The Global State of Chiropractic (Encore)

Dr. Joseph Esposito: Hello, welcome to the alignment practice podcast. This is Dr. Joe Esposito. I'm pleased to have a special guest, Bharon Hoag from one chiropractic. So, Aaron, how are you? Doing? Awesome. Doc,

thank you so much for having me on the show excited to have this conversation.

Dr. Joseph Esposito: Yes. So I thought we'd start with the State of the Union state of this profession. Where are we at? I don't know of anyone in the profession that has more insight, more sensitivity, more conversations with chiropractors around the world than you do. So why don't you give us a high level as to, you know, the journey of 100 years and the adversity that you're seeing on the legal front and some of the promising moves of bringing this profession together?

Yeah, okay. Well, that's a that's, that's a lot. But yeah, I'll do my best to sum it up in a nice, quick little podcast. But well, listen, you know, it's, I will tell you that things are looking very bright. I know, there's a lot of doom and gloom in our world. But I will tell you, I have such hope, especially going into the new year, we're obviously recording this at the end of 2023 going into 2024. And I'm very optimistic in this. You are right, I don't know of anyone else that's having the level of conversations that we're having around the world, talking to organizations, individual chiropractors taking on the major issues that that our profession faces, everything from X ray issues in Canada to pediatric issues in Australia, to X ray issues in Norway, to massive regulatory overreach. And in New Zealand, there's just so much going on really in a number of components that it's been an interesting ride, you know, but I will tell you that the biggest thing just to sum it up, and then we can get into particulars, but the thing that is the most that I'm the most optimistic right now, I've been in the industry, I'm going into my 28th year in chiropractic. As a non chiropractor, just being the biggest groupie I think the profession has ever seen. I am more encouraged by the desire to collaborate in our profession now than I've ever seen in my 28 years. We are it took us a while to get here. And when we started our organization, we were the redheaded stepchild, and everyone was like throwing daggers at us thinking that we were trying to create another national association or somehow compete with the infrastructure that already existed. And that wasn't our goal at all. So now over, we started one Chiropractic in 2016. So now we're entering into 2024. And people understand who we are, they understand what we're trying to do, and they're embracing it. And so the our ability to work with other organizations is at the highest level it's ever been, which is really fulfilling the dream of mine and a number of other individuals. When we when we really had this vision of one chiropractic, right, that was the why we had the name was we believe there has to be a day where our profession learns to work with itself, which historically, you know, has not happened very well at all. But we have pockets of it. The work we're doing in Australia is I just wish that people can see how effective things can be when everyone's working together. We actually just last week had a massive win, where the chiropractic board removed a policy restricting chiropractors to adjust children to and under. We, you know, but we worked in conjunction with their national association, we worked in conjunction with their pediatric groups, we worked in conjunction with the technique groups and all of us work together, doing our strengths. We were the guys threatening that we're going to sue and we're going to hold them accountable that the association did the diplomacy and having the conversations, the technique and the pediatric groups did their part by sending the message out. And together within a two and a half month period of time, we were able to remove a six year policy. Right. So it's it's like that's the beauty of what one chiropractic is trying to bring to the profession is this collaboration. It's not that we can do it on our own, and nor can any of these other organizations. The work that needs to be done can only be done when we're all working together. So it's I will tell you the state of the profession if this continues, we are going to be stronger than ever and our vision of making chiropractic the number one healthcare choice in the world will happen in my lifetime.

Dr. Joseph Esposito: So what do you think is happening because when we look at the profession as a whole, we see the utilization of chiropractic is becoming more versed 20 years ago and acceptance we all know from the major sports pros to the musicians to the corporations that are bringing Cairo we're seeing more of a an acceptance of the profession. We're seeing value on the finance market, whether it's Wall Street or the private equity market, the value of chiropractic shooting up now We see less fighting amongst each other in a way that we're actually helping each other. So do you think it's just the right of all these things, the public, the finance, the value of Cairo on the finance market, and then our maturity as a profession, that it's just taken the edge off? I don't know what's happening, but I think it's a perfect storm right now.

Yeah, that's exactly what I was just gonna say is, it's a perfect storm. But if we look at history, right, if we look at history, which I'm a huge history buff, especially in the realm of chiropractic, we had the worst time that our profession really ever had was in the seventh or the eighth, late 80s, early 90s. When we self imploded, right, we had a number of wins, we had the AMA issue with suing the AMA and proving that they were trying to eradicate the profession of chiropractic. Right, we had we got into Medicare, but and we had some of these wins in the 80s. And then all the sad, sudden managed care hit right and it hit hard. But if you look, back when that ama issue was, you had a generation of MDS that literally in their education, were told chiropractors were quacks. And if they referred to them, they were going to lose their license. And it was an ethics issue, right? So they were right, wrong or indifferent. It's no different than slavery. It's no different than the bias that in any country that you may have, where generations are taught by their ancestors a certain way to think and believe whether it's religion, or whatever. And so this this group of individuals, back then, in the 50s, and 60s, who were indoctrinated to believe chiropractors were dangerous, they weren't real doctors. So time does mend every wound, if you have enough time, right? If we, if we can stay alive long enough, eventually, things will will happen. So part of this perfect storm that we have is you have a generation of people that were indoctrinated to believe that chiropractors were horrible, they're dying, retiring and leaving, replacing them are the generation in the Mercedes 80s, where we were treating everybody all the time, our clinics were overflowing with people, because insurance started covering us. And our profession was very affluent, we were very happy. We were giving away practices. It was a wonderful time for chiropractic in the 80s. So now you have that generation of recipients, children that were going to see chiropractors all the time, parents were very open to it. They're now becoming the CEOs and the heads of hospitals and all of that. So they may not be a supporter of Cairo, but they're not indoctrinated to think badly about it. So they're open to the conversation. So we have that perfect analogy right now, then you add another element to that perfect storm. And that's an allopathic medicine is doing and they took a play out of our playbook and they're self sabotaging themselves, you have the opioid epidemic, right? Then you have COVID, right. And all of these have shown the economic interest that there is in the allopathic world, which has now gone to the general public to say, wait a minute, everything we've been told for all these years may not be true, those crazy chiropractors, you know, they might have something to their anti vaccine, they might have something to their anti meds. And so that's another element of the perfect storm. And then the third part, from my perspective, is within our profession, we have, again, the generations that are changing the old guard that had a chip on their shoulder that is just used to fighting because they were the ones being kicked out of clubs, because they were chiropractors or they grew up with their parents being segregated because of their specialty, those guys wanted to fight. So our profession only knew how to fight. That's the only way I knew how to survive. They're leaving leadership. And they're getting replaced with the Mercedes 80s kids that grew up with the heyday of chiropractic. And so they're coming in and they're, they're wanting to have that back. They're wanting to have that celebratory, that camaraderie, all of that stuff. So it really is this perfect storm of a number of things hitting all at once. That's really what our organization is trying to capitalize on. We're trying to say, bygones be bygones, the way you guys used to do it, of circling the wagons and shooting inward. We don't want any part of that. What we want is we want to collaborate and we want to seize the opportunities that exist right now. And that's why I think you're seeing the economic side within the stock market in the venture capitalist world. They're starting to say wait a minute allopathic medicine, self imploding, you have this group of chiropractors that the data and that's another element, which I know is very close to your heart. We have published more Proactive Chiropractic Research in the last 10 years that is now coming to light that is showing the efficacy, safety and effectiveness of chiropractic. So you put all that stuff in a bag and you shake it up and you got to Cairo cake man, and I think it's in people are wanting a piece of that cake. So I think it's all of that stuff combined.

Dr. Joseph Esposito: It's interesting. I didn't think about the medical sabotaging their own journey at the same time and it is happening at the exact same time so that pendulum is swinging, too. We have Dinner lap Now, are we going to finish the job? And take us to the number one health care profession in the world? Yeah, so let's go over what we're doing now. So the work you've done in one chiropractic, everyone knows you from the CDC, all of us are contributing pennies per month to contribute to this, this protection. So that's the CDC, if you're not part of the CDC, it's it's a minor investment of like $33 a month that helps contribute to, and I want to be real clear here, if people are listening to this, I remember you talking when people are in the crisis, everyone's contributing. And then they have this mindset, if there's no crisis, that we don't need the support. And that is like the scariest mindset for us as a profession, we got to be really, really careful. So if you're listening to this, take a moment and just grasp, being proactive, and being contributed our small amount of dollars and this time of, in a sense, is a time and Baron, you explain it real? Well, to me, it's time that we can maybe put some money into refining legislature, maybe having more meaningful conversations with some of the politics to refine the wording and the language around how the profession is promoted. And that's probably a better spin of our dollars than just going into crisis litigations. And saving the doctors, let's reposition things. So I really want that to be the voice from my comment on that

real quick before you move on. Because Because you make such a great point. And I just want to put this into context. And we parallel very well with the military, right, we say that we're the defense counsel, we kind of have a military logo, but it parallels so perfectly. When we're not at war, that's when we're building up the infrastructure to prepare us for the next battle. If we only have the resources during the time of battle, we're always going to be lagging in our ability to defend and prevent things from happening. A perfect example is in Canada right now, in British Columbia, they passed a bill 36 In British Columbia, that is an atrocious policy, it it amalgamates the board, so it gets rid of the Cairo board, and it puts it in with what they call contemporary health care, or complementary health care, excuse me. So it's in with acupuncture and massage and all of that, and they just put it over in this area. And there's language in there, like you're guilty until proven innocent. So if there's a complaint filed against you, you're suspended until the investigation is over. Like it's scary stuff like that. And there's just so many other things like if you're not vaccinated, and the government says that you need all these vaccinations that you can be deregistered on this on the spot, like, it's very bad language. And so it's starting in British Columbia. And what I'm trying to get the Canadians to understand is they're trying to see if they can get away with it there. If they can, it's going to sweep over the rest of Canada. And if you don't think that garbage is going to come south of the border into the United States, you're crazy, because they're going to see that it's stuck in Canada, there's going to be infrastructure to show that, hey, they thrown it up there. And maybe we should try it here. And we've got to stop that stuff. So even though you know, we're not in the middle of a worldwide pandemic, right now is the most important time that we need to grow because it allows us to build the infrastructure to prevent that type of stuff from spreading. And so, you know, we it's the same reason the military still operates overseas in countries that there hasn't been a war in forever. It's because they want to maintain that infrastructure and prevent those types of things from happening. But our profession has always been very reactionary, because we're not very organized. What we're trying to do is get people to understand what it looks like to organize, and have that special forces military that's there so that the minute anything even tries to happen, we're shutting it down. And we're capable of that we've proven we can do that. We did that with the COVID vaccines. But when everyone leaves me when they're not afraid of losing their license, and then it really depletes my ability to build my team, and really be ready for the next battle because it is coming. I mean, we've got a history of different attacks that have come against chiropractic, and we literally now have the vehicle, we just got to make sure we have enough gas to keep it moving.

Dr. Joseph Esposito: I remember having a conversation when the first issue happened with pediatrics in Australia. And I was talking with some of my friends think it was Stephen France and Stu Bernsen. Chase died, some others. And it was like what can we do now? And it was in the midst of the battle. And I remember Stephen saying you can't do anything now. You have to be doing it for five months and have the money and the planning and the and is like well, let's all do something now. It was like yeah, it was all infrastructure. There's no way there was no law firm that was already going into. It was signing the bill the next day and we're like let's do something And so I'll never forget that conversation. Warriors after the battle was over, and I tried. That's right. That's just the lesson I learned is that we can't wait for the battle to be over to pick up the fight the war. So that's my lesson learned. So now, you know, I'm excited. Talking a little about the organization, as some of you know, that listen to my podcast that health missions that we used to have as a loan entity is now under the auspices of the one chiropractic as another nonprofit inside of the mothership of the strongest, most powerful nonprofit in the field of chiropractic. So we're excited about our first mission trip in since COVID. to Colombia in May, we have a lot influential chiropractors coming on to that we have another trip in Colombia. If you haven't been to any of these, please reach out and let us know we'd love to get you on a trip. And the purpose of these mission trips a little different is to bring influential chiropractors have more meaningful conversations in a cultural setting in another country of like, How can we not help the world but also help this country? better utilize chiropractic? What's the legislation? What can we do to contribute? Not only that, but one chiropractic, and the mission of us all sitting together, whether it's on a river, in the jungle, in the woods, serving chiropractic, and having those conversations about this wonderful profession. So please join us on one of those trips in the future. I wanted to give a shameless plug about no.

But I want people to understand the big bigness of this because you said it perfectly, but I don't want people to miss this. There are groups that do mission trips, Miss insurance for the purpose of a Mr. Jim is amazing. But 90% of the time, the missing trips for the individual chiropractor to go and adjust 100 And some people and and you know in a day, and you do that for three days, and you come back, and yes, you've made an impact in that community. I wouldn't take away from that. But the whole purpose of it is that physical act of the manipulation, and the missions trip, and then you go and then another group goes, and you just recycle that. And I know there's there's great people like Peter Morgan, that, you know, they've created clinics, and they do great stuff. Nothing. I think that that's phenomenal. But that's not what your vision was. And this is why I was so excited to bring it under our umbrella. Because there's this there's this idea that chiropractic has to spread. The problem is historically, when chiropractic has spread to other parts of the world, it's better whatever it takes to get it done mentality, which is really, ultimately hurt us. Because what we do is we get in and if that particular country wants it underneath the medical environment, we say okay, and the next thing you know, there's no chiropractic left after five years, because it hasn't been set up the right way it has the infrastructure wasn't created the right way. So the beauty of your vision of your mission trips was not just the physical act of going and treating individuals in that particular country that we go to. But it's building relationships with the most influential people in that country, using the mission trip to show them the power of what chiropractic can do for that civilization. And then with the resources we have with the CDC and the other arms of one Cairo to be able to go in and build that infrastructure for them to create colleges and partner with the other schools that already exists. And say, Listen, we need to put a school in here because we have a government that's willing to make care practically primary part of their delivery system. So now let's build the self sustaining and evolving environment and do it the right way to make sure that chiropractic grows right. So it's bigger. The mission trip is the secret door to get in to have the conversations.

Dr. Joseph Esposito: Yeah, it's interesting. We have a trip or we've we framed out. It had to be rescheduled in Ecuador, but the Ecuadorian Chiropractic Association wants they're so excited to go to dinner. So we have by a chiropractor is going to be meeting us and the people we're bringing are, you know, very influential in that profession. So it's not only for young doctors we may bring, there is opportunity for a couple of students that if you're recommended, and you're under a mentorship, but it's not a student, students event, you'll be under the wing of some leaders if you are chosen. But there's only a handful of those that can come on a trip of students but it's really about what Baron saying about being influential, meeting the current legislation if we can meeting local Cairo's just positioning the ability for us to experience showcase chiropractic to every country in the world is our is our goal. So in

our in our ultimate goal is we want to keep going to areas where chiropractic doesn't really have any infrastructure at all. Because if we can get above To these small countries, and we can build the right model and 100 of these small countries, that's as strong as Europe. Right. And we can say we have 100 countries where this is working well. And we have data showing the health outcomes of 100 small countries, because chiropractic is more appropriately integrated into the healthcare delivery system. That's what helps us beat the big issues that we're seeing in Europe for chiropractic right now. And but if we just try to go and fix the issues in Europe, we're going to be hitting our head on the wall. So our choice was, let's go and build a bunch of models that work and build those relationships have the data so that when we're fighting with groups, like you're Europe, we have more data to be able to do it. And so that's why I was so blown away with your vision. Because there's so much more to this, right, we're going to collect the data, well, anything that's built, they're going to be using a centralized software so that we can take all of the data, we can do our own research study, like it's going to be this massive organism that is self perpetuating within itself to make sure that we can create a model of chiropractic that we can justify on any scale necessary to any government that's willing to look at it, to show that chiropractic needs to be an integral part of their healthcare delivery system.

Dr. Joseph Esposito: Got every time I've talked to you that I don't sleep that night, I was I want to have a good night. So so no, I think I'm making the commitment in lifetime you and I are a contribution to the profession, we will make it the number one healthcare system in the world, and absolutely our way there with all the agendas. And really, we got to give gratitude and praise to our brothers and sisters in Cairo that have stepped up to the plate and supported some of the dreams and missions were only a vehicle or a light or an energy source that won't shut up. I won't stop. But it's really the unity and giving and supporting. And I can't imagine the stories you have in New Zealand, Australia, Canada of some of these doctors are true soldiers for this profession that are and being a backbone that you need to make this stuff happen. So I can't imagine we experienced if you had which are probably amazing.

But yeah, it really is. It's it's

a Go ahead. No, no, finish it finish it up.

Yeah, I was just gonna say that, I do want people to understand that I know that, you know, guys like you and I were the face of, of some of these things were the mouth pieces of it. But there's none of this happens with any singular individual, the most successful organizations or companies in the world are because of the team that are built to help push that agenda forward. Right. And the ones that do it right are the ones that have the right people in the right places. But the team that we've built in these different countries and these champion chiropractors that are full time chiropractors every day that are willing to be our sources of information to stand up and be the ones that are plaintiffs in the cases that are willing to put their future on, you know, I mean, in Australia and New Zealand, I mean, they were going to show up and throw these people in jail. I mean, it was literally like it was here in the US, you know, 50 some years ago. And these people, hundreds 1000s of chiropractors that said, No, I am going to show up, I'm going to continue to serve my patients, because you're not going to shut me down and our legal team defended them. And it was just an amazing, amazing story. So that's why I'm so optimistic even in the midst of all the junk that I have to deal with every single day of where our profession is under attack, the resiliency of the chiropractic profession, not just us, but our patients as well. That's, that's one part we've never capitalized on. either. It's how to really mobilize our patients, but they're warriors as well fighting on our behalf. So it gives me a lot of energy and gives me a lot of hope moving forward, that if we continue to organize just like we did in Australia, we can do that everywhere, are we're unstoppable. Because we're what we have to deliver as truth, what we have is better for everybody. And therefore it's very hard to shut us down if we stay organized. Now, if we stay segmented, which is what we have for the last 127 years, then then they're gonna we're gonna continue to have more of the same. But if we can organize like we're starting to do, it's a whole new ballgame, guys, I'm telling you, we have all the money in the world, we have all the data in the world, we have all the knowledge, we literally are unstoppable if we can organize it, but that that's why we're continuing to push forward. And that's why our goal is 10,000 You know, individuals worldwide contributing, that gives us enough money to do everything we need to do. And that's not a lot in the big scheme of things. But because we're so efficient, we're so good at what we're doing. And the battles that we take on. I will never have to ask anyone for money again, which would be a glorious day because I can't stand that part of this job is fundraising. So but yeah, that's why our mission is 10,000 people, man.

Dr. Joseph Esposito: I love it. So if you're not part of the 10,000 Please join. Go to one chiropractic if you want more information about a line life and our movement and our belief in one cat on the mission trips and just giving and serving inside of this great profession. Reach out to support at a line life.com We'd be glad to answer your questions or guide you on your journey and chiropractic. So I want to end with some gratitude for you, your team, what you're providing our wonderful profession, the one chiropractic board or fellow board members, and just all the doctors out there that are contributing to this mission. So thanks so much for getting on. And we'll, we'll talk soon.

All right, sounds good. Thank you for the opportunity. I appreciate it. And God bless all of you watch and thank you for what you do because we don't have a reason to do what we do if you don't exist, so keep loving and serving and never forget the truth and the power of the story of chiropractic.