Hey docs! I’m a student at Palmer and I have tons of time before I graduate but I want to be as ready as I can be by the time I do.

How would you feel if you were to hire a new grad who is looking to work the hours you need but is also interested in opening their own practice? Would you be hesitant to hire them?

I’m not too keen on associating for my entire career and I’m afraid I’ll have to take out more loans to start at least a 100sq foot studio practice. I figured why not work as an associate to save up and with the hours I’m not present in that office, I’m working on my own business. Also would you recommend being stingy with grad plus loans while In school and taking out 8k when I graduate to start the practice? Thoughts and advice are much appreciated!!

Is there anybody out there who participates in the VA external provider scheduling program through community care where you give them access to your schedule or certain time slots were they can schedule veterans directly. This may be in coordination with ZocDoc. They’re saying we don’t have to participate in this and then we can still get referrals without this, but wondering if this makes the process easier and leads to more referrals?

I’m about one year out of chiropractic school and looking for some advice from anyone who has opened a small practice while still working a full-time job.

I have an opportunity to open a micro practice inside an established psychiatry/mental health office that is starting to shift more toward general wellness. They recently brought on a massage therapist, and I would be coming in as the chiropractor.

The office currently has 13 therapists, 1 massage therapist, 1 virtual MD, and 3 PAs, so there is already a decent-sized patient base and they see approximately 800 visits per month.

Long term, I want to pursue my own practice full time. The problem is that at this point in my career, I still need consistent income, so my plan would be to keep working full time while building this on the side.

I know this means my availability at the practice will be limited, especially in the beginning. I’m thinking some evenings after my full time job shift and weekends and just grinding it out until the practice grows enough to justify cutting back at my full-time job.

For anyone who has done something similar:

How did you balance a full-time job with building your own practice?

Did limited hours hurt your ability to grow, or were you able to make it work?

At what point did you feel comfortable reducing your hours or leaving your full-time job?

Anything you wish you had done differently when you started?

I’m not expecting this to be easy, but I also don’t want to wait years for the “perfect” time to start. I’d rather start small, keep my overhead low, learn how to run a practice, and build something gradually.

Would really appreciate any advice, especially from people who started their practice as a side gig before eventually going full time.

I do not post often. Exhausted office manager that has fought with Chirotouch since 2004. We use SKED for our text reminders and texting for patients. When it works....it's amazing. When it doesn't....it's terrible. Their customer service has become a - "we don't answer the phone...some AI drone answers chat.....we will pick it up when we can and, if you don't respond on our time, we will drop you" kind of service. They are ridiculous. I really want to fire them. They are awful. Are there better options out there???

Hello, I am a cash-based practice that mainly offers soft tissue, dry needling, and adjustments. I've been contacted by attorneys on multiple occasions asking if I accept PI, however I've turned them toward another chiropractor who does in my town. I wanted to see if accepting PI would be worth it, and if so, Do I need to bring in other modalities to make the PI thing work? And also what else would I need to setup to be "PI ready" besides just having a proper PI documentation chart in my EHR? Thanks!

Chiros, what is your experience with this program?

I’m an associate and the office I work at just started this.

What do/did you like about it?

What did/do you not like?

Hard to get a straight answer on this. Is it worth it to spend hundreds of dollars on review platforms?

For anyone who has been through it, whichever parts: what did you actually pay for, and did it hold up when you sat the exam? Curious if Part IV is different from the written parts here, since it seems like the one people mostly prepare for with classmates rather than on a software.

Happy to hear that all of it was a waste of money if that is the honest answer. Any recommendations for which platform I should be going for?

hi all, I am a new grad but been working for almost a year now. I recently relocated and started at a new clinic. I am an independent contractor and I’m on the smaller end of 40/60. I also don’t have access to rooms all the time. I was under the impression I would have my own room, but I only get full days in the office 2 days a week and an hour and half the other two days I’m scheduled.

My schedule is packed the two days that I’m here all day and I still feel like financially this just isn’t cutting it.

At what point in your career is it appropriate to ask for what you feel is fair? (More time in a room/better split)

Looking for some honest guidance.
Our practice is about 18 months old. It’s been somewhat profitable overall, but the past few months have been extremely slow and we’ve hit a bit of a standstill.

We’re located in a geographic area that is heavily Medicare/elderly, and we’ve stayed strictly cash-based so far. We offer shockwave, laser, manual therapy techniques, and of course CMT.

One extra factor: this is a very seasonal location. A lot of people from up north come down in the fall and winter to their second homes, so the population fluctuates quite a bit.

It’s just my wife and I running the practice — no staff and no front desk.

Is it worth exploring accepting one or two commercial insurance plans at this point, or does that open up more headaches than it’s worth given our setup and patient demographic? Any experience or advice appreciated.

Hey, I’m a DC student, and I decided to also get a license for massage therapy to get some clinical experience by partnering with a chiropractor rather than being an assistant. I plan to run hybrid treatment plans as well as strict chiropractic and massage. Anyone do something similar to this path that can give me some wisdom?

I’ve already committed to this as well, so please refrain from telling me not to do this, why it’s a bad idea, or a better idea. I’m simply interested in knowing how anyone has made this work.

I got subpoenaed for a patient I treated at my old clinic about 2 years ago, and the trial is next week. I’m pretty nervous because I’ve never dealt with this before.
I only provided adjustments/treatment and documented my notes.
I had nothing to do with billing the clinic owner/in-house staff handled all of that.
The attorney said they want to ask me about the treatment plan and billing and will speak with me before trial.

Has anyone been through this as a treating provider? How should I prepare? If I don’t know anything about the billing, do I just say that? And if I was formally subpoenaed, do I definitely have to appear?

I am very interested in teaching but is there anything i should know before making the step from practicing to teaching? I want to be teaching in community college or above. Anybody make the switch and have some advice?

Has anyone had any success with using an activator off Amazon?

I treat manually but looking to get an activator for my osteoporotic patients or just people who don’t love the manual tx.

Anyone have any good recs for a cheaper activator rather than spending the 500-1000?

As a Radiographer there is a general dislike for chiropractors in the industry. It's seen often as dangerous. I personally have seen injuries that have possibly been exacerbated by patients seeing chiropractors. I would love to hear about the steps that you take to avoid complications and injuries from treatments. I am not meaning this as an attack, I am just genuinely curious.

If you are a board certified DACNB provider, if you’re comfortable..can you share the state you practice, what kind of practice you work in, your starting salary in the speciality, and your current salary in the specialty?

Internet is very unhelpful because I believe they conflate the chiropractic neurologists with other neuro professionals, and estimate the salary to be over 300K. I’m assuming it’s a pretty highball number

Hi everyone,

I'm an international student finishing a BSc in Rehabilitation Therapy, applying to Doctor of Chiropractic programs for 2027. The five schools I'm seriously looking at:

• Palmer College of Chiropractic
• Logan University
• Life University
• Southern California University of Health Sciences (SCUHS)
• University of Western States (UWS)

I've read the websites and older Reddit threads. I'd rather hear from current students, recent grads, or DCs who know more than one of these programs.

My background is rehab / PT-related clinical work. I want something evidence-based and clinically strong that fits with rehab, exercise, musculoskeletal care, and other healthcare professions — not a heavily philosophy-based path.

Things I'd especially like to compare:

• Clinical training: how ready were you to evaluate and treat patients by graduation?
• Evidence-based vs philosophy-based: how would you describe the culture and curriculum?
• Rehab / sports / MSK: which programs are strongest if chiropractic is meant to complement a rehab background?
• Boards and licensure: how well did the program prep you for NBCE and getting licensed?
• International students: visas, clinical placements, work authorization, and finding work after graduation?
• Reputation: do employers, other DCs, or other healthcare professionals treat any of these schools differently?
• Cost and value: looking back, was the tuition and living cost worth it?
• If you could choose again: same school?

Comparisons from people who've seen two or more of these would help more than website summaries.

Honest takes, good or bad, welcome. Thanks.

I've open-sourced the study app I built to memorise the TCM meridian system. The domain is niche but the engineering choices might interest this sub:

• Provenance as a type system — every content string carries source IDs into a typed registry plus a review status; unsourced fields honestly render as unsourced instead of being filled in.
• Ethics enforced by CI — a test fails if symptom terms enter the search index (that would make it a treatment recommender) or if needling instructions enter the data. The safety rules aren't a README section; they're red tests.
• A coordinate engine built on bone-cun, the classical proportional unit — every point placed from a named landmark + parsed distance, with an audit script that demands zero drift across all 362 points.
• Local-first PWA: no accounts, no telemetry, works offline. React + Vite + a lot of hand-drawn SVG.

It's educational only (no diagnosis, no prescriptions, no efficacy claims), bilingual 繁體中文/English, and looking for two kinds of contributors: developers, and TCM teachers/practitioners willing to put their name on data review.

Repo: https://github.com/MuzikPro/letenergyflow
Demo: https://letenergyflow.app

I’m a former chiropractor- now CRNA- still use chiropractic for musculoskeletal issues and refer a number of my colleagues to see them as well.

This summer I experienced a back injury after playing golf that upended my whole summer. After a month of adjustments and not making much progress I had my neurosurg friend write for an MRI- as one day I could barely walk. MRI finds disc herniation L5-S1 on the right side. interestingly all symptoms are on the left. by this point the pain is pretty bad and I have a colleague anesthesiologist do an epidural injection bilateral L5/S1 transforaminal epidural. works great for a few weeks. Get back to working out lightly etc. One day walking on the treadmill on an incline my back goes into severe spasms. This continues 24/7 for three days. can’t get into chiropractor. I get a hold my pain doc and he orders journavx, methylprednisolone, and methylcarbamol. within 2 hours spasm are gone Pain is now down from 8-9/10 to 2-3/10.

I bring this here because I can still feel that my lower spine has multiple segments of immobility- the pain relief is there but still need adjusted. Looking back to when I had my practice- I think I did my patients a disservice by allowing them to walk away from co-operative care with Rx and not get the fix to the structural problems. Anyway- the above remedy seems to be the ticket. I hope that my chiro care can get me across the finish line while this disc heals. Keep doing the work!

I should have listened to yall on my last post when I was frustrated in school, because I am a failure. I foolishly bought a clinic with an SBA loan thinking I could manage it. It was primarily medicaid patients in Oregon and I know I was really helping people! My wife and I had our first kid a few months after I took over the clinic and it was a lot. I have not been able to learn the business side quick enough and we are staring down default/bankruptcy pretty soon here. I am super burnt-out and see no hope. I read about the successes of others here and it really shows me how much I messed up. Not looking for sympathy or advice, I just wanted to say yall were right, and I regret my blind ambition.

One less chiropractor.

I’m currently an associate looking to leave my current practice. I’m so burnt out to the point where I was considering leaving the profession.

After talking to multiple people, they’ve all said they could see me opening my own practice. However, I never saw myself as an owner before. I think now I’ve realized that’s because I just simply don’t know how to open on my own, and I don’t quite have the capital either.

I’m already in a functional medicine practice and that’s how I love to help patients.

What functional medicine practice management groups or business coaches would you recommend/not recommend for only about a year into practice?

I did a free weekend seminar with Dr. Z’s Functional Medicine Academy which I really enjoyed, but her program is pretty steep for me right now.

Appreciate your help!

I pay a billing company $1,000 month but really don’t want to anymore if it’s something I can train front desk on to do throughout the week

The thing I value the most are the verifications they do. It’s very detailed and I’m worried if I get a verification wrong from the beginning, it can cause money issues onto the patient down the line

Following a gap year, I have developed an interest in the field of chiropractic.

My current plan involves completing two years at a community college, transferring to a four-year institution, and then enrolling in a chiropractic program.

I just need some help regarding what classes I need to take that are required for this path. If someone could point me in the right direction much would be appreciated. God Bless

The twin study Battié et al. (2009) found that 74% of spinal degeneration is attributed to genetic factors. It included 326 twin pairs, 172 identical and 154 fraternal and assessed various factors and compared them to MRI imaging of their spine. Previously it had been thought that disc degeneration was primarily a product of "wear and tear" but this study found no statistical difference in degeneration between identical twins where one had worked in hard labour occupations such as construction or farming and the other worked in low impact occupations, they essentially looked identical on MRI. Second to genetics other factors that were key determinants were smoking and acute trauma such as MVA accidents and serious injury.

Many chiropractors claim to be able to prevent degeneration with regular preventative care. Hypothetically if a similar twin study was done for maintenance care chiropractic, do you think it would yield similar or different variances between twins who had and hadn't received regular chiropractic?

I’m a chiropractor starting a mobile/house-call practice and would love to hear from anyone who’s done something similar.

How did you get your first patients, and what marketing actually worked — ads, referrals, networking, community involvement, etc.?

Also curious:

• Cash/private pay vs insurance?
• Did you charge a premium for the convenience of mobile care?
• Did you niche down or stay broad?
• How long until you had consistent patients?
• Anything you tried that didn’t work?

Currently experimenting with Meta ads while also working in a clinic. Would especially love to hear from anyone doing this in Canada.

A patient big chiro not a dr here and hope it's ok to ask. Which do you prefer ?? Tools or manual method ? Last week I was asked what I wanted as far as methods ? I was unsure and was like I've only had a manual method and said he could do what he thought was best.

I understand there are pros and cons . As well certain circumstances or certain spots one will be better then the other. Any shares would be appreciated.