EP38: The 7 Numbers Quietly Running Your Practice

Most chiropractors are working hard.
 Seeing patients. Staying busy. Hitting the surface-level numbers.

But underneath all of that, there are a handful of numbers quietly shaping everything.

In this episode, I walk through the 7 numbers most chiropractors aren’t tracking, not because they don’t care, but because no one ever showed them where to look.

These numbers reveal:
 • Where growth is leaking
 • Why retention feels harder than it should
 • How patient experience actually breaks down
 • And where clarity creates momentum

This isn’t about more hustle or more marketing.
 It’s about visibility.

If you’ve ever felt like your practice is busy but not moving the way you want, this conversation will help you see your business differently and make decisions with confidence heading into 2026.

Listen in, reflect honestly, and decide what you want to run differently next year.

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Transcript

0:00

This is the Austin Cohen Podcast where we talk real strategies for chiropractors ready to grow beyond the adjustment. If you're building a business, developing your leadership, and trying to build wealth without burning out, you are in the right place. Let's get to work What's up everybody? Hey, how do we like that intro by the way? That's always something I think about. I'm like, man, every time I start this darn thing, it's always, what's up everybody? So you guys like it, you don't like it? Lemme know. I'd be interested to know that I we are two weeks away from the new year. Crazy to think about guys. Oh my gosh. Yeah, there's just so much that's been going through my brain. I can tell you what today I'm gonna talk about essentially what a good CEO would do at the end of the year. And I can tell you right now what I'm really focusing on is my goals are done. Those were done back in October, November. Right now I'm really trying to think of like my word for 2026 and what's been landing for me. So this year, 2025, my word was clarity. It was the theme of our company retreat in November. It was also really where I put a lot of intention and energy into, and that's why one of my mindsets going into 2026 is contract to expand. If something doesn't serve me or it's an energy vampire, whether that's a person, whether that's a clinic, whether that's a technology, whatever it is, eliminate that in order to expand my life. And so that's really where I'm going to personally for 2026. But my word was clarity, and I got a lot of that this year. And I wanted to give that to my team too, as well. And that's how we built our company retreat, and that's how we did all of our regional days. And that's how we did our, a lot of our Slack communication. That's how we've done a lot of our growth call. Everything's been about clarity, right? Creating clarity for my team, my company, and we've done a lot of exercises recently to work on that, like defining roles and responsibilities, defining KPIs, defining the ideal schedule. Clarity clarity. As we move into 2026. Now though, my mantra is all about impact. Okay, impact for my empire clients impact for my corrective chiropractic team and family impact for my CHI 180 clients. I wanna see so much impact in 2026 and my, where I go to is, alright, if I wanna create impact, what does that have to look like? So we kind of beginning with the end in mind, which for those that have been listening to this podcast long enough know that's how I operate. So it's just some, just giving you guys some ideas and some mindset, and hopefully you guys get my newsletter. Every, I send out every week. If you don't go to my Instagram page, it's just Dr. Austin Cohen. And under the links you can subscribe to my free newsletter that goes out every Friday, which is called Present Joys and Best Practices. But yeah, that's where my brain is at right now. And as we get close, oh, and here's this too, by the way, guys. I put together the first two presentations already for Growth Summit. They are done. The presentation is done. The content is done. Wow. Wow. That's all I can say is you will be mind blown after the first afternoon of Growth Summit. And it's interesting. It's like the concepts I talk about, it's every time I go to different chiropractic, this is why I did Growth Summit at the beginning in 2024, I did Growth Summit because I was so frustrated with every single thing I went to. I was either listening to people who aren't in practice anymore. Or I was listening to the same thing over and over again. Yeah. It was rah and I felt good when I left, but nothing tangible happened from that event. I didn't grow. Yeah, maybe I grew in my mindset for 60 days or 30 days, but there was no strategy. There was no system implemented. Like there, there wasn't anything that I walked away with or there was a tangible asset of growth. And it's sad because there's so many chiropractors right now whose clinics that have reached out to me and they want me to buy their clinics. But I can't buy it because they don't have clinics. They have jobs and that's fine because it's a good lifestyle business. But it's like they spent 40 years and they were probably gonna the same rah conferences and rah seminars and at the end of it all there, there's no value in this thing. They're either paper visit offices, they're either heavily dependent on insurance. There's no recurring revenue. It's dependent on one doctor. It's sad. It's really sad. Anyways, at the end of the day, that's why Growth Summit was built. And the stuff we're gonna be talking about is stuff that just, I know is not talked about in chiropractic right now. So really excited to do that. But anyways, the first two presentations are done. And it's gonna be yeah, I don't even know why I'm talking about because it's sold out already, but it's something that I know is gonna be really awesome. And so I can't wait to share that with all of you guys again. But let's talk about today, because here's something I'm noticing every single December most chiropractors I'm talking to. Are pretty tired right now. Not burned out. Not checked out. They're tired from working hard and still feeling unsure. They're busy, their schedules are full. Patients are coming in, but there is this quiet question by the way that's sitting in the background. Why does growth still feel harder than it should? I hear this all the time from my clinicians KI 80 clients, empire clients. This year though, I watched something different happen. I watched a group of clinics slow down. At the end of the year, not to coast, but to look. And what happened was they weren't really guessing anymore, and they weren't relying on gut feelings. But what they were doing is pulling numbers that most clinics never saw. And what stood out to me was this, the problem isn't the effort, but it's the visibility into the practice. So most chiropractors they're tracking activity, new patients visits, weekly visits, collections. Okay, great. Important numbers for sure. But they don't tell the full story. And what they don't show you is where growth is leaking and where belief systems are actually breaking down and where you can have that opportunity quietly sitting. So what I wanna walk through today are the numbers that most clinics are not tracking. Not because they don't care, just because no one ever taught'em where to look. And I posted this on my Instagram page today, which was about. The, one of the differences I'm seeing right now is all of my Chiro 80, not all. A lot of our CHI 180 clients right now are pulling up and studying their practices, and this is such why Chiro rating was built. Like it is your operating system for your business. It is where you track. Churn, black hole, resign dropoff. You can pull your resign dropoffs, you can pull your birthday list, you can pull your new patient manager. You can see all this is in there. And the ones that are, and I like today, for example, I was on a call with a new client and we were studying, we were looking at their data and we were looking at trends from 2024 to 2025. And then they were making decisions on the top three things that they can use in order to grow going into 2026. Decision based on data. So what are the, what are some of those things? Lemme give you the first one. Number one, referral source. ROI. Every clinic can tell me where referrals come from. Very few clinics though can tell me which ones actually matter. Now I'm talking about long-term patients care plan completions, retention. Like I've seen clinics pour time and energy into relationships that felt good, but they produce very little revenue, and at the same time, they're overlooking that one referral source that quietly outperformed everything else. So when you see this number, clearly decisions get easier. Where to invest, where to say no, where to double down. Which influencer maybe is working for you the best? Which Google ad is working for you the best? Which Facebook ad campaign is working the best? Which business is working the best? So in Cairo 180, you go to value by referral sources. Click that report and it will give you, go back to January one and it will give you every single new patient that came into your office, and it will give you the value of each one of those patients by the referral source. Now. For those that don't have Kyron 80, that's fine. I would recommend getting it and I'm doing it and I will give it to you for a dollar for your first month so you can start using it. It's so hard for me to explain to people how good and beneficial the software is because there's so much to it. It's not replacing your EHR and it's not replacing your two A communication. It is a business operating system that you will use like all 13 of my clinics in order to manage and run your business efficiently with scales of economy. It is great. So that is one that I would recommend everybody look at is your value by referral sources. Number two, drop offs and resigns like this one is uncomfortable, but it's also a powerful one. It, and it's not just who dropped off, but it's when they dropped off. Was it before recommendations? After the report of findings, after the first progress exam. Here's the part. Most clinics miss who resigned. What triggered it, and then these numbers will tell you more about your communication than any sales training ever will. So go to the patient master report, and in that patient master report, you're gonna click off plan drop off, and look at everybody after January 1st, 2025, and you can see everybody that dropped off in 2025. And then look at the plan, resign, and then look at that one. And let's see if we can get a reactivation campaign going for those drop-offs. But then let's also understand out of the new patients you got and out the new patients that committed, how many of those resigned? What an interesting stat, right? To look at your re resign percent of, if you had 300 new patients and 250 of them signed up for care and 125 of them resign, that means you have a 50% conversion into resigns from your corrective plans. That's low. So that would be a very good number for you to track. Now you can build patient experience, getting people to that resigned. Numbers. Number three, patients without a progress exam in the last 12 months. These are people that are still coming in. They haven't quit. They haven't even said anything to you. They're not complaining. But here's what they are. They are disconnected. No milestones, no updates, no recalibration. There's a silent attrition. Identify this group. You're not selling. You're reconnecting and that's something that's gonna change everything. Why?'cause you can set these people up on new plans, new programs. We will reach out to all of these people. And if you have Chiron 80, just go to active patients with a overdue exam. So every time you do a spinal health score, it saves it. So then you can go back and see who hasn't been in it, who hasn't had a re-exam, who's an active patient, who hasn't had a re-exam in 11 months or more. And then I would reach out to all of those people letting'em know in January what we'd like to do is a complimentary spinal health score. And what that does is it creates alignment for your recommendations. Are there any other services maybe they need in your office? Is there are, should they still be coming in once a week? Maybe they can go to every other week, or maybe they need to go to drop down frequency or up frequency. It just creates alignment for you and the practice, and that's what we're looking for. And. This is how you fix the silent attrition that's going on in your practice by updating these re-exams, by updating these spinal health scores. Number four, I talk about this all the time. The black hole, every single clinic has one. This is the space between interest and commitment. Most people think it's a marketing problem and it rarely is. It's an experience problem. Like the number one thing I tell everybody when they first start with Chiron is just find your black hole first. That's it. Just figure it out. Once you find that,'cause it's very easy to do in our software, then build a patient experience leading up to that number. So if it's 18 is your black hole, then from 12 to 18, like so many chiropractors just wanna focus on new patients. If they just focus on maximizing their black hole and increasing that number, that alone, right there could be a huge game changer for their practice. Then they focused on, they focus on how many people are on wellness plans too as well. All of that focus on patient experience. These are things that, yes, they take work and it's the nitty gritty. It's like that grind work that sucks, but it's the stuff that actually creates change. That's what you wanna focus on, is focus on the hard things that make life a lot easier. Number five is like the, this is one of my favorite ones. The doctor performance report, not about effort. All this is clarity and confidence. And what you'd be doing is going to reports, click on doctor performance report and you can look and see every doctor in your clinic what is their commit rate and what is their case value. And that's a really good conversation to go through, to talk to the team and be like, Hey, let's go through our commit rates. Hey Johnny, you are 60%. What does it look like to get to 70%? And let's look at the people that didn't sign up. And where do you feel like you need the support in order to increase that? Like you focus on black hole, you focus on commit rate going up, you focus on wellness plans going up. Those three things right there drastically will increase your revenue without getting one more new patient. But it takes work. And I know that a lot of people, it's hard work, but when you get into that grind work, that's the stuff that makes the change. And I'm, I'll say this over and over again. The sixth thing is your new patient show and commit rates like everybody wants more leads. But very few optimize the ones they already have, like small improvements here will actually create massive leverage. We don't need more people, we just need better flow. So for example, what I mean by that is like we take a deposit, we take a$20 deposit to become a new patient or office. Show rate is a hundred percent commit rate. I talked about that earlier. You're looking at doctor performance report on the previous number five, one. All right. How do we get commit rate percent up? What do we need to do now? Just so everyone knows here, that number is influenced by your day one. Day one. My report of findings are seven minutes because day one is so good. If we do a great day one and we differentiate ourselves from everybody else, and the patient has the clarity and the confidence in our office and hope and belonging, then they're gonna move into care. And that's really what that number six one is all about. Number seven. And the last one is reactivation engagement. This is not some spammy reactivation, purely education. When patients connect again with their spinal health, the trust will come back fast and so does momentum. So you should be thinking about as a CEO, right now I'm thinking about what reactivation campaigns am I running in 2026 and by the way, and all this stuff I just shared, you don't have to be a Kiron 80 client to, in order to look at some of these reports, it's gonna be harder for you probably. But for those that are ated clients, like on Thursday at our growth call, I'm gonna be doing a whole like annual choice benefit talk. You're gonna learn how to run an amazing annual choice benefit program on Thursday. You'll be very dialed into that. And then obviously we have 30 minutes of q and a after that for our growth calls. And be thinking about. So for those that like, if you're not a carbonated client, I told you I'll give it to you for a dollar. Just use code 2026, go to carbonated.com, start your 2026 off building out your new patient manager. Get it dialed in, you'll have really good data. And then from there you can start working towards building a business. I save all my growth call replays. You can go back and watch all the previous growth calls on business. Like I give all this away. Why impact my money is not made in chiro and 80 like that is more of I love chiropractic and think it's the greatest software because that's what we use in all of our clinics and it helps drive our business. But so many people, they're missing some of a lot of the fundamentals and these reports I'm talking to you guys about, these are fundamental things that could be using right now in order to grow your clinic internally and building from within. Here's what I've learned watching this year unfold, is that most chiropractors are not failing for what, as much as I see this online, they are flying blind, and when you see clearly decisions, stop feeling heavy. Like 2026 does not need to be more hustle, it needs to be more awareness. And if this episode sparked something for you, great. That was the point. You may be hearing this and being like, I don't do any of that. And that's okay. You gotta start somewhere. I was a horrible CEO back in 2009 to 2016. And as and that was like 10 years ago. And when I had two clinics, three clinics. And as time has gone on, I've slowly gotten better. But why? Because I put myself around people that I know are gonna help grow me. I always put my people around people where I wanna be. And for some people, this is what I've shared, is like some people haven't even started using our software yet and they just listened to growth calls and they're in our Circle community app and they're asking questions in community and they're on our growth calls. And they're getting way more value by doing that. And they haven't even started utilizing the software yet, which is fine. They're learning first to become a better leader and a better CEO, and then they're going into the tactical work next. I love that. So as 2026 rolls around, start thinking about that, right? Who do you need to be around in order to get you to where you need to get to? Who's gonna make you uncomfortable? Who's gonna have conversations like I just had with you? And you start thinking in your brain, holy crap. I don't know what he just said, but it sounds like I probably need to be implementing some of this. Great. Let's do it if you want. Today is December 16th. I can onboard you before the end of the year and you can start getting your clinic ready to launch for January of 2026 with the new patient manager. Spinal health scores, learning your black hole, understanding your doctor performance reports, understanding your commit rate, your show rate, your value by referral sources, like all of this is in there, guys, and as time goes on, we keep building it and making it even better. And that's what we're here to do. So hope you guys enjoy this episode. Hopefully I put some thoughts into your brain and get you thinking a little bit differently. And have an awesome week and I'll touch base with you next week. and don't forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode. To learn more about building your business, leadership, and life on purpose, visit chiro one eighty.com or follow Austin on Instagram at Dr. Austin Cohen.