This Washington chiropractor’s practice thrives because patients get results

by Rich Smith

John Allen Wisman, DC, cares for his patient, Thanawuth Amnueypol, while Manee Amnueypol, Thanawuth’s grandmother from Thailand, looks on.

Only about 20% of the patients at Bellevue Chiropractic Group in Bellevue, Wash, live within 5 miles of the thriving practice. The vast majority come from distances of 30, 40, even 50 or more miles away.

Why? Because owner John Allen Wisman, DC, gets results. And ailing people will go to almost any length to regain their health or become pain free. Wisman treats for acute problems but in recent years—with the adoption of a subluxation model of practice—his scope has shifted more toward wellness. He has also recently begun to study functional medicine, a process by which biological markers are used in an effort to help patients alter their biochemistry and trigger healthful changes.

“To provide functional integrative medicine, I have to work closely with the patient’s medical doctor or doctors,” says Wisman. “Blood work is done, evaluating DHEA levels, thyroid status, and other parameters to determine whether the patient’s biochemistry can be improved through appropriate dosages of the right vitamin and mineral supplements.”

Equally important, Wisman is an adherent of the Pierce-Stillwagon adjustment technique (which nowadays is known also as the Pierce Results technique). “The technique employs breakaway drop tables and upper cervical toggle recoil action,” he says. “Many patients who’ve gotten disappointing results from other adjusting techniques often report remarkable improvement from this one. Usually, they’re symptom-free within 4 to 6 weeks and structurally well after a few months.”

Another reason Wisman’s services are in demand is because of his use of motion x-ray—low-radiation digital video fluoroscopy. One of the area’s few chiropractors to employ this modality, Wisman says it has the virtue of delivering a high degree of exam objectivity.

“Motion x-ray makes for easy agreement when several different doctors need to look at that same patient in the attempt to diagnose the nature of the problem,” he says. “It’s also an incredibly powerful patient education tool. When a new patient comes here, I begin by taking a baseline fluoroscopy of that individual. The output is stored on computer and is viewable on Windows’ Media Player in real time. Weeks or months later, depending on the nature of the injury or disorder, I’ll compile a follow-up fluoroscopy for comparison. I can then show it to the patient to demonstrate how his range of motion and spine function are improving. More so, I can use it to more reliably guide my treatment decision-making.”

Give Me Your Hopeless Cases
Wisman takes pride in the fact that he has done very little advertising to attract business. “Some years I’m not even listed in the Yellow Pages; this has always been a 100% referral practice,” he exults.

The initial referrals Wisman drew were a result of good old-fashioned pavement pounding. After the practice first opened, he went door to door in the medical district and spoke to physicians about chiropractic. His pitch was difficult to resist. “I said to the physicians I was meeting that they should send to me only those patients of theirs for whom all seemed hopeless, patients who weren’t responding to anything that was being tried,” he recounts. “I suggested they pick out just one case, the most difficult, frustrating, thorn-in-the-side one they could think of and let me have a shot at it.”

They did, and were astonished at the results Wisman obtained.

By Wisman’s second year in practice, he no longer needed to solicit cases. “Referrals by that point were coming in without any push on my part,” he says.

All the more remarkable when one considers that Wisman set up shop as a complete stranger in the Bellevue-Seattle market. He is originally from Mason City, Iowa. It was there, in fact, that he first became interested in chiropractic.

“Back in junior and senior high-school, I was on the track team, a sprinter,” he says. “In the 10th grade, I dated a girl whose father was a chiropractor. He suggested that chiropractic adjustments could help me improve my running times. I figured if anybody should know about that it would be him because he had studied under a chiropractor who tended Olympic athletes.”

Wisman began seeing the doctor regularly. As promised, his times soon showed impressive improvement. So much so that in 1980, his senior year, Wisman placed as a runner-up for a pair of sprint events in the state finals—a finish that helped him secure a full athletic scholarship to the University of Northern Iowa (UNI).

At UNI, Wisman obtained a degree in geology, but had also taken a number of courses from the premed program. Those proved sufficient to satisfy the prerequisites for entry to Palmer College of Chiropractic in Davenport, Iowa. “I knew I wanted to become a chiropractor from about the time I arrived at Northern Iowa,” he remembers.

Wisman graduated Palmer in 1988. Sometime prior, however, he attended a lecture series presented by pioneering practitioner Vern Pierce, DC, which inspired Wisman to develop his interest in motion x-ray and the Pierce Results technique.

“Dr Pierce would come by once each quarter and spend a week on campus,” Wisman says. “I became his helper. That led to him offering me a preceptorship in his practice in Dravosburg, Pa. At the end of my time with Dr Pierce, he extended to me an offer to join him. The problem was that he was also planning to relocate his practice to South Carolina. By this time I was married, and my wife and I had pretty much decided we wanted to live in a cooler, less humid climate out West where there would be lots of spectacular outdoor recreational possibilities.”

That is what brought Wisman to the Seattle suburb of Bellevue in 1990. Fortunately, the local market, although stippled with chiropractors, was far from oversaturated. Accordingly, Wisman was able to settle right in and start growing.

For the first few years of practice, Wisman staffed Bellevue Chiropractic Group with independent contractor doctors, four in all, plus himself. “I didn’t want to be a solo practitioner,” he reveals. “I liked the idea of being in an office with other doctors. I was looking for camaraderie and being able to share information.”

Chiropractic Spa Oasis
Bellevue Chiropractic Group occupies a 6,500-square-foot building located just across the street from a community hospital, a choice site that contributes nicely to the flow of medical referrals. The massive space was necessary, says Wisman, to accommodate all the doctors, not to mention five full-time massage therapists, seven hydromassage chairs, a couple of giant Swiss balls, and an abundance of rehab equipment. “We designed the place to have an upscale spa feel where you’ll find soothing fountains and other water features,” he says.

The spa-like styling was suggested by a friend in market research who postulated that prospective Wisman patients would respond very favorably to the ambiance of a facility geared to washing away the stresses and emotional strains of everyday living. He was correct. “The idea was to make the office seem as unclinical as possible,” Wisman explains. “My friend counseled me that unclinical was what people in this market wanted.”

In late 2002, Wisman signed on with a well-known practice-building guru. Heeding the advice imparted, Wisman was thrilled to find his practice volume tripled by the end of the following year. “I was shown how to set goals and be successful,” he says. “My practice now is exploding at the seams because of that. As a group, we’re seeing more than 300 patients a week.”

At the same time, Wisman has been maneuvering his practice toward a more evenly split income mix. Whereas before Bellevue Chiropractic Group was almost entirely insurance and personal injury based, it is now 25% cash, 25% workers’ comp, 25% private insurance and 25% PI. “Ultimately, I’d like to see cash get up to 70% of the mix as a way to reduce the impact insurance company restrictions have on the care I provide,” Wisman divulges.

In addition to altering his payor mix, he’s also changing his doctor blend by slowly converting to an associate-based practice.

“I’m phasing out the independent contractors in order to gain more control over the way the care is provided,” he says. “I’ve already replaced one independent with an associate, Cheryl Simmonds [DC], and will shortly be replacing another independent with one more associate. The problem with having all independents is that each doctor has the freedom to choose their own forms, scheduling preferences, and adjusting philosophies. That was something that proved very confusing to the staff. Basically it was one staff trying to deal with six different practices under the same roof.

“By going to an associate-based practice, there’ll be much more uniformity, which should make things easier for the staff.” Out of that will come greater efficiency and, by extension, a healthier bottom line, he predicts.

Meanwhile, Wisman is in the process of launching a venture to sell a specialty sleep product of which he’s become an authorized distributor. “It’s a memory foam bedding to help patients get truly restful sleep,” he says. “[This] could turn out to be a huge success story for us.”

Apart from all that, Wisman says his future will be pretty much business as usual. “I intended to practice chiropractic all the days of my life,” he promises. “I’ll only give it up when they pry the adjusting instrument from my cold, dead fingers. I just love this profession too much.” CP

Rich Smith is a contributing writer for Chiropractic Products.