According to Medscape’s 2019 Physician Salary Report; Primary Care Medical Physicians average $237K/year while Medical Specialists earn an average of $341,000/year. On the other hand, Chiropractors average between $25.26/hour – $35.70/hour with a combined annual average salary of approximately $69,000 a year.
Of course, for all physicians, there are many doing a multiple of this, but these are the facts for the more typical health care practitioner.
We don’t do chiropractic for the money. On the other hand, I’ve coached thousands of chiropractors and have watched the most loving, caring, and giving doctors go totally off the rails because of a lack of money.
While the Bible states that the love of money is the root of all evil, money is required to sustain us all and give us choices for our future. If money isn’t coming in, isn’t growing, and hasn’t brought us to a place of financial freedom, then stress and frustration are inevitable. Due to a lack of money, chiropractors are often forced to take their careers in a direction they never wanted to take them – or leave the profession entirely.
When I left school, I struggled that first year. I went to a great university with solid teachers and left very grateful for the degree and the experience. On the other hand, I discovered I did not have the training to earn millions as a doctor like my medical contemporaries; despite the fact I believe I could offer more to the world.
Thankfully, I learned five concepts that turned things around and brought financial independence quickly. Concepts I’ve now seen work for 1000s of other doctors that I’ve trained:
- You must be mission-based. In any industry, the more mission-based the business and its patients/customers/members/
clients are, the better the result and the lower the attrition rate. Money is a side-effect of a well-executed mission. - You must grow by multiplication and not just addition. Growing by addition is too slow. In the practice, individual patients must grow into families and others who participate in the patient’s everyday life. With the delivery of quality care and programs desirable to the community; organic growth occurs and multiplies a practice exponentially.
- Build to sell: Your practice must grow and maintain without you. The practice has to perpetuate itself without relying only on the doctor. Tech-managers put a very low ceiling on the potential of their work.
- Focus on what you know will produce. Occam’s Razor is the law of eliminating complexity and getting to the end-result as simply and directly as possible. When I asked my first billionaire mentor about money, I was expecting a complex answer and got a simple one that worked instead. He told me, “Focus on what makes you the most money and eliminate anything that does not.” Ultimately, my adviser was saying, “Focus on what you know will produce.”
- Create an exit strategy. Do you know your financial number? The one you need in order to never work again? You may want to keep working, but whether you do or not should be your choice. Also, God forbid something happens to you or your ability to work. This number represents the amount you will need so that your lifestyle and your family are still properly supported. Then set the shortest-term plan (The Occam’s Razor plan) to get it.
I have been blessed, not just lucky. I went back to college to get a Master’s to help with building a business, I’ve read hundreds of books on money, I get 10 letters in my email each day that teach about money, I talk with real estate partners every week, I’ve discussed 200 deals through investment networks over the last decade, and I speak to an angel investing guru who has walked me through or talked me away from dozens.
You can’t say you want financial affluence, but haven’t mastered finances. Remember, you don’t get the future you want; you get the one you trained for.
I am here to help. I look forward to working with you to give you the freedom, the future you want, the choices you desire, and the affluence you deserve as a chiropractor.
Do you need help with these steps? Click here.
Have fun saving the world!
Dr. Ben
