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Stephen Thaxton
Once the personal chiropractor to musicians Axl Rose and Jon Bon Jovi, Thaxton is now personal DC to several hundred far more down-home folks in the foothills of Appalachia. The practice, which takes in more than $1 million, is split between two offices in Ripley and Sissonville, W.Va., just north of Charleston. He's built his 300 patients-per-week practice with a variety of services, but rehabilitation has always been at the center. The focus stems from his days as an athlete nearly 20 years ago. He learned back then how important health is to a competitive athlete. And he recognized that rehab was the way to help ailing athletes get back to competition. The same theory, he thought, applied to everyday people. "Rehab seems like an integral part of getting people well," Thaxton says. "So I got certified as a chiropractic rehab specialist. It fit my philosophies about health." He estimates he involves more than 30 percent of his patients in supervised rehab programs and prescribes similar home-based programs to many more. Before he started his practice a little more than a decade ago, Thaxton embarked on a four-year journey that, well, rocked. He spent portions of those years on the road with Guns N' Roses and Bon Jovi, caring for the bands' charismatic lead singers, other band members, and members of the road crew. Eventually, he found himself being pulled in two directions — the bright lights of show business, and the pastoral settings of country life. The choice was ultimately easy. Thaxton was born and raised on the same land where his practice is built. With the practice getting more than an adequate foothold in the foothills, he said "thanks, but no thanks" to offers from both Rose and Bon Jovi. Rose wanted to set him up in a practice in Los Angeles, and Bon Jovi in New Jersey. "I'm really happy here, and I've got a great life here," Thaxton says. "I understand my community. To me, it's really nice to be involved in my community, and being in a small town allows me to be involved." Involved means being the sideline doctor for both of the local high schools, where he spends his fall Fridays at football games. A 'FAMILY' PRACTICE Thaxton started his practice with an idea and has stuck with it. Part of that idea centered on creating a family atmosphere with patients and staff alike. He bristles at the notion of co-workers, believing those with whom you spend so much time should be considered more like friends and family members than employees and patients. In order to achieve that, he took his time assembling his crew. Most of his staff has been with him for several years. But staffing wasn't put together overnight. It took patience and was built with a rehab focus in mind. "We've gone through some staff," Thaxton says. "As we built our team, we came up with an incredible group of people that had such an enormous capacity for caring. They were so compassionate about others, as well as about the profession of chiropractic and helping people. That comes across. Patients pick up on that." Thaxton says everybody on the staff is on the same page, and the machine is oiled to the point the others know what he's thinking. The organization and togetherness that stems from the familiarity and like-mindedness has a positive effect on the psyche of the patients. Part of Thaxton's staff-building strategy came about almost by accident. When he was still operating a small cash practice in 1994 between concert tours, a student from the University of Charleston, who was in its sports-medicine program, approached him to learn about chiropractic. While she was learning, Thaxton was learning — and observing. He saw that the basic education of athletic trainers closely resembles a chiropractic education. He saw ideas and philosophies so close to his own, he knew he needed that type of person to work in his practice. "I thought these people would be ideal to work with as long as I could teach them about chiropractic," he says. "I hired a few athletic trainers from the University of Charleston. I went with people who already had an education and a background, who understood chiropractic techniques. Chiropractic philosophy was not a stretch for them. They were already getting a similar education."
From that point it was a matter of judging character and work ethic. Eventually, Thaxton hired a staff who met his expectations. PRO BONO PROMOTIONS Next was a matter of getting patients. He started small, running a cash practice between legs of tours. Through mostly word of mouth, his practice grew. Thaxton still does not advertise, not even in the yellow pages. Once a year, he offers free physicals to some 600 junior and senior high school athletes, a $2,500 promotion at which each youngster gets a T-shirt embossed with Thaxton's practice's name and number, and a motivational saying such as "Go longer, work harder, give more." "We plaster a T-shirt with that," Thaxton says, "and we have 600 kids walking around as walking billboards." Thaxton does a bit of pro bono work for the school athletes, too, by giving each three free visits a year. The goodwill this creates spreads throughout the families and friends, and word of mouth takes over. As Thaxton says, "People know a good thing when they see it — and hear about it." REHAB: ROAD TO HEALTH MAINTENANCE As the practice grew, integration of rehabilitation methods became a focal point. Thaxton says his patients like the style he employs. Rehab makes it easy to see improvement and is a road to maintenance once health is reached. He says he's not militant about making patients follow the protocols. He doesn't have to be; when they follow them, they see results. "When they come in for their regular visits, we ask them how it's going," he says. "We don't monitor them in terms of filling anything out to make them prove what we've asked them to do. In general, it's pretty obvious when you have them doing the rehab. They get well so much faster." Likewise, when patients aren't responding as quickly as expected, he knows to push them a little harder. Usually, though, they respond to it. He attributes that to the simple fact they expect it and like it. It's what they come for. The rest? They learn to like it out of necessity.
"A lot of people end up in difficult situations because of their deconditioning," Thaxton says. "We use those terms a lot. Are they in condition or are they deconditioned because they are not active or in some kind of fitness program? "We see a lot of athletes, but, as for the general population, we see most people who are very deconditioned. It's our job to get them back into condition, so they can live the way they want and do the things they wish to do." Living the way he wants is why he traded in a rocking good time for the quiet life of a small-town doctor. Offered big bucks one last time by Bon Jovi, Thaxton said there wasn't enough money to dedicate his life to rock-world chiropractic. "Jon's manager said 'Every man has his price, so put down how much money you want,'" Thaxton recalls. "So I put down a price. I put down what I thought was an exorbitant amount. I've since learned it wasn't any big deal. He called back five minutes later and said, 'Pack your bags, you're going.' "They bought my bluff. Back off I went. That was in April of '95. We finished in July of '96. Jon said 'I really want you moving to New Jersey.' I said 'No thanks, I'm really happy in West Virginia. I'm going back home.' "We remain friends still." SIDEBAR: |
He's a little bit country. He's a little bit rock and roll. Donny and Marie had nothing on Stephen Thaxton, DC.
Todd Stumpf is a freelance writer who frequently writes for Chiropractic Economics. He can be contacted at Advertising | Classifieds | Cardpack | Datebook | Past Issues | Chiro History
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