Dr. Jacob Stoffel: An Impressive Treatment Toolbox for Patient Care

Our guest is Dr. Jacob Stoffel, a chiropractor practicing in Baldwin, Wisconsin, who brings a fresh and highly effective approach to patient care. A 2020 graduate of Northwestern Health Sciences University, Dr. Stoffel has built a patient-centered practice by focusing on a personalized and comprehensive approach to treatment.

He begins and builds his relationships with patients through a discovery visit, which then leads to a detailed functional movement evaluation and ultimately, a customized plan of care. His treatment toolbox is impressive, including chiropractic adjustments alongside therapeutic modalities like instrument-assisted soft tissue mobilization, cupping, kinesiotaping, dry needling, therapeutic exercise, nutritional counseling, and much much more.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:13

Hello, and welcome to the Back to Basics Podcast. I'm Chris Resch, president of the Wisconsin Chiropractic Association, and I'm thrilled to have you join us today. Our guest today is Dr. Jacob Staffel, chiropractor practicing in Baldwin, Wisconsin, who brings a fresh and highly effective approach to patient care. 2020 graduate of Northwestern Health Science University, Dr. Staffel has built a patient-centered practice by focusing on a personalized and comprehensive approach to treatment. He begins and builds his relationships with his patients through a discovery visit, which then leads to a detailed functional movement evaluation and ultimately a customized plan of care. His treatment toolbox is impressive, including chiropractic adjustments alongside therapeutic modalities like instrument assistant soft tissue mobilization, cupping, kinesiotaping, dry needling, therapeutic exercise, nutritional counseling, and much, much more. I think you'll find our conversation insightful and inspiring. So let's dive into my chat with Dr. Jacob Staffel.

unknown 1:20

Dr.

SPEAKER_01 1:20

Jacob Stoffel, how are you today? Not too bad. How are you? I'm great. Thank you very much for joining me on the Back to Basics podcast that we do with the Wisconsin Chiropractic Association. Appreciate that. Glad to be here. And let's just kick this off and let's just tell our listeners a little bit about your journey through chiropractic education and where you are today.

SPEAKER_00 1:39

All right. Um, so I actually didn't know I wanted to be a chiropractor. It's one of those I utilize as service all my life growing up. Uh really good local doc. And I went to undergrad at the University of River Falls, uh, Wisconsin here with the intent to go into surgery, you know, like cardiothoracic surgery or some other orthopedic surgery. And it was going well until I started shadowing them and I found out that the job really wasn't for me. Just the hours on the job, how they divvy up, you know, um non-surgical care versus surgical care, how long you're in a suite, um, basically how they are kind of forced to do certain jobs and frankly a lot of their personal perceptions on, well, that their occupation, I didn't really ever meet a very happy surgeon. So it just kind of made me look at him like, okay, maybe this isn't something I want to do. You know, I want a family, I want to uh still go into the medical field. And I actually was teaching a martial arts class at the time in UWRF. And one of my friends just happened to dislocate his uh second toe. And he's just like, you know, your pre-med, I can't go to the hospital, I can't do this. And it was just like, okay, you know, I don't know anything, and we're gonna get you to the hospital anyway, but you know, I'll try reducing it here. You know, why not? It worked out really, really well. He's like, Thanks. Uh, you saved, you saved me a bunch of pain uh and a night at the hospital. And I'm like, oh, that was kind of cool. I helped somebody with my hands, and that's when uh my wife kind of mentions like, hey, that kind of sounds like what chiropractors do. I'm like, oh, I'll talk with my supervisor about it, or uh my undergrad supervisor. And she's just like, funny enough, you should ask. A week ago, we just had an agreement with Palmer Davenport, where your senior year of undergrad could be your first year at Palmer down there. So I started to do some digging. I started to interview. And, you know, a little while later, lo and behold, I wind up at Palmer Davenport. And it's one of those things where the campus and the school itself is a really great program, but I had to transfer after a year because it was my first time away from family. I knew it was something that I wanted to do, but there were a lot of personal things stacking up against me that didn't lead to me seeing me be successful at that college. You know, insomnia, loneliness, lots of different things that people sometimes will admit openly, like, oh yeah, I get that. And others just don't want to admit it. Like going through any sort of grad school is going to do that to you. So I then toured Northwestern Health Sciences University, where my one-on-one tour was hijacked by Dr. Tim Stark. So I got to sit down and talk with him for probably a good three hours. I filed the paperwork and then I started write fresh at Northwestern Health Sciences University, where I then went through the program, got a sports emphasis, which was pretty fresh, something new that they offered at the school at the time. And frankly, ever since, I've been doing continuing ed in pretty much everything and anything you can think of. Um, during my time at Northwestern, I was known kind of as the seminar junkie because I was going to probably two or three per trimester, even starting out at T1. Um that's where I was introduced into a lot of different techniques, modalities, and things that kind of interested me through school. So, you know, I've taken courses on instrument work, cupping, DNS, Mackenzie, um, factor, which uh I was uh lucky enough to reach out and talk with Dr. Riddle about. And he got me on board to being the Midwest instructor for Factor. So if anybody needs a Factor course out there, you can contact them and I'll probably be your guy teaching that class. And now it's uh really focusing in on the diplomated orthopedics that we have an agreement with Bridgeport on. So I'm pursuing that pretty heavily, but that's just kind of a thousand-foot view, you know, a long story, only kind of long, about my training so far. Very cool. So you grew up on the northwest side of Wisconsin? I was born and raised in Baldwin, and I did not think, frankly, I'd be back running a practice here. It's it's one of those things where God and COVID had some funny things, you know, or basically did a lot of funny things for me and I'm sure everybody else.

SPEAKER_01 5:46

Crooked paths get us to where we want to go, right? That's exactly right. And now you're in Baldwin. Very cool. And it sounds like your rather, I would say, progressive style of treatment with the instrument assisted. And I saw on your website that you are SFMA. Yep. Can you talk a little bit about that?

SPEAKER_00 6:05

Sure. I guess which part do you want me to talk about? Just any one of the individual courses I've taken that I utilize, or just kind of, you know, my, if we want to call it that, more of the progressive approach into my patient care.

SPEAKER_01 6:16

Let's start with your initial exposure to SFMA. Was that at Northwestern, or did you run across it somewhere else?

SPEAKER_00 6:23

I would say I kind of first learned about SFMA probably somewhere around the end of my first year in college in Northwestern. Um, I will say that I was able to talk to a couple of uh professors on campus about it, specifically Dr. Oswald. And I talked with a couple of other my friends, and there was a course being offered in Denver, Colorado, right about when I was a T6 or seven. And so it's like, you know what? At the time they didn't really have great offerings for online like they do now. So it's like, we're just gonna take a road trip, we're gonna go out to Colorado, and we're going to take this SFMA level one course. And frankly, it was a great course. It was just repetition, repetition, repetition. And the top tier itself was real easy conceptually. You know, it's just a very global screen on range of motion. And people, some people have um, they have ideas on FMS and SFMA that frankly I don't find pairs with it, lacks the nuance of what it actually is because a lot of people will look at you know the FMS, the functional movement screen. It'll be like, oh, they give the patient a number and you know, that's how likely they are to get injured, which is it has nothing to do with what uh Gray Cook or any of them have stated is what it's about. It's quite literally just a screen. And for any of our listeners, you know, there's a difference between screening and diagnostic tests. Like you really have to remember that. And these tests are just that screening tests to get you to a working diagnosis, not an actual diagnosis. So the top tier itself is pretty simple. You know, you look at uh cervical range of motion, flexion, extension, rotation, you look at broad shoulder movement, basically breaking down an aple scratch test. Um, you have the patient, you know, touch their toes, multi-segmental flexion, do a little bit of multi-segmental extension, a little bit of rotation, a quick little bound screen, and a deep squat just to kind of get a you know, broad picture of what this patient is capable of doing in front of you. And from there, then it really kind of gets into a I don't want to call it convoluted, but then you get into a lot of the actual breakouts, which are the darndest thing to remember. And um, helping to uh at one point teach that class on campus at Northwestern, it it's the thing that takes the most time. By and far, it takes the most time to do. And I will be upfront and honest when it comes to those breakout tests. I do hybridize them and kind of put my own flair and spin on what I feel is pertinent at the time to get information from the patient that I need.

SPEAKER_01 8:50

So I'm in a multidisciplinary practice, chiropractic physical therapy. I find that it's a great blend between the two. And like you said, that top tier, you can get a lot done in a pretty short period of time, uh, but then you can get very into the weeds, so to speak. And I my wife's much more proficient than I am. I'm she's she's certified at all three levels. Oh wow. If you include the the titleist performance institute, oh good. So you bring in you know the whole golf dynamic, and uh so are some of our other physical therapists and one of our chiropractors too. So yeah, it's it's good stuff, I'll just put it that way. So those of our listeners that are you know kind of tuning into this part, SFMA has got a lot going on, and and I saw that on your website, so I thought I would just at least ask you a little bit about it. So let's talk chiropractic technique. Do you gravitate towards any specific technique or hybrid?

SPEAKER_00 9:46

Yeah, if if you could call it a technique, I definitely would quote unquote specialize in the Motion Palpation Institute on how to go about doing things. Um, I utilize their um seated scan, and frankly, how they go about with everything's essentially a palpation and your adjustment is always gonna be uh your palpation plus plus impulse. Because for me, and again, the I the way I'm gonna talk about this is just the way my brain works. This is by no means endorsing or condoning any other technique out there at this point in time. But for me, the model makes sense simply because when I've dealt with patients with scoliosis or we deal with patients that are, let's just call it off the anatomical norm, being able to palpate functionally and then go into an HVLA utilizing that palpatory finding has been a much more impactful way for me to help that patient in real time versus other discussions I've had with a little bit more, well, practitioners, a little bit more zealous in how they have to always set up a patient to do exact angles and exact, um, you know, it must always be, you know, if I'm if I'm adjusting a pelvis, I must always put the patient in this posture, contact this exact location, angle my elbow so that I'm only doing I to S with exactly for it. For me, that kind of got thrown out when you understand like facet tropism, scoliosis in three dimensions, and how, you know, at best we could just call that a, yeah, it works for gen pop, but once we get into specifics and anything off the norm, you have to really be able to adapt your technique to the person in front of you. So MPI was a massive influence for me from T1 all the way through graduation to even postgrad. I'll still go to some of their courses if they're either local or they have the new doctor track that I was uh fortunate enough to attend at their last uh adjust a thon last year. Um, so I'd say if there is a quote unquote technique that I'll use, it's entirely off the ethos of how MPI approaches their palpation and adjusting techniques.

SPEAKER_01 11:57

So we mentioned SFMA, which is a great screening, and I'm sure you have other examination procedures that you do, mentioned motion palpation, mentioned factor with instrument-assisted soft tissue mobilization. What about anything else? Any other techniques or modalities?

SPEAKER_00 12:14

Um, if we're talking on the treatment side, there's dry needling, there's a lot to do with therapeutic exercise. Um, there's nutritional counseling. I'm um pairing with e vexia diagnostics for introduction into lab work. Um, there's a lot of a lot of it actually comes down to just allowing the patient to give me enough history to even pick where I want to go when it comes to a treatment. Um, just because that is one thing that I will say uh I'll I'll probably say is relatively unique for my private practice, is almost all of my actual patient visits are an hour, hour long a piece. So I typically will all right, I'll just walk you through how a patient may experience uh the clinic for the first time. So oftentimes they will they'll come in for what I call a discovery visit. Because things are so off of the norm, I want to give them a chance to come in, take a look at the clinic, and frankly, ask me any screening questions that they have about care because most of this is going to be uh entirely cash because working an hour at a time with the different modalities, trying to figure out, you know, we have to figure, you know, uh finagle around, you know, a pre-auth or a cap or a deductible or this. And it's just like the price for what I'm gonna do for the hour in the visit is not going to be covered by insurance, or if it is, it's only gonna be partial. So we're able to essentially get any and all barrier questions out of the way to give the patient an opportunity to either say flat out no, not yet, or yeah, I'm in. Because then after that, the the likelihood of their be dropping off after that is very, very low. So I can actually then dedicate, like, you know, well, what happens if a patient cancels? It's like that's why I do these screens beforehand, offering these uh discovery visits to make sure that when I'm working with a patient, the odds of it happening are very low. And they understand if they do, you know, there is that no-show policy. So then what we do is we set up an hour-long new patient exam after the discovery visit, where all right, you said yes, you want me to dive deeper into your problem, give me the time to do that with any and all testing procedures that I need. So after allowing them to give me a history, which on average for patients, you know, if they're not a talker, you can get done in five minutes. If they're a talker, okay, that might take up like 30 minutes if you don't control the flow. But then I go into orthopedic testing, I go into uh not just the SMA top tier, but I have one of the bits of tech that I've utilized that I found have been a surprising benefit for me as actually been um JTEC medical uh dynamometry and uh dual inclinometry. And it's mainly not just because it refines and enhances my diagnostic capability, because I've got a couple of stories about that, but mainly it's a bridge to communicate with the patient where I don't really even have to speak. They just, it's all them. They're doing whatever they find is capable. This device is completely agnostic on what they're doing and they get to see the results. And I've had multiple patients where they go, yeah, that's exactly what I thought. That's why I need to be here. Or holy smokes, I didn't realize it was that bad. And quite literally, you just it I have almost no influence on how the devices work. It is entirely patient-led, and they get to see, physically see what their input was, and then we get to have a discussion on what does that mean. And very oftentimes, I don't want to ever say, you know, it's selling care, but you know, being a business person, you actually have to understand that care and sales basically go hand in hand. It does essentially sell the patient on, oh, this is the place for me. I see the results I got, and this is why we need to work together. Um, so very often I'll employ employ that after a top-tier exam where, you know, let's just say something was extra tight, I'll break that out. Or let's just say a person says the words, I feel weak. And honestly, just doing a subjective MSR doesn't always give you that great of info. So we break that out and we just do it on whatever they felt weak on. And it's been a pretty big game changer for me personally, on just being able to communicate with the patient in a nonverbal way that just really speaks to them.

SPEAKER_01 16:32

Just to rehash here a little bit for our listeners in case they miss it, this is the JTEC technology.

SPEAKER_00 16:38

Exactly. And then after that, we just get them scheduled where we're gonna work an hour at a time, anytime, because there's a few things that yeah, I could get done in five, 10, 15 minutes. But a lot of the times, patients when they see me, it's because they've tried everything else, uh, MDs, DOs, and frankly, other DCs. Um, I had a sciatica patient last night where we basically got him completely resolved of his sciatica, and that's his exact story. He was an MD patient, uh DC patient that he was loyal to for 20 years. But uh we just needed to do things in a longer time frame that's not always available to patients in more of a traditional healthcare model from most clinics. So being able to take him from A to Z, giving him the opportunity and the option to do sometimes it was just an hour therapeutic exercise. Other times it was 30 minutes of traditional on-the-table work where, all right, we'll maybe adjust you, maybe we'll dry needle you, and we can do some fun things if we have this time available. Where, you know, there's been some studies out there where, you know, if we put a little E stem on some of these needle points, especially around the lumbar spine, after about 25 to 30 minutes or so on a low frequency, we can get you to release your own endogenous opioids. So you don't have to take Vicadin, you don't have to take morphine. We can kind of force the body to release its own if we need that acute pain management. So the opportunities these things have afforded me working in this model is something that I don't think I'll ever go back to being shorter than half an hour. The results have been too impactful on both sides of the equation for me and the patients, and it's just the niche that I am most happy in.

SPEAKER_01 18:19

Yeah, that's a very unique and interesting model. If I could just kind of summarize what I'm absorbing here. One, you spend 30 minutes on a discovery visit. Yep. Then that leads to a one-hour examination. Yep. And then oftentimes treatment for follow-up is an hour or minimum half hour. Yep, I'd say that's like 90 to 95 percent of my patient base. And you probably get some great results with a number of different styles. Again, that is I'm gonna say not the most common traditional chiropractic approach because that SFMA is uh quite intricate and motion palpation, and then into soft tissue mobilization, therapeutic exercise, dry needling, K-taping, cupping, all sorts of uh very cool techniques that you're utilizing in your practice.

SPEAKER_00 19:15

There's very rarely, you know, you if even if a day and a patient are the same, you know, like you know, three patients in a row are the same thing, week by week, it's you never know. So it's it's fun.

SPEAKER_01 19:32

Hello everyone. I want to tell you about the 2025 Spring Convention hosted by the Wisconsin Chiropractic Association. This year we are shortening up the duration to two days and calling it a spring mini convention. Join us Thursday and Friday, April 10th and 11th at the beautiful Ingleside Hotel and Water Park in Pewaukee, Wisconsin. It's two days packed with educational opportunities that you can use in your practice Monday morning. So save the date now and don't miss this opportunity to grow, network, and thrive at the 2025 WCA Spring Mini Convention Thursday and Friday, April 10th and 11th at the beautiful Ingleside Hotel and Water Park in Pewaukee, Wisconsin. More exciting details regarding topics, speakers, and class times will be posted on the WCA website in January 2025. And you've been in practice since 2020, so four years. So you put a lot of time and effort into constructing this model. Is this all homegrown or is this something that you had a mentor? How did that come about?

SPEAKER_00 20:41

That's a very good leading question. So I'll say the desire for it was always homegrown, but I will say actually putting into practice, it did require mentorship. Um, so for me, the mentorship happened in what was it, 20, it was 2023, uh, summer of 2023. I um basically was finding different options because, you know, before the model kind of took in place, I was doing the 20-minute visits. I was trying to kind of compete with everybody else, but I was trying to offer so much more. And it frankly was just the numbers didn't add up in the background. Like I wanted to do all these things, but then I'd have to charge appropriately. And even integrating with Cairo Health USA at that time with that model for what I wanted to do, it just was not leading to great results financially for the clinic, um, for patient, um, not acquisition, but retention, just because eventually the patients that wanted the bottom dollar would go to the bottom dollar. The ones that wanted more care would ask for more care, but at the price point you offered it originally. And it was just not a good scenario. So I did some digging and I just basically looked at some keywords, found Instagram, and there were a few people out there that were mentoring, and I basically picked Justin Rabinowitz from um. He does a Cairo Biz 101 and a Cairo mastermind course. And I chose that one mainly for two reasons. The first one was because I could there was a free discovery call where I could just ask any and all questions, get paired with the um coaching company with Justin, but it was also a two-way fit. I just didn't sign up and automatically I became, you know, one of their members or one of their students. There had to be questions asked. Were we a good fit? So I liked the fact that there was that interview process. And then the second reason was was because being in a more rural area, I didn't know if, you know, a lot of the business coaches being in the big cities, if things would necessarily pan out for me. So after I did the discovery call with them, they actually gave me the number of somebody who went through the course in oh bugger, where's this guy? Is it Lancaster, Wisconsin? Um, basically somewhere about two and a half hours south, getting closer to the Wisconsin-Debuque border in Iowa there. And he had almost the same exact demographics I did. He talked to me about what he got through this coaching course, and that kind of sold me on taking the course. So then I got on, uh did the Cairo Biz course, went on the mastermind, asked questions, helped get the model figured out, ran with it. And yeah, it's still been, you know, highs and lows and roller coasters, but now it's a lot more. I'm I'm not unsure about what's, you know, when I have the bad months, I can actually look at and go, okay, I know what I've done wrong. I know what I need to redress and I know where to go. And I'm still able to do that and continue with this model. And it's led to some a lot less burnout, I would say. Early, early practice burnout.

SPEAKER_01 23:45

So we talked a lot of clinical stuff. Let's talk a little bit of business stuff. All right. Where did you uh learn your business skills?

SPEAKER_00 23:54

I can be a little bit cheeky and start off and say, you know, what skills. Oh, there you go. It it's one of those things where I'm I'm still very much learning. The the catalyst was that aforementioned business course, but it's also been a lot of self-learning and you know, looking at other courses offered out there. So even looking, you know, because this is an audio podcast, so they can't actually see, but you can see me looking down my left here. I've got a bunch of different business books that I got to get through, a couple by Mike McAllowicks, with which I've actually been able to meet in person and get a little brief um uh interview not interview with, but he he talked with a small group of us. And same thing with uh Dan Martell, Buy Back Your Time over here. Um, but I'm definitely like course correcting where, you know, if this was pre-2023, all of my books would have been anatomy, physiology, different things that, you know, outside of school, I no longer have to read them. So now I want to because I don't know about anybody else. But in school, the minute I see a required text, I am not touching that thing. As soon as I get out of school, I go back and look at it and go, oh, hey, that was actually kind of cool. I'll read it now. Um, so I'm I'm starting to steer my ship to absorb a lot more of the business side of things and just finding successful people and doing successful things. So that's led to a shift in who I read from. It's been a shift on who I listen to podcasts uh about. Um, so I'm starting to get in listening to podcasts on hormosy. I'm starting to listen to more of uh Justin's Cairo Biz stuff. I'm starting to um there's there's like half a dozen more, but there's just been a lot more of a shift towards I need to understand more about this business side because one of the things that Brett Winchester will always say is never be the best kept secret in your town. And I was living that for too many years and couldn't figure out how to change that because you could be the best clinician, but nobody will see you and you you help nobody. Whereas you can be the worst clinician, but the best marketer, you can see a lot of people. So how do you kind of blend the two? And that's what I've been trying to figure out.

SPEAKER_01 25:54

That's some great insight. Because my next question was is your style of learning if it was going to be more reading, more podcast, or in-person conferences, that type of thing.

SPEAKER_00 26:06

Probably a blend of all three. Uh, it's it's one of those things I try and keep myself honest because the hardest part about being a solo practitioner, like solo entrepreneur, is that I'm only ever responsible for myself. And some days I'll get so much done, but then other days I'll just kind of look back at the day and go, my crud, that that day was almost useless. Um, because again, nobody really can hold me to account except myself, which again, double-edged sword there. So I try and make sure that I make some of my business practices more of a responsibility in the sense that, for example, after the podcast today, I have to delve through some curated research articles from Cairo Up and other resources. And I have to read them and then compile them to give a little patient newsletter or presentation that I have on my Rumble page. So I have to make sure that I do that. So my learning is tied in with my responsibilities that I have to do as part of my marketing, as part of my patient education. And then same thing for like Wednesdays. I always have to make sure that I post a pertinent podcast for patients, whether it's on something clinical or something, you know, I find personally beneficial on a business standpoint. So that's how I've really tried to force myself to learn in different avenues and stay updated with a lot of different things. Um, same thing with doing this uh orthopedics diplomat is some of the goals that I have for the clinic in the coming years are going to be much easier if I'm able to discuss it from the standpoint of having a diplomat.

SPEAKER_01 27:32

So you seem like you have a lot of systems in place that are well thought out from a clinical standpoint, business standpoint, patient relationship standpoint. So I think you're doing all right.

SPEAKER_00 27:46

Well, thanks for that. And I'll I'll at least say this part. I agree with the the the back half and that um I like with the results that it's kind of gotten me here, but it's not so much that I think I'm a systems guy, it's more I am a guy in complete chaos where if I don't have systems in place, nothing gets done. So it's more a matter of I'm not systematic in that sense. I I just I'm forcing these in here because I know what happens if I go rogue.

SPEAKER_01 28:11

So I gotcha. I'll meet you there. How about that? So self-pay practice, uh software. What kind of software do you use?

SPEAKER_00 28:20

Oh boy. Uh do you just want EHR? Do you want like what do you want? EHR. Let's start there. All right. I'm actually transitioning into CairoUp's new EHR software. Um, that'll go live here in just over two weeks. Cairo Up is really just kind of taking over for me.

SPEAKER_01 28:36

Well, it's a great it's a great company, and I've been very curious to speak with someone who is using their new software. So once you get rolling, we'll talk again. How about that? Looking forward to it. Let's segue into WCA because somewhere along the line, you started getting involved with the Wisconsin Chiropractic Association. Uh, I would imagine that that started as a member, and then you joined the education committee. So thank you very much for the work that you've been doing with the education committee. And most recently, you've been elected, selected to be a board of director member. Yeah, and you'll be representing the northwest portion of the state with Dr. Michael Court. So thank you again for doing that. Tell me about your Wisconsin Care Brack Association journey.

SPEAKER_00 29:25

Oh, that that was frankly almost uh immediate out of school. Um I knew about them going through school. Uh, and I believe don't hold me to this, like, don't go through the records and look if I did this in 2018 or 2019 or not. But I'm pretty sure as a student, I went to um, you know, one of the symposiums. I don't think it was the Kalahari one, it was a different one, but knew of something that I should have been a part of. And it's also one of those things where it's harped about quite a bit, where you know, yeah, if you don't like something but you do nothing to change it, just kind of keep your mouth shut. So if you want to be the change, if you want to see something, you have to go out there and actually do it. And that's something that I kind of took to heart as to why I've been volunteering for all these things. So I think it was it was either late 2020 or early 2021 that I actually um uh requested to be on the board of education uh because it was one of my things you know early on in practice, I wanted to see if the WCA could help facilitate things like getting um different state-led councils and different aspects of healthcare to help practitioners in different niches thrive. Because being and learning in Minnesota, I was able to do a lot of sideline work as a student and different event work as a student because the school would basically put forth newsletters of, hey, the MCA, especially the sports council with these docs are having these things and looking for volunteers. So it was just a very interactive environment that I wanted to see if we could bring forth from the WCA. And it's something that I'll still advocate for. Um, but then being able to kind of curate education about what would I want to see as a doctor, especially coming in, being a younger practitioner. Um, so what could we do? Uh, who could we bring in? What you know, techniques or conditions or areas of the body can we vet these people to really educate um our providers on information that I either have seen being pertinent in practice or I want to have people see and have access to. All right, I'll volunteer and I'll I'll I'll put a little bit more uh a little bit more blood, sweat, and tears in for the for the WCA and see where it leads me here.

SPEAKER_01 31:38

I think that's cool. I hope you have the same experience that I've had in volunteer efforts, and this holds true for the WCA that as much as you put into it, you tend to get more out. So it's been a very great experience. So a couple more questions before we wrap up here, Jacob. If you had to look back and again start practice in 2020, anything you would do different, or could your today's self educate your younger self in any way? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:08

Oh, where to even begin with that question? Um, I guess two thematic things that I would do differently is first educate myself a whole lot more and tell myself I don't need to rush per se, because everything was was a rush for me in 2020. It was one of those things where I all right, this is gonna quote require a little bit of a background story. I'll be brief just so that it makes some more sense here in a bit. So in 2020, with everything going on, graduating in April, I tried to find a job, an associateship, nobody was hiring. I tried to find uh buildings, I tried to find rentals, I tried to find everything I could think about. Nothing was coming up. And basically what happened was is late May, early June, I said some pretty choice words on a Sunday night and said, you know what? Tomorrow I'm gonna see if there's a building for sale with all my student loans and with everything else. I can't afford nothing, but you know what? It's the last avenue I've got. And lo and behold, that Monday morning, there was the building I'm currently in. The lady listed her building for short sale because she wanted to piece out to Hawaii. So I then looked at what she was posting it for, and again, said some other choice words of like, can I really afford this? And with the help of my parents and my in-laws live here, and we just had a baby at the time. They're like, you know what? If we can keep the grandkids local, we'll help you with the down payment for this. And it's like, shoot. All right, bought the building, and after signing for the building six weeks later, I opened up. So everything was a rush. And so the first thing that I would have done was even if I had to do everything the same in the speed I had to do it to acquire the building, I would have taken a lot more time before opening my doors to lay lay the groundwork, to do more marketing, to understand a lot more about business practices first. I would have done so much more than try and just open the door and hope what may, because that's led to a ton of mistakes, whether it's been, you know, patient communication, whether that's been, you know, going in or out of network as a solo practitioner, all the way through trying to figure out, like, all right, there's a ton of things about the business world that I don't know. And I'm still I know more about, but I'm still nowhere near probably as proficient whereas I need to be like, oh yeah, you know, you need to get your own employee uh NPI number, you need to get a business NPI number, you have to now utilize everything through an EIN, an employer identification number. You have to basically have all of these processes and systems in place, and I'd have taken more time to understand that. The second thing I would have done is really, really, really, instead of being open five days a week, I would have probably only been open once or twice, shunted all of my patients onto those days where I would have had availability and spent the entire rest of my time split between marketing and doing the background stuff for the practice, and actually, if need be, find or keep the part-time job that I had just to have additional funds so that week by week it wouldn't have been as scary. I think those would have been the two biggest things that I would have done for myself if I had to reopen in 2020.

SPEAKER_01 35:24

That's excellent advice, especially for our young practitioners or practitioners to be. So thank you for that. All right, Jacob, I've got two more questions for you. And the first one is going to be tell me a little bit about who you are and family hobbies, that type of thing.

SPEAKER_00 35:39

Sure. I'll start with the most important, which is going to be the family. So um I'm a family man. I was married in 2014 to my beautiful wife, Jenna. Uh, we have currently three kids. We have my oldest Evelyn, my middle child Gideon, and my fresh one Levi. Um, it's one of those things. I grew up an only child. So it's if I can offer to have siblings for my children, by gosh, I'll take it. So I don't know if we'll have more, you know, Lord, if she, Lord willing, and if she lets me, I'll go for four. But other than that, I'm man, who am I? I'm again just a faithful family man. And I'm I'm really trying to now find more hobbies that that build myself up because being a father, being uh a solopreneur, I kind of come to something that's you know spoken about in a lot of the coaching groups that I I listen to, is that um your your business doesn't grow if you don't grow. So in that respect, I'm trying to reacquaintance myself to things that led to a lot of personal development, like getting back into reading. I'm trying to find constructive outlets. So I actually do have uh a forge, I do have most of the things required for blacksmithing. I just need now the fuel source and the time to start it. Um, and I'm also trying to get back into uh more of my physical health. So I recently hired a personal trainer. And I've also been trying to make sure that, you know, should my children want to, basically leave it out there where, hey, you know, there's there's some jujitsu classes where I can, you know, if I can make the excuse of, you know, it's part of the the family's expense, that'd be fantastic. Cause I'd love to get back into uh martial arts. So those are some of the big things that played a big impact in my life in the past and things that I want to do going forth into the future for me, because they will be not just personally beneficial, but they will also require me to grow. And through that growth, I'll be a better father, husband, and clinician.

SPEAKER_01 37:44

Great. So you mentioned Forge. Your clinic name is The Forge. Yep. And I really, really like your website. It's very well done. And not only the aesthetic looks of it, but the message also. Can you talk a little bit about naming your clinic The Forge and a little bit about your mission and your message on your website?

SPEAKER_00 38:06

Yeah. Um, so first it actually started off in like a T6 business course. You know, if you had to make your own, your own practice, what would you name it? And I just cheekily said the forge at the time without actually really putting any thought into it. But then when I actually had the opportunity to open my practice, I went back and I looked at that name and realized, you know, there's a lot of insert last name chiropractic practices. There's a lot of sport and spine, spine and sports, and a lot of things where people will presume something about the clinic based upon the name. Do they deserve to be there or not? And for me, being in the small town, being around people that understand what the forge is, what does the forge actually do? It takes metal, heats it up, changes its structure, hammers it out to where it needs to be, and then you can temper it to be even stronger than what it was before. A lot of people understand that message without me having to say this is a rehabilitation center or this is a sports center for athletes. This is no, the forge. What sounds better? A patient saying, Oh, I went to such and such rehab clinic, or I went to last name Cairo clinic, or hey, I just went to the forge. So, in many ways, it says things without saying it. You know, it's it's a place for people to actually get stronger. And it's something where, you know, it's you have just fun to say. And the third thing, it has a personal tie to some of my hobbies. So for me, it's just it's a name that has a lot of meaning and is able to convey a lot without having to say much. And frankly, my my mission is just to arm people with the knowledge and ability to live life not free of pain, but with as little unnecessary pain and disability as possible. And to do that, we have core values that we live by. You know, we're we're God-centered, relationship focused. We live in practice with great grace and gratitude. We embrace world-class care as our standard, and we are focused on the small changes that will create lifelong change. And so to that end, my frank speciality and why I'm doing the diplomat and orthopedics is I'm also trying to be proactive with my patients and find basically pain points in their life. And the common theme that, frankly, after this interview, I might want to talk to you about the corporate health side of things, because that is somewhere that I find people can be very proactive about reducing injury and staying pain-free as long as possible. Um, I just my niche is just making sure that those people with chronic pain or the places where standard, normal, traditional health care has failed them, that they have a place in my clinic to get them where they need to be. And we're we're goal-based and outcome-based. We're not just uh we're gonna make you feel good for a short bit based. We're we're you're actually going to get something lifelong and lasting from our care. Very cool.

SPEAKER_01 40:50

Iron Sharpens Iron, right? That's exactly right. That's right. Well, I'll tell you what, uh, Dr. Jacob Doffel in Baldwin, Wisconsin, western part of the state, part of the Wisconsin Chiropracks Association Education Committee, and now board member uh representing the western part of the state, Northwest District. So I want to thank you very much for taking the time with me today. And I very much look forward to getting to know you more as we work together on the WCA board of directors. That's mutual. All right, thanks a lot, Jacob. Take care of the