NCMIC's Critical Partnership with David Siebert, CEO of NCMIC

UWS has been a long-time partner with the National Chiropractic Mutual Insurance Corporation (NCMIC). Like UWS, NCMIC has partnered with all the other major chiropractic programs across the country, supporting educational initiatives, starting into practice trainings, sponsoring continuing education events, and much more. We share the same goal of educating future chiropractic professionals who will go on to advance and positively transform the health and well-being of the communities they serve. Mr. Siebert (Dave) is relatively new to the CEO role but has worked at what seems almost every level of the organization over the past few decades. His passion and dedication to the work shines through in this interview. 

To learn more about NCMIC, visit https://www.ncmic.com/

To learn more about UWS, visit us at https://www.uws.edu 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:05

Our staff loves to be a part of something bigger than themselves. And pretty much everyone that I talk to, they understand that we're a mission-driven organization that is here to help, to support, to elevate, to protect these healthcare providers.

SPEAKER_01 0:22

Welcome to the Whole Health Continuum, the official podcast of University of Western States here in Portland, Oregon. In this series, we're engaging guests in thoughtful conversations that explore the many dimensions of the whole person healthcare experience. Our topics will span a wide range from educators and academic leaders shaping curricula to meet the needs of 21st century clients and patients to practitioners, including students, alumni, and friends of the university, who are delivering transformational care and products to community leaders making meaningful strides in advancing health and well-being in the populations they serve. We are located in Portland, Oregon, as I said, but also globally we're online. University of Western States offers what I consider a world-class integrated health care education focused on the whole person. Our programs emphasize an evidence-informed, evidence-based approach to health and wellness. And to learn more about us, visit us at www.us.edu. Today I am really pleased to be joined by Mr. David Siebert, Chief Executive Officer of the National Chiropractic Malpractice Insurance Corporation, also affectionately known by those who have utilized its services for many years as NICMIC. Dave's longstanding career at NCMIC, rising through the ranks, culminating in his role as CEO, is a journey I think worth listening to, in addition to the transformational work NCMIC has been engaged in for several decades in supporting the chiropractic profession and beyond. And we'll hear more about that. So we're going to get right to it. Dave, so glad to have you on the podcast. Welcome, sir.

SPEAKER_02 2:09

Thank you for having me, Dr. Long. Excited to be here.

SPEAKER_01 2:12

We are thrilled to have you here. So before we get into all the particulars about NCMIC, you, I think, have a powerful history yourself at the organization. Before we get into, again, what exactly NCMIC does, can you tell us a bit about your journey, your trajectory?

SPEAKER_02 2:31

You bet I would love to. And it starts 30 years ago. My second job out of college actually was with Nick Mick, and I was a claims representative. So my first role in the company, I would sit at my desk. And when a doctor was served with a lawsuit or received a letter from a patient or maybe an attorney, and maybe expressing some concern about the care that was given, the doctor would, of course, be concerned, pick up the phone and call their malpractice company, which was oftentimes in CMIC. And I was that friendly voice. And I would say that experience has really had a big impact on how I am a leader at this organization and how I view the importance of what we do. Interestingly, when I talked to from the first 10 years of my career, my conversations with chiropractors, with our doctors, then it was often on the worst day of their practice lives. So those were important calls. They wanted to have that friendly voice. I was acting to reassure them and got to know them throughout the claims process and really, again, developed this deep appreciation for why what NCMIC does is so important. Over the years, took on additional responsibilities. I did move out of claims and got more involved in the operations side of the company, became president back in 2020 and then CEO just a few months ago in June of 2025. I am so privileged to be the CEO here. This is an amazing company. And I think I'm so fortunate to have found this organization so early on in my career. I know so many people who at my age are still searching to find that right fit. And I just fell into it early and have been able to make a career out of it. So it's been a real gift.

SPEAKER_01 4:18

How unique is it to land out of college your first gig that takes you 30 years, and now you're heading the company and leading it into its next chapter. That's pretty profound.

unknown 4:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:30

It's been great. And I've known we're a company that has a ton of tenure. So a lot of the staff have been here, maybe not quite as long as me, but I've known it for 20 plus years. And I think they really love the idea that kind of one of their own had risen through the ranks and now had a chance to lead the organization. So it's been a dream come true for me.

SPEAKER_01 4:49

So that's so cool. I was asking just this past weekend for our audience. You may be hearing this a couple months out from this recording, but we were in our annual summer and December event. And Mandy Swanson, who has just been a vital asset to us in terms of her support and guidance over the years, we were talking. I said, Does anyone ever leave NCMIC? Because it's such a fabulous organization. And it is true. She's I I I will stay until I retire or they push me up. She's I absolutely love it. And you've cultivated a culture around it's almost family-like, clearly it's a business, but it's you've done some really great things. So maybe let's start first with what is NCMIC and its portfolio of services, and then get into how you have, like you and your team over the years, have cultivated a culture that you have, because that is really truly important in terms of business sustainability and long-term growth.

SPEAKER_02 5:49

Sure. We'd love to talk about NICMIC. I love this place, of course. So I'll start with what NCMIC or NICMIC is. And our friends do call us NICMIC, but when I first started, we were still the National Chiropractic Mutual Insurance Company. But over the years, we've we're now just NICMIC or NCMIC. And we are at our core, we are an insurance and financial services organization. We're founded back in 1946 by chiropractors, four chiropractors. Interestingly enough, in Webster City, Iowa, in Carl Cleveland, up in his grandparents' office, is where there was this group of chiropractors that came together. They were trying to find malpractice insurance, couldn't find it. So they decided to start their own company to provide that much needed service. And the rest is kind of history. We, for about 50 years, Mick just was a malpractice insurance company. We did it really well, but that was what we did. And then began to offer additional products over time, began writing naturopaths in the early 2000s, similar to chiropractic. We're one of the first carriers to really begin covering naturopaths as well. And I like to think that we have a very unique relationship with both professions because we've been there from the beginning and had a chance to go through some of the growing pains, provide support along the way. And because of that, again, have built that really trusted, deep relationship, which when you talk to people about NickMick, they'll often tell you that we're more than just their insurance company or just their finance company. They'll call us with questions about all sorts of things. And we have a lot of connections in the industries and are happy to be that trusted advisor out there.

SPEAKER_01 7:38

That's terrific. That's terrific. And uh when you think about what it takes to have built that portfolio and sustain it over, I think it how many decades now? Seven? Is that right?

SPEAKER_02 7:48

So we're gonna celebrate 80 years in a few weeks. Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_01 7:52

So eight decades. Okay. That does not come easily by any stretch of the imagination. What are some of the things you and your team and previous teams have leaned into to help really build and sustain that culture?

SPEAKER_02 8:07

Yeah, as it relates to culture, I would start with I started 30 years ago, and this place has always been special. I can't claim that I've created something that made us amazing, but over time, this company has been so great at evolving and growing. And I think it starts with our kind of mission statement is we take care of our own. And that is certainly we take care of our customers. We take care of chiropractors and naturopaths and the colleges that we chore and the businesses that we help provide financing for. But it goes deeper than that. We also take really seriously taking care of our staff and our community as well. Uh, you can't expect your staff to provide amazing service and really take care of customers if you don't take care of them. And the same with the community. So we've really, as an organization, always invested in making sure that we do special things for our staff. We make sure that the leaders are active and listening and have a really good sense of what's going on amongst the team. We have this also what I think one of our special secrets is that our staff loves to be a part of something bigger than themselves. And pretty much everyone that I talk to, they understand that we're a mission-driven organization that is here to help, to support, to elevate, to protect these healthcare providers, chiropractors, and naturopaths. And to do that, when we take care of a doctor, it puts them in a position to be successful. It puts them in a position to take better care of their patients. Their patients are then healthier. And we we love that. We like to be a part of something bigger than ourselves, helping others. And I think that our staff loves that. And we we kind of view we don't have any employees on staff who are naturopaths or chiropractors, but we work with so many of them. And we have many of our board members who are, and we have a real sense as to the pulse of what's going on in the professions, and we want to see them succeed. I think that really translates to a lot of excitement amongst the company and really a desire to help and want to pull together for the benefit of our customers. Another piece that I would talk about is that we as an organization have done a lot of little things really well. And I'll just talk about some of the more recent things that we've done. These are post-COVID, but we just the other day we had our bring your dog to work day where staff can bring in. We have, we usually have maybe three, but you bring your dog in for the day. And you want to talk about an amazing way to get to know employees, have them bring their dog in, or you bring your dog in. People I wouldn't normally hear from were on the floor in my office saying I had the greatest dog ever, and you build relationships that way. We do a salad bar day every other week. People love that. We just do a lot of things in the community. So that to me is what makes our culture so special is over it's always been great, but we continue to evolve, listen to our staff, and we happen to be a part of some professions that really make a big difference, and our employees love doing what they can to help elevate them and help them be successful.

SPEAKER_01 11:18

That's amazing. And you have this motto or slogan at your company, which I really love. We take care of our own. Is that close or accurate? Yes, yep, that's it. When did you build that out? When and I'll I I want to come back to this point here in a minute, but when did you build that out and when was it adopted?

SPEAKER_02 11:36

So it's been at least 30 years. I'm I'm I can't tell you that I fully know. I have a history book. I should pull it out and see if it's in there. I'm gonna guess that probably came around in the 80s, but that's and you might recall because you've been to our office, you walk in our front door and we have this big, it's in metal letters, we take care of our own. It's really something that's core to who we are. We joked about if you're gonna be the CEO, maybe you should have a tattoo or something like that, because that's so core to who we are. I don't like needles, so that's probably not gonna happen, but we do take that seriously. And I think that's just a part of our culture here. And again, we it's not just our employees, not just our customers, it's also our community. We've won many awards here in the Des Moines area for being such a great neighbor, for giving back, for being a best place to work, a top workplace. And I think it just again comes down to doing a lot of little things really well and ultimately always trying to do the right things for your customers and for your employees. And you do those things, things tend to work out pretty well for you. Yeah, they sure do. They sure do.

SPEAKER_01 12:44

So you have the NCMIC has built out a number of different services, and the portfolio is pretty expansive. When you were covering this with our team, I was super impressed, not only with the chiropractic and naturopathic physician coverage that you provide and would like to hear more about that, but also the other services you provide, such as payment processing and that type of thing. So maybe give the audience just a taste of what it is that you all offer and why that's important, especially now, uh, perhaps more than ever. So be curious.

SPEAKER_02 13:20

Yeah, absolutely. I love to talk about the services we offer. So I could probably go on for a while here, but I'll just give you high-level. Most people, when they think of Nick Mech, they think of malpractice insurance. And that certainly is where we got our start. And that's probably core to what we've done over the years. I would tell you that we have defended more, I would say, chiropractors and naturopaths and any other carrier out there. I think we have this level of expertise that no one else can match. We've also put a lot of thought into the products that we offer to make sure they're best in class. At the end of the day, when you buy this malpractice insurance, I don't know any doctor who expects to have a malpractice claim. And that's a tough part of our job, is we're trying to sell something to people that they don't expect to use. But even good doctors can have claims sometimes. And you want to make sure when you have a claim, when your reputation is on the line, that you've got this amazing partner. And I think that's where we really shine. But beyond that, over the years, we would work with doctors on their malpractice claims, and they began to really trust us and they would ask us our opinion on other things as well. So they would ask us, they'd be like, hey, I have this office policy and it has this clause in it. What do you think about that? And we didn't offer that, we were a part of that, but we began to take note. There's a lot of questions, and there seems to be a need there. So we listened and we eventually set up our own insurance agency. And within our agency, we can offer pretty much any type of insurance you could imagine. We work with national carriers, and these are top known carriers. And what we do is we leverage the fact we work with so many chiropractors and naturopaths, and we're able to bring that business to these carriers, and they typically can get us some preferential pricing. We also, because we understand what chiropractors and naturopaths do, what their offices are like, we know the types of coverage that you're going to need. So we can help you get placed with a great carrier to provide you with a business owner policy, with workers' compensation insurance. We can even do personal line stuff like home and auto. And at the end of the day, I think the beauty of NCMIC as it relates to insurance for sure is that it's insurance is so confusing. No one wants to really dive in and read up on it and shop it around. You can work with us and we can do that work for you and really provide you with the best options out there. It's one stop, it saves you time, oftentimes saves you a lot of money, and you can work with one person. So it's just it's all in one place. So that's the insurance piece. On the finance side, similar to insurance, we were getting lots of calls pushing about 30 years ago from doctors who were asking us questions about these contracts they were having to sign for their credit card processing machines. The contracts were complicated. There was a lot of legal ease them, fine print, and we were like, there has to be a better way. So we actually moved into the merchant processing space in the late 90s, I would say, and have really put together an amazing program. We've got, I think our strengths there are we've got state-of-the-art equipment, we've got really easy to understand service agreements. If a doctor sends us in a couple of months' statements from their current provider, we'll take a look at it and we'll tell you up front if we can save you money or not. And if we can't, we'll tell you, well, hey, you've got a great deal there. We'd love to help you, but we can't save you money. And but we we typically can. And you'll then have a trusted partner you can work with who will answer the phone, will provide really great service to back it up. And we are going to process about two and a half billion dollars in transactions in 2025. So we are a major credit card processor there, and that industry is really known for a lot of hidden fees. And we make that as transparent as possible and do our best to make sure that the doctors get the best deal available out there.

SPEAKER_01 17:25

That is, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:26

And then that then naturally led to doctors saying, I want to have a credit card for my business because I don't want to be mixing my personal and business stuff. So we have a business credit card we offer now. It's very rich in rewards, gives you a chance again to separate your business and your personal life. And then another big thing that we do is we offer equipment financing. So if you're in the midst of looking to maybe pick up some additional equipment for your office, you're looking to expand in your office, you want to generate more revenue, you want to do an addition, even, you need some working capital. We've got a team that's really what they focus in on. And yeah, it's it's amazing. And I think the big thing that we offer there that really sets us apart is this again, this knowledge and understanding of chiropractors and naturopaths, and understanding that a young chiropractor, for example, is gonna have a pretty high debt load. They're gonna graduate with a lot of student loans. And we get that, but we see the potential there. And a lot of banks are gonna get really nervous and probably not want to provide much of the way of financing. And we're typically able to come in and maybe finance where others wouldn't do it. And we also do it really quickly and efficiently. We are typically able to take a look at an application within a few hours, and we usually fund the loans within 24 hours, which is unheard of. If you've gone to a for a loan, you're usually talking multiple trips and weeks, and we've really streamlined that again with that idea of let's try to save the doctor time and money so they can spend more time in their practice with their patients, with their family. So that's kind of high level. The things that we do, I would say the insurance is about protecting the practice, and then our finance products are about helping you to grow and expand and help to treat more patients and just do well in life.

SPEAKER_01 19:17

Yeah. That's incredible. So it's so would it be fair to say, in terms of your value proposition for Nick Mick, that ultimately it's maybe not a complete one-stop shop, but almost a one-stop shop for all your chiropractic, naturopathic insurance needs, and beyond your business needs, your financing needs, et cetera. How would you put that, Dave? I'm curious.

SPEAKER_02 19:43

No, yeah. So I think that's one of them. Just that again, that goes back to that trusted advisor or partner that we've got all these products, and we've spent 80 years building a reputation based on our trust. We're gonna shoot straight with you. If you call us and we can't help you, we'll tell you. If you call and you need a loan and we can't provide it to you, we'll give you a quick no. So you can look elsewhere. But we want to take care of people, treat them right. Again, back to the we take care of our own. I think that another big value for us is understanding this deep understanding of the profession. That's huge. Again, that we get it. We're also of a size that if you go to maybe you bank with you pick one of the big banks, you're probably not gonna be a huge priority for them. They're really focused on the larger customers for most of our doctors at least. And it Nick Mick, you're not just gonna be a number. You're gonna be someone that that matters to us. And again, we take a lot of pride in helping to grow practices. We want to find ways uh to lend to lend folks money, to find them the best deal on the policy, because again, we're mission driven. We want to see them succeed. I'd say another piece for us is probably in that the dollars that someone spends with Nick Mix. So when you purchase a malpractice policy with us, that money is gonna get put back out to work within the professions. And that shows up with the stuff we do on college campuses, the support we provide to the colleges themselves, the state, the national associations, the research that we do through the NCMIC Foundation, all of those things, it's like an engine that money that comes in, we're then able to put it to use with this whole idea of you know, we want to continue to grow the professions and see both chiropractic and naturopaths be as successful as possible.

SPEAKER_01 21:37

That's terrific. Yeah, you said it great. So appreciate that very much. If you think about now, like boiling into or boiling down to like the new students who are now graduates coming into practice starting and then you think about more seasoned professionals, very discreet groups. Talk a little bit about the new students who are. Graduates, what should they be thinking about as they they are getting going? What would you like them to be considering in terms of NICMIC services and the like?

SPEAKER_02 22:11

Yeah, we love working with the students who are about ready to graduate or the folks who just graduated, just getting started. We've got a ton of resources out there. So I would first start with view NickMick as a trusted advisor. Most students will have met us on campus, maybe even in the classroom, or certainly at events. You mentioned Mandy earlier. She travels extensively. We typically get to know the students and we want to help them, even if that means sending them in a different direction, if that's what's best for them. We've got, whether you're a student who's going to be graduating soon, or you're doctor early into practice, we've got a couple of great websites that really fit the needs of both chiropractors and mansorpaths. So on the chiropractic side, we have our startingintopractice.com website. And you can get to this from ncmic.com, but we have a specific site and it's not locked down at all. It's all free. And this site is amazing. We've spent a lot of money, countless hours, putting together hundreds of articles, uh, research, and from things as simple as how to write a business plan if you want to start your own practice. If you want to go get a loan from a bank, what does that look like? What should you be doing? So you name it, it's in there, and it's really a great resource. So you at least have an idea of what to expect. Because I think not every student uh when they graduate, they've been focused on, okay, I want to pass the boards, haven't maybe paid as much attention to the business side of things. So when they're about ready to graduate, that gets real, really quick. And this is a great spot to go get that information. Similarly, on the naturopathic site, we have startingwithsuccess.com. And this is very similar. A lot of the articles actually cross over really well between chiropractors and the naturopaths, but this was put together with the them in mind as well. And whether you're going to start showing practice, you're going to be an associate, tons of resources out there and tons of opportunities. The other piece of this is if you go to either one of those sites, we offer a scholarship program for both naturopaths and chiropractors. And when you think of a scholarship, you usually think of having to write an essay or something. This is more of uh just like a sweepstakes. And we've heard and listening to both chiropractors and naturopaths is how expensive school is, the high debt load, how much it costs for the boards and everything. So we actually give away a significant amount of money to both of the professions. It's free to enter. It takes about 60 seconds, and there's a link in both of those websites. And that's something I always want to share with both new doctors within six months of getting their license, as well as the students, is they can continue to sign up as much as possible. They can only win it once a year, but it's like free money, yeah, uh, which you don't get very often, and it's really easy to get to. So those are the things that I want the younger and the new doctors to think about. And don't hesitate, just pick up the call and ask questions. If we don't have an answer, we'll certainly take a look and we'll get one for you. Because we know a lot of people have a lot of relationships.

SPEAKER_01 25:28

Oh, that's terrific. And is that program still titled Bucks for Boards, or is that going to be Muck? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:35

Yep. It's called Bucks. So it's called Bucks for Boards on the chiropractic side, and it's called Pathways to Success, I think, on the naturopathic side. No, it's called Naturopath to Success, is what it's called. And essentially, it's free money, and it's just again, it's one more way for us to give back. And I think one of the things that we've done really well in the time I've been here, at least, is we listen to our customers. And that that came from us listening. Our chairman of the board, Dr. Wayne Wilson, he had talked to enough students who were complaining about the cost of everything. And he's let's figure out a way to give some money back. And this was a way, a very low bar here. You just got to sign up. And then as you're doing it, you get a chance to see some of our resources we have. So it's really a win-win situation and something we're really proud of.

SPEAKER_01 26:25

That's fabulous. And it is a huge asset for all of my colleagues out there who are presidents, deans of chiropractic programs, etc. This is great. Promote it. UWS is continuously working to promote this. It's a great asset to students. And of course, I think just to really compliment what you've been saying about the presence on college campuses, I can speak with a lot of authority on this. NCMIC for all of the chiropractic programs, naturopathic programs now also coming along board. It's been pretty profound to see the level of collaboration, the opportunities that are provided for students and faculty and alumni, for example, with continuing education. I'll point out NCMIC was a sponsor of our summer and December event. They helped with supporting the speakers who came to us to work on the risk mitigation seminars that we provide, but also uh broader continuing education. And that would not be possible without NCMIC's support. And so I would just say to those listening, NCMIC does so much more than just insurance. They support the professions and the future of the work that we're doing, which has been pretty awesome. I don't see much of that happening. I will say this in my career, I have not seen that level of real connected, authentic engagement with institutions from a business sponsor or collaborator. It's just really awesome. I wanted to thank you personally and the organization for that level of connection and support over the years.

SPEAKER_02 28:05

Yeah, thank you for saying that. And that's something that we take a lot of pride in. We show up and we see the value in providing that support. So you asked about students and new practitioners, but you also asked about the more seasoned ones. So certainly back to the students and the new practitioners, when they're ready for insurance or they're ready for to get a credit card machine in their office, we would love to be that first phone call or that first click on the website. You move into the more seasoned doctors. I view the role we play there as we would love to be a part of helping you grow your practice. And, you know, typically starts with us looking for opportunities to save you money on again your merchant processing. Or it could be that you're thinking of maybe you want to do some marketing in order to increase your patient volume and you need some cash to do that. We have that working capital opportunity or some additional equipment. And those are ways that I think we can really set ourselves apart. We oftentimes are at shows where there are vendors selling tables and lasers, and uh we typically have a great relationship with those vendors and can provide that financing really quickly and easily and really try to make it a seamless process. The other thing I would mention for the more seasoned doctors, one of the insurance products I haven't mentioned yet is our long-term disability insurance we have for chiropractors. This is chiropractic is a very physical, physically demanding field on your body for the chiropractors. And we many years ago, in listening to doctors, realized there was a need for this. And one of the challenges is that most of the long-term disability policies out there, they're called LTD policies, most of them have an exclusion for pre-existing conditions. And every chiropractor I've ever known gets adjusted on a regular basis. And so what that meant is if you went and bought your standard long-term disability policy, there was a good chance that you were going to be deemed to have a pre-existing condition because you've been giving treatment on whatever part of your body that gets hurt. And so what we did is with again us having our over 40,000 chiropractors that we ensure, we were able to approach some of the top long-term disability carriers and able to work with them to put together a policy that fit these unique needs that chiropractors have, so that routine chiropractic care is not considered to be a pre-existing condition. So we feel this is a really, it's a very exceptional product out there. And it's something that's uh is really needed when your body is your livelihood. It's important you protect that. And something that a lot of our more seasoned doctors see as something important to do. And we've had great success providing that type of insurance for many chiropractors.

SPEAKER_01 30:53

Wow, that's great. I did not know that about the uh the layers around long-term disability and the pre-existing condition. There's so many different layers to that onion. So thank you for that. Well, that that's very helpful. Dave, you're now CEO for a little under a year. Is that about right? A few months, actually, just stepping into that role. You now have the enviable or unenviable. I think in our case it's enviable task of charting the vision for the long term. I know some of that's in the corporate vault, and so you can only share so much. But when you think about for where you would like to see Nick Mick go for say the next five, 10 or 15 years, what does that look like for you?

SPEAKER_02 31:36

Yeah, every day when my when I talk to my leadership team, when we meet, we're thinking of the future, of course. We want to continue adding value in everything we do for our customers. So we're always, before we do something, the question I always have in the back of my mind is how is this going to help our chiropractors, our naturopaths? So that will continue to be the case. I think that there is a really big focus from my perspective and in my mind on things are changing really quickly right now. Healthcare is changing, higher education is changing, of course, as you're well aware. And we're having to really accelerate and get comfortable being uncomfortable when you think of having to be open to utilizing technology, maybe more so than we ever have in the past. We've made big investments in the past few years in new systems to help us be more efficient. Uh, I would tell you that I think probably close to half of our chiropractic policies are now underwritten and issued in a matter of minutes, where I think most of the folks we compete against, it takes days or weeks to do that, but we've invested in that technology. Um, understanding that our customers of tomorrow are going to be Gen Z and they may not want to talk to us. We're having to evolve. I'm a person that loves to pick up the phone and call, but not everyone wants to do that. So we're beginning to implement technology to help us better be able to meet the needs of those folks who prefer to chat or who maybe want to work through an automated system. But you've got my promise, of course, that we'll always answer the phone if you want to talk to a live person. That's something that I will have a hard time ever giving up. But I think a big focus for us is going to be just as you think of what's going on in AI and all these technology changes, is Nick Mick is going to be focused on making sure that we keep up with that and continue to look for ways to do business better, quicker, faster, but still provide that personal touch that our doctors expect and they deserve.

SPEAKER_01 33:40

That's outstanding, sir. I think you're you're on the road to continued ongoing success for the long term. That's fabulous. So typically the last question, I have one fun, I don't know, fun, but maybe fun follow-up for you in a minute. But when you think about whole person health care, and this is what I try to ask all of our guests, what comes to mind for you?

SPEAKER_02 34:01

Yeah. Yes, I'm gonna bet a lot of your doctors are doctors, or I'm sorry, a lot of your guests are doctors. So I'll have a little different perspective on that. But I'm I've been hearing about whole person health for the past, I'd say, five years, it really has become a lot more prominent. And I hear about it specifically as it relates to chiropractors and after pass. And I am super excited to hear that because I view this as an amazing opportunity for both professions uh and really for all of the alternative healthcare providers. Because when you think about, and when I think about the opioid epidemic, when I think of COVID, when I think about our overall health crisis, I would call it in the United States, it feels like this amazing opportunity for doctors who focus not on just prescribing pills for something, but on the whole person, on how to get to the root causes. It just makes so much sense to me. So I'm super excited. I feel like this is a great opportunity for for chiropractors and astropaths and other healthcare providers to step up and really offer what I think the public is really wanting right now, which is an alternative to what they've been getting for decades and decades.

SPEAKER_01 35:17

So I'm excited. Great way to put it. And I think either an alternative or a complement to what is often necessary medical care, but to your exact point, we need a variety of different modalities. And that's one of the things I know University of Western State stands for. That's what several of our chiropractic college colleagues stand for as well. And I think you've hit the nail on the head quite beautifully. All right, before we go, the best thing to do in Des Moines, Iowa. And I ask this because Mandy, who of course is one of our close colleagues, has her own view. You won't find out until much later, Dave. But we want to know because Iowa is it was a mystery to me for a while. And then I got out to visit you all, and I was enchanted.

SPEAKER_02 36:06

Yeah, so I'm a huge fan of Iowa. It's I was not born and raised here, but love it. It's beautiful, it's not flat like people think it is. Uh, definitely a farm state. But I I think the thing for someone who's not from here is you have to do the Iowa State Fair. And it's just it's amazing, and it's something that I love to take people who aren't from here to. It is just you can't even describe it. But having said that, we surprisingly have tons of great restaurants. We we even have Iowa wineries. We have all sorts of things to do here, but it's all with that Midwestern feel. And it's some it's something I would highly encourage folks to come visit if they get a chance. It's but probably come visit in the summer, ideally. It's actually snowing out right now and cold, but it's a it's a great place to live and to raise a family, especially if you have a winter home somewhere warm.

SPEAKER_01 37:02

I was gonna spare you the whole weather ask. So hey Dave, thanks so much for spending time with me in our university broader community today. It's been a real pleasure. I've always been impressed by you, the team, and what you're cultivating there. Thanks again for being on the podcast. Appreciate it.

SPEAKER_02 37:24

Thanks for having me. Love the relationship we have with the University of Western States and uh look forward to our next chat.

SPEAKER_01 37:30

That's great. And to our audience, thank you for spending time with us. I encourage you to keep exploring the vast world of health and wellness and all that it offers for us to lead richer, healthier, and happier lives. As a reminder, you can find us online at www.us.edu and visit us on social media. You can find us with UWS or University of Western States. I hope you'll also continue to join me for future episodes and our guests as we continue our conversations on the whole health continuum. Take care and be well. Signing off for now.