Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Dr. Amanda Shorter. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Dr. Amanda, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Setting up an independent practice is a daunting endeavor. Can you talk to us about what it was like for you – what were some of the main steps, challenges, etc.
I have always loved helping people and making them feel better. I believe this stems from watching my mother go through cancer several times since I was 12 years old. In high school I had planned on going to medical school for general surgery, as that was how I knew I could help people. During a school trip to Germany I stepped wrong and had some bad knee pain. I got back home and my parents told me to go see their friend Bruce who was a Chiropractor. Up to that point I had never seen or heard of Chiropractic care. I went in and saw him and he made my knee pain go away without me having to have surgery or a bunch of physical therapy. I started to shadow him and the more people I saw him help the more I was drawn to Chiropractic care and the benefits from it. I started thinking about if I still wanted to be a surgeon or shift gears to Chiropractic. The more I though about it the more I realized that I would not be able to emotionally handle losing a patient on the operating table, even if it was completely outside of my hands, I didn’t think I would be able to handle that. With Chiropractic care I was able to help people decrease their pain but with very little chance of them passing away while I was working on them.
So after I graduated I went on to the University of Minnesota- Duluth for Exercise Science then on to Northwestern Health Sciences University for Doctor of Chiropractic. I was supposed to do a preceptorship with a provider in Shakopee, we had papers signed, cards made up and I had patients waiting for me to start at that location. Three days before I was supposed to start, the wife of the provider, who worked front desk at the office, sent me a text stating they took on an extra intern from the University and they no longer had space for me. I called my parents and my sisters who were handing out business cards for me and told them what happened. My older sister told me to reach out to the provider she had seen, Dr. Como, and see if she had space for me at her office. I called Dr. Como, telling myself not to cry from the stress of the situation, then proceeded to cry profusely and explain to her what happened and that I was looking for a place to do a preceptorship. She graciously took me on with her at the office. Her treatment style and my treatment style lined up perfectly. This being, looking at the whole patient, addressing their specific needs and knowing not everyone’s body reacts the same to treatment. In watching her work with patients she took her time and didn’t rush the patient and really got the whole picture. She had such a high level of standards for her patient care and that is what I strive towards as well. She was looking to retire and was wanting to sell the practice to someone she could trust to deliver that high standard of care to her current patients and future patients. She approached me about taking over the business when she decided to retire after I got my license. I was licensed in 2020 and in April 2022, Dr. Como decided to retire and I purchased the practice from her.
Nowadays, you can find Chiropractic offices in almost every town and city, but not all Chiropractors deliver the same type of care. Some places, like me, take time to really dive in and get to know their patient and focus on what they need, then there are other places that may say 3 words to you the whole time and they just adjust and move onto the next and do not necessarily focus on what your problem is. There are different treatment philosophies and style which may note work for everyone. I have chosen, through my experience with Dr. Como, to have multiple tools in the tool belt as the saying goes. I have several different muscle therapy techniques and different tools to help me with adjustments to help may the experience as positive as I can for each and every patient. At every follow up visit with a patient we take a few minutes to talk about how they are feeling, how they felt after the last treatment so we can determine if we need to back down on what we do treatment wise or if it was just right or if we need to do a little more. I start with the less aggressive treatments and move more aggressive if we have to. I will also refer the patient out for imaging or consultations if the pain is not changing with treatment.
When I first got my license, Dr. Como and I shared the office space but operated as 2 different practices. One of the biggest hurdles was getting approved with insurance companies. Most took months to approve me into their network which then limited the patients I was able to see. Patients could come in and see me on an out of pocket basis but most patients wanted to use insurance and went to a different provider. There are practices out there that do well without taking insurance, but I wanted to be able to help as many people as I could. This is why I wanted to get in with Medicare and Medicaid insurances, so I could help those populations that may not financially be able to get the care without the aid of insurance. The downside with insurance is it typically take them 2-8 weeks to pay the providers, depending on the insurance, which as a new practice was hard doing the work but not getting paid for weeks. Once you have been in the insurance for a while then you finally get a more steady flow of income but it takes a while which is a big toll on a new business.
My advice for anyone considering Chiropractic care is to shadow a bunch of different provider and see the different style of treatment. This helps you better understand the type of provider you want to be. The days may be long and the notes we have to type up are long and detailed even though they are not likely to be read by anyone and insurance can be a headache, but trust me when I say there is honestly nothing better than when you get that patient out of pain and back to living their best possible life. One of my first patients that I treated when I got my license, came in with a walker due to the pain they were in and their goal was to be able to walk around the lake during Pride without the walker. This patient was not old by any stretch but the pain was so bad they were concerned about collapsing from the pain. By their 3rd visit they came walking in with no walker for what they said was the first time in months they didn’t feel the need to use it. They were almost in tears from being so happy. That right there is worth all the crazy late night studying sessions, stressing out about taking board exams and dealing with the stress of insurance. Now this is not how every patient goes but these are the ones that will stand out and help get you though those late nights of notes.
Dr. Amanda, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I grew up near Lonsdale, Minnesota playing sports and spending time outdoors hunting, fishing and camping. I graduated from New Prague High School. During a school trip to Germany I stepped wrong and had some bad knee pain. I got back home and my parents told me to go see their friend Bruce who was a Chiropractor. Up to that point I had never seen or heard of Chiropractic care. I went in and saw him and he made my knee pain go away without me having to have surgery or a bunch of physical therapy. I started to shadow him and the more people I saw him help the more I was drawn to Chiropractic care and the benefits from it. After graduation, I attended the University of Minnesota Duluth where I graduated with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Exercise Science. I then attended Northwestern Health Sciences University in Bloomington where I achieved my Doctor of Chiropractic degree. While at Northwestern, I became involved with competitive weight lifting. This sparked my interest not only in traditional chiropractic spinal and extremity adjusting, but also working with various manual therapy techniques. I have experience in Webster Technique, Low Level Laser, Therapeutic Ultrasound, Traction, Active Release Technique (ART), Graston, Interferential Stimulation, Percussion Massage Therapy, Kinesiology Taping and Low Force Adjusting techniques, including Activator. I can also provide supplements, orthotics, therapeutic exercise and topical pain relief creams for my patients in the office. I works with patients of all age ranges from newborns, children, athletes and the young at heart! The youngest infant I have worked on was less than 24 hours old. I can help with a wide range of issues from aches and pain in the spine, arms and legs, headaches, colic, latching issues in infants, ear aches, sinus congestions and much more.
One thing that I feel sets me apart from other offices is I take the time needed with each patient so I can get to know them and what their specific needs are and work with them to come up with a treatment plan that works for them. I do not make people come 3 times a week for the rest of their life like the stigma out there around Chiropractic care. There are many offices out there where you can go for Chiropractic care where you walk in and lay down and they do the same few adjustments on everyone regardless of what they actually need or are being seen for or ones that reel you into huge treatment plans, I do not. When you come into my office for the first time, I block off an hour worth of time to go through your health history and do orthopedic testing before we begin. If it is someone who has never seen a Chiropractor before, I explain all the muscle therapy options to them and explain all the different adjustment style I can do to help them feel more comfortable and determine what they feel would be the best type of work for their body. If it is someone who has been to other Chiropractors, then the discussion turns into what therapies and adjustment styles work best for them in the past and which ones do they feel didn’t help so we can avoid those ones. I also take the time to explain to patients what I am doing treatment wise and why I am doing that. I also education patients, with the help of an anatomy app, so they can see better why things are happening in their body. I feel it is better to over educate my patients rather than just say “hi” adjust and send them out the door. The highest compliment I received recently was from someone who claims to have seen almost 100 different Chiropractors in their lifetime and they stated I was the most thorough provider they had ever seen and they greatly appreciated that. This is what I am most proud of, educating patients and taking the time to understand them so they can learn how to take care of their bodies both inside and outside of the office so they do not have to rely on just me for pain relief.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
When it comes to getting your license to become a Doctor of Chiropractic, you have to take Board Exams. These exams are nation wide standardized exams that you have to pass with a certain score to be able to apply for your license. These exams are only offered a certain number of times per year and it takes about a month for you to get the scores from the exam to be able to apply for the next exam. There are 4 required to get your license but there is also a 5th one if you want to be able to do physiotherapy on your patients (i.e. ice or heat therapies, interferential muscle stimulation, etc.). You can take the exams over and over if need be. I am horrible at written exams, I can rattle off all the same information in a one to one situation but make me answer it on paper and I freeze. One of the Board exams is basically a giant lab practical where you have to administer the orthopedic tests or set up like you would for an adjustment and that one I passed no problem but the ones before that were straight paper A,B,C,D I struggled. I did have to retake a couple of the exams related to this. I also had personal situations that arose within a few weeks of every Board exam I had to take which also altered my mind state for the exam no matter how hard I tried not to let it. We called it my Board Curse, my mother got cancer again, my grandfather passed away, we had another loss in the family, our family dog had to be put down, I had a relationship end and the last time I had to take the exam, COVID caused Minnesota to be shut down and the exams pushed. There were several times when I found out I didn’t pass by just a couple points that I felt like giving up because the cost of the exams and the time and stress that went with it. My family and friends were amazing at supporting me the entire way through until I passed all of them and was able to get my license.
Can you talk to us about your experience with buying businesses?
The business I purchased is the one I currently own. I purchased the practice in April 2022 from the provider that I had done my preceptorship with. I was with her from when I graduated Chiropractic School in 2018 until she decided to retire in 2022. Why I purchased the practice was because she treated her patients the way I wanted to treat my patients. Over the 2 years I was with her prior to getting my license I watched and learned from her and grew to love her patients that were coming in and getting to know them and watch them get better with her care. When you watched her work with someone you could tell she cared and was trying everything possible to get them to feeling better as fast as possible. She also didn’t try to force people to come in more then they needed to. When she mentioned about retiring it had been the plan for me to purchase the practice, if I wanted to stay in the area and work with her patients. I had another provider that wanted me to join on with them in my home town but I also knew that town was not big enough yet to be able to support more than once Doctor of Chiropractic at the time. When It came time to purchase the practice. Dr. Como (the other provider) hired a Practice Broker to assess the clinic to determine its value and once her and I agreed on the price and fine details, I went to a bank and a[[lied for an SBA loan to be able to purchase the practice. Once that was approved we moved forward and set a date for her last day treating and the next day we signed papers. She was kind enough to send out letter to all patients that had been seen in the last few years to inform them of her retirement and that I would be the Provider taking over. The day we signed papers I was treating patients and she was moving her personal items out throughout the day. The next day my family came up to the office and helped me patch nail holes, pain, move desks, add new desks, hang new art, etc. to help make the practice my own.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://backinshapechiroonline.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amandamshorterdc/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ashorterdc