I joined Integrity back in February in 2015 after the birth of my first child. At the time I had been out of practice for about a year, although I never missed a payment I did not know how one could make money in Chiropractic as I bought an existing practice right out of school without ever working under anyone. Clinically I felt very comfortable treating patients as I graduated at the top of my class, however from a business standpoint I had no Idea what I was doing.
My first daughter was born nine weeks early. Her due date was February 9, 2015, however she did not want to miss Christmas and decided to come on December 10, 2014. I was never worried about her health as I had a supernatural peace and she only spent three weeks in the NICU. However at the time they told us she would most likely be there for nine weeks. This became a very stressful situation for me financially as the end of the year was a slow time and the birth of my daughter under a stressful situation.
We got released from the hospital on January 1, 2015 which was great because our deductible would start over that day and we had already met our out of pocket expense for 2014; staying another night in the hospital would have most likely cost me $4000, again this was a stressful time for me financially as business was slow.
Shortly after we got settled in I attended an Integrity conference to see what they were about. This ended up being one of the best decisions I would make. Although I felt extremely confident clinically, I was walking on egg shells my first year in practice trying to practice like the Doctor I bought the practice from trying to get the patient better in a time that the patient thought was reasonable. At the time I did not realize not only was I miserable I was also doing a dis-service to my patients by not telling them what they needed.
Once I started with integrity my numbers and my practice grew rapidly so much so that if I would have started with integrity I would have most likely been able pay my practice off within the first year. The report of findings alone helped my numbers grow, but more importantly laid a solid foundation for my patients to follow in order to get better.
As I started Integrity there were things that I thought I would pick and choose what I wanted to do, as my coach had told me and as I found out on my own everything integrity does is for the patient. When I had chosen not to do something that integrity recommended, more times than not it would come back on me to where I realized “oh, that’s why that’s important”, if I would have done that from the beginning I would not have to have this conversation with the patient.
Integrity has allowed me to practice in a way that I thoroughly enjoy. Not only do I enjoy coming to work every day and taking care of patients, I am extremely confident that I am doing what’s best for my patients and more confident that they will get better.
Dr. Robert ‘Tray’ Williams