5 Chiropractic Business Lessons From House, MD (TV Show)

Alien arm syndrome.

A third ventricle in the heart.

Intermittent tongue paralysis.

Pathological mimicking.

These are just a few of the bizarre medical conditions Dr. Gregory House and his team of diagnosticians have dealt with at Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital in New Jersey.

If you're not familiar with Dr. House; he's the fictional medical genius on the critically acclaimed television hospital drama, House, M.D..

And, despite his overall disdain for humanity, contempt for religion, and enslaving Vicodin addiction... chiropractors can learn a lot about entrepreneurial success from the way Dr. House leads and manages his team (both in what to and not to do).

Here are 5 'To Do' Chiropractic Business Lessons

Chiropractic Business Lesson #1: Masterminding Known for his unique ability, on the show, to solve the most mysterious of medical cases, Dr. House guides his team through a specific deliberation process for each case known as differential diagnosis.

Basically, he puts them all in a room, writes down all of the symptoms on a whiteboard, and has them start firing out possible diagnosis one at a time.

He and the team respond with reasons why the diagnosis just mentioned is either valid or invalid... with lots of dialogue between the team... and the process continues until Dr. House settles on the diagnosis he most agrees with. Then, he puts his team to work testing the theory of the diagnosis by treating the patient.

This, in essence, is really the same as the popular practice of a mastermind discussion so common among highly-successful entrepreneurs and business founders.

The idea and practice is simple:

Get in a room, either formally or informally, and start bouncing ideas off of each other. This can be done for a new marketing campaign, a new office policy, and budget change, etc.

The benefit is...

The more input, ideas, and insights you get from others around you, the better, more informed decision you can make.

The key to making this work for you, in your chiropractic practice, is you not being afraid to ask for the opinions and ideas of others, especially your office team.

Chiropractic Business Lesson #2: Great People Because Dr. House is a bona fide medical genius and given the medical cases that would (and does) stump the ordinary doctors, he surrounds himself with a highly-qualified team.

For Dr. House, and every entrepreneur (chiropractor), the better the team and quality of people around you, the better your results and overall performance.

In other words, the better, more qualified your office staff and team is, the better your office will perform for you. Your office will only perform and produce at the level of your team. Period.

This is why surrounding yourself with the best folks possible, and not just settling for mediocre employees, is critical to your success.

This is also why, just like Dr. House, you should always hire slowly and terminate quickly.

In Dr. House's case, he put his current medical team through a massive series of tests over a lengthy probationary period before he officially gave them the job on his team. In the instance he realizes someone is not the right fit for him or his team, they're gone immediately.

For you, as a chiropractor, I also recommend you hire slowly, hire with a probationary period, avoid procrastinating when you know a team member should be let go.

Chiropractic Business Lesson #3: Understand How To Develop Your Team Dr. House almost never gives his team the answer to a problem or situation they're facing. He does, though, help them find the answer. And he does this by asking them questions about their thoughts on the problem and the solution they're proposing.

Why does he do this?

Because, by not giving them the answer and forcing them to think for themselves, they grow into better doctors.

The same holds true for you and your staff.

Your number one job as the leader of your own chiropractic practice is to develop your staff. Remember, the more qualified they are, and the better they do at their job, the better your chiropractic practice will perform.

So, as they develop and get better, everyone benefits.

And, they get better when you help them figure out the right answers to the problems and situations they face.

Chiropractic Business Lesson #4: High Standards As mentioned earlier, Dr. House holds his staff to extremely high standards. And they know it.

He's been known to terminate a team member for one single mistake (not something I necessarily advocate).

Point is: you also must hold your staff to an extremely high standard.

That doesn't mean you don't tolerate mistakes.

That just means you don't ignore mistakes, sloppy work, or poor quality front desk service.

That means you set the bar high, give the staff the training and guidance they need to perform at that level, then hold everyone accountable for doing so.

When they don't, you address the situation immediately... either with more training if needed or a staff member reprimand.

Regardless, you hold your team to an extremely high-standard - because that's what you deserve and need to shine as a chiropractor - and make sure they know it right from day one.

Chiropractic Business Lesson #5: Connections, Baby! In almost every episode, Dr. House has a flash of inspiration and comes up with a breakthrough in the diagnostic process. Usually this happens when he sees a connection between seemingly non-related, non-connected things.

In other words, Dr. House looks for and sees weird connections where other doctors don't. And, it's those connections that allow him to find the diagnostic answers others can't.

Looking for, and seeing oddball connections, is also something very common amongst highly successful entrepreneurs.

For example, being able to see application from one business to another... one industry to another... is, in essence, seeing connections where others usually don't.

The same goes for chiropractic marketing techniques, tactics and strategies that seemingly on the surface only fit with a certain profession or business model. The savvy entrepreneur (chiropractor) looks for connections where others don't.

Most chiropractors only look within chiropractic for their ideas. They either don't or won't look outside the 'chiropractic box'.

This is a mistake. Because within the walls of a profession you don't find breakthroughs.

You'll find and come up with breakthroughs and breakthrough ideas when you look outside of chiropractic and look for connections and applications where other doctors wouldn't and won't see them.

The best way to develop this ability to make connections where others can't is to observe things, even study them, and ask yourself lots of questions.

Questions like:

• "How can that apply to making me more successful as a chiropractor?"


• "How can I take that and apply it to our new patient marketing?"


• "How can we use that idea in our practice to boost referrals?"


• "What aspect of that idea could have application and value in my office?"


• Etc.

Ironically, this article was based on the idea of seeing connections - connections between the television show House and the way Dr. House leads and manages his team... with succeeding as a chiropractor and business lessons that could be extracted.

Oh, one more thing...

Even though I talked about how Dr. House "leads his team" on the show, I don't think he's a good leader, per se. In fact, not by a long shot.

As a leader... especially of your own chiropractic practice... you need to care about people, and make their development and improvement a big part of your focus. And, you need to do it with the right motivations and intentions. If not, they'll know it, resent you for it, and you'll get nowhere.