We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Dr. Alexander Nelson a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Dr. Alexander, appreciate you 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?

What a ride this has been! My wife and myself have been practicing Chiropractic and seeing children with special needs for 10 years now. It wasn’t until 2020 that we were able to open a place of our own – HML Chiropractic & Functional Care. Up to that point we were working at other offices getting ourselves established and saving money to open a place of our own. We opened HML March 2nd of 2020, March 23rd, our county shut-down. Thank God we were seen as essential and were able to remain open. After I called my parents who live in Phoenix and said that The Valley is a nice place to live this time of year and we’ll see them soon after this place goes belly up… We talked to our digital marketer Kevin Oldham at Diffactory. www.diffactory.com. We figured people were at home and online, so we hit some switches and targeted people online. The ones that didn’t mind getting out came, and its been great since!

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My wife and myself got into being Chiropractors after we each worked for one (separate place, separate states in fact) and had good experiences as patients and decided to apply for school and go. When Dr. Lauren was in school she was not sure what she was going to focus on, or specialize in. When I was in school, initially I thought I was going to be like most Chiropractors and adjust spines. This may seem esoteric, or “out there” but as I went through school I had a voice constantly saying “neurology” in my head. I call that voice God now but in the moment I was like, neurology? While I was in school, and after we both got out of school we started post-graduate studies in Functional Neurology. Functional Neurology is the clinical application of human neurology. Functional Neurologists (FN) understand that each person’s brain has the same functions but that each brain is different. So instead of performing rehabilitation to make a patient fit a mold, we make a mold for the patient! For whatever the purpose – post-stroke, concussion, working with children with needs. Two ten year old boys with ADHD can come in the office with the same symptoms and challenges and their programs will be significantly different because of that. This is because when we examine someone we know what is normal and not normal. Lets say we are looking at balancing on one leg and they cannot do this task very well. Sometimes getting the individual to balance on that leg is a matter of simply practicing. Other times its a matter of knowing what else that area of the brain performs (the cerebellum in this case) and utilizing other exercises to activate the cerebellum to get it firing and “wake up a bit” as I say. In this case we can perform a few specific eye exercises that are heavily dictated by the cerebellum, then repeat the balance test. If it improves, great! If not, I need to “go fishing” as I say and see what else we can do. And this process is performed for ALL findings within our examination.

Other than training/knowledge, what do you think is most helpful for succeeding in your field?

In our field, patient’s care comes first, business second.

However, understanding business, cash flow, expenses, revenue, utilizing capital if you have to, taxes is something that is not taught in our schools that’s for sure. It doesn’t matter the business, it all comes down to numbers and having consultants, advisors and good accountants will make or break the success of the business. I cannot speak enough of the people we utilize on a regular basis – Exigo Business Solutions and Diffactory Digital Marketing.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

Putting patient’s, and their family’s care above all else. Earning a living is a by-product of our products, services and ideas.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.hmlfunctionalcare.com
• Instagram: @hmlfunctionalcare
• Facebook: HMLFunctionalCare
• Other: Podcast! The Dr. Alex Show – available everywhere you get your podcasts, on youtube as well!