Starting a New Practice as a Chiropractor for Athletes

Hi, everyone. Thank you for joining us for another episode of Catch Up with ChiroTouch, our podcast series where we talk about the state of the chiropractic profession, best practices and recommendations to manage and grow your practice, and share expert advice with a variety of guest speakers. I'm one of your hosts, Dr. Brian Blask.

I'm an account executive here with ChiroTouch, where I consult with chiropractors to determine which software solution is best for them. We have Dr. Shea Stark with us today to talk about becoming a sports chiropractor and starting a brand new practice while working as an associate. Dr. Stark just opened her practice this month in Houston, Texas.

She used ChiroTouch during her associate ship in Montana and has been gracious enough to take time out of her day to join us. Great to have you today, Dr. Stark.

Great to be here. Thank you for inviting me.

First of all, can you please tell the listeners a little bit about your new practice and your journey back to Houston, and how it all started for you?

Yeah, absolutely. My new practice is called Stark Chiropractic in Fort and it's located on the north side of Houston, Texas. I, like you said, had done an associate ship in Bozeman, Montana for about five and a half years, right out of school and learned a ton of stuff.

When I graduated, I had zero intention of ever starting a practice, to be honest with you. It was my experience at my previous practice that I learned so much and really just got the confidence to move forward in my career and have a little bit more control of my career. I absolutely love all of my co-workers in Montana and I wish them all the best, and I'm still very good friends with all of them.

I just made the decision about six months ago that it was time to go home. I was born and raised in Houston and most of my family still lives here. I just made that decision.

I spent five and a half years in Montana and as beautiful as it is, and as wonderful a city as Bozeman is, and as wonderful as a practice is where I was at, it just didn't feel like home. So after weeks and weeks of just throwing it back and forth, I made the decision, I'm just going to do it. If not now, then when.

So I got the ball rolling back then and here I am.

That transitions to a new chapter in your life of saying, okay, I'm going to associate. because that's what a lot of people do. A lot of chiropractors, they start out, they say, I need to learn.

So they go and they associate, and then they transition to either purchasing a practice, staying an associate or starting their own. So what has really been the biggest hurdle for you in opening up this new practice?

In all honesty, the financial side of it. I take my hat off to anybody who starts a practice at a school. It is a huge financial commitment.

I even underestimated it. Honestly, when I decided to open a practice, I was like, oh, it'll be fine. I'll get a business loan.

I'll just go and it'll be great. Then I started talking to banks and nobody wants to lend to a startup business. So then I had to get creative with it.

But in all honesty, if I wasn't in such a good position in my associateship, there's no way I could have done it because financially, it's just a huge undertaking. There's a lot of stuff you don't know as an associate. You don't know the requirements of a business owner.

And I gave myself six months to figure everything out. I had told my employers back in January that I was going to go home, and I was going to start a practice. And I used that six months to do every single step as much as I could before I got here.

And thank God I did because I needed every single one of those days to get things done. Things don't move as quickly as you think they would. And then of course, COVID hit and things slowed down patient wise in our practice for a little bit.

So that gave me more time to focus on building my practice here. But then again, it also caused delays because a lot of people weren't working. Things were slowed down as far as like response time.

It was definitely a challenge, but I'm grateful that I did it the way that I did it and gave myself enough time to get things done and understand the little things that I never had to worry about before.

Can you elaborate a little bit more on you know, what those little, you know, the nuances there, a little bit more detail as to the extra information that they need to know?

So I filed an LLC for my office and it then turned into a professional LLC, so a PLLC, because I, you know, hold a professional license. But that took several weeks to go through that entire process, get it filed in the state of Texas, and get all the paperwork approved and filed and everything. So that was a few weeks.

And then it came to the point where I needed to find a place to have an office. Now luckily, I came to Houston back in March to work with the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo as a sports medicine provider. And so I was here for about a week.

And I was able to meet with a realtor and look at different spaces and see what was available in different parts of town and cost-wise. So that was a huge thing. But finding a place to hold my office was a large undertaking as well.

It's not as easy as you think it would be. And then once I had a place, then it was every little thing that goes into having a business, right? So then it comes down to who is your phone and internet provider going to be?

Who is going to be your electronic health records provider? Who's going to process your payments? All of those types of things.

What is required for different systems? Can I do everything on Wi-Fi? Do I need static IP addresses?

Things I'd never heard of in my life. I'm like, I have no idea. You need to buy equipment.

And coming from a large practice like I did, we had everything. We had so many different state of the art technologies that we were able to use to help treat our patients. And then so it was like, okay, well, now I have to dial back everything I've been doing for five years and start from the beginning.

So then it's like, I had to think about it. What modalities do I want to offer in my practice? What soft tissue techniques do I want to offer?

What taping techniques do I want to offer? And then it comes down to what do I need to do each of those things? Right?

So then it's like, well, I need to buy an instrument, and I need to buy tape, and I need to buy all of these other things to get things going. And then it's like, okay, well, now I need to figure out how to buy office furniture. And what I want, is it going to fit in my space?

What kind of insurance do I need? Not just chiropractic side, but liability insurance for my practice. Do I need to worry about hiring at a janitorial service?

Or do I want to offer rehab? What rehab tools do I need? There are so many things that I never had to consider before because someone else was doing it for me.

Having you just gone through this, what do you say to somebody that might be looking to do the same thing?

Two pieces of advice. Number one, give yourself plenty of time. Like for me, six months seemed like a long time.

But when I look back at it, I don't think it was long enough. If I would have maybe started planning a year ago, I would have been in a much better place mentally, and I wouldn't have had to rush to get things going. Then the second piece of advice is be prepared financially.

Banks and financial institutions do not want to lend to a brand new business. For me, I went from a practice of seven chiropractors in multiple locations, to wanting to do it, it's all me. I do front desk, I do billing, I do chiropractic, I do everything.

I went from very big to very small, and I wasn't asking for a lot of money, but it's still difficult to find. Plan ahead. Starting your own practice is not a spur-of-the-moment decision, right?

It's not a spontaneous decision. This is something that I would highly recommend. Start saving years ahead of time.

Have a nest egg, so you don't necessarily have to borrow money from people, because that's very difficult. If not, figure out before you start to commit to things, how you're going to get that money.

How did you become that idea of, I want to build a sports practice? Have you always been interested in treating athletes? Have you been an athlete?

Yeah. I was a volleyball player, and I played high school club, junior college, and then division one. So I played 20 years, and when I started to get really competitive, I started noticing at least every season, I had some major injury where I missed playing time.

But never once, not in high school, not with my club program, not at my junior college, and not at a division one level, had I ever heard of chiropractic. I didn't know what chiropractic was until I had graduated undergrad. Like I had no idea.

But I was really passionate about athletics. I was really passionate about sports medicine. My ultimate goal was to make sure that nobody went through the same experience that I did when it came to injuries.

So I knew I always wanted to be involved in sports medicine. When I went to undergrad, I had the goal of going to medical school. That was my path.

And then I wanted to take a year off after undergrad because I was burned out from being a student athlete and going through all those years of school. So I wanted to take a year off. Well, at the time, I didn't realize it took an entire year to apply to medical school.

So one year turned into two years. And then as I got closer to preparing and I took my MCATs and all that kind of stuff, I was like, you know what? This is really not what I want to do.

because by that time, I had had a shoulder surgery and I had had two knee surgeries. And I was like, okay, if I go to medical school, what can I do with sports medicine? I can be an orthopedic surgeon or I can just be an orthopedic specialist that sees sports injuries.

But I was like, neither one of those really ignited a fire in me. And so then I started looking at other options. And a family friend of one of my friends was a chiropractor.

And I met her at a party and I was talking to her. And she explained to me what chiropractic was. And encouraged me to look into it.

And so I did a little bit of research. And I'm like, oh, okay, there are different specialties in chiropractic, like, this is interesting. I was also looking at Physicians Assistant at the time.

So I was like, well, if I can be a PA to an orthopedic surgeon, like, I kind of could potentially have the best of both worlds. So when I got back home, I contacted a PA and I contacted a chiropractor. Well the PA never called me back, but the chiropractor did.

I know it's serendipitous. Every time I look back on it, I'm like, wow, everything happens for a reason. So I went and shattered him and he was a sports chiropractor.

And after the first day, I was hooked. I said, this is exactly what I want to do. I watched him do extra spinal adjustments.

I watched him do obviously regular spinal adjustments. I watched him do soft tissue work. I watched him do different rehab techniques and things like that.

And I said, this is amazing. This is exactly what I've been looking for. After that day, I went and started researching chiropractic schools.

I was living in North Carolina at the time. And so I was thinking, I'm like, okay, well, there's not a school in North Carolina. I had gone to high school in Arizona.

And I was like, well, there's not one in Arizona either. And then I stumbled upon Texas Chiropractic College, which is outside of Houston. And I said, done.

I didn't even look at any other schools. And I applied to Texas Chiropractic College and I got accepted. And I moved back to Houston.

About a month after I had moved back, I was playing a pickup game of volleyball, tore my ACL on the other side, ended up having three knee surgeries within 364 days. So I had to defer chiropractic school for a couple of years. But I got to know a chiropractor here in Houston.

He did my rehab from my ACL reconstruction and my other two surgeries. And so I really continued with that passion for chiropractic. And then once I finally got to go to school, I was laser focused on what I wanted to do as far as the specialty.

So when I was going through school, I knew I always wanted to be involved in more stuff. So I held a position on my school's Student Body Association. I held a position for my school chapter of the Student American Chiropractic Association.

I kind of revitalized my school's chapter of the Sports Council. I traveled every year to different conferences, and then I ended up serving two years on the National Student Executive Committee for the ACA Sports Council. And it kind of just gave me a different perspective, and I had all of these amazing mentors who were sports chiropractors who had been to the Olympics and treated professional athletes, and ran these successful practices.

And it was through that that I found my opportunity in Montana and worked with one of the best sports chiropractors in the country.

So networking.

Exactly. That's the number one thing. Networking is such a huge thing.

But looking back, it's so funny because I'm like, literally everything fell into place when it was supposed to, to bring me to where I am right now.

Except like, you know, the knee surgeries and turning the ACLs and everything like that.

Well, yes. I mean, I've had these knee surgeries now. And at this point, it is what it is.

Going through it though, it further instills in me my mission, which is to keep young athletes as healthy as possible so that they don't repeat my issues.

You mentioned that you were treating down in Houston for like the rodeo, right? So how did you get hooked up with that? And explain kind of, I guess, how you can, like how do you get connected with athletes and teens?

And is it just networking still?

Yes, absolutely. So I'm going to plug my organization here a little bit. As I said, like I had served two years on the National Student Committee, Executive Committee for the ACA Sports Council.

Well, about a year out of school up in Montana, I get a phone call from the ACA Sports Council president at the time. And she encouraged me to run for a position. And I'm like, are you sure?

Like I'm one year out of school. I don't really know anything yet. And she goes, absolutely.

She goes, you did a great job on the student committee. Like we want new blood in the organization and we think you're a great choice. And I'm like, okay.

So I ran for secretary. It happened to be unopposed. I wasn't mad about it.

So I got on to the ACA Sports Council Executive Committee back in 2016. And I've worked my way up through almost all of the positions now. And I'm currently the president of this national fourth organization, which still blows me away.

I don't think I deserve it, but I appreciate being in this position. One of the things that the ACA Sports Council does, is it provides event opportunities to sports chiropractors. So I've worked quite a few events on behalf of the ACA Sports Council all over the country.

I've worked the National Collegiate in High School Taekwondo Championship a couple years ago. I had never worked a combat sport before. It was amazing.

I fell in love with the sport. I would love to do something like that again. It's amazing.

And then of course, went back to my roots pretty quickly. And I've worked several professional beach volleyball events, where I was dealing with professional athletes. And that was an amazing experience.

You kind of go in there a little bit tinted, and then these athletes are so grateful for you being there and keeping them healthy, that you immediately get over it, and you just watch in awe how amazing these people function on a daily basis, how at a high level they're performing. And you get to be a part of it, and it's amazing. And then the rodeo was kind of a fluke thing.

One of my close friends, her name is Dr. Amber Gregory, she is a sports chiropractor here in Houston as well. We graduated at Texas Chiropractic College together, and we've been friends ever since. I've dragged her around the country for years and years and years to different conferences and events and things like that.

And she had been trying to get on the Rodeo Houston Sports Medicine Committee for a few years. And she finally got on for 2020. She had texted our group text and told us that, and I was like, that's so amazing.

Congratulations. I'm so proud of you. And then she sends me a private text message away from the group.

And she says, so they asked me if I knew anybody else who would be potentially interested. And I wanted to say you, but I wasn't sure if you could do it because you still live in Montana. And I told her, I said, absolutely throw my name in the hat.

because if I have to figure it out, I'll figure it out. But I grew up going to the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. It's one of the biggest rodeos in the world.

I was so stoked. And then to have them contact me and they asked me for information. I sent them my CV and I sent them a bio and that kind of stuff.

And the committee woman emailed me back pretty quickly and she goes, we have to have you. Like this resume is stellar. Like we have to have you.

That's a testament to everything. It's like a prize for you going through, like you said in school, I went through, I did all this in school. I was a president here.

I was a secretary here. I worked my butt off. I networked.

It all comes together as a very impressive CV because you've done the work. For younger practitioners out there or for other practitioners that want to get into the sport side of things, network, do some extra work out there because that work pays off. Absolutely.

If you want to be a sports chiropractor, join the HCA Sports Council. Come on. I guarantee you guys are taking new members.

Absolutely. Always. Always.

The traditional model is you've got your orthopedic, you've got your PT, you've got your athletic trainers. So when you're going into these professional sports arenas, how are you co-treating and meshing with them, per se, when it comes to the treating of athletes?

It's honestly one of my favorite things to do because we learn from each other. That's the number one thing. You could be top of your game, just got back from treating athletes at the Olympics, whatever, and you walk into an event situation like that, and you have to leave all of that at the front door.

None of that matters. Ego has no place in sports medicine. So you go there and everybody respects each other as a provider, and you watch, you listen, you clean tables, you take out the garbage, you do your documentation, you do whatever you need to do to be a part of the team.

Whatever it is, but you stay humble and you do the work. Like that's the most important part of it. And everybody else there is the same way.

And they're so interested to learn about you and where you come from and how you practice and what techniques you know, and you work together. I was working in AVP event, which is Professional Beach Volleyball last year. And we were getting towards the end of the day, and a couple of guys just got off the court.

And we had probably three or four people working on each person, just to kind of flush them out, because they've been playing all day. So we had basically we had our provider on each limb, and we were doing soft tissue stuff to help recover, because they had to come back and play the next day. And so we were doing, you know, effleurage or, you know, soft tissue techniques, light massage, things like that, stretching, like all kinds of stuff like that.

But we were all working together. That's the most important thing. Like, nobody cares where you have been, or how high you've gotten, or how cool you think you are.

It's what do you know, right? Who you know may have gotten you in the door, but what you know is going to keep you there. Just go in there ready to learn, ready to watch, and just ready to interact with some great people.

And it's a wonderful experience.

That's great advice. Everything that you've done, everything you've gone through, even starting this new business is tough. But as you can see, stuff works out when you put your head down and you do the work.

So you've done such a phenomenal job. And I hope that we get enough listeners on here that really take those youngest practitioners, especially that are coming off associate ships and want to build their practice because you've done such an amazing job so far.

Oh, thank you so much.

Thank you again for taking the time out of your day and keep up the great work.

Absolutely.

So, Dr. Stark, before we rock and roll here, where can people find out more about you?

You can check out my website at www.starkchiroandsport.com or you can check me out on Instagram or Facebook at Stark Chiro and Sport.

To our listeners, thank you for catching up with ChiroTouch. We'd love to hear from you. We have an inbox set up so you can email us at podcast at chirotouch.com where you can send questions, feedback, comments.

So that's podcast at chirotouch.com. And remember to tune in every week on iTunes, Spotify, wherever you consume your podcasts.

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