Dr. Phil Dieter graduated from California Polytechnic University, San Louis Obispo in 1998 and from Life West Chiropractic College in 2006. He currently practices alongside his father at Almaden Chiropractic & Wellness, one of the most technologically advanced chiropractic clinics in the bay area. Dr. Dieter is also a part-time Adjunct Professor at his alma mater, Life Chiropractic College West, and is the founder of BlueChip Chiropractic Network, a company focused on recruiting top-line associates for high-performing chiropractic clinics.
In this episode of TechTalk Podcast, Brad Cost, Dr. Jay Greenstein, and Dr. Phil Dieter sit down to discuss:
Dr. Phil Dieter's experience in the chiropractic space, from a little boy to now.
CalChiro's future plans with Dr. Phil Dieter in the driver's seat.
A sneak peak into chiropractic advocacy in California.
SHOW NOTES:
3:36 – Surrounded by chiropractic for life. “I have a practice in San Jose, California and one in Morgan Hill, California with multiple associates. I'm an adjunct professor at Life West Chiropractic College. I started a recruiting company a couple of years ago to help new graduates find job opportunities. I just recently became the president-elect of the California Chiropractic Association. I'm a son of a chiropractor. I've been around this profession my whole life, so I really don't know any different than to live the chiropractic lifestyle. Oftentimes I feel like the unicorn in the room, even in the chiropractic setting, because not everyone has been adjusted their whole life. That's how I've gotten here. Chiropractic has always been in my life, but I'm thankful to say I didn't go to chiropractic school right out of college. I got involved in different careers, but it was only until I got to a point where I asked myself what I really wanted to do with my life. Did I really want to be a chiropractor like I said I was going to when I was a kid on the playground? My parents always tell the story about how the kindergarten teacher called them up and said that they're going to have to talk to me because I was trying to adjust kids on the playground. I eventually came to that decision, and it's been all green light since then. Everybody's always said chiropractic finds you and I truly do believe that.”
5:19 – Tech world to chiropractic world. “Well, short story long, I really wanted to get into politics or be a lawyer, but here I am doing a lot of political advocacies for the chiropractic profession. I went to school originally for that, but that didn't even work out that well. I ended up in the tech industry because around the year 2000, everybody was making money in the tech industry. I had just graduated from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and was making money. At the end of the day, I started asking myself, what did I really want to do with my life? Where did I see myself in 15, 20 years? I finally made the leap and got into chiropractic college. Interestingly, a lot of the troubleshooting techniques and skills that I developed in the tech industry are the same ones I use now in differentially diagnosing patients and things of that nature.”
7:48 – Advocacy in California. “Well, the underlying premise of everything we do from an advocacy perspective is to protect our scope, right? Now, I know not everybody thinks the scope needs to be protected, but simple things come up. Recently, the California legislature has been trying to limit the use of the term doctor, not only for our profession, but others too. Right now, there's AB1451 that they've been trying to get passed. Through our advocacy efforts and the work of our Government Affairs Chairman, we've been able to get a carve out for chiropractors specifically to be able to continue to use that terminology. That's one of those things where people don't even know what goes on behind the scenes with what we do, where that could have changed drastically for them had we not been at the table. That's just one little example in that regard… It's all about market share as you know, and I’m not in favor of someone else telling us what chiropractic is good for. I am bound and determined to go into the legislature and into the community to tell other people what we're good for, right? Because what we stand for is unique, and ultimately if we don't tell them, they're going to tell us. I get fired up about that kind of thing because I'm looking for individuals in California, in the country, in the world to stand up for chiropractic in a way that doesn't let someone else tell us what we're good for.”
15:15 – Where CalChiro is heading. “California is a big state. There's lots of chiropractors here. We have close to over 12,000, as last I heard reported, so trying to meet the needs of everybody gets difficult. One of the big things we're trying to do at CalChiro is build a community to create value and trust for. Everybody has a different need or want. The challenge is always to figure out, even in practice, what's in it for that person, right? When a new patient comes in and you're doing a consult, you're always trying to figure out what really brought this person here. Same with new members coming in. I'm trying to identify what's really important to that person and how to provide that through the resources that I have at the association. At this point, I've been so entrenched in the association that I really know what resources are out there. Another big thing that I'm really trying to accomplish over the next year and a half is to figure out ways to get our technology up to speed that allows us to build that community, whether it's through social media, podcasts, webinars, or master classes. I have seen the proof that when you build a community, you continue to create value and trust for that community and that's what people are really attracted to. In doing so, I think that will help us to garner more members into the association, which only helps my advocacy efforts. When I go into the advocacy arena, politicians care about how many votes you can get them or how many dollars can you donate. We have a political action committee at the association that we're always trying to raise funds for. The people that donate to the political action committee are the people that are really enthusiastic about different initiatives that we're doing.”
17:44 – Find and serve. “Earlier, we were talking about the defense we played on AB1451, but we've got big goals in terms of creating animal chiropractic legislation in California. That's something we've been working with the Chiropractic Defense Council because we want to establish chiropractic as a regulated entity in California. There are four other states that already have that, so we've been making that appeal to the board, to the legislature. Those are some of the things that we would like to accomplish. We still have not been included in the essential health benefits the way that California has implemented them, regarding the Affordable Care Act. We're thankful right now that we have the opportunity to speak to legislators and legislators are on the precipice of bringing forth legislation to revisit those essential health benefits. I would love to see that kind of inclusion, right? Because it's a shame that people can come into our office so they can get an examination or an x-ray, but they can't receive the chiropractic adjustment. I'm always trying to find people and serve people. There are never enough people to find and serve, right? I've been fortunate to be around Life West almost my whole life and sit on the knee of Dr. Sid Williams. Those are some special things that I still carry with me in terms of finding and serving people. In that regard, we're trying to find ways to get back into Medi-Cal. Not everybody wants to accept Medi-Cal, I understand the reimbursement's poor, but at the end of the day, I've sat in the classroom and heard some of these young kids telling me they want to go back into their community and find people to take care of that can't take care of themselves. If we can get inclusion back in the Medi-Cal space, that gives us opportunities to look at how do we create FQHCs, which are federally qualified health centers and things of that nature, which will provide institutional jobs. We don't have enough institutional jobs to create infrastructure and chiropractic. We lack for residencies, obviously, and most people go into the associate model or go into their own practice if they feel confident enough to do that. I have seen firsthand that not everybody's prepared for that. That's not everybody's personality. Those are some of the things that I'm really passionate about over the next year accomplishing and that's why I want to accomplish them. The bottom line is I know these new graduates want to help people. This is a way to help people. This is a way to get them a federal salary or something along those lines. It creates more institutional opportunities and creates more infrastructure for chiropractic, which I think can only help more.”
20:37 – Meeting people where they’re at. “Well, I really just been motivated to help people. I remember as a kid, we'd be at dinner and my dad would get a phone call and we'd have to step away from the dinner table because somebody was coming over to get adjusted in the garage or we were going to do house calls at somebody's mobile home park because they couldn't get out of bed or we're going over there at lunchtime to do what we could to help them. As I got into my own practice, especially working with the Spanish speaking community, I’d see the needs that that group had for some form of healthcare, even with regards to the language barrier. I got better at speaking Spanish. I translated all my paperwork into Spanish. It's incredible for me to see the number of like Spanish speaking students that we have now in the college. I'm a big advocate of mission trips, but there's mission trips to do right here in our own communities every day by going out into the community, meeting people where they're at, speaking a common language, and using your hands. Some of the best experiences I had were on some mission trips in El Salvador, where I got better command of the language and walked the streets of this war-torn capital, providing care in hospitals for people who otherwise had no knowledge of what chiropractic was. Getting the chance to work with people in that regard has been so rewarding for me, so that's part of how I've got to where I've got now.”
30:04 – 2706 language. “With 2706 language in California, California chose not to include the chiropractic adjustment as part of the base or benchmark plan included. I wasn't at the table when that went down. That's really what got me started in the advocacy arena 15 years ago. There's a lot of heavy lifting to do in that regard, but there's some other things that aren't included either. There are some legislators now that are looking at things that aren't included and bringing forward legislation that would revisit the benchmark plan. We're doing our best to make sure we're included in that conversation and help people understand how it's confusing for a customer to be able to come in, get an examination, an x-ray, and a diagnosis, but then not ultimately be able to get the treatment covered that they would be recommended at that time.”
34:06 – Embrace the challenge. “It's important to embrace that because certainly medical doctors, in some respects, get hamstrung by treatment corollaries, right? It's like, somebody comes in with this low back pain at a 6/10, so I got to give them these medications and refer them to PT. Because chiropractic's not in the treatment corollary and they're afraid to think for themselves, the type of stuff that you guys are bringing to the forefront is so critical. That's what we need to go into those legislative and policy arenas with to change those treatment corollaries and say you need to be following this treatment corollary because this is what the evidence said. I think that's where it's really important. Like it or not, chiropractic's in a stage where there's more awareness for it than ever with TikTok and some of the social media stuff that's going on with the adjusting videos and the rise of the chiropractic franchises. That's provided a lot of infrastructure for us too and it's not for everybody, but it certainly has helped us to create more awareness for the chiropractic profession and people becoming more familiarized with what chiropractic can even possibly do for them.”
36:39 – Self-insured companies. “We've seen somewhat of a rise of self-insured companies, even locally here. It's called Valley Health Plan Insurance. One of the cool things I've seen is them offer chiropractic benefits to their Medi-Cal recipients. We've been fighting to get back Medi-Cal inclusion, but here we've got a provider now offering these benefits to their members because it's going to reduce our costs on the other end for medication, hospitalization, all of those kinds of things. Having more of those conversations is as important and it just goes back to that whole awareness and letting people know what you stand.”
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