We were lucky to catch up with Jordan Kaplan recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Jordan , thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear about how you went about setting up your own practice and if you have any advice for professionals who might be considering starting their own?

Chiropractic schools don’t really teach you the business of chiropractic, initially, you work for another office honing your skills and learning how to manage the patient. This takes some time and more often than not, the jump from employee to business owner is terrifying. Being the doctor, the healer, and the business owner is difficult and it takes a lot of self-work to become the person capable of handling this. Ultimately, I made the jump to opening my own office in 2012. The build-out and permitting process was difficult to say the least and I ended up paying rent on my space for almost a year prior to opening. It was the hardest and scariest time of my life and things were getting serious between myself and my now wife; this wasn’t just a me problem now, it was a us problem and that is a large responsibility to be saddled with. By the time I got open, every credit card I owned was maxed out and and I was down to essentially a zeroed-out checking account.
This year was a challenge for all of the reasons I mentioned but also after learning about me opening my office 30 mins away, my former boss and “mentor” fired me and proceeded to tell my patient base that I had built up there that I quit and they didn’t know where I went :).
I used this time to go on the offensive and figure out how to develop the relationships I would need to build my dream practice. I privately contracted a small space a few days a week at an office across the bridge and started to build a small practice to carry over. The most fun and effective marketing I did over the course of the year was to take a deep dive into the local business and networks here. I joined every gym, yoga studio, and social club. I spent the entire year learning about the culture of the town, making great connections, and made a point to not promote myself, but rather showed extreme interest in what they did and how I could help them. By the time I opened, I had all of this relationship capital built up and had established myself in the community so that once we opened our doors, the phone started ringing with interested patients.
This is a great tool for anyone opening a business, They never felt as if I was networking for the sake of my own gain, they truly felt my interest in them and we were able to help each other grow. We quickly grew and have had compounding effects since. There were bumps and bruises along the way as you are learning on the fly, we made plenty of mistakes but were always able to learn from them. We have never traditionally marketed or advertised; our patients come from our patients who have had great experiences. I am still humbled and learning every day, my natural state is to be more amiable and relaxed which is not ideal for a small business owner but I see this as as a journey that never ends. Owning a small business is essentially like being in the deep end of a pool, with so many benefits and perks but you can never coast or stop because you will sink. It makes life fun, you can gamify everything.. great things are still coming. The goal is to create a mutually beneficial experience that is sustainable over time towards a common goal with people you care about.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Owner and chief operator of Kaplan Chiropractic Center in Miami Beach, Florida. I was pre-med in college and intended to go to medical school to pursue a career in sports medicine. I suffered a severe neck injury in college and wasn’t able to fix it with traditional methods. One of my senior-level courses had a career day where a Chiropractor came and spoke us. After listening to him, I approached him for help and was able to get me into his office for care. Not only was he able to help, but it was quick and astonishingly effective. After that, it was a wrap, I knew exactly what I wanted to do and the pre-med major was perfect as it was exactly what I needed to get into Chiro school.
We have been open since Nov 2013 and it has been a blast growing year by year. As a chiropractor, we asses the functionality of the patient via an exam, consultation and digital x-rays. We than put together a plan to get them back on track towards ideal health. A chiropractor is not a magical healer but more so a conduit to allow the patients to heal on their own with our help. A chiropractor asses subluxations and helps to reduce them through specific chiropractic adjustments and focused rehab to make a sustainable and neuroplastic change that is not only felt but seen on re-eval and post xrays aftercare.
This is what makes it such a fun job, traditionally people assume chiropractors address pain but that’s not truly correct. We treat the patient and the body heals itself which is why you see cases in Chiropractic offices including but not limited to headaches, stress disorders, sleep disorders, reflux, cognitive decline, digestion disorders, vertigo, and many others. We have patients as young as a few days old to our golden age patients 90+. A well adjusted body is a better more capable body. Symptom care is part of it but longevity and functionality are of the utmost concern.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

In 2020 we had some big decisions to make. Insurance coverage had become very difficult and overwhelming. Insurance companies were dictating patient care and covering very little. Being networked with an insurance company makes the new patients flow in but you are saddled with high volume, high turnover pain-based patients who due to the constraints of insurance coverage will never get truly corrective care. We decided to make the switch a out of network/cash-based care. We knew we would lose some patients but knew that the patients who remained would get overwhelmingly better care and results.
This also happened to be the week before the entire world shut down due to covid. So now we had to make this huge jump while simultaneously managing this new world and general uncertainty about what was ahead of us. I have always been good and just moving forward into scary and unknown situations if I know in my heart that it is the right choice and morally correct. Chiropractors were deemed essential during lockdown so after the first few scary months, the entire country started moving to Miami and we ended up having our best year ever by miles, even during the lockdown. The patient experience was completely revolutionized, patients were happier, more motivated and saw tremendous repeatable results. Scary isn’t bad, its just unknown and that can lead to amazing things.

Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?

Happy patients beget more happy patients. A chiropractic practice is not a one off. It requires time and building a relationship and trust so you can manage and track them through care. When you can show a patient an x-ray and than go through a care plan and show them new images that are vastly improved while also getting them to meet goals that you have laid out with them, life is great. For the most part, all of our patients come from established patients whom have had success. To many times, Physicians get caught up in marketing to acquire new patients and the goalposts just keep moving and the turnover is exhausting. If you can keep a patient motivated and mindful of how well they are doing. They will refer lovingly and In mass.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://Kaplanchiropractic.com
• Instagram: Kaplanchirosobe
• Facebook: Kaplan Chiropractic Wellness center
• Youtube: youtube page is currently being reworked
• Yelp: Kaplan Chiropractic Wellness center

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