Dr. Tom Edwards: A Home Office with a Self-Pay Business Model

In this episode, I spoke with Dr. Tom Edwards, a second-generation chiropractor who graduated from Palmer College of Chiropractic in Davenport, Iowa, in 1982. He enjoyed a successful 41-year career, primarily practicing in Waukesha, Wisconsin, where he ran a home office with a self-pay business model.
Dr. Edwards offers invaluable insights and practical advice that will inspire chiropractors at any stage of their careers. Although he is transitioning into retirement from clinical practice, he remains active in the chiropractic community, serving on the Executive Committee of the Wisconsin Chiropractic Association Board of Directors.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Welcome to the Wisconsin Chiropractic Association podcast, back to basics. I'm your host, Dr. Chris Rush, president of the Wisconsin Chiropractic Association. In this podcast, we engage in thought-provoking conversations with leaders in healthcare, business, politics, and various facets of life. Our goal is to provide you with knowledge, wisdom, and inspiration that you can apply to your own life. Today, I'm excited to speak with Dr. Tom Edwards. Dr. Edwards is a second-generation chiropractor. He graduated from Pullman College of Chiropractic in Davenport, Iowa in 1982. He enjoyed a successful 41-year career, primarily practicing in Waukesha, Wisconsin, where he ran a home office with a self-paid business model. Dr. Edwards offers invaluable insights and practical advice that will inspire chiropractors at any stage of their careers. Although he is transitioning into retirement from clinical practice, Tom remains active in the chiropractic community, serving on the executive committee of the Wisconsin Chiropractic Association Board of Directors. I hope you enjoy my conversation with Dr. Tom Edwards. Dr. Tom Edwards, how are you today?

SPEAKER_01 1:19

Chris, it's good to see you.

SPEAKER_00 1:20

We're going to start this off. We're going to kick it off right away here, Tom. What inspired you to become a chiropractor?

SPEAKER_01 1:26

Well, Chris, the interesting story in the fact that I was born in Davenport in the trailer park north of Palmer, uh, when my dad was going to chiropractic school in the 1950s. He graduated in 59 and we moved back to our uh home area of upstate New York, where dad opened up his practice and uh he did quite well there for he practiced until he was 75, uh, which is what I don't plan to do, but uh I admired and respected my dad quite a bit as a uh young person growing up. But I did not want to be a chiropractor. I thought I could be an engineer or some other type of uh professional. Unfortunately, as as life would have it, I was really good at biology and science, but I sucked at math. And so engineering and calculus were just not in my future. So uh I stuck with the biological sciences. And when I was an undergrad, uh going to a local community college, trying to figure out what I wanted to do in life, I had a heart-to-heart talk with dad one day. And I knew he loved what he did. Uh, he had a lot of friends in the chiropractic community that we had met over the years, you know, on family vacations when we would travel throughout New England, and very colorful characters in the chiropractic community. And these are all people he went to school with in the 1950s. And some of these individuals were, you know, fire and brimstone chiropractors, others were uh pretty normal, middle of the line, and others were, you know, the gospel according to BJ and DD and green books and all that kind of stuff, which as a teenager, I was kind of like, man, these guys are really over the top with their chiropractic stuff. But long and short of it was in undergrad, I had this conversation with dad that uh, you know, I know you like what you do, but you know, how much do you get paid? And he said, Well, I'm not gonna tell you how much you get paid, but I'm gonna let you do the math. He said, I see this many people a day, and I get paid this much for each visit. You figure it out. So I went and I did the numbers real quick, and I was like, I can do that. And so that was sort of the initial impetus for me to uh look at chiropractic as a career instead of all the other stuff that I was looking at, but I didn't literally have the math skills that I needed to do those uh particular pursuits. So the the following year, dad was going out to Palmer for homecoming and alumni stuff in August, and he invited me to come along, uh, or actually meet him out there because he's gonna be out there the whole week. And I came out, I think, on Wednesday of that homecoming. And this would be like 1977 or 78. And I was just blown away. I felt an immediate connection with the school, the campus, Davenport. Um, and of course, I was born there, you know, 20 years before, but it was just kind of like, man, I felt like I've been here before. I felt so attached to the school. Um, I'm standing outside the student union listening to Virgil Strang and Joe Mazzarelli and all these people talking about chiropractic and philosophy. And I'm in the atmosphere was just electric. And I had some free time, and I actually got to uh hook up with a Palmer student who took me on a tour of the anatomy lab. And there's like three cadavers that are all dissected apart in there with labels identifying the brachial plexus, the nerves, and their chest has opened up and there's all these organs and everything's labeled. And I was just like, whoa, this is so cool. I want to be a part of this too. Um, once I got past the smell, the smell was a bit strong because it was, you know, August and hot and the and the anatomy lab was a bit stinky. But I just wanted to dive in after that. So I finished my undergrad at Hudson Valley Community College and made it to Palmer in March of 1982. Um, had some wonderful classmates that I went to school with who were from the east and from the west coast, and we had a really good camaraderie within our class. We had some very smart people, and um and it and elevated my game because I needed to be on par with all these individuals. Up until that point, I was, you know, a BC student. And these people were, you know, from Pitt and from you know, University of Illinois and Tufts University in Boston. These people were really sharp cookies. And so it really forced me to up my game and and to be a better student and to be more academic and focused on what I was doing rather than, you know, worrying about what kind of beer is at happy hour tonight. So uh, long and short, of it was uh had a great education at Palmer, had a great educational experience, met my wife Susan there. She was a student at Mary Crest College. I had kind of I'd met her once or twice at the Rasskeller at Mary Crest, but she um wasn't interested. There were other upperclassmen who were rugby players and bigger builds and way more handsome than me. And so they always got the attention at me and my roommates from Pennsylvania. Um, but after those guys graduated, all of a sudden we kind of moved up on the food chain and all of a sudden we were okay. And uh I asked her out on a date and she accepted, and the rest is history.

SPEAKER_00 6:18

Very nice. How about siblings? Do you have any siblings that are chiropractors?

SPEAKER_01 6:23

I do not have any siblings. I'm the oldest of five, but I have a cousin Jim and a cousin Dave who did go to chiropractic school after me. Jim is practicing in Waterford in our upstate New York area, and he has a terrific activator practice. That was what really lit his fire when he got to Davenport, he got into the activator club and activator technique. And he actually became um one of their um instructors out on the East Coast. And I have an interesting story about Activator. I used to mock mock it all the time when I was in practice in practice because we got a lot of patients who went to activator doctors and didn't have a very satisfactory outcome. And my my gut feeling was that the the doctors weren't real good at it. And so they didn't get the kind of results that they should have. And so, you know, I would say, yeah, you know, I'm aware of the clicker thing and how that works, and um, but what I do is better. And so we delivered some really good adjustments for those people. They had good outcomes, and then we had an interesting thing happen. Uh, I think my dad was about 60 years old, and he was trying to get my mom uh straightened out with some thoracic spine stuff and some rib stuff, and and she wasn't responding. And so finally my mother says to dad, Um, John, we're gonna go over and visit Jim, my cousin, who's the activator guy. And she said, We're gonna see what Jim can do for him. So they went over to my cousin Jim's office, you know, once they could get into his schedule. And after three adjustments, he was my mom was asymptomatic. Wow. And so my dad was like, holy crap, you know, he'd been practiced for you know 40 years at that point, and he couldn't help my mom. So my cousin Jim said, Uncle, Uncle John, I'd like to invite you to come with me to Philadelphia. He said, I'm gonna be teaching an activator class down there, and you can come down with me. We'll share the hotel room and you can get up to speed on Activator. And so my dad at 60 years of age, you know, who'd been doing Palmer package up until that point, decided to get into Activator. And the interesting thing was, Chris, for the next 15 years of his practice, because he had so many um geriatric patients in his practice, they loved it. They loved him before, but they even loved him more because a lot of those chronic conditions responded to the activator um as opposed to his ossee-suggesting that he was doing. And so he was even more busy. He was as busy as he wanted to be uh those last 10 to 15 years of practice doing activator exclusively.

SPEAKER_00 8:57

So, yeah, it's interesting how different techniques out there work for some patients and not so much for others. And you said something that was rather interesting that a lot of chiropractors use the activator instrument, but they're not really using the activator method. So when you put the two together, that practice and that technique can be very powerful.

SPEAKER_01 9:18

I would agree. And I and I witnessed it and actually experienced it firsthand. I was back visiting mom and dad at Christmas time, and my right hip was killing me, my SI joint from the thousand-mile drive from Milwaukee back to Albany, New York. And in a matter of two adjustments, you know, two days apart, I was asymptomatic. And I was like, man, that just worked so good.

SPEAKER_00 9:41

The very first chiropractor that I went to when I was about 14 years old practiced activator and got me fixed up. I was pitching baseball and threw my back out, like you know, so to speak. And it was acute facet syndrome. And I went in and I was expecting this chiropractor to do some type of manual adjustment on me. And he used the activator and, like I said, fixed me right up. So uh let's connect the dots here. So you graduated from Palmer in 1982, your father graduated in 1959, you grew up in upstate New York, but somehow you landed in the Milwaukee area. How did that happen?

SPEAKER_01 10:22

Well, when Susie and I were dating, and I I knew that she was the person I wanted to spend the rest of my life with, I said to her, My dad and I have this practicing that we have to do. It's sort of been our vision to um practice together. And it's been a uh ambition of ours for a number of years. And I said, but if it doesn't work over time, I would like to move back to the Midwest. And I'm I'm particularly fond of Milwaukee. When I was in uh Davenport as a student, we came up here a couple of times uh for different things, once for Summerfest, another time for Brewers in a Yankees game. And at that time, the Brewers were at the top of their game with Robin Yao, Paul Molliter, and uh the other guys, Broly with the mustache and all those fellows.

SPEAKER_00 11:09

Raleigh Bangers?

SPEAKER_01 11:11

Yes, that's it. And so we had this really great baseball team here. And you know, even though I'm from New York, I was not a big Yankees fan because they always just bought their championships with you know George Steinbrenner's money. So I didn't I didn't have a lot of respect for that. And so anyway, the Bruce and Yankees are playing, and uh some of us came up here to Milwaukee to watch that game. I had never been to a tailgate party before. So, you know, these poor Kapamer students are you know having subway sandwiches and a six-pack of beer, and we're we're parked in the parking lot next to some Tulin Dye shop that's having their annual outing with steak and you know all kinds of barbecue stuff. And they they were very nice to us. They said, uh, would you guys like uh some potato salad or you know, maybe some beer, because we finished our beer pretty quick. And we're like, Oh yeah, thanks, that's really great. So we kind of weasel into their outing, and uh, and I was just blown away by how nice everybody was in this metro Milwaukee area. And I don't remember who won the baseball game, but it was really good. It was very fun, very exciting. But I remember driving back to Davenport from Milwaukee thinking, gosh, if I ever have to move, I'd like to go back to that Milwaukee area. It's just everybody's nice, and you know, the neighborhoods were nice. The hotel we stayed at was, you know, just a quality in on Highway 100. It wasn't anything special, but just everywhere I went, everybody was really nice. So I thought if I had to move, this would be a great place to raise a family. And so here we are. So what interesting, I worked with dad for four years. My mom was a practice administrator, and I love my parents, but we got to the point where we were just conflicting all the time over stuff, you know, about business staff and other things. And it just got to be such a headache that I was starting to have like anxiety about working with my parents and getting together socially and all that sort of thing. So finally I got to a breaking point and I just said to Susie, I said, it's time for us to go. And so we started looking for a house in Milwaukee. We actually took several trips out here, and um, we finally found the house of our dreams with a separate office from the house that we could um turn into a chiropractic clinic without having the food smells traveling back and forth, which is a problem my mom and dad had at their house, and I wasn't going to have food smells, so people knew what we were having for dinner.

SPEAKER_00 13:27

So, just so I clarify, the practice that your father operated with your mom as the administrator was a home office chiropractic clinic.

SPEAKER_01 13:36

That's correct. It was a very large colonial house. In the front, two rooms, which would have been a dining room and a parlor, became his chiropractic practice rooms. And then on the front was a porch that he and my grandfather and a contractor converted to the reception area.

SPEAKER_00 13:52

So then you come to Milwaukee kind of looking at the same model.

SPEAKER_01 13:57

Correct, because a number of my dad's friends uh had practices that they got a little big for their britches with their overhead and lost their practices. And so my dad, you know, I talked to my dad about that several times, and he's like, Well, you know, those guys, you know, they spent all this money on high lows and a fancy office and you know, rent that was too much, and they expected practice growth and they didn't get it. And so they they had to sell all their stuff and work for somebody else.

SPEAKER_00 14:31

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 14:32

So uh I didn't want to have to be worrying about overhead and all that sort of stuff uh in my practice.

SPEAKER_00 14:37

So back to your practice, you're in Waukershaw and you have the home office combination, but they're two separate buildings. Maybe tell me a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_01 14:46

Well, a couple things. In my travels growing up with mom and dad and visiting his friends who were all the different chiropractors that I uh talked about earlier, uh, many of them had home offices uh as well. And they were quite busy and they were quite successful. Um but there were some things that kind of stuck in my head, even as an adolescent, duct tape on the adjusting tables and the cords that power the elect the uh hydraulics and electronics on the tables for the high lows to go up and down. I just thought that was kind of a cheesy thing because everybody had them like duct tape to the floor, the cords. And I thought that was sort of unprofessional and that we could do better. And in my chiropractic office, when I set it up, I made sure that we had plugs in the floor under the table so that we weren't tripping over cords. And I got proficient at recovering my tables as they got worn out, the vinyl and the leather materials, and and and putting new material back on or rebuilding the cushions, all that sort of stuff. And that was just a way to save money and be practical. And so now I know how to do upholstery. I've got some nice tools that I that I use that for. And my wife and I have recovered a number of different chairs uh in the house and here in the office when they get worn out. And it was just, you know, a little something different and extra to save a little money and to um and build my extra skills outside of the office.

SPEAKER_00 16:11

So your office location, is it in a neighborhood or more on a commercial street? How would you describe that?

SPEAKER_01 16:19

The neighborhood where we live is right next to a very large subdivision, sandwiched between the subdivision and a and a fairly good two-lane thoroughfare and an industrial park behind me. So we get traffic from the industrial park as patients. We get people who are driving by in the subdivision who are patients, and to the west of us is a number of large subdivisions uh in the Pewkey area that people are driving by all the time to get on the interstate, which is just about a half a mile to the east of us here. So we wanted that location because it was a nice blend of commercial, residential, and um and business uh mixed businesses all in the same neighborhood. So it served us very well from a business standpoint that we had, you know, uh we had workers' comp cases come from the industrial park and the surrounding uh manufacturing areas. Of course, the intersection at Blue Mound Road and um Barker is is there's an accident there at least once or twice a week. And what's ironic is Canon and Dumpy has their office there right at that intersection. So I don't know how much business they generate there, but if you've ever seen their advertisements on television, you know they're all about getting you the maximum dollar for your for your injuries. Yeah, but I thought that was an interesting irony that one of the most dangerous intersections in the state, Canon and Dumfey, have their office right there at that intersection.

SPEAKER_00 17:43

So tell me about a typical day for your practice, huh?

SPEAKER_01 17:48

Well, um, we start out eight o'clock in the mornings on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. And Tuesdays, we we do noon start because typically we're playing catch up from Monday with doing administrative stuffs, charting, documentation, x-ray development, returning phone calls, yada, yada, yada. Break for lunch for an hour, return phone calls then, reply to emails then, and then the evenings I uh have dinner at home most of the time. And we uh then I come back out in the evenings. Uh now that I'm we're empty nesters, and I do charting and I do x-rays and reply to emails. And so I, you know, it's it's 20 steps from the house to the office. So that's extremely convenient. And I can put in a long day, but I can sort of do it at my leisure rather than you know somebody holding a gun to my head and having to worry about transportation and commuting and all that sort of stuff.

SPEAKER_00 18:37

You're a sole chiropractor in your office. And Susan work in the office, or do you take care of all the patient check-in and phone calls, or how does that work?

SPEAKER_01 18:49

Well, when we started out, I was that role. I was the doctor, I was the secretary, I was the billing person, all that sort of stuff. And I really wanted to get to know how to do uh billing and all that uh going forward because that was back in the Mercedes 80s when insurance was pretty nice. And so I wanted to find good software to submit claims on, and I was mostly typing them up with a typewriter, filling out the CMS 1500 forms and then mailing them in in the mail. Eventually uh I got Eclipse Software, which uh turned out to be a really good software. I learned how to use it, I learned how to enter all the data, how to uh manage the statistics. And that became very helpful when I was training new staff members to come in and learn the system. And as you know, staff people can be with you a few months or a number of years. And in order to understand what they needed to do and be able to educate them and correct them on stuff for mistakes that they made while they were learning the software, I had to be proficient at that, on top of the adjusting and patient stuff. So uh learning, uh, I think the term is cross-training or something like that, where you learn all the policies and procedures for your office, wrote the stupid manuals, all that junk. And finally, eventually I got to the point where you know I couldn't do it all and I had to hire somebody. And I went through a number of people who I thought were competent and were not. And some of them quit on their own when they realized that they were in over their head. And uh others, I finally got up to speed and I had a nice run. It seemed like it was every three to four years that people would uh work for me and then they would want to do something else. And and that was fine. And many of those people are still patients of mine, even though they have moved on to other uh professions and other locations, they still come back as a patient. So I'll I have to say that even though they work for me for three, four years, they moved on to something else. We still have good relationships, which I appreciate. And and they and then they're sending us referrals too, always, which is appreciated as well. So in 2020 with COVID, uh Rose, who had been working for us for the previous six or seven years, wanted to retire. She was like 72 years old and empty nester, great employee, but she was ready to move on. And Susie was ready to leave Freighter once and for all. So she uh came in and said, I'll take over for Rose and I'll work with you until we retire. And so we I don't pay her, she works for free, but she understands all the computer software. She's really great dealing with patients' customer service. She had a lot of experience she brought to the table from being a uh a nurse at uh Freighter in the transplant clinic and later in in their employee health program. So we've been working as a team together, obviously uh from the beginning, but now day to day. But I must say that at this point in time, we're both getting ready to pack it in. So we'll be writing sometime in 2024, we're going to be um retiring.

SPEAKER_00 22:06

All right. So you graduated in 82. Here we are in 2023. So that's a 41-year career, if I'm doing my math correct. And then you're looking at retirement in 2024. So does that mean you'll be selling your practice? Do you think you'll be having someone come on? Or how do you how do you see that working down?

SPEAKER_01 22:27

Well, the practice is for sale, has been for over nine months. We've interviewed quite a few people, uh, even some venture capital people had some interest, but because we're a small family practice, you know, they want to see 150, 200 people a week for them to come in and and and buy you out. And quite honestly, I don't that's not my business model. I prefer much better um patient um interaction. Um we use 15-minute blocks for our patient appointments. And uh the you know, they want people who are seeing people every five minutes, and that's just not me. I don't work that way.

SPEAKER_00 23:09

It's not your business model.

SPEAKER_01 23:11

No, not at all. And so uh, you know, we had nice, polite, respectful conversations. Um, and then I've interviewed a number of doctors in the area who um are young and you know looking to grow their business and their practice. Uh, some of them have that same five-minute business model for each patient interaction. And so I'm like, well, my patients aren't gonna go to your office because they're used to more um more TLC than what you're willing to provide. And uh the other thing that's been really interesting, because our practice is so old, we have a ton of Medicare patients. It's basically a third of our business is all Medicare people. And a lot of the young doctors are like afraid to step into that area. They, they're, you know, they still some of them don't know what the heck an ABN form is, or you know, what diagnostic codes should be used on their forms and their claim submission. And there some of them are afraid of being audited by Medicare. So there's one doctor that I'm speaking with right now who I have a lot of good vibes for. And and and he, for me, he's been asking all the right questions. He's been in practice for about eight or nine years. He's ambitious, he's eager, and um, and he's moving, I think, in the end of this month or next month. And so my exit strategy is if it works out with this uh young Dr. Mike, is that we will uh move my patients to his new location. I will work with him for three, four, six months, whatever, till he kicks me out or he doesn't want me around anymore. Um, but I want to go to his office where my patients will see me. I will take care of them and I will introduce them to him at that new location so that they're all comfortable with going there to that new office location, and then I will ride off into the sunset. I won't be riding off into the sunset um with our state association, though, because I plan to continue to be active uh as a on the board of directors. And I've got all kinds of things that I would like to do uh going forward into the future to help grow our profession and our membership uh at the at the WCA, as well as the profession at large, too.

SPEAKER_00 25:28

All right. So after clinical practice is over, you still see yourself in the game of chiropractic.

SPEAKER_01 25:34

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 25:34

It's it's the Scots Chiropractic Association.

SPEAKER_01 25:37

Yep, it's it's in my blood. I can't get rid of it. I will do take time to travel, uh, do stuff with the grandkids. Uh my one of my hobbies is woodworking, and I will be doing woodworking in my garage, you know, building stuff. My daughter's got a list of stuff that she wants me to fabricate for her at her house. And my son and daughter-in-law haven't requested anything yet, but I think once I start making some things, they'll be putting a bug in my ear.

SPEAKER_00 26:04

Hello everyone. I want to talk to you about the 2024 WCA Fall Convention. I know we all enjoy summer in Wisconsin, but it's never too soon to put our convention on your calendar. This year, our fall convention will be September 19th through the 22nd at the Kalahari Resort and Convention Center in Wisconsin Dells. As always, we will have fantastic speakers and a vendor area that is second to none. Also, I have the honor to announce that our keynote speaker will be Dr. Michelle Myers. Dr. Myers has quite an extensive resume. She is a former board member of the World Federation of Chiropractic and a former board member and president of the American Chiropractic Association. Currently, Dr. Myers is the Executive Director of Research and Innovation for Northwestern Health Science University and is the co-director of the prestigious Rand Corporation. Needless to say, you don't want to miss the keynote address given by Dr. Myers at the 2024 WCA Fall Convention. Once again, our fall convention will be September 19th through the 22nd at the Kalahari Resort and Convention Center in Wisconsin Dells. We hope to see you there. All right. So, okay, so you are currently on the board of directors with the Wisconsin Chiropractic Association. And I do want to get to some questions about your clinical practice and also about the keys to business success with the home office model. But before I do that, back in 1982 and moving forward, what is your recollection of the Wisconsin Chiropractic Association back then?

SPEAKER_01 27:42

Well, from 1982 to 1986, I was in upstate New York and I was involved in the New York Day Chiropractic Association as my dad was. He was one of their regional director people, kind of like a board of director person. And so he got me involved pretty early. And one of my fondest memories of working in the at the local district level is the second year in practice, my legs and feet were killing me. And I'm reading an article in Dynamic Chiropractor about foot levelers. And I had no understanding or experience with foot levelers. And the the title of the article was, Are your patients having trouble holding their adjustments? And I'm like, no, but I am. My adjustments would last for a week, and my feet, my legs, and my hips, my back were just killing me. So I called them and I said, Hey, we'd like to put on a continuing education program with one of your instructors. Is there anybody available like, you know, four months from now? And they're going through their list of people and everybody's committed. And all of a sudden the lady comes back and says, Well, Dr. Monty Greenwalt would love to come to Albany and put on a program for you guys. And I was like, Dr. Monty, the guy who started the whole thing, he wants to come to our little thing, you know? And I expected we would have like 20, 30 people coming for this seminar because he had a certain outline that was approved by, I don't know what the body was, but we put out an invitation to people all over the state of New York in the newsletter that we were having foot leveler seminar and that they could get continued education for it. And we had like 60 people show up at our little district function at the local hotel. And we had Monty Greenwalk one-on-one teaching us all about foot levelers. And it was great. And it was a wonderful experience. And I got to know him, you know, I had breakfast with him that morning before the seminar, and he told me his story. And, you know, he's inquiring about my story in chiropractic. And it was a wonderful experience to, you know, meet one of our what I would consider one of our chiropractic leaders, and um, besides my dad, who I hold in very high esteem as well. And and money did a great job. And so I've been using foot levelers ever since.

SPEAKER_00 29:55

Fantastic. And then the move to Wisconsin and eventually involvement with the Wisconsin Chiropractic Association.

SPEAKER_01 30:01

Well, right away I got involved with the WCA at the district level, um, just you know, going to the meetings and getting to know the local chiropractors. And I think at my first WCA convention, I met one of my dad's friends who was uh Jim Loftus. Okay. And they worked together at the WCA and a number of different Palmer alumni functions and things like that. And he was one of the first people that I met at one of those WCA meetings. And he's like, Tom Edwards, what the hell are you doing here in Wisconsin? And I told him the story, and he's like, Well, welcome. And he introduced me to his two sons who were practicing here at the time, Dan and Jim, if I remember right. And the other docs that I met in the area were all wonderful people Louf Barrows, uh Mike Reddy, uh, Greg Blau, Don Bergman, um, Steve Hernandez, Brian Gerondale, who are in the Cairo Company now, uh, all these wonderful folks, and then you know, just welcomed me with open arms and gave me all kinds of advice uh above and beyond what my dad had provided me with. And I basically fell in love with the organization and the people that were a part of it, and made me feel very much at home and very comfortable uh in my professional life. So the WCA has been a part of my career for you know the last 36, 37 years. And uh I'm very grateful for the organization and all the help that they have afforded me with education, training on you know, all the different coding and billing and insurance stuff, uh, the business stuff that Russ Lindberg did years ago was all wonderful and great. I got a lot out of that. And the the I think it's a wonderful organization, and I want to see it grow.

SPEAKER_00 31:44

So 41 years of parapractic practice. Tom, what can you tell me are the keys to success when it comes to clinical practice and business success?

SPEAKER_01 31:58

Well, again, I have to go back to my business and professional clinical experience working with my parents in upstate New York for four years. Clinically, uh I had a tremendous experience with charting and documentation because charting and documentation, you know, and to this day, it's it's the bane of my existence anyway, as a chiropractic professional, is making sure you have good records and good notes. And now that I'll be transitioning to a new location with new doctors, um, and I've already spent time with Dr. Mike talking about this. Uh, my dad taught me, you know, how to listen to the patient during the medical history part, you know, editorialize what they're saying. And he said many times he said they will tell you exactly what the problem is if you listen and just keep your mouth shut. And it's like, okay, so I learned to listen to patients, and we allot one hour for our first uh initial visit with the patient. And I've done that since the beginning, and I can get a lot of information out of a patient that will establish the medical necessity of their care, allow me to make really good medical decision-making uh processes in my head about what approach I'm going to take to dealing with this patient, figuring out what makes them tick, how do they how I can relate their problem to them at a level that they understand without confusing them with all kinds of, you know, gobbledygook of you know chiropractic philosophy and neurophysiology and all that sort of thing. And, you know, doing good quality x-rays and then communicating the results of the x-rays in the exam to the patient on the report of findings or on the second visit, so that they have some skin in the game. They have some understanding of what the problem is, what we're going to do to fix it. You know, and I we never have a crystal ball say, well, I know I'm going to get this straightened out in six or eight or ten visits. You know, I've never been able to say that with any reliability. I can say, you know, I've had other patients who've had this same stuff. And sometimes it takes me uh, you know, quite a number of visits over three months or six months, or you know, some of this stuff never resolves. We just have to manage it and keep you as comfortable as we can. So I think being honest with people, the patients, explaining what you're doing, why you're doing it, and also being comfortable with telling them, okay, this is how much it's going to cost. And if you can communicate that with people with honesty and integrity, they're game. And they will buy in and they will pay for the services that you're delivering. And that's been just part of my, you know, my upbringing with mom and dad is to be honest and not be bullshitting people and telling lies and just, you know, be a person of integrity. And being a person of integrity is not that hard. It's challenging at times, certainly, because you know, the lower order is always easier. But the dividends that it pays later are tremendous because you build confidence in the patient. Then all of a sudden, they want to bring their spouse in or their kid or their grandkid, or they're making referrals to you with their co-workers. And you don't have to spend a lot of money on advertising. You don't have to spend a lot of time going out into the community, which I did early on in practice. I taught classes at the YWCA. I would speak at the Rotary and different, you know, service organizations, educating people on chiropractic and nutrition and body mechanics and all that sort of thing. And um, and that was a great way to build the practice. It didn't cost a lot. So I I hate to keep sounding like a cheapskate, but the fact of the matter is you can do a lot of stuff that doesn't cost money that you can build your practice. And one of the early things that I found when I was doing everything and I was answering the telephone, and if I had time, people would ask some pretty involved questions about, you know, their they would give you their medical history on the phone. And um, and if I had time, I would listen. And then I would explain how I would address their problem because they were frustrated with the pediatrician or their primary care doc was telling you this, that, and the other thing. They really felt in their heart that that wasn't the best solution to their problem. And I would explain in plain language as best I could what I perceived their problem to be, how I would address that problem. And not every time, but most of the time they would come in and say, okay, can I make an appointment for later this week? You know, and they would come in and I would work on them. And they become patients for a long time because you took the time on the front end to educate them. You didn't rush them in, you didn't rush them out, you provided them with good customer service, and they stayed with you and they referred.

SPEAKER_00 36:20

So I'm hearing listening to the patient, I'm hearing honesty, and I'm hearing develop relationships.

SPEAKER_01 36:28

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 36:30

Gotcha. What about techniques? What do you use for your clinical toolbox? The techniques that you use, and do you use any type of modalities?

SPEAKER_01 36:38

As a Palmer alum, I used Palmer package, Pierce Steelwagon, Gonsted, Thompson. In fact, I remember I was very inspired of Palmer watching Clay Thompson work on a drop table. Um, my dad had high lows, but they didn't, they had a cervical drop, but they didn't have thoracic or pelvic drop. And I watched Clay Thompson at Palmer at Homecoming when I was there in 79 or 80. And it was like watching an artist work. This guy was, you know, there was a lot of chiropractors in there. This is back when leisure suits were popular. Sure. And it was kind of funny to see all these chiropractors taking off their sport coats with the big collars, you know, with the bright colored shirts and the open up shirts and the gold jewelry and stuff. It was just a hoot. And these guys would get on the high low and he would just walk up and down their neck and their back and their pelvis and get the okay, next. And the next guy would get down and boom, boom. But it was just amazing to watch him uh work. And I really grew to appreciate drop mechanisms on uh chiropractic tables because you could do, you know, Clay was only like five foot five, maybe weighed 120 pounds. I mean, he was a dynamo of a little guy, but you know, whether the guy weighed 300 pounds, the patient or you know, 250, didn't matter. They get down the table, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. It was like it was just magical to watch him operate. He truly was a master. And of course, the table's named after him because he he put together all that technology for the mechanical drops and the pneumatic drops for those tables to work. Um, so I use those in my practice. Uh, in addition, I studied uh Grostic, uh Petabon uh at Palmer and had some really good exposure there because I'm a visual person and the engineering that I aspired to before I went to chiropractic school, applied spinal engineering stuff with all these lines and measurements of the x-rays resonated with me. And so I gravitated towards using x-rays as a tool, not only for my benefit, but for the benefit of the patients to educate them and showing them, you know, the curvatures in their spine and the anomalies and what normal was and what we're trying to accomplish with them. And in so doing, I depend very heavily on x-rays and I have my entire career. And, you know, I am I'm I'm saddened to hear that some of the schools are not pushing X-ray as a as a um as a tool, you know, using lame reasons like you know, radiation exposure, which is infantesimal, and um, and that the the it provides limited diagnostic information, which I think is a crock because I've found fractures and spondylos and fusions and aneurysms, all kinds of stuff over the years that if I didn't take an x-ray, I'd be looking at a malpractice case because I would have adjusted that portion of that person's spine and I would have hurt them. So I personally feel that x-rays are a huge and important tool to us as a profession and as part of making uh and managing people's uh musculoskeletal issues. But then again, that's my my personal soapbox beef. And then in the 1990s, I discovered flexion distraction. I watched Dr. Cox at Palmer Homecoming, and I attended his program, and I was just fascinated by his technique. But I thought the table was kind of clunky and weird. And the following I don't know, months, six months later, I was at a program in Chicago, I think it was a CATS program for practice management, and Leander was there, and they had these beautiful flexion distraction tables that were motorized that you didn't have to use your arm for to get that flexion distraction component to work. And my gosh, I immediately fell in love with a Leander flexion distraction table because you could do traction from the occiput all the way down to the sacrum, and you could simultaneously do soft tissue muscle work at the same time. So I found for me personally that doing flexion distraction and soft tissue work simultaneously, you could address a lot of issues that the patient was dealing with and deliver a better adjustment and a better outcome. So I have I to this day I still use the Leander flexion distraction. I can't use my elbows anymore because they're all arthritic and beat up. So I use a uh a glide point ball to work on the glute muscles and large muscles of the back. But I still use my thumbs uh a fair amount on the cervical spine and trap and levator muscles to get those guys to uh mellow out before we actually perform an adjustment. So that's my technical armor camera. And of course, uh, as I mentioned earlier, foot levers, foot levelers really introduced me to extremity stuff really well. They have a wonderful cadre of instructors who we have at the WCA functions on a pretty regular basis. And extremity work was also became a really important uh component of our practice, more sort of like the icing on the cake, although the more proficient I got at it, a lot of people came in with exclusively extremity stuff and not so much spine stuff. Um but either way, you know, we provided them with really good musculoskeletal care and uh really good outcomes doing extremity work as well as their spine stuff.

SPEAKER_00 41:40

Great. So you really rely on the adjustment. You're not a big modality guy.

SPEAKER_01 41:44

No, I do have a little cold laser device from the power medic people, and I love it. I use it on myself, I use it on my family, and I've used it on a handful of patients. Um, it's a wonderful device, it generates a lot of nice um photobiomodulation effects, um, but I don't use it enough. And and I should use it more.

SPEAKER_00 42:05

Well, I do think a lot of our listeners are going to be very happy to hear that chiropractic adjustment is your number one tool in your toolbox.

SPEAKER_01 42:12

Yeah, that. And you know, of course, like everybody else, we're talking about food and nutrition as well. Um, but that's not the cornerstone or um, and what's interesting, I have a funny nutrition story. I've been after this one lady uh who was in earlier this week to stop drinking diet coke. And I had been on her for quite a long time because she had these headaches and inflammatory stuff going on throughout her body. And she was in this week and she told me that her migrant headaches are gone. I said, Oh, what are you doing different? She said, Well, is that my massage therapist a month ago? And she says, Yes, so that I give up the Diet Coke. And I'm like, Okay, that's great. Good advice.

SPEAKER_00 42:51

There you go.

SPEAKER_01 42:52

And so, you know, it's it's the sort of thing when you know, when the student is ready, the teacher appears, even though I've been on her for that for several years. Yeah, I did. And and you know, migraine headaches she's been played with for decades are gone because you know of her addiction to Diet Code.

SPEAKER_00 43:10

Well, I'll tell you what, we're gonna switch gears here a little bit. Not only have you been a clinical chiropractor for 41 years, you've been a businessman for 41 years. Let's talk a little bit about the business side, whether it's insurance, self-pay. Tell me a little bit about the business side of your chiropractic practice.

SPEAKER_01 43:27

Well, when I moved here in 1986, I got into Blue Cross and Blue Shield right away at the recommendation of several of uh our WCA members. And they got me phone numbers and addresses and people to reach out to. And that was definitely uh a boon to our business. And um well, another interesting thing, practicing in New York versus practicing in Wisconsin, the bane of the WCA in the workers' comp area is fee schedule. Well, in New York State. They have a fee schedule. And it's about what you get paid for Medicaid visits. If that uh they have the same thing with their auto liability, they have a no-fault uh insurance model in New York State. And again, you're getting paid very little. And after doing that for a number of years and going to uh to hearings in mediation with insurance companies and administrative law judges in that four-year time frame, I thought, what a morass of administrative work on the part of the chiropractor. And you've got claims reviewers, you know, denying your care after six visits, 10 visits, 12 visits, they don't need any more care. And, you know, you have to argue with an administrative law judge and an attorney. It just was such a nightmare. And so when we moved to Wisconsin and I submitted my first workers' comp claim, and I submitted my usual customary fees, and I got paid that entirely. I was just like, okay, this works. I can do this. And then we get our first car accident claim. Same thing. I submitted the usual customary charges, and we got paid. And there was no question. And that is where the charting and documentation came in handy because I provided them with copious amounts of information to establish the medical necessity of their care, even though it was handwritten. I wasn't doing any uh computer stuff then. This is again 1986, 1987, 88. Uh, and then a wonderful thing happened in Wisconsin when Governor Thompson got elected to uh office, is that he brought in the insurance equality law, which brought us even more parity and coverage of insurance, which opened up a whole bunch of opportunities for the chiropractic profession to serve more people. And it was a boon for a number of years until our colleagues started bidding against each other for managed care contracts. And then the whole thing went to hell in a handbasket. I had the experience of losing Blue Cross and Blue Shield at the time when I think it was CairoCare was the state third-party administrator for Blue Cross and Blue Shield. And I uh that contract was LB'd by some enterprising colleagues of ours, and I lost 25% of my business overnight. And it opened up more opportunities for workers' comp and personal intercas that were paying, you know, their usual customary rate rather than this discounted rate. So I was like, you know what? That's okay. I'm good with that. And that was my first indicator that managed care and insurance was a bit of a problem. And then another contract came our way from a company out of Minnesota called Northern Services, and it was run by a physical therapist. And two chiropractors around me lost the contract, and their sales rep guy comes to my office telling me what a great guy, and how bad these other two chiropractors were. They were overutilizing, they were charging too much, yada, yada, yada. And I knew these two guys, and I thought that doesn't sound right. So I listened to his spiel. I actually decided I would sign the contract. So I had all these patients coming from these two chiropractors to my office, and you know, we're doing re-exams and evaluations, but I had to do all these stupid um pre-authorization documents and fill them out. And my wife Susie had to do those as well, and she got tired of doing it. And after about nine months, they started to threaten me with terminating my contract because I was seeing people too long, too often. I was using inappropriate diagnostic codes. And so finally I get a phone call from this physical therapist who runs this managed care organization, and he's telling me that I should be getting all my patients better in 7.4 visits. And I'm like, Really? I said, You're a physical therapist, right? I said, Do you get all your people better in 7.2 visits? Oh, it doesn't matter. There's your chiropractors are trying to rip off the system, yada, yada, yada. I'm like, well, wait a minute. You didn't answer my question. Do you get all your people done in 7.2 visits? Because we're dealing with the same stuff. We're dealing with musculoskeletal injuries to the spine, the back, the pelvis, the knees, the hips, the shoulders. I said, Do you get all your people better in 7.2 visits? It doesn't matter. You know, I'm in charge of this program and I'm administrating you guys. I was like, I'm sorry. I said, you know, if you can't do that, then you know, we're done. And so I had to keep taking care of those people for three more months for nothing. Um, but I learned a valuable lesson there. Uh again, that managed care and insurance is a double-edged sword. And we lost, oh, that was probably 33% of our business at that time. So again, we rebounded very easily. And because we had the home office, we didn't have to worry about overhead because you know, I didn't, I wasn't paying thousands of dollars a month in rent. It's some really nice office building. It was just my little chiropractic office, and okay, so we made less money that month and the next few months until we rebounded with, you know, other people coming in. And again, we kept losing more and more insurance business. I never did get into United Healthcare. Um, I did have an interesting experience with Associates for Healthcare, which was uh a southeastern Wisconsin managed care group that eventually got assimilated by United Healthcare. And this would probably be the second year we had that Associates for Healthcare contract. And we got we all of us chiropractors got a letter down here that um our utilization was too high, and that you know, they wanted us to um get the numbers down. So the office was just up the road from me where they have their their setup and where they processed our claims. So I called them up and I said, Hey, I'd like to meet with Mr. Bloomquist, who's running this organization. And so um, like three days later, they said, Yeah, you can come in and we can meet with him at this time. And I walk into his his reception area and he's got a conference room, and I see he was in there because I'd seen this picture, I knew who he was. But he had his attorney, his medical doctor, and his CFO in the room with him. And so here's little Tom Edwards coming in, you know, the 35-year-old chiropractor, and I'm talking to these guys who are managing millions and millions of dollars of medical claims. And so they had some questions for me, and you know, I answered their questions, and then they said, Dr. Edwards, we'd like you to compare your data with all the other doctors in the plant. And so they brought out my statistics and they showed me, and I was right smack in the middle. I wasn't overutilizing, I wasn't under utilizing. And so, uh, which is where I thought I should have been. So then there was a bunch of doctors, and a couple of them you know, were way out here at you know, many, many visits and many, many dollars for each claim, each visit. And uh they said, What do you think? And I and they had their initials next to them, so I knew who they were. And I said, uh, I guess if it was up to me and I was running your company, I'll be to fire all those docs because they're not providing good care in a managed care environment, which is what you're looking for. And if they're not, if they can't be in compliance with you know the guidelines that you set forth in the agreement, then fire them. And so um, and and then they asked me about this doctor, how he only has three or four visits for each claim. I said, I don't know, I can't answer that. I said, maybe he's got some really awesome technique that he uses where he can get people. But I said, that I think he's a bit of an outlier. And I think these guys are outliers, and I think if if if you're not happy with their performance, you should fire them. And so then before they let me go, they uh asked me uh one last question. They said, Dr. Evers, can you please explain to us why when somebody comes into a chiropractic office, all of a sudden it's the wife, the kids, and everybody from their their company that comes in. It's like people get addicted to chiropractic care. And I kind of looked at these three guys and they were just like really anxious to hear what my answer was. And I said, gentlemen, quite honestly, it's not that people are addicted to chiropractic care. I said, they come to the chiropractor, they've got this problem, they've always been often to other healthcare providers, and they haven't got a successful resolution to whatever this musculoskeletal issue is, whether it's headaches, neck pain, back pain, whatever. I said, they come to the chiropractor, they have an exam, they have x-rays, and we treat them with our spinal adjustments, and they get better. They are happy, they are satisfied. So then they refer their wife, they refer their kids, they refer their coworkers. I said, they're really not addicted to chiropractic care. What they're addicted to is having their quality of life restored and being a functional, normal human being without the encumbrances of pain or depending upon drugs. And I said, Any questions? And they just sat there and said, No, I think we're done. And so I left. But I I felt like I gave them a pretty good answer, maybe not what they wanted to hear, but it's what I felt in my heart was the appropriate response to that question. So as time went on through the 90s and early 2000s, insurance became such a quagmire and a nightmare. I just got I would not renew my contracts. And I would just say, you know what? I'm not going to do this. We're just going to do uh self-pay cash. And a lot of our patients would go to the preferred providers in their network, and their copa sometimes were more than what our cash rate was. And so they would go and they pay more, you know, say 55 or 60 bucks for their copay. They would get crappy care, they'd be in and out in two or three minutes, five minutes, and they would come back and then they would pay, and there would be no argument, no question. And uh, and a lot of those people to this day continue to come uh from you know the 90s and the early 2000s and the teens who you know went to their preferred provider, got crappy care, and they came here and they stayed. So my business model is not real sophisticated or fancy. It's just provide really good customer service, treat people with respect and integrity, and they will stay and pay and refer.

SPEAKER_00 54:13

What percentage of your patient utilizes insurance versus self-pay?

SPEAKER_01 54:16

Would you say one percent?

SPEAKER_00 54:20

One percent insurance, the rest is self-pay.

SPEAKER_01 54:23

Correct. And even the Medicare population pays at the time of service because we're a non-par provider. Wow. So our accounts receivable, Chris, is I mean, we we have a car accident claim right now, so there's like a thousand dollars out on that.

SPEAKER_00 54:38

So you're not sending out a hundred statements every month? Not at all. No. No. Well, well, I'm sure a lot of young chiropractors and even seasoned chiropractors would like to know your secret on how to develop a 99% self-pay practice.

SPEAKER_01 54:54

Well, thank you. It's it's something that it just kind of evolved over time because dealing with insurance stuff what became such a headache and a nightmare. And and the money that, you know, you and you know this yourself, how much you have to write off and then, you know, accounts receivable. You know, people are playing with your money for two or three months before you actually ever get paid sometimes.

SPEAKER_00 55:15

So, what is the key to maintaining that low accounts receivable? Is it just really good communication with your patients to pay their bill on time, pay at the time of service?

SPEAKER_01 55:25

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 55:26

So, how does that work in an office like yours, Tom? Are you having those conversations when it comes to finances with your patient or is that a staff person?

SPEAKER_01 55:35

It's both. So, say for example, uh we have uh we last week we had a new Medicare patient call in. Two of her sisters and a number of her family members have been patients here for some of them for quite a long time. And she has a Medicare replacement plan. We're not in that Medicare replacement plan. She's been for physical therapy, she's been to her primary care doctor, she's been on a whole bunch of different medications. And so her two sisters, her niece, uh, her grandniece, uh, have all suggested that she come in at family functions. And she's got sciatica, low back pain. She's a little bit overweight, she is a type two diabetic, and and she has you know a low back thing with some disc swelling and some sciatica. And so I did an initial exam, x-rays. On her second visit, I explained what she has going on, how we're gonna fix it, what we're gonna do. And even on that first visit, uh, I adjusted her, you know, she was like for for 24 hours, she was like 25% better for the first time in a couple of months. So she was encouraged by that. Um, but then after you know, the next two days, because I think I saw her on a Wednesday and she couldn't get back till Monday. By the weekend, pain was ratcheting back up and her quality of life was was going downhill again. And so once I got the x-rays uh analyzed and I showed them to her and she could see what she was dealing with. I've only seen her one more time since then, and she's like 50% better. Susie, my staff person, took the initial call and told her up front what the costs were going to be as a new patient. And Susie explained that we would submit those uh claims for those services to her insurance, but she has a Medicare replacement plan, so she's getting she's not getting any reimbursement because we're not a participating provider in that Medicare replacement plan. I think it's um a Blue Cross and Blue Shield replacement plan. Now, if she had a Humana plan, we'd have to take it and we'd have to do that. But then again, that falls into that 1% of insurance work that we do. But the vast majority of people, particularly the ones who have those Medicare replacement plans, we're not in any of those except for the Humana one. And they just pay at the time of service, but they know that up front, which was the whole purpose of the No Surprises Act. Right. And we've had that policy from the beginning because I don't want to deal with people. I don't like surprises. Like here, how much is it gonna cost? This is what you're gonna get. And you know, and I can't tell you if it's gonna be two visits or 20 visits, but you know, we'll we're gonna manage your case together and we're gonna do it, you know, with the utmost of transparency.

SPEAKER_00 58:08

So just straight up look them in the eye, communication. Yes. That's awesome. That's great. So, Tom, where do you get your inspiration? What makes you tick? Where do you go for that?

SPEAKER_01 58:18

Well, I'm a died-in-the-wolf Catholic, riddled with guilt. Um, but my inspiration is particularly with with our professional stuff, is the patience. When, you know, everybody knows the practice. I won't say they all know it's for sale, but they're aware that I'm getting close to retirement. And Chris, hardly a day goes by when some 70, 80-year-old patients, like, I don't know what I'm gonna do when you retire. I said, You have you have made my quality of life so good, uh, or you know, my wife's quality of life or my grandkids, uh, we all are doing well. And it's it's because of you and the chiropractic care you provide us with that adds to our quality of life. Man, I gotta tell you, that's gonna be hard to walk away from. Right. And um, but I hope with uh with Dr. Mike, if that works out, that he he will be able to do that for the next two decades to help these people continue to have a really good quality of life, which is what we do.

SPEAKER_00 59:19

You you open the door, and I'm gonna I'm gonna take advantage of this. You mentioned your faith. Sounds like you're a strong man of faith. Can you speak to that?

SPEAKER_01 59:29

Well, um, I I attended Catholic school for elementary school and was I wasn't the most behaved, well-behaved young person, and ended up in the principal's office a number of times and was on the receiving end of the ruler and the cane. Uh, it was nuns uh who were from England and Africa who ran the school. And they were sweet ladies, loved them dearly, and they were really good inspirational individuals. Um, but you know, I go to church every Sunday. I have a uh I taught my daughter Sunday school when she was a teenager, which uh was a very, you know, difficult time in anybody's life when they're a teenager, but I was glad that I was able to be a part of that, and it really helped me further my faith and to and to share it with other, you know, young adolescents and young adults. And you know, I'm not gonna beat the Bible on people's heads, but you know, being living your life with integrity and honesty is so much easier than not, because uh as a as an adolescent, you know, when you didn't want your parents to know what you were up to, you you know committed lies of omission and did all kinds of mischievous stuff. I mean, I always got in trouble for uh what what lie did I tell mom and dad where I was at? And you always got caught. And you know, it's embarrassing. And your siblings saw you know the punishments that you got, and they try to not make the same mistakes because I was the oldest of five, and you know, I I push the envelope constantly. And um, and what's so interesting is when we get together for family reunions, now mom and dad are gone, but we still joke about all the silly, stupid stuff that we did and how we tried to deceive mom and dad, and they knew what was going on and they caught us anyway. So um, but faith is is usually important, is is hugely important in my opinion, because it's sort of the moral compass that you use not only for your personal life, but your for your business life as well. And as such, it makes decision making a lot easier.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:32

Honesty and integrity. There you go.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:34

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:35

So, Tom, 41 years in practice. What would the 1982 Dr. Tom Edwards learn from the 2023-41 years in practice, Dr. Tom Edwards?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:51

You know, that's a great question, Chris. I would have to say that being more humble, I when I got out of school, I thought I knew everything. And my dad, I thought I knew way more than he did. But what I possessed in terms of academics and and um, you know, passing national boards and orthopedic tests and neurological stuff and dermatomes and all that junk, his life experience in that four years that we worked together that he shared with me was incredibly valuable. And uh and I guess as I'm looking back now, uh I didn't appreciate it, but those lessons that he shared with me on dealing with patients, dealing with Medicare, dealing with insurance stuff and business were extremely valuable. I should have listened more. That would be my only advice is pay closer attention to your um your mentors and your superiors and um the people that you take for granted, whether it's professionally or personally.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:52

Gotcha. That's good advice. Very good advice. Well, we eventually have to wrap up here, Tom. Do you have any final words of wisdom that you'd like to share with our listeners?

SPEAKER_01 1:03:03

For the young doctors, I would say watch your overhead. And for the older docs, I would like to say thank you for being uh a part of our profession and helping it to grow. Um, but one last thing that I also was uh looking up that I was reminded of is there's a lot of, we have a lot of wonderful colleagues in our profession uh here in Wisconsin alone. In particular, I'm thinking of Dr. Farsh, Dr. Holland, Dr. Yeomans, who you talked about. We have a lot of wonderful individuals who are we're we're fortunate to have them here in Wisconsin, but these are individuals who have a national presence. And I think we're blessed in the WCA to have them as part of our family and our community. And I'm friends with all of them, and I look forward in my retirement to get to know them better and continue to participate in their education programs. Uh, I think they're a tremendous asset to our uh profession, our association. And uh I was reviewing something earlier today that I wanted to share with you uh about the Cairo Congress, and it's their their uh motto, uh, which had to do with uniformity without conformity. And I think that's a wonderful credo for our profession to adopt. We're uniform as a profession, but yet, and we fit under the big tent, and yet all the different technical things and our philosophical things fit under that tent and make us this wonderful quilt, this patchwork of professionals and disciplines within chiropractic that are going to be very helpful to the patients that we serve and uh and and helping individuals to realize their full potential, who are our patients, our family members, our colleagues. I think we have a lot of growth potential for our profession. And we have all these wonderful young docs who we just have to get them motivated to participate and to be a part of that movement. But I I love uniformity without conformity. I think that's a marvelous, marvelous part of our chiropractic plan going forward. And I'm and I noticed that they have a phase three that's going to be coming on where they're gonna be implementing that. And they've got all these different benchmarks and things set up going forward to 2025. So, in when I'm not practicing anymore, I'm looking forward to being a part of that movement of growing our profession so that we can serve more people.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:36

Dr. Tom Edwards, 41 years in practice, graduate of Palmer College of Chiropractic in 1982, current board member for the Wisconsin Chiropractic Association. On behalf of the Wisconsin Chiropractic Association, I want to thank you for everything that you've done for chiropractic in chiropractic. You've been a great mentor for many and a great inspiration. And I want to thank you for your time today.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:00

Thank you, Chris. I appreciate your very kind and flattering remarks. I appreciate it immensely. And look forward to continue to work with you in whatever capacity we can.