for sitting with us today and knocking out podcast number one.
Speaker 2:I appreciate it, mike. Yeah, thanks for having me on, and anytime I'd love to do another one.
Speaker 1:Thanks, dr Bob. So to the listeners out there I say, um, we can't wait to see you again next time. Until then, everybody be good to your neighbors so long everybody. Thanks for listening to the good neighbor podcast union.
Speaker 2:to nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to gnpunioncom. That's gnpunioncom, or call us at 859-651-8330.