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Common Questions Answered: Q&A with Dr. Steven Knauf

The Joint’s Director of Chiropractic and Compliance answers common questions from chiropractors about ownership

Dr. Steven Knauf, The Director of Chiropractic and Compliance with The Joint, is passionate about helping chiropractors find successful careers as doctors and business owners with The Joint.

In his current role, Knauf helps oversee training and support for doctors and franchisees, and helped launch a path to ownership for doctors working in franchise clinics. Knauf spent four years working as a chiropractor in a franchise clinic, which makes him an ideal person to answer common questions chiropractors may have about The Joint franchise opportunity.

If you have additional questions, we encourage you to reach out to us by filling out a form on this website.

Why is The Joint a good option for chiropractors to own a business or work for The Joint in a clinic?

There are a lot of ways for chiropractors to find success with The Joint. One of the focuses for us is, ‘How do we get chiropractors to own their own clinics?’ Specifically, for students, they come out with an incredible amount of student loan debt, and I was one of those students. What can we do to help them get into this ownership role? We also have doctors who have been performing for several years under a franchisee, and they’ve been doing great. How can we reward them by getting them into a clinic of their own? We’ve created the DC Path to Ownership, which provides a clear pathway for chiropractors to ownership with The Joint.

Ownership is only one path. As we continue to grow, The Joint is acting more like a large hospital or clinic system in that there a lot of positions for chiropractors that don’t necessarily involve treating patients. A lot of our franchisees who own multiple clinics and they need professional oversight and training for their doctors, and they’re elevating them into administrative or training positions to ensure that their network of franchise clinics delivers the kind of care that we expect.

What are the advantages of The Joint’s business model over a traditional chiropractic clinic?

The reason for our success is all about access of care. We’re able to get in front of patients where they live their lives, and they see The Joint over and over again, whether they know about chiropractic care or not. Eventually, they try us out because they’re dealing with aches and pains and they want to see if we can help, solely because of our brand awareness. That level of awareness is one of our biggest strengths. We’ve been able to raise awareness of the chiropractic care to a level that wasn’t there before. The majority of our new patients have never tried chiropractic care before. That’s a huge win for us and for the industry.

We also refer patients to other chiropractors in the areas we serve because we don’t treat every patient that comes through our doors. We don’t do insurance, we don’t do auto injuries or personal injuries, and so those patients get referred to doctors who are working in traditional models.

Do you think The Joint has introduced more people to chiropractic care than ever before?

Absolutely. We’re providing more patient education and we’re getting in front of more people with chiropractic care than any other association or institution in the profession now. We’re providing care to more people who would not seek chiropractic care otherwise. It’s very rewarding to help so many people, especially when they have so many options that aren’t as effective as chiropractic care: prescription drugs and surgeries, as an example.

Why are people pursuing chiropractic as an alternative to prescription drugs?

The reason why chiropractic care is so successful is because we treat people who are pre or post surgical with minor aches and pains, and we can treat them without prescription medication. We can help them get off their prescription drugs. The culture is beginning to see a wide acceptance of chiropractic care because of the opioid epidemic. The American College of Physicians just revised their guidelines on how to treat patients in pain, and they’re pushing off Tylenol, Advil, opioids and surgeries and are now recommending more conservative approaches such as chiropractic and yoga before the more extreme measures are pursued.

Why do doctors love working for The Joint chiropractic?

I worked in a clinic for The Joint for four years, and it is the best feeling because everyone just loves you. They get the value of chiropractic. It’s such a rewarding feeling for a doctor to have so many people seek out your care at a level that you might not have experienced in a private practice.

What are The Joint’s standards for chiropractic care?

What you’re starting to see in health care is two models become more prevalent. The first is our model of care, which is direct pay, there is no third-party involved with access to care or how many treatments you can receive or the type of care a doctor provides. It’s really important from the provider level that we really have a lot of flexibility in how we treat our patients. They get better faster because we can tailor the care to the patient’s needs.

Why is The Joint a good investment from a financial perspective?

We cut out the hurdles to care. We make it easier for patients to come in and see us. When you remove those hurdles, people are more inclined to see us. For example, if you wake up today with some pain, you might not go to the emergency care facility, but if you see there’s a place that can help that’s right next to your bank or ice cream parlors, you’re more likely to go try it out. People will put off care as long as possible if you don’t make it easy for them to receive it, and as a result, we benefit substantially from a financial perspective because of that.

Why are you excited about the future of The Joint?

I’m so excited about the future of The Joint. There’s so much room as to where we can grow. Over the last eight years, we’ve focused on adjustment-only, and we’ve excelled in that model. As we’ve continued to collect patient data, we’re learning more about what our patients want from us and how we can help them heal. We’re in the research phase of that but it’s a really exciting time to be at The Joint right now.

We’re starting to see a real need for access to care outside of insurance and The Joint is meeting that need. We’re also seeing more and more chiropractors understanding this need who are becoming interested in our model than ever before. The Joint is positioned so well for future growth, and it’s going to be very impactful in terms of helping people heal without drugs or surgery because we’re so focused on being affordable and convenient. This is a really good time to get involved with The Joint.

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