Occupational medicine services are a hidden gem within the chiropractic profession.
Unlike many medical fields, occupational medicine operates with minimal oversight from traditional medical authorities and is often managed by non-medical personnel, making it an accessible and advantageous area for DCs to excel. By providing a range of services beyond spinal manipulation, you can transform public perception and position your practice for success.
Occupational testing bring additional income streams
Who’s paying you for the services?
Traditional care involves getting paid directly from the patient (cash) but has limitations because many patients cannot pay or must get financed. Either way, you do not get to sell your services to everyone who walks in the door.
The second most traditional way of getting paid is by a third party; in this case you can take care of everyone, but traditionally insurance carriers exert price controls and limit what they pay, and you must wait for payment. Not the most favorable way to run a practice.
What if there was a way to get the best of both worlds, where the payment is cash and instant but with no fighting and no financial strain on the patient because the financial burden is placed on corporate America by the U.S. government. This means you get paid what you want, when you want, as much as you want, with no limitations and no burdens on the patient, so no long conversations with each person trying to convince them to commit their resources and/or going through a financing process, and no fighting with a third party who delays, recoups and denies. In other words, you cut a deal with a company to pay you cash to do certain services. It’s more like routine shopping at Walmart or buying something on Amazon where you decide what you want, purchase it with cash and walk out. No haggling, no time delay, no cutting your charges and no recoupments later.
What additional services can you offer?
There are around 25 healthcare services corporate America buys, and 13 are mandated that they must buy or go out of business. Please understand that statement. If a company has workers that do certain jobs, the company must pay healthcare services for those employees every year or the company must close its doors. There are no exceptions. Now here is the good part. MDs do not control this piece of the healthcare pie. They do not want it. Occupational testing is mostly serviced by certified laypeople, which makes it easy for DCs to enter the field and dominate it by taking business away from these certified laypeople.
While it is true that giving Department of Transportation (DOT) physicals requires a healthcare license, such as that of an MD, DO, DC, NP or PA, to perform the exams, most of the other services do not. Any member of your team can be certified to do drug tests, alcohol tests, hearing tests and pulmonary lung tests in as little as one hour to two days for the latter two services. There are also another 10 occupational testing services that require no degree or certification at all. This means any clinic can start doing a dozen services instantly and be paid cash with almost no overhead or startup costs.
Respiratory mask fit testing
Here is an example of the ease of implementing occupational testing services: respiratory mask fit testing. If you have workers exposed to dust/paint/fumes or anything harmful to breathe in, your employees must wear a respirator. To wear a respirator, the government mandates a yearly respirator fit test to ensure the respirator fits to the person’s face and does not leak. Anyone can do a fit test. There is no license or certification required. You buy some inexpensive equipment, such as testing smoke or bitter spray and a hood for $50, and you can then fit test about 50 people at $30-$50 each in eight minutes each. That gives you a profit of $1,450-$2,450 in one day, times as many companies as you want to do.
DNA testing
Another simple add-on service is DNA testing by cheek swab like you see on TV shows, where you swab the cheek with a cotton swab, put it in a lab wrapper and send it to the lab while collecting $400 from the person getting swabbed, all for less than eight minutes of work. No certification or license is required for such occupational testing. Kits are free from the lab, so no start-up costs. The lab teaches you how in five minutes with a 20-slide PowerPoint presentation.
Final thoughts
Occupational medicine is the best-kept secret from the chiropractic profession. It’s lucrative (I have been paid checks for more than $20,000 for a single day of work), has little control from the medical field, is mostly done by laypeople and is easy for DCs to dominate. Every single DC should participate in occupational testing to not only increase income but also to reach the 90% of the US population that will not go to a DC. This experience changes their perspective when you deliver services vastly different from just spinal manipulation, elevating you to healthcare team “doctor” not just “manipulator.” Companies that hate DCs will open their arms to healthcare providers who are helping them navigate government rules to avoid fines and shutdowns.
JAMES RAKER, DC, FADP, started the OccMed for DCs training program in 2015 and is currently the CEO. He has 30 years of private practice experience, including occupational health, and has been doing DOT work for more than 25 years. Raker was one of the first doctors in the U.S. to pass the DOT certification and become a certified DOT medical examiner. He can be reached at jraker@arklatexhealthclinic.com.