Chiropractic Practice Management

What “practice management” means

Practice-management companies sell chiropractors training in running a clinic: marketing, scheduling, fees, staff and “statistics.” Some are one-day seminars, some are multi-year coaching programs with monthly fees. Business advice in itself is ordinary. The questions below apply to the parts that touch patients: how care is advertised, priced and recommended.

David Singer, DC — practice-management consulting

Singer's response, as reported. The Times said Singer refused to be interviewed. It quoted him, from Dynamic Chiropractic, as saying that Hubbard “was a prolific writer and wrote on a multitude of subjects. We do not, have not and will not make part of our program the teaching of any religion.”

WikiDoc, a reference summary, repeats much of this and adds that Singer's seminars promote Hubbard's “management by statistics.” Singer's own website, linked from WikiDoc, is titled “I am a Scientologist: Support Religious Tolerance.”

A 1988 trade-journal item. The Chiropractic Journal (February 1988, a World Chiropractic Alliance publication), in a short item headed “D.C. consultant addresses Washington conference,” reported that Singer addressed a committee at the “White House Conference for a Drug-Free America” on chiropractors' role in drug prevention. It called Singer Consultants, Inc. “the largest chiropractic consulting firm in the country.” The item does not mention Scientology or Hubbard. We read it in an Internet Archive capture dated 26 Nov. 2002.

1991: a trade-magazine dispute over a consultants' society. In Dynamic Chiropractic (19 July 1991, Vol. 9, No. 15) a chiropractor wrote in a letter headed “A Bad Precedent” that Singer, described as associated with Scientology, and another consultant were officers of the newly formed Society of Chiropractic Management Consultants (SCMC), whose bylaws bar promoting religion and charging a percentage of income. The SCMC's president replied in print that on 14 May 1991 the members had agreed to a code: no contracts with students before graduation, fee-for-service rather than a percentage of income, no promotion of any religion or religious counseling as part of management services, no self-dealing or conflicts of interest, and no misleading advertising or guarantees. He wrote that each member should be judged on conduct after that date. In an interview in the same issue, the magazine asked him about criticism of Singer's involvement “based on his past with Scientology”; he said both consultants had agreed to the criteria and that he would rather have all consultants as members. These are one reader's views and the society's answer, not findings. A later editor's note (February 1997) said the magazine had presented “the issues surrounding Dr. Singer and Scientology” and that Singer had been given ample opportunity to respond.

Sterling Management Systems — consulting to health professionals

Time (6 May 1991). A cover story by Richard Behar, as excerpted online, said Sterling was formed in 1983, mailed a free newsletter to more than 300,000 health-care professionals, mostly dentists, and offered seminars and courses that typically cost $10,000. We have read only that excerpt, not the full article.

A chiropractor's account, and Sterling's reply (Dynamic Chiropractic, October 1990). A chiropractor who signed her letter wrote that she and a former partner paid Sterling more than $12,000 for a seminar and telephone consulting, that consultants told them what pages of Hubbard's book to read, and that in October 1988 her partner paid a $500 credit-card deposit for counseling that, she said, turned out to be a donation to the Church of Scientology. A Sterling representative, in a letter printed on the same page, said the $500 was “a personal matter between him and the church” and that Sterling, although it may have recommended personal counseling, would not have been involved in the transaction.

2002 report. A Los Angeles Times article of 29 March 2002 (we read a reprint on a third-party site) described Sterling as one of about 100 Glendale-area businesses that follow Hubbard's management methods as WISE members. It reported that a Sterling consultant may recommend that a client see a Scientology practitioner for personal problems beyond the scope of the consulting. It quoted Sterling's owner as saying “This job has nothing to do with Scientology,” and said clients sign a waiver stating that the Hubbard materials imply “no religious affiliation whatsoever.”

• Who owns the company, and does it also sell courses, books or products to the people it trains?
• Does anyone receive a commission, credit or fee for sending a chiropractor, or a patient, to something else?
• Are the promised results and fees written down, with a refund policy?
• Does the advice include scripts, quotas or “statistics” that push patients into long prepaid plans? Compare it with S-016 and S-019.
• For patients: were you told about any financial interest in a recommendation, and was it in writing?

Scientology and Chiropractic: a documented 1984 complaint, one consultant's reported seminars, and the “20 percent” figure, with what is and is not shown.
Chiropractic Promotions: Bogus Tests, False Claims & Misleading Advertising