10 Research-Based Chiropractic Facts That'll Win Over the Biggest Skeptics

Despite how far chiropractic care has come over the past century, there is still a large portion of people who don't “believe” in its effectiveness despite numerous research studies and major health care organizations supporting it’s use.. It's still considered a pseudoscience for many. Even though scores of people sing its praises, touting actual, personal results, some are just hard to convince.

When you tell someone you are a chiropractor, you likely get a variety of reactions - and not all of them good ones. But why?

Cracking Skepticism About Chiropractic

According to a 2006 Gallup poll, chiropractor got rated very last in a list of medical professionals when it came to people's impressions about their ethics and honesty.

And, according to a poll done by Gallup in conjunction with Palmer College of Chiropractic, 22% of Americans stated that they would be "not very likely" to see a chiropractor for back or neck pain, and 18% said they would be "not likely at all."

Due to several reasons, there is still some stigma against chiropractic care in our country and around the world.

Some of it is due to fear. Much of it is because people are not well-informed about chiropractic care.

Fortunately, in recent years, more and more chiropractors and their patients are participating in studies and research. As these things grow and develop, several irrefutable chiropractic facts have emerged. Some benefits have been scientifically proven, far beyond the simple anecdotal evidence of the past.

More and more people are beginning to feel more confident about chiropractic methods and treatments, and as a result, people are starting to flock to chiropractors nationwide in search of relief from pain. In many cases, they are getting the relief that they seek.

There are still doubters out there, though. When you encounter one, it is now easier than ever to prove that chiropractic is real, is effective, and is here to stay. Read on to learn ten chiropractic facts to win over the skeptics you meet.

Research-Based Chiropractic Facts

Thanks to diligent and curious researchers, there is a ton of publications supporting chiropractic care.

1. Military Study

According to one recent study, chiropractic care was effective in helping people suffering from lower back pain when included in a comprehensive treatment plan. 

750 active-duty military patients enrolled in a study last year to treat lower back pain. Lower back pain is common in the military, and can often result in absences from duty. Participants in the study received regular medical care, including pain medications, physical therapy, and exercises, or that same treatment plus chiropractic care.

The participants received the treatment for six weeks and then were tracked for another six weeks. Researchers found that at every step along the way, the patients receiving the chiropractic care were doing better. Their pain was less frequent and less intense.

2. Comparative Effectiveness

Another study, cited by the American Chiropractic Association on their webpage, found that when chiropractic care was compared with medical care, chiropractic care was more effective. That study, published in Spine, found that 94% of chiropractic patients experienced a 30% reduction in their pain, compared to only 54% of the patients who only received traditional medical care. 

3. Neck Pain

Both the Quebec Task Force on Whiplash of 1995 and the Bone and Joint Decade Neck Pain Task Force of 2008 agreed that chiropractic care is often beneficial for people who have non-specific neck pain. Besides back pain, neck pain is the second largest cause of musculoskeletal disability, and many people seek relief from it around the world. 

4. Headaches

Although for a long time, many many headaches were thought to be tension headaches or migraines, but the International Headache Society now recognizes that most headaches are cervicogenic. Cervicogenic pain is pain that radiates from the neck into the head. The International Headache Society reports that chiropractic care is often helpful in treating these types of headaches. 

5. Back Pain

According to an article published by Gallup in 2016, 65% of American adults have sought care for neck or back pain in their lifetimes, and 25% did so in the past year. 35.5 million adults visited a chiropractor for their pain in the past year, too. 67% of the people that Gallup surveyed about the chiropractic care found it to be effective. 

6. More Positive Feedback

In a Consumer Reports survey published in Consumer Reports magazine in March of 2013, chiropractic care was the number one best way to take care of back pain, according to consumers. It beat out prescription medication, deep-tissue massage, and more.

7. Licensing

Chiropractors are trained and licensed, just like other medical professionals. To become licensed, they must earn a Doctor of Chiropractic Degree, which takes four years after at least three years of undergraduate work.

They also must pass the challenging National Board of Chiropractic Examiners exam and must receive a state license. Once licensed, they must complete continuing education requirements each year throughout their career. 

8. Joint Commission

In 2015, the Joint Commission, the organization that provides and reviews the accreditation of over 20,000 health care systems in our country, added chiropractic and other non-drug care to its pain management standard. This was a huge move that helped to legitimize this discipline nationwide.  

9. Medicare and Medicaid

Congress took this as a good sign. Soon after this declaration by the Joint Commission, coverage for chiropractic services was added to both national Medicare and Medicaid programs. 

10. Congress On Board

Furthermore, Congress went a step further with their overall faith in chiropractic care. After adding chiropractic services to Medicare and Medicaid, they also added it to their congressional health plan. All members of Congress are covered for chiropractic, and many of them see chiropractors for their health.

The Proof

The more people who understand the value or chiropractic care; the more people we will be able to help. So, get out there and start telling everyone these great chiropractic facts. They'll thank you for them!

If you want to read more about facts about chiropractic, or about ways to market your chiropractic practice, check out our blog.

Optimizing Your Chiropractic Website for Free Organic Traffic

There are only two ways to get traffic to your website: organic (free) or ads (paid). 

Why is traffic to your website so important? New surveys show that over 75% of your patients will visit your website before scheduling an appointment in your practice. 

With a majority of your future patients visiting your site before scheduling their appointment, your website must be a significant part of your overall chiropractic marketing strategy. 

The quality (and content) present on your website can attract or repel patients. It can make or break your practice. 

Ideally, your website should be optimized for chiropractic specific SEO and generating at least 80% of its traffic organically. You may want to supplement or add to your free traffic by occasionally purchasing ads. But be careful, just like a drug, you don't want to become addicted to paid traffic. The price will continue to rise, and the results will continue to diminish over time. 

Get Your Optimization Cheat Sheet!

Optimizing Your Chiropractic Website

Here are a few simple tips to help search engines understand the content on your site.

1. Look good in the search results using the tips below. 

A. Your page title is used as a suggestion for the title in search results. Describe your business in a concise, informative phrase. Your title tag should be descriptive of your practice as well as enticing. 

B. Domain names are an essential part of search results. Choose a descriptive and easy-to-read domain name for your website. Sub-pages should also be easy to read. For example, use www.stellachiropractic.com/services instead of www.stellachiropractic.com/prodid?12345

C. Meta descriptions are page summaries often used by search engines on the search results page. Write unique descriptions for each page in 160 characters or less. Be sure to include your targeted keywords in the meta-description. The goal of your meta-description is to entice the person searching to click on your website. 

2. Help search engines understand Your images

Images on your website can either dramatically help or hurt your ability to be found on Google. Large images can slow down your website and cause your rank to suffer. Once you compress your images using a tool like Squash, you'll want to use the following three tips to help the search engines understand the pictures on your website. 

A. Give your pictures short, descriptive file names. 

B. The “alt” attribute describes the image. This helps search engines understand what’s in the picture.

C. Write a short caption on the page below each image. Put important information in the text rather than images.

3. Update, keep going, and stay consistent

Provide useful content and keep it up to date

Your website is like a virtual storefront. You wouldn’t leave a store unattended for six months. Keep your site fresh by starting a blog, announcing new products, services, and special events. Remember to put yourself in your patients' shoes and make sure you provide them with the information they need.

If you need help updating the content on your website check out The Smart Chiropractor. We provide docs with all of the content they need on their website, social channels, and more to get more new patients, attract more followers, and drive more visits to their website. 

More information and support directly from Google

Google’s Webmaster Academy offers free step-by-step lessons and short instructional videos.

g.co/webmasteracademy

Looking for more advice on how to optimize your website? Read Google’s SEO starter guide:

g.co/seoguide

Google’s free Webmaster Tools helps you understand and improve your website, get timely alerts on problems, and find answers to questions.

google.com/webmasters

Get Your Optimization Cheat Sheet!

3 Steps to Build Referral Relationships with Doctors in Your Community

Below you’ll find our three step approach to interdisciplinary communication; taken from our own playbook for success. We’re confident you’ll benefit from incorporating these three pillars of performance into your own practice: streamlining patient processes, building relationships and adding value with research.

3 Steps to Build Referral Relationships

1) Following Up with Case Notes

Keep them simple, straightforward and powerful to make your patients’ information easy to access and understand.

1. Patient name

2. Date of service

3. Diagnosis

4. Treatment plan

Click to get a FREE Case Notes Template

2) Setting Up Doctors Meetings

Build and strengthen your referral relationship by communicating the value you can add to other practices. Use the Socratic method to learn about their business then show how you can help their patients.

Consider asking the following questions during this meeting:

 Have you seen an increase in spine complaints?

 Which symptoms are you seeing more of (low back pain, headache, etc.)?

 What is your current treatment plan?

3) Sending Monthly Research Updates

Leverage this powerful and underutilized tool to position your practice as the local leader in conservative care.

 Deliver monthly updates on the latest research and trends to other doctors.

 Provide educational, actionable and engaging content to physicians on your target list.

 Differentiate your practice by being the go-to person for items of interest.

Click to Receive a FREE MD Research Update

If you’re ready to fast track your relationships, and get more referrals into your practice from other healthcare providers, become a member of The Evidence Based Chiropractor today. We’ve helped hundreds of chiropractor build MD relationships using an easy to implement system.

How to Carry Out a Complete Social Media Campaign for Your Chiropractic Practice

According to this survey, 63% of companies consider generating website traffic and leads as their top two marketing challenges. You need those leads to attract new patients to your chiropractic practice.

To generate those leads, start by getting social online!

With an active social media campaign, you can discover new patients and build your practice.

Here are 10 essential tips for an effective social media campaign. With these tips, you can improve your chiropractic practice's lead generation efforts and stand taller in the marketplace.

Keep reading to learn how to make it happen!

1. Know Your Audience

In the United States alone, 79% of the population has some kind of social media account as of 2019. Your patients are online, tweeting, and liking and snapping with their friends. For a successful social media campaign, however, you need to narrow down the numbers. 

Instead of marketing your chiropractic practice to 79% of the country's population, focus on your target audience.

What do you know about your patients? What are their likes, dislikes, pains, and concerns? The better you know your audience, the easier it is to reach out.

Take a look at the demographics. Break down your audience based on:

• Purchasing behaviors

• Gender

• Age

• Household income

• Marital status

• Travel behavior

• Location

Do you know your audience?

Are you targeting a specific location radius? How far are people willing to travel to reach your chiropractor audience?

Narrowing down your audience based on these details can help you craft concise messages. The more targeted your messaging, the easier it is to connect with your target audience. 

2. Get On Your Goals

Before you set up a complete social media campaign, let's determine your specific goals, first. Knowing your goals can help you create tactics for your campaigns that are built to ensure you accomplish these goals. 

Brand Awareness

A brand awareness campaign will help patients recognize your traffic among other chiropractors.

To create an effective brand awareness campaign on social media, consider what sets you apart. Post on a variety of platforms to reach your target audience. You can also use branded hashtags that set your practice apart from the rest. 

Focus on what makes your practice unique. What's your value proposition? Post images that highlight that value.

You can also encourage your current patients to post with your branded hashtag. User-generated content is a great way to get your existing audience involved as you expand your reach.

Increase Website Traffic

If you have an appointment booking feature on your website, encourage followers to visit your site.

You can also use value content, such as blog posts, to entice people to visit. Use call-to-action language that encourages followers to explore your website content. Make sure you highlight the value of visiting your website in your posts. 

Don't forget to add URLs to your social media posts to make the content easy for your followers to find. 

3. Research the Competition

What are other chiropractic practices in your area up to? What posts are they creating that are generating engagement on social media?

Learning from your competition can help you get a step ahead.

Recognize what they're doing right with their social media campaigns. Then, think about how you can set yourself apart.

Researching the competition will teach you what not to do, too.

That way, you can create successful social media campaigns that help your practice stand out. 

4. Connect with Content

What type of content will convince your followers to stop and listen?

This is where your audience research comes in. Knowing what they like and care about can help you create the best social media campaign possible. 

Consider trying different formats such as videos, blogs, photos, and even stories. 

Make sure the visual content is entertaining and compelling enough that gets people to stop scrolling. Engage your audience, too. Get people involved in your content by asking for their opinions or host a contest.

Getting followers involved in your content will help you reach more people online. 

Using video, like we do with The Smart Chiropractor, can help you connect with content.

5. Stick to a Schedule

The key to successful social media campaigns is consistency.

Try to post at least once a day, or a few times a week to start. The more often people see your brand, the more likely they'll recognize you online. 

You can use a marketing calendar or an automated tool such as CoSchedule or Hootsuite to schedule your posts ahead of time.

6. Find Influencers

Social media influencers can give your content a big advantage. They also add credibility to your campaigns.

Find someone your followers already know and trust. Then, ask them to represent your brand. Having an influencer on your team can help you network and expand your brand.

7. Check What's Trending

What's going on in the world? The digital world is changing a little more every day. There's always something new to try!

Think about planking in 2010 or the Ice Bucket Challenge in 2014. A few years ago, everyone was posting using the #MannequinChallenge hashtag. Keep up with these trends and get in on the fun with your posts!

Use trends, but stay relevant!

8. Get Engaged

After you start posting fresh content, make sure you're engaging with your audience.

Answer the questions or take the time to "like" the comments they post. Show your followers (and patients) that you're active online. Your engagement will show them you're interested in and invested in their concerns. 

9. Balance It Out

Start by sharing a singular message online using different social media platforms. By sharing the same message, your followers will start to retain that message over time. 

Make sure your organic content remains in balance with your promotional content. Otherwise, people will feel you're pressuring them a little too much.

10. Study the Data

After you start posting online, study the data from your social media campaign.

What type of content is attracting the most attention? What do people respond to, like, and share?

Metric tracking can help you make informed decisions for your next campaign. 

Look at your Facebook Insights each month to track your progress!

Chiropractic Campaigns: 10 Tips for Your Practice's Next Social Media Campaign

Kick up your next chiropractic social media campaign! With these tips, you can stand out from the crowd and draw new patients to your practice. 

Discover our free tools today for more ways to give your marketing campaigns a boost!

Rocktape RockBlades Mohawk Review | A Revolution in IASTM

RockBlades Mohawk is the ultimate soft tissue tool kit, and this article and review will show you why.

Each Mohawk kit includes the Mohawk stainless steel tool, a silicone sleeve, ABS/Polycarbonate comb, RockRub, and a Quick Start Guide to help you take action fast.

Mohawk has changed the IASTM, or instrument-assisted soft tissue manipulation, world by unlocking revolutionary new treatments with their unique, industry-first attachments of the Sleeve and Comb.

Whether you're treating soft tissue on the playing field, or in the office, Mohawk has a sweet carry case to keep everything together and keep you on the go.

If you are a movement specialist, physical therapist, or chiropractor and you perform soft tissue work in your practice or your clinic, Mohawk is a soft tissue tool you need to have close to your treatment table.

First, it comes with an excellent carrying case. So this can help you tremendously if you are on and off the field. If you're in and out of different gyms, different boxes, different practices, this carrying case helps you keep everything in one spot, and it makes travel super convenient. The worst tool is a lost tool. So this carrying case will help you keep everything in order as we open things up for Mohawk.

RockBlades Mohawk includes

• a handy carrying case

• RockBlades Mohawk Surgical Stainless steel IASTM tool

• a silicon sleeve

• a ABS comb

• RockRub

• a spot for your Mullet and Mallet (RockBlades)

Mohawk's carrying case has a spot for RockRub, the two attachments (a silicon sleeve and ABS comb), and even has space for your RockBlades.

Mohawk is a beautifully designed tool. It's made from surgical stainless steel, and there's a variety of dimples and grip points. So whether you are working large muscle groups or more sensitive and intricate spaces, you're going to be able to find a surface on Mohawk to match the tissue.

The weight is perfectly balanced, which helps fight fatigue during those long treatment sessions. If you've ever performed soft tissue work without tools, then you know the toll it can take on our wrists and hands. Mohawk's design and balanced weight are a lifesaver if you treat soft tissue daily in your practice.

Surgical stainless steel is fantastic, but there are times where you might want to have a different contact surface, and that is where the two attachments come in so handy. One of them is a silicon sleeve. This slips right over the top of Mohawk. And what it enables you to do is grip into the tissue. So if there is an area where you want a little bit of extra grip you want to make sure you get in there and can provide some additional traction. The silicone sleeve is a great tool to use. It slides right over the top of the instrument, and it gives you the ability to have extra grip and a little bit more traction on an area.

The third component is the ABS comb. The ABS Comb clips right over the top of Mohawk enables you to stimulate the tissue and create neurological input. New research has discovered the importance of neurological input as a primary mechanism of action during soft tissue work, and Mohawk's ABS Comb makes it easy.

Altering proprioceptive input can create varied neurological responses, which is why it is so crucial to have multiple attachments or ways to impact the soft tissue.

If you have not checked out RockBlades Mohawk, then click here to learn more from RockTape.

Questions about soft tissue work? Comment below!