Dr. Jeff Sergent: Integrating Movement & Rehabilitation Into Practice

This podcast is all about getting back to the fundamentals of chiropractic care while learning from the experience and expertise of our peers.

In this episode, we are joined by Dr. Jeff Sergent, a 2008 graduate of National Health Sciences University in Lombard, Illinois. Dr. Sergent not only leads an active lifestyle—he integrates movement and rehabilitation into his practice to help patients recover and perform at their best. 

This conversation is a great opportunity to learn from a peer who is passionate about movement, rehabilitation, and advancing our profession.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:07

Welcome to the Wisconsin Chiropractic Association podcast, Back to Basics. I'm your host, Dr. Chris Rush, president of the Wisconsin Chiropractic Association. This podcast is all about getting back to the fundamentals of chiropractic while we learn from the experience and expertise of our peers. Today, I'm joined by Dr. Jeff Surgeon, a 2008 graduate of the National Health Sciences University in Lombard, Illinois. Dr. Surgeon not only leads an active lifestyle, he integrates movement and rehabilitation into his practice to help patients recover and perform at their best. As an instructor for the Wisconsin Chiropractic Association, Dr. Surgeon teaches injury rehabilitation to both chiropractic technicians and doctors of chiropractic, helping them implement the effective muscoskeletal rehabilitation protocols. His course and curriculum allows Wisconsin chiropractors to delegate therapeutic exercise instruction to their CTs, improving clinical outcomes and enhancing patient care. This conversation is a great opportunity to learn from a peer who is passionate about movement, rehabilitation, and advancing our profession. I hope you enjoy my conversation with Dr. Jeff Surgent.

unknown 1:26

Dr.

SPEAKER_02 1:27

Jeff Surgent, how are you doing today? Good. How are you doing? Awesome. Thanks for joining me on the Wisconsin Chiropractic Association podcast. I'm going to ask you a standard question that I ask every one of our guests. What inspired you, Jeff, to become a chiropractor?

SPEAKER_01 1:40

Well, thanks for having me on, Chris. I really appreciate that. You want to hear some of my input on life, things like that. My dad was a chiropractor, so I'm a second generation chiropractor. So that was kind of like the original inspiration. But I actually went to Michigan State and my undergrad was in environmental science. I wasn't going down this path at all. Um, I think my dad is probably spinning over his grave that I went down to the chiropractic lane. He wasn't, I don't think he was all for it, according to what my mom passes on to me. But I ended up here. One of the big things that ended up here was uh I had some shoulder issues going on, right? I saw the guy that took over my dad's practice. I saw him pretty regularly. We were really good friends. He was like my big brother. And this little way of living, right? I I never knew that the way I grew up was different, right? Like, so like when we were sick, my dad would give us vitamins, right? And we were always taking vitamins or getting adjusted. Like you were basic, and my mom's just like, oh, you gotta go see your dad. I didn't know that was that different to grow up in that side of uh life.

SPEAKER_02 2:38

So I'm gonna back up a little bit. Where did your dad go to chiropractic school?

SPEAKER_01 2:41

Uh my dad went to national chiropractic as well. Okay, was that same place?

SPEAKER_02 2:46

Oh, that's where you mentioned. Yes, okay.

SPEAKER_01 2:48

Yes, same place that I went to. And that kind of it wasn't that he inspired me to go there necessarily. It was uh National at the time had a dual ND naturopathic and doctorate uh chiropractic program. So you could actually do both, and I was really interested in that. So when I was in college, I was still dealing with this the shoulder injury that I had from when I was in uh from high school, from I was a wrestler in high school, but a tall, I was you know skinny and lanky. So my arms looked great for chicken wings and the be battered on. So they got beat up quite a bit, and I played a ton of baseball, which both sports don't go together well. Uh, so I ended up going, um I chose not to do the surgery, just chose not to do things. So I just tried rehabbing and I would go through a PT, and it was like the basic same exercises, right? Empty can, clothes, like uh empty can, full can exercises, and my shoulders never seemed to really get better. And then I went to um end up at a chiropractor that was graduated with my dad, and he did a little different rehab. He was kind of down the model of like Craig Levinson um in that frog school of rehab with Yonda and Love It. So I love that. Like it was just a different way of approaching it, and it was all about me. It wasn't about like, oh, here's your formula for the exercise that you get. It was really based off of things that I was showing. So I kind of fell in love with that approach and I missed healthcare. And when I was doing all my environmental stuff, I was really getting into like the natural medicine of stuff. Like we were looking at native plants, and I was always looking at the medicinal uses of these native plants. You could just see how like the native plants were being used. So that's why I was kind of going really attracted to National about this and uh D uh DC ND program.

SPEAKER_02 4:28

Very cool. Yeah, I was heavily influenced with Yonda and Levinson and our dual mentor, Dr. Steve Yeomans, really had a lot of influence on my practice as well. And then I went off and married a physical therapist, so she very much inspired me to look at active care and see how that lended with chiropractic as well. So, okay, so you're from Michigan, you go to National College, now National Health Science University.

SPEAKER_00 4:52

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 4:53

Now you're in Cedarberg.

SPEAKER_01 4:54

Yeah, so it's been a little bit of a little bit of a road. Um, so I went back and practiced at my the original practice that my dad was started. Um, I practiced for the guy that took over for him for a few years. It was a neat practice. There was other chiropractors there, learned a lot about like being an associate, right? It's my first job. I mean, he basically was family work at family and things like that was a little tough.

SPEAKER_02 5:16

So tell me a little bit about your practice in Cedarburg.

SPEAKER_01 5:19

So I we start I started my practice uh just to kind of rewind a little bit. Um, I started my practice and we started there was a CrossFit gym. I started just practicing there a little bit. I would go there on like on a Saturday and see a few patients, got to know the owners more and more. They had some weird personal training space that they had that was separate off the gym. And the owner and I talked about just creating space. So I took over this little space and uh started with one room, then went to three rooms, and then we went to five rooms. Uh, but we just started with working there. So it was kind of like uh, and then I I took the I was working both jobs I was uh working down in Glendale, and I was working at that office. Um, so I was working like seven days a week for a while to get it all going. And then I just took the plunge and just to finally just be on my own, that scary moment.

SPEAKER_02 6:08

That's interesting because uh we have a similar path there because I was an associate at a chiropractic office in Appleton, Wisconsin with Peter and John Shubi. I ended up developing a relationship with a health club in our area that was far enough away from where my associate position was where it wouldn't compete. And I negotiated some space there. So I started in a health club as well. It was back in the early 90s, so we didn't have the official word CrossFit back then. But yeah, my wife ended up leaving her hospital-based physical therapy job and joined me in practice. So that health club exercise-based clientele is a great place and a great model to start practice, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 6:45

Yeah, it was so unique. And especially when it comes to like the CrossFit world, there you have to be a different type of practitioner, right? So, like you have to be able to think like an athlete and you have to be able to treat an athlete. Definitely. There's so many times that they would end up, right? They hurt their back squatting, and how many docs or whoever would be like, well, just don't squat, right? Like, oh, that you that's just gonna hurt your back. And it's like, no, that's how you protect your back, right? And it's just that different mentality of how you can get people to get motivated. And I I mean, I just loved working that population because and it was like one of the big reasons that I got more and more into rehab, because I was originally frustrated with uh high school, is that you know, we getting that formula of like how do you help somebody? Because when they ask you, like, oh, what can I do for myself on my own? I felt like I was underprepared. And I was super fortunate when I graduated, National had uh the the they were starting the 300-level functional rehab diplomate. So you could do all that through there. I mean, it was going on before that, but national created it so it was uh it was all your hours because it was kind of like independent studies, and they had it all formalized. Dr. Soltis down there had it developed where you could you had your Mackenzie built into it, you had uh your functional rehab all built in, and it was awesome. Um, and it was a great basis to have just where you could get people moving and how simple you could start getting people going because that you can answer that simple question. What do I what can I do for myself?

SPEAKER_02 8:08

Yeah, national was very cutting edge back all the way in the 90s and beyond. I took their orthopedics course with Dr. uh Scoggsberg back then. Oh, yeah. Prior to that was Dr. Torino. Does that ring name ring a bell? Torino doesn't, but I believe both those guys moved on to the Texas Back Institute. So they were definitely pioneers in the area of orthopedics and then eventually rehab. So eventually I do want to talk about the classes that you've taught for the WCA and that you will be teaching in the future as uh soon as spring convention. But before that, just to understand a little bit more about your practice, can you tell me what your practice is like today? Like who are you working with? What techniques do you use? That type of thing.

SPEAKER_01 8:51

Yeah. So um in my office, I have two massage therapists, two athletic trainers. Well, one athletic trainer. We have another athletic trainer there that does mostly like insoles type stuff. Uh, he does like ART and insoles. Then we have we have a physical therapist that's in her office. And then I actually have um a holistic vet that comes in her office like once a week to come in and she practices, like she just rents a room for me. Uh, but it's really neat to kind of hear her story. She's on uh more of a holistic nutrition side, but she does acupuncture. She does like some like fine mobilizations and mobilizations like that stuff, like kind of stuff for animals. So it's kind of fun to actually hear her side of the stuff too. Um, we work pretty integratedly. You know, it's been you have to have a business hand and a healing hand. So I'd like really to hear how you do this too, because you have a PT in your office and you're married to a PT. So like the way that we make it work with us is like our PT is independent of me, so it's independent contractorship. And they what the way that I want to always work it is I have an exercise rehab person in my office. So I can have that work out with some insurances. Um, and then if like it's kind of time dependent what's going on with the patient, I can have them work with them. And then if it's something that's a little bit more where they need more attention, we'll send it to our physical therapist. Or if we have somebody that has, like, I just had two patients, one needed a knee replace, uh, total knee, and one needed a total hip. So she'll do the follow-up rehab for those. We have laser in our office, shockwave, and we like to integrate those in as well as we do some like I do a very small like nutrition office too, like where we just do a little bit of things that we just like just to kind of help support muscular, uh muscoskeletal stuff.

SPEAKER_02 10:33

Very cool. Sounds like we have a lot of similarities, you know, asking about what we do. And so we're a chiropractic and a physical therapy clinic. I'm a chiropractor, my wife carries a physical therapist. We've been we started our practice 34 years ago. Today there's we have five chiropractors in our office and four physical therapists and three physical therapy assistants. Very similar situation. You know, some people come to our office for just chiropractic, some people come to our office for just physical therapy, and some do a blend of both. And the ones that do a blend of both, then we have that scenario. Do we delegate to a PTA or do we refer to a PT? And a lot of that is based on what their condition is, and some of that is based on what's best for their insurance. So let's just say I have a patient that is a spine patient for me, but they need a hip replacement, they're gonna go see their hip orthopedic surgeon, and then they're gonna come back to our office and they're gonna be a physical therapy patient, build on a physical therapy, that type of thing. And then there's insurance situations where if I can delegate therapeutic exercise to a physical therapy assistant and the patient wants to get adjusted on the same day, they'll have one copay and it'll be a delegated service. So I'll do the exam, I'll do the adjustment. And if we want a therapeutic exercise, like a home exercise program, and we want someone to have a flexibility assessment or a strength assessment, they'll see a PTA in our office and we'll work together and do it that way. And they'll all be built under the chiropractic provider's license.

SPEAKER_01 12:06

Oh, nice. Yeah. We uh I delegate mostly to our athletic trainer. That's who we at our delegate. Yeah, and it's been great, like I said, but uh, it's fun to get their feedback on stuff and be able to like shoot things off of them, be like, hey, what do you think is going on there? And then you get to hear their side. So it's been a great practice builder for us too.

SPEAKER_02 12:23

So let's go into a little bit about your teaching. So your classes with the WC have been very successful. A lot of people say a lot of great things about them. Let's start with what you will be teaching upcoming at the spring convention in Piwaki on Thursday and Friday, August 10th and 11th.

SPEAKER_01 12:41

Uh yeah, so we will be teaching on Friday. I teach a two-hour segment of the pickleball and chiropractic. So, like we get into a little bit of like soft tissue things of what we can do for those, like common injuries, some soft tissue, and then some rehab that we do for it. Right. So kind of like we're just gonna snippet of like my office. We're gonna do like the top, I think I have the top four conditions because we're just gonna kind of dive into it and just kind of hammer through some of those things of like how we can treat these things and how we can be super effective at it um and efficiently with uh like because it's time management, making sure we have a great exam so we can get people to the right place, or make sure that we can do the exercises for them, make sure they're progressing well.

SPEAKER_02 13:20

Okay, you're gonna make me uh diverge here on this topic because you mentioned pickleball. Some of our listeners might know this. I'm gonna go down this path. You are the only chiropractor that I know that actually has pickleball courts attached to your office or on the same property, I believe. Tell me a little bit about that, Jeff. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 13:39

Oh, yeah. So this is kind of like that. This goes back to like the evolution. So my office started, like I said, we started with one room, then we went to three, then we went to five. And then I actually had at my we took over there, we had the CrossFit gym in there. They moved out, and then I ended up developing um with a partner. A we started a gym. It was our clinic is called muscle movement therapy. So it's muscle movement therapy phys ed. So it's getting back to those physical education standards, right? Like that's like that that heart of things that we've kind of miss now. I feel like we're just not getting enough of like PE where we actually get to work out and challenge ourselves, like getting through that stuff, right? Turn into other things. Uh, but like physical education should be a lifelong education. Just like continuing education for anything, we should be able to continue to learn and um take exercise into an education, not just about lifting bigger weights and things like that, like how we can move our bodies better. Uh, so we developed that. The clinic ended up needing more of my attention. I was spending a lot of time on that as well. So we actually merged with a CrossFit gym at that time. Um so we had the um we had about 5,000 square feet there. So we had our full, we had our five uh five treatment rooms, and then we had about 3,000 square feet of just gym space. We had full memberships and all that kind of stuff going. Um, I knew that we needed to get into real estate. Like I my goal was to have a building and own a building because our biggest thing that we were getting running into was our number one overhead thing was gonna be our rent moving forward. Our landlords were playing some goofy games with us. The more successful we were, the more they wanted to charge us more. So, anyway, I wanted to buy a building. So the building that I found in our town um over was a 16,000 square foot building that used to be like an auto parts store.

SPEAKER_00 15:33

All right.

SPEAKER_01 15:34

And so when we when I went to go move, um I bought this building and then we had to do a small build-out. And like my dream was to put there was like 9,000 square feet in the back, and we were gonna do a sports rehab, bridging the gap, whole thing, put turf down, all the all the stuff. But I knew I couldn't do it, I couldn't do it alone, like I can't be everywhere at once. Like right. I really love being a chiropractor, I really love patient care, I really want to do that. So, what I wanted to do is get into this. So I had a PT and athletic trainer that wanted to do the same thing. We couldn't come to like a good agreement. Um, the PT ended up moving to Colorado. Um, so it just didn't the things were just weren't driving. One of my patients at the time was a pickleball pro. And she was like, Did you ever think about putting in pickleball courts back here? And I was like, Nope. So we just had 3,000 square feet that were still walled at the time. So it was like 3,000 square feet. So we just I like did some numbers like worst case scenario is we can still do workouts on a pickleball court, right? So I kind of had it in my head we're gonna do we the first thing was the first phase of this was we had fitness equipment on one side and a pickleball court on the other.

SPEAKER_02 16:43

So when that person suggested pickleball, were you already an avid pickleball player?

SPEAKER_01 16:48

No, I never played pickleball in the life.

SPEAKER_02 16:50

That's crazy. That's fun.

SPEAKER_01 16:52

All right, yeah, and so yeah, and like at the time there weren't any other indoor dedicated indoor pickleball courts that I could find in Wisconsin, right? So like it was um just kind of start like it's been taking off, but it was mostly outdoors. So, like we as far as I can Google, like we were the first dedicated indoor pickleball court in Wisconsin.

SPEAKER_02 17:13

If you roll the dice back then, you you definitely hit the right numbers because look at it today, but yeah, it's huge, right?

SPEAKER_01 17:19

So, like then it went on and we ended up I had another 3,000 square feet on another side of the wall. So I ended up cutting a hole in the wall and putting in another court. Um, and then as it's kind of evolved from there. Now we've we've looked into I have space out the back. I have another like acre of land out the back. So we've looked into putting in outdoor pickleball courts, and we're we're continuing to look at it. I just put in a new um, we had some other dead space. I put in like a fitness and a sauna room, uh like a recovery area. That's my new business that I just started, like started like basically last month, and it's called the Surge Fitness and Recovery, uh, like S-E-R-G Surge, right? Uh so we just started that. Um, that's gonna be one of the things that I kind of want to build into a little bit more, but it's just kind of evolved and it's been great. I mean, uh we have about 160 members. We have we put on events, we have leagues, we have memberships. So it's been great.

SPEAKER_02 18:11

So it's growing, it's growing. Very cool because I know the WCA featured your business in the WCA magazine back in 2022. And I don't know if you remember that the content of that article and how many members you had back then. Do you want to take a guess? Uh it's probably 40 or 50. Yeah, it's 45.

SPEAKER_00 18:30

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:31

I was like, yeah, yeah. So you have some nice girl. So yeah, practice, you have chiropractic, obviously. You have physical therapy, you have athletic training, yeah. You have pickleball memberships, massage therapy, and massage therapy, and now you have the infrared sauna.

SPEAKER_01 18:48

Yeah, infrared sauna, and then like that's kind of built out. There's like a uh power rack in there, rower, um, treadmill, assault bike, a bunch of weights, med balls, all that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_00 19:01

Nutrition.

SPEAKER_01 19:03

Yeah, yeah, a little bit. I mean, I that's one of those things that I just haven't uh I need I need to get better at. I just I really like it for a few things. Like there's a few products that I just really love to throw. Um, because you gotta have like the good nutrition, especially when it comes to tendinopathy. If you have the rate limiting step of them having not like the nutrition isn't there to get the blood flow and to get uh healing done, you're you can that could be the deficit sometimes, right? You can be doing the perfect rehab, the perfect manual therapy, the perfect exercise, and they're still not getting better. And it's you know, because they still have like just a little inflammation there, whatever, we can give them great nutrition, nutritional support that uh NSADS and things like that just can't.

SPEAKER_02 19:46

You have your go-to for that?

SPEAKER_01 19:48

Uh uh, I really like standard processed products for that. Ligaplex one, ligaplex two. Um, I really like, and then I'll mix in um some turmeric um and some baswalia for some anti-inflammatories and those. I always like, I mean, I like I like my um uh Neutrodyne's essentials. They have like a men's essentials and a women's essentials. I love those. Like it gets you all your basic vitamins in there, it has all your core vitamins that like I recommend, and it comes in little packets, so it's super easy. It's it's just I like I like making things easy on myself, and like I like to talk about like those are my foundational ones, and then I get to use like the ligaplax, and I get those to use as targets, right? So and it's it's an easier sell. Like these are your you're gonna take these forever, this one you're gonna take for the next six weeks, right? And I we incorporate that in with like our shock wave and laser. So like I oh, we set it up as a package of all right, we're gonna shockwave laser this, and that's your nutrition.

SPEAKER_02 20:43

Well, now you got me thinking, let's talk laser a little bit. So, with your laser protocols, do you have like the research says six treatments or 12 treatments? Do you have a go-to for that?

SPEAKER_01 20:53

Um, I we still always start with six. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, I pretty much start with six and go from there.

SPEAKER_02 21:01

I recommend six, and if I see results are happening, but we're not quite where we want to be yet, then I'll recommend another six. That's pretty much my protocol.

SPEAKER_01 21:12

Yeah, that's that's almost the exact same with that. Like, I think this is like I mean, this is like the inner fight that I think some chiropractors have. I see, I especially say with some young ones, is like we don't want to be too car sales-y, right? Like, like we gotta have like this, you know, and I especially see in the rehab world where um we don't want to be like there is this when I first got into it, like, oh, we don't want to be seeing patients forever. But I'd also see where like the rehab like Kairos were getting people out of care too soon, right? Like they weren't falling through the second that like they were all about function, except for when the pain levels are down, they're like, Okay, you're releasing care. And it's like, well, they're not released in care. This is where we have like things like you know, uh, getting back to Yeoman's his quantitative functional capacity exam, you it is like the little nuggets that come out of that thing are so good. Like, and I know that it's gonna kind of get over, you know, it's when we teach. Teach those weekends, it's a lot of information in a very short amount of time, right? It's 24 hours, it's two 12-hour days, it gets a lot. But the nuggets that come out of that are so good. One from an insurance reason, but also for patients, right? Like we can actually have some predictors of what's going on with their spine. We can have predictors for the future for them. And that can be empowering, right? Like that can be one of the most important things for a patient is like, okay, this is going to be through. You're not just doing this exercise for an exercise. We're trying to test you to make sure you're going to have this, not come have to come back here off the time.

SPEAKER_02 22:29

Well, let's get into that a little bit. We'll circle back to the quantitative functional capacity exam. And I did take Steve's classes years ago. So, but before we get into too much depth there, let's talk about the basic delegation of chiropractors wanting their patients to get going on active care or a home exercise program or an inactive exercise program. So we have the ability to delegate active care therapeutic exercise to a CT who has the appropriate training. We'll talk about that because that's where you come in. But we also can delegate those services to a licensed professional, hire that person, whether it's an athletic trainer like you have in your office or a physical therapy assistant that's licensed in the state of Wisconsin, or of course a physical therapist. So you are now, along with Dr. Steve Yeomans, teaching RCTs in the state of Wisconsin the appropriate information to become eligible to delegate that service. Can you talk a little bit about that?

SPEAKER_01 23:41

Yeah. So one of the important things is getting people to know what they have to do, right? So like the QFCE was designed so that we can basically develop a roadmap for where people are going, where they are and where they're going to. Almost like using our outcomes assessments, like our everybody loves doing our oat forms. I mean, but this is just more of like a functional one that we can actually look at. And so we can test out patients. So this can help give us the guidelines on like, do they need to continue care? And then what exercises we need to do to get them to get better. Right. So this is where we can kind of use this as a guideline. Um, and then that way you're just not just picking exercises out of the sky of like, oh, this is what I need to work on. It helps us uh create a guide.

SPEAKER_02 24:27

So if you're a chiropractor and you are basically doing exam, possibly x-ray adjustments, but you want to incorporate exercise in your practice, would you recommend that the doctor goes to your classes that you and Steve both teach and go that route? Or I think it all talks.

SPEAKER_01 24:52

Just send a CT. I I think it's if the doctor can come and get familiar with it, it is the best way to create the best backbone and the best um line of communication for other people, right? When you can have hand off from somebody, like if you can hand off from the doc to the CT, it's a beautiful communication, just kind of go right, or you just can say, like, oh, this is what we're working on, and you have the communication down, like they can just pick out the bucket of exercise and they kind of know where to go from.

SPEAKER_00 25:19

Right.

SPEAKER_01 25:20

Other, otherwise, you know, the doctor should be delegating which exercise we're going to. Right.

SPEAKER_02 25:25

Because I remember when I first started my practice, again, this is over 30 years ago. I'm in a health club, I'm by myself. And of course, you want to initiate this active care into your program, but you only schedule the time for a chiropractic adjustment or manipulation. People can say what they want. Oh, let's go over your exercises, but I don't have the time set aside to do that. So there is that transition of where you decide that you're going to hire someone to delegate that service to. So I like the idea of the doctor going to that course. Whether if they know they're going to hire that person right away, yeah, the doctor goes have the CT go as well. But if you're questioning, if you want to go that route, I think it's a great stuff for the doctor to go to that course and and see what that's all about.

SPEAKER_01 26:07

Yeah, and I think it depends on the phase of where people are in their career, right? If you're early on, you got to do all the exercise yourself. And then as you, or if you you just want to get into this, you got to understand where it's going to. So, like as the as you're going through, you know, as I've like you said, is as you evolve, right? Like, I don't have, you know, when it comes down to like that, you know, business hand and healing hand, I don't uh me spending 15 minutes doing exercise with people does not pay as well as me beating my hands on somebody.

SPEAKER_02 26:33

It's funny because I just heard a story about a patient was telling one of our physical therapists that, yeah, 25 years ago, I was a patient here after I tore my ACL and Chris did the rehab. And the physical therapist just laughed out loud, not realizing, hey, that Chris guy that is the chiropractor that uh is still here after all these years, he rehabbed ACLs back then. So so yeah, they quick the laugh out of that.

SPEAKER_01 26:59

Yeah, I mean, that's where I run into like even with my schedule, I mean, and being able to delegate, right? We do um some different types of exercises, like we do dynamic neuromuscular stabilization exercises and a lot of like the prog school rehab stuff that's been built into me, and like that's been built into our practice, uh, but it's harder to teach. And I I love teaching that stuff, right? Like, so I get geeked out, but I know at the end of the day people also want to get paid. Like, I've my my front desk still wants to get paid. So if I'm too much time doing that, like it's just you know, this is where the delegation really helps out. Right.

SPEAKER_02 27:31

Speaking of getting paid, can I ask you, do you have a model with your practice? Are you self-pay or are you insurance? Are you both? We're hybrid.

SPEAKER_01 27:42

We do both, right? So um, yeah. So yeah, we've been getting a little bit more into like the non-covered, I think, is um non-covered services. I think as people, especially for like Medicare. I mean, like I'm super passionate about stenosis, right? Lumbar stenosis is probably one of my favorite things to treat. Um, and I wish I had more time to treat for it. More pollutation. Oh, I mean, these people have not a lot of choices, right? Like border zone injections aren't gonna do much for them, right? Temporary relief, surgery. All right, like they might be able to like open up a little bit, but they got to get back into exercise, right? Um, there's that Snosis boot camp, Dr. Carl, that's from uh Toronto. He's phenomenal. Um, his thing is great. And those patients, like they're lifetime patients, right? Like, if you can get them doing active care, you can get them moving, like they will keep moving and they got to stay moving. If they like it's you know, energy of motion, right? Or object of motion. So I love seeing those patients, and you could do some fun stuff with just trying to get those to patients to go.

SPEAKER_02 28:45

Well, you'd be very happy to hear if uh the ACA and the ICA and our national efforts eventually get full scope for chiropractic approved, and we can actually get reimbursed in the Medicare area uh for instructing on therapeutic exercise. That would be awesome.

SPEAKER_01 29:02

Well, I mean, do you want do you want to hear a little controversy on this one? Like, I I love having a deny-covered service. All right. Like let's hear it. I mean, this is like I I know I practice in a like I practice in Cedarberg, right? So um I don't want to have Medicare, right? I can charge patients out of pocket to do exercise with them, and I'm not like held to some crazy bureaucratic nonsense of what Medicare wants out of me, right? When it starts like, I mean, I understand when it comes to, but like the scariest patients that we have sometimes as chiropractors is Medicare patients, like how many people are scared they're doing fraud, right? And it's like how the documentation is like documentation standards are just kind of out of control sometimes. If they start holding us to like what the physical therapists have to do for documentation for exercise, things like that. I think most of us would probably like have to take a whole new documentation seminar on it. It wouldn't be meeting that standard. So like for me, I'm like, I love it non-covered. Uh, because the patients pay for like they they they have manipulation and then they have to pay for exercise. And I don't have to worry about how many visits I'm getting them to do exercise. It's out of pocket. And I know they need it. So it gets Medicaid provider? I am.

SPEAKER_02 30:13

So then, as you know, in Medicaid, we are only reimbursed for the exam, the x-ray, and the chiropractic adjustment. And there's three components of what the WCA has been doing with Medicaid in the last uh two budget cycles. And we were successful in getting an increase in reimbursement for the adjustment. So we're very happy with that. Thank you very much, legislators, for uh agreeing to that raise. And then we were successful in elevating our reimbursement for the examination and x-rays. So we're equivalent to medical doctors now when it comes to exam and x-ray. So thank you again for that. And now the third leg is we want full scope. So we're not looking for scope expansion. So don't let's not confuse anyone with that. But what we want is if if we already have the ability in our chiropractic toolbox to do a certain procedure, as our colleagues and friends in physical therapy can do, we feel that we should be remote for that as well. So what we're really hoping to do is expand our Medicaid reimbursement so we get reimbursed for extremity manual therapy or what we'd like to call adjustments or manipulation. Physical therapists always call it manual therapy, and therapeutic exercise instruction, and also some form of modalities. So we're really hoping to get that. And I know you mentioned that some of your Medicare population has the ways and means to reimburse for non-covered services, but as we know, most Medicaid patients don't have that ability to pay for those.

SPEAKER_01 31:47

So and I know that's kind of a gray area too. Like I've told both that you can't charge Medicaid patients for non-covered services.

SPEAKER_00 31:54

Right.

SPEAKER_01 31:55

So, like, so then, like, I mean, that's where that limit is, right? That's the different definition or difference between Medicaid and Medicare that I see is it's like Medicare, we need it. Medicare, we I I guess that I don't know if we necessarily need it or not.

SPEAKER_02 32:08

I guess I'm just uh encouraging everyone out there to stay tuned and hopefully support the WCA as we try to work through that this uh spring and into the summer as we get closer and closer to the 2025 budget. So hopefully we'll get that. Hello, doctors of chiropractic and chiropractic technicians. The WCA Spring Convention CE lineup is here. Get ready for two power pack days of expert-led seminars and invaluable networking opportunities at the Ingleside Hotel in Pewaukee, Wisconsin on Thursday and Friday, April 10th and 11th. Here's a lineup for Thursday, April 10th. Establish professional boundaries and manage risk with Dr. Jeff Wilder. Master Upper and Lower Extremity Rehab with Dr. Eric Kirk. Explore imaging case studies of sports-related injuries with Dr. Michelle Nick. On Friday, April 11th, learn the latest on concussion recovery and stress management with Dr. Cindy Howard. Get hands-on with cupping and soft tissue flossing with Dr. Jacob Staffel. Stay ahead of the pickleball injury trend with Dr. Jeff Surgent, and discover powerful nutrition strategies for performance and healing with Dr. Scott Bergman. Plus, enjoy refreshments in our vast exhibitor and vendor area. Again, that is the WCA Spring Convention at the Ingleside Hotel in Pewaukee, Wisconsin on Thursday and Friday, April 10th and 11th. You can read all about it and register today on the Wisconsin Chiropractic Association website. We hope to see you there. So back to teaching the uh logistics of the therapeutic exercise and rehabilitation delegation that you and uh Dr. Yoens are teaching. So that's now a, I believe, 24-hour curriculum that's all covered in the in one weekend.

SPEAKER_01 34:06

We got it down to one weekend more for people. This is like what more like our docs wanted to see. They wanted that instead of like their CTs having to travel for two weekends and then get them in hotels and things like that and having to pay them. So one weekend was able just to kind of condense it. It's it's a it's a you know, it's drinking out of a fire hydro. It's a lot of info, but it's fun. Like we try to keep it fun, right? Like you know, that nothing's worse than having a right, like I especially like I go through a lot of breathing with people, so you got to keep excitement going, right? Like if you're not into an exercise, I can tell you the person you're teaching it to doesn't give a shit either, right? So you have to care, otherwise, they don't care.

SPEAKER_02 34:48

Right. So it's a lot of information, two 12-hour days. You come out with your CT being able to accept patients that you have delegated for therapeutic exercise. I think it's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 34:59

Yeah, they can go, you can send them to them, they can know to do these tests, right? And these tests basically give them like a scoreboard where they need to go to, and it kind of helps you give them a guideline of where we need to go with patients. It's it's just great to create field, like you know, creating these posts and these outcomes of where people need to go, setting where the phase of care they're at, like if they're out of acute care, there is some sub-acute care. All right, this is what we're gonna look for.

SPEAKER_02 35:21

Yeah, I'm excited to I want to go back to that again. It's been a number of years since I've done it myself, so I want to go back and do it again because I'm sure I can reacquaint with some right ideas that's new and whatever.

SPEAKER_01 35:33

Dr. Yeoman's uh and I have updated it, right? So there's some things that are just that were more important back then, right? This is just as things go, like range of motion just isn't the same as range of motion of the spine, just isn't as important as it used to be. Sure. Like we, you know, it's more of a painful. We wanted to see more normal normative data to the person rather than oh, can they touch the floor or not touch the floor? Right. Um, and then even like ankle dorsi flexion test, there are better tests out now, right? So just using a wall, easier test rather than um getting just using an open chain goiniometer test, but you actually do closed chain testing on it and have research to back it up.

SPEAKER_02 36:10

All right, Jeff, I want to switch gears a little bit here. So you've been practicing for coming up here on 17 years, you've got some experience under your belt, you've done a lot, but you got a little bit more in the tank. Where do you see chiropractic in the future? Either realistically where you see it or where you'd like to see it. You got the floor.

SPEAKER_01 36:29

Oh, um, I'm gonna go down a few different tangents on this one. So just you might have to bring me back a few times on this. Like, I I'm a passionate chiropractor. Like, I love being a chiropractor. I think what we do is awesome. Like every day, like you get to treat patients, you get to help people, and it's a puzzle, right? Like, I love being a business owner because I get to have those kind of fun puzzles, but working with patients is such a a fun thing to do, and there's so much knowledge to have, right? Like you're never bored. Like every day there's something new. And I really think uh the way that the world keeps evolving, uh, chiropractors are set. I don't, I like I really don't, I really don't understand why chiropractors aren't leading the charge in like longevity stuff. Why are we not leading the charge and where this like positive health promotion is at, right? Like this is where we're at. Like make a not to get political by any means, but like make it America healthy again, right? This has been what chiropractors have been saying forever, right? I grew up in a chiropractic family, taking vitamins and doing these things, staying active was just part of our life, right? And that wasn't the norm. And it's becoming more and more popular that these things are gonna come through, right? Like the food dies, these things, we have to think a little bit differently. And so chiropractors to me should should be leading this charge. I think our future, as this is getting more and more popular about getting into longevity, I think we're seeing the impacts of it. I think the problem that we end up happening is this world gets the like the especially getting into like thinking about health. There's you got to have roots and everybody gets fights, right? Like nutrition's an easy one. Like, oh, you need a vegan diet, oh, you need to stay away from you need to have a carnivore diet, right? So these things are dogmatic to each other. But really, I mean, like it come to me, right? Like there, it's a fight over protein, right? Like everybody wants you to eat, well, most people want you to eat, can agree, eat more whole foods, vegetables, fruits, and then we're in a fight about what protein you need to take, right? Is it gonna be a protein, is it a vegetable protein, or it's gonna be a fish protein, chicken protein, or beef protein, right? So, like that's gonna be a fight. And that's fine. Like, I don't want to have that fight. That's why I don't do too much nutrition. But like I have enough basis of that. Um, I think as we get to uh chiropractors, um we're starting to see our profession to me needs to have a better identity as a profession to each other, right? Like we have all these different specialties that we have coming up, right? Like I have friends that do full-on functional medicine practices, I refer to them. Um, I have people that do functional neurology, I refer to them. And like I find out from talking to them how little referrals they get from other chiropractors. So I think we have like a little bit, and they but we like the outside world still thinks of us as like back crackers, right? And it's just like we have so much more to offer. I wish we would really go down that road of how much more we have to offer. Um I think one of the coolest things about being a chiropractor that I've really kind of dived into um is the physical exam. I think nobody does a physical exam better than a chiropractor, right? Like how many times you see a disc patient that has ridicular symptoms that nobody's done reflexes and nobody's done power to. Like it and it's not that's not like that's that's a standard care, right? I mean, if you look at I'm not to throw all those people out, but if you look at their notes, they did all those things, right? But it you know, it's for us like, oh, we actually do it. Um, and that's where you help find things, right? Like again, like I get I get excited about doing exams.

SPEAKER_02 40:09

Yeah, that's interesting because just last week I had someone that had pain in the metal border of their scapula, and they said that yeah, it's way better when I put my arm above my head. And I said, What did you do? Did and did you go to your doctor? And of course they went to their medical doctor and they did a thoracic spine MRI.

SPEAKER_00 40:27

Right.

SPEAKER_01 40:28

I mean, it's like really, yeah, yeah, you yeah, you missed the Cody sign, you missed like the lower disc, right? Yeah. Right, right. Uh you know, and I guess this is where uh my practice kind of changed. Uh I did the primary spine practitioner program out at the University of Pittsburgh a few years ago. Yeah. Um, and I've kind of set myself up to be a little bit more of that, right? That was one of the big things for me to pivot about really getting a broader openness to my practice of having the physical therapist, having this, and it made me a better delegator at what I need to do and how I get people to the right place at the right time. Like using a treatment-based classification, I know what that person needs a little bit faster. I also order a ton of MRIs. Um I have no problem, I have no problem ordering MRIs. I'm always shocked at like when I talk to like uh the rayus reps or some of the MRI reps on how they're like, oh man, you order the most MRIs. And it's like, oh, I like I don't even think I order that many. But it's just kind of like one of those things that I don't know. Uh and there's and there's like this mixed thing that I also hear from when I'm at conventions thing and I talk to other chiropractors, like, oh, like, well, that insurance doesn't allow us to order MRIs. I'm like, the only ones that don't is Medicaid and Medicare. Right, exactly. I order a ton myself. Yeah. What um this is just a fun question. For shoulders, do you what shoulder MRIs do you usually order? As far as like with or without contrast or yeah, with or without contrast or orthograms.

SPEAKER_02 41:52

No, I typically just order a standard without contrast MRI. And there's a couple different orthopedics that I work with that if I feel that they're next level and they're heading that direction, that's the MRI they prefer, and they prefer that I order it ahead of time.

SPEAKER_01 42:05

Yeah, I mean, I think that's where we do service for patient, right? Like, how many, like if they go to the specialist, it's gonna be four or five hundred dollars for them to exam for them to order the X-ray or the X-rays and order the MRI, right? Yeah, why aren't we doing this? Right, we should be sending every patient that we're sending to ortho. I I make sure they have an MRI. And it's like it's a service to the patients, it's a service to the orthos, right? They're not getting their claw, they're not getting clogged with like, okay, go get this MRI.

SPEAKER_02 42:32

Right. Like, let's help them out. Yeah, exactly. And if it's a situation where I'm kind of going back and forth, do we go the PT road? Do we stay with Cairo? Or do we go ortho? That MRI sometimes bridges that gap to figure out exactly where I want to go with that patient.

SPEAKER_01 42:47

Yeah, 100%. Or like maybe it's not uh, I mean, I had this this week where I had a uh or this week, two MRIs came back. One was a patient that had uh, I mean, when you looked at this MRI, I thought it was osteomolitis decitis, and it was just modic type one, right? Um the radiologist was awesome, right? Like I love working with Reyes, not to quote them too much, but like Dr. Mick, I was able to call him and he was able to talk me through on why, like, why when I saw it, it was you know lit up like a Christmas tree, and he was like, Oh, it's my you know, he's so calm and just so good at like he's like, Oh, it's modic type one because of these things, right? So it's just kind of fun to see that. And like that's that's no longer a like that's not a PT or chiro case right now, right? Like that, I'm I'm not doing any service for that patient.

SPEAKER_02 43:34

Sure. Have you ever had the unfortunate uh scenario where it comes back and they have metastatic disease to the spine?

SPEAKER_01 43:42

Uh the worst one I've had was uh multiple. Um that's been that right. You know, but you know, you get to see, you know, I always get back into like what 2% of spine pain comes from um medical emergencies or medical like other uh can. Conditions. Right. So those if you're seeing 100 patients in a a month or re-exams of new patients, there's two lingering in there, right? Like just statistically. So if you're seeing, like I always keep that in the back of my head. Like, I'm like, all right, we gotta just kind of, and that's probably maybe why I'm I'm a little bit more amped on getting MRIs, x-rays, and kind of working with a group. But I mean, I'm all like it kind of goes into the other question of like the orthos in spine docs in my area, they call me, I call them. I it's that intermingled thing. There isn't like an anti-chiral basis. I mean, you you run into that every once in a while, and most of the time it's with a primary career or like somebody I don't really care to work with anyway, right? Like their patients are gonna come tell me, see me anyway. You know, I'm gonna still work with the patient, get into the best care that I need.

SPEAKER_02 44:48

If I ever have a contentious situation with a medical doctor, it's only because I haven't worked with him before. So we've developed relationships and we get on the phone and communication is key.

SPEAKER_01 44:58

So yeah, and I and I think that's the big the where the you know profession is going. I think there is this more integrated thing. I think a lot of the docs, I mean, a lot of the spine docs that I that are around us, they love working with me, they love working with us because like they give their patients an option, right? Like they're not surgical, they don't want to send them in the you know, not that you know pain management can be like dark matter, right? Like you don't know where they're gonna go, and they kind of just end up in this dark space of pain management sometimes, and even the pain doctors don't know, like there's only so many things they can do. Um, and as like things progress, I think it's just a I think chiropractors have more and more of a role when it comes to these things.

SPEAKER_02 45:37

Sure. So I'm gonna open up a hot topic here. So I can't believe this goes back 10 years, but 10 years ago in Wisconsin with the Wisconsin Chiropractor Association, we investigated if chiropractors should go down the path of the ability to have prescription rights. And at that time, uh the WCA thought it was a good idea, and we can get into this as much or as little as you want. And we eventually pulled back on that. So with there was a lot of resistance within the state. So we'll we we can talk about that. But what's your feeling on chiropractors having prescription abilities?

SPEAKER_01 46:13

I I think with the right training, I think with Cairos, I think getting in, I mean, I think the beautiful thing with that, and I think so your work when you did that. Like we had the um medical college of Wisconsin, right? They were already set up to help us do the education component, right? So it wasn't gonna just be like uh I think that's where like I think it's in Montana right now. They are talking about trying to get a script license there. I think it missed by one vote. Okay, it I think it missed by one vote. And I think the the one thing there that they didn't stress enough was that it's gonna be a new education, right? Like, and I think that's where, you know, it I know it develops like this little bit of a tier of kairos.

SPEAKER_02 46:49

Yeah, it was gonna create a separate, let's just say, separate level of training for primary spine care physician. It was gonna be the curriculum that was very similar, the pharmacological uh curriculum very similar to a nurse practitioner. And it was gonna be very limited prescription ability, anti-inflammatories. Opioids were questionable. When we talked to the medical community, they were like, well, if you're gonna be doing this, you're gonna take on the opioid patients too, right? And when we were like, we didn't want that in in chiropractic, right? But yes, there was a lot of chiropractors that were very excited about it, but there were more chiropractors that were not. So we looked into it at one time. We had a very strong board contingency that thought that that was the direction chiropractic should go. And we thought that chiropractors would really expand their spine care ability, kind of like how podiatrists own the foot in in medicine. Uh, chiropractors would have a little bit more ownership of the spine in non-surgical situations. But we investigated it and we had resistance amongst our members and we kind of equated it to climbing up a tree, going out on a limb, talking to our members about it. Our members were very vocal. And in the end, our members that didn't want it had a stronger voice than those that did. So we pulled back and we decided that it wasn't really the right time in the state of Wisconsin to do that. And as of right now, I just want to make it very clear that that is not on the WCA's agenda to move forward. But I know that there are chiropractors out there that would like to see that happen.

SPEAKER_01 48:27

Yeah, I mean, I'm I'm one of them. I think it's just be, I think there's a couple from a patient standpoint, you know, nothing drives me more nuts when I have to send them out to primary to end up getting like a steroid pack or something and muscle relaxers. And like it's perfect time to it fits right in with the rehab model and the active care model, right? We want to get them off those medicines as much. We don't want them to turn chronic. I mean, that's like chronic pain, like uh low back disability is on the rise in our country. It's not going down. If we could actually see more patients, patients want medicine. If they came to us and like, oh, I want this. Guess what? You're not leaving my office unless you're doing proceps too, right? Like I can do like you're gonna be doing some active care and you're gonna be taking this pill, right? And that's where kind of where this gap is missed. And I think this is where chiropractors could really do well. And I know I'm uh I'm probably an outlier on this, but our patients are uh there's gonna be a shortage, right? I think there's two things kind of gonna collide here. Uh, there's gonna be a what there's by 2034, there's gonna be a 136,000 physician shortage going on. We're gonna be ending up on this, that we're gonna continue this. I I think if we had a set of chiropractors that want to do it, I think it would be great for us to be able to do it. Um, I think it helps integrate that in. And if you don't want to do it, I think that's fine. I think there's, like I said, I think there's a place for everybody where, especially when, you know, we're one of the best, you know, most developed countries in the world, and we're like low back pain is one of the number of disabilities or spending more and more money on orthopedic things than we are coming up on cancer and heart disease. Like, we got to start, we might have to start thinking differently too, as a profession, right? Like, how can we get the biggest thing? How can we get the biggest change going? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 50:08

It is great to see chiropractic uh getting more into functional medicine and heavily emphasizing a lot of our treatment in therapeutic exercise, active care, because like you said earlier, the chiropractor should be the person that most people think of as far as longevity, wellness, health span, and how can I maintain my body to be able to do the things that I really enjoy and love to do. I don't want to be bachelor medical doctors here, but I'm not gonna go to my my medical doctor to say, how can I maintain my wellness other than you know the parameters of cardiometabolic syndrome?

SPEAKER_01 50:43

So yeah, I I you know Well what I think they're like, I I don't think it's bad. I think they're they're in a really tough predicament, right? Like we're in this, I feel like a lot of the primaries, they don't have time to deal with it, right? Right. Like they want to have they almost have to be a new focus because they're, I mean, a lot of this is life and death. And I don't mean to be dramatic about it, but like when they have people that aren't eating well, and then like they have to do some medication, medical under interventions, right? They gotta get them on their glue, they gotta go to medform. And you know, yeah, diet changes are great, but if we don't do this now, like are they if we just tell them they need to go on a new diet, like they don't need to know that they don't know that, like we they gotta save their life, right? They gotta get ahead of their heart disease. I mean, we're making huge like we got to get a heart ahead of heart disease, we gotta get ahead of their diabetes, and that's where medical interventions, yeah. If we can work together in getting that like off, like that'd be great, right? But they're they're literally saving lives. Like, if we're if we can get people moving, right? We want to keep moving, they can do all the internal stuff, right? Like we have like the functional med docs, but like when you have 80% of the population that's too much too sedentary, we're all fighting over 20 that are moving and doing all the things that they should do, right? Those are the easy ones, right? Like, how do we get the how do we start to grow that 20 into like where it's 40 and we're only like we have 60 of the population that's not doing the things that they do, like not knowing how to do it sometimes, but like how do we get that growth? When you see sedentary rates going up, that's what drives me nuts, right? Like how much money has been thrown at, like, we had the NFL place 60. They had all this money that goes into these about getting kids and people moving, and sedentary rates have gone up, not down. So we gotta keep it moving. This is this is why I have pickleball, right? Like, this is like why I've always had a gym and why I've always wanted pickleball, because I want to keep people moving, right? And pickleball is fun, right? Works on balance, works on coordination. If you can do that stuff, it's forever. And it's a multi-generational sport. I want to be I want to be playing sports with my grandkids, right? And like how many people can't, right? And you got to start early, you know. Like that's my I I start people, I start talking to my 30 and 40 year olds about 70, right? Because how fast does time fly, right? And if you're not working out when you're 30, you're probably not gonna be working out when you're 50 and 60, right? And then, like, when we get those patients that have had back pain, they've been so deconditioned over the last 25 years, right? We're starting from like the bottom. Like, we're not even starting at ground, we're starting below. We have to get them up to the level, right? And that hurts, right? Getting reconditioned hurts. It exercise is not easy, you're gonna end up sore, you're gonna be a little stiff. Yeah, great, perfect, move on. Like, I get excited when people get like they come in, they're like, Oh, those exercises gave me a sore. I'm like, hell yeah, that's awesome. Let's keep moving. And they're like, but if they went, and then this is where it kind of comes into notion, like, I'm so confident at it, I'm like, yeah. And they're like, Oh, yeah, maybe I do want to be sore, right? Like, but if they went to their, you know, if they went to a different practitioner, maybe and they're like, Oh, yeah, I'm sore. Well, you got to stop doing that. No, you got to keep doing it more. You know, there is a there is a line of like hot, like, you know, sharp pain and things like that. And like there's like I always kind of graded, but like I can tell you when people are a little bit more sore when they come back to my office, I'm usually pretty excited about it, especially the pain centralized, and we're seeing like pod like their you know nerve tensions down, and we're seeing all this positive except for like they're sore in their ass. It's like, yeah, your butt's gonna get sore. It's awesome.

SPEAKER_02 53:59

You got me motivated, Jeff. You got me thinking about my my my trip to the YMCA tomorrow before I go into work, so yeah, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 54:05

Like, this is where I get so excited, like but you know, getting like the future of profession, right? Like the psychologically informed practice, going in and having like that motivational interview, like being able to like talk to your patient, being able to get excited about it. Like, yeah, I'm like, you're not excited, they're not gonna be excited, right? Um, but then also being able to bring it back and like start at the level that they're at and be able to talk to them about like you know, acceptance, commitment therapy, right? Like, we could do this stuff in our office, right? It doesn't have to be like, you know, therapists on the couch, but like get people moving. Like, all right, let's ask, let's what can I do to get you to do this? Like, what's going on? Right, those simple questions, and people have great relationships with their chiropractors. Like, this is where like we don't give ourselves enough credit. People will like love their chiropractor. Like, one of the like, what is the old average, like one of the orthos back in the day, say, like, you can make fun of their dog, but don't say a bad thing about their chiropractor, right? Like, our patients will protect us. Like, I and like I've had a you know, more than once I've had you know, my patients come back, like, I'm not gonna see that guy anymore, he doesn't like you. He wouldn't even talk to you. It makes them look bad, not us. That's awesome. Anyway, no, now I'm all fired up, and I'm like, Oh, all right, now obviously you're fired up.

SPEAKER_02 55:11

That's awesome. Where do you get your inspiration? Are you a reader? Are you a podcast listener? Do you like going to live events? What gets Dr. Jeff Surgeon fired up?

SPEAKER_01 55:23

Oh man, like I mean, like I said, I'm I love what I do, I love learning about how the body works. I like functional medicine is a fun hobby of mine, right? How all that things work together. Like, I I love that stuff. So podcasts in audiobooks. I every morning I start with a podcast. I usually end my day, even when I'm working out, I'm listening to some sort of audiobook. I just I love info on that kind of stuff. I think I'm just uh I'm just a curious cat by nature. Like I just want to keep learning stuff. Like even like I like I just finished reading or reading, quote unquote, um, listening to the Elon Musk book, like the biography of him, because I don't like the guy, right? Like I haven't I I don't like I didn't like him like you know, he would hate me and say that like not that he cares that I like if I knew how to short a stock, I'd short his stock because I'd you know I was like with stocks, it's like you had to believe in a company, you gotta believe in the the jockey behind it. I'd never like I was like, this company's got it anyway. But like so I just started like listening to his book. It's phenomenal. Like I said, like Curious Cat. Like, I just wanted to learn more about how the guy works, especially with all the stuff that's going on now. Um, it's not just chiropractic, like it's all those stuff works. I think healthcare is super unique on how things are going. There's a few other podcasts I think you you start to see how this like I listened to Petertea, he's awesome. Tim Ferris, the all-in podcast, I really like. I really like it's uh guys that are in tech. I think hearing about how AI is gonna change the world is just something like we're living in AI revolution right now. Like this, like nobody knew they were living in the industrial revolution until like a book went back and was like, oh, it's 1776, that's when the industrial we're living in the AI revolution and we just don't know it yet, right? And it's it's as fast as it's going, right? We're uh this is like coming back to healthier, right? Like what it and this is where even like the prescription drug thing might be an it might be a uh non non-subrider in the future because people might just be going up to a vending machine that's AI, right? And type in their symptoms in the vending machine will pump out what drugs they need, right? Like that's where AI could be going, right? Where they don't need like they don't need us, they don't need anybody to think like these things can figure it out that that's where we just sending people to get this stuff done, right? The the most medical doctors are gonna turn to surgeons, right? Like they're gonna be like the procedures, that's where things are gonna go. But that's where you start to get into this like fun topic of where stuff goes. So I get into uh podcasts, and that's like personally, I really like experimenting, you know, like on myself, like doing different nutrition stuff, doing different workouts, you know, getting into doing my own blood work. I work with a functional med doc, um, going through all kinds of stuff. So like that kind of stuff always gets me fired up.

SPEAKER_02 57:58

All right. Next question. I know you said you were in the middle of Elon Musk's audiobook. That's what you're doing.

SPEAKER_01 58:03

Yeah, I just finished it. Yeah, but yeah.

SPEAKER_02 58:05

Okay, so maybe that's top of mind right now. But if you had to say, if I want to get inspired, do you have a favorite book?

SPEAKER_01 58:12

Oh, um, I have two that I really go back to. Brene Brown, I think is awesome. Dare to lead. It talks about being vulnerable, it talks about leadership. It is awesome, right? Like it is a great leadership book. It is like I always kind of go back to that one. And number two is gonna be uh the gap in the game. I think this is such a great mindset, like switcheroo, right? Like, we all have bad days. Like, you can't every day isn't gonna be positive, right? We all have some shitstorm that's coming down the way that we have to be ready for, but how do we get out of it? Right. My younger self would be kicking my ass on how crazy I've gotten over like energy stuff and like just like getting yourself in that right momentum. Like just a little bit of change can make you have that momentum to switch it how everything's gonna go. Uh, if I'm having a bad day, like it's like my I I know I'm in a bad mood. It is like I'm gonna go to fiddleheads and get my favorite coffee because it puts me in a better mood. Um, I'm not just gonna have the you know coffee out of my machine. I'm gonna put on the secret, right? Crazy book about like just being super positive, like uber positive. You know, the lady's like nuts where she's like, Oh, I can grow my hair back and make myself see again. It's like awesome. Like, I need more of that in my life sometimes. And the gap in the gain is this one that's just like, stop being an idiot and stop thinking about the gaps, start looking at the gains, like and then looking backwards, like where you've been from. Like, oh, you just mentioned like the pickleball court went from 40 some members to 160. I, you know, you just start looking where you went, it's gonna tell you where you've been. Because um, like one of the stories in the book that they talk about is about a guy sitting in the audience, and he's sitting there, and they're like, Why are you so upset? And he's like, Well, I just sold my company for 400 million dollars, and you know, like that's where we're all like, Well, that's that's amazing. He's like, Yeah, but no, I uh this guy sold his company for this much. I have this going on, I have that. He wasn't even seeing, like, he's still living in like the gap as this book talks about. He's not even seeing the gains that he's at, and you just got to have that mindset. And I think Cairo could like Cairo can be tough, right? We're a little bit of outliers of the world, and sometimes we get into that like momentum of like, oh man, like things are just bad. Like, oh, like we just need a little confidence boost. So, like, I kind of surround myself of that stuff, especially when we know having a bad day.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:27

That's awesome. Well, I tell you what, Jeff, I think this is a great place to wrap up because I'm motivated and I think that our listeners will be as well. So I'm just gonna summarize this by saying he's Dr. Jeff's urgent, he's been in practice for 17 years. We need more healthcare providers like this guy. He gets people moving. He's a chiropractor, he offers nutrition, athletic training, physical therapy, therapeutic exercise. He's got a gym at his office. He even has two pickleball courts at his office to get people moving. So that is where it's at. If I'm an individual that wants to improve my health span, my longevity, you would be the guy that I would want to see. So we're excited to have you teaching at the WCA at our spring convention coming up on uh April 10th and 11th. Your class is specifically on April 11th. And we're also excited that you're teaching delegation for therapeutic exercise with our rehabilitation division of community education.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:26

So we did on one of the pickleball ones at my office, too. And you have to place a pickleball and go through some stuff. So hopefully we get to do that again.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:32

Great. That's in Cedarburg, Wisconsin, north side of Milwaukee, right? Yep, right on.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:36

Thanks, Doc. Really appreciate your time. My pleasure. We'll see you down the road.