Build Your Practice Online
How Two Chiropractors Are Doing It
By Steven J. Smith

Article to be published in Fall issue of The ChiroPediatrics Times

In our last issue, we ran a story about how you can become the publisher of your own online health magazine. This revolutionary program, developed by Dr. Sigmund Miller, is already helping chiropractors all over the country attain recognition as providers of a wealth of healthcare information to their communities. In addition, due to this unique online experience chiropractors can develop extraordinary relationships, both professionally and personally. In this article, you will meet two chiropractors utilizing Dr. Miller’s program at different stages. Dr. Mee Kim is just launching hers, while Dr. Sam Amari has been online since February.

Dr. Mee Kim is located in Denton, Texas, and has been practicing for about a year. Her online health magazine launch date was May 1st, and her first Kids Day America/International event takes place this year. What attracted her to the whole online health magazine concept was the fact that she is just starting out. She sees this program as a means of reaching many of her area businesses in one place, as opposed to running all around Denton to make contact with each individually.

“When I’m established with the online health magazine, that will bring me closer to the Chamber of Commerce and a lot of community businesses,” she says. “As a new chiropractor in my town, most businesses don’t know me, and they’re sort of hesitant to sponsor my Kids Day event. But if I get the online magazine established, and develop the relationships with my area businesses to which the online magazine will open the door, I will create a much better response in terms of donations and sponsorships.”

Dr. Sam Amari of Haverhill, Massachusetts became interested in the Internet as a business tool back in 1996, but never enjoyed much success utilizing it for his own practice. He always believed there ought to be some kind of system doctors could use to harness the Internet to reach local residents. When he saw Dr. Miller’s concept, he immediately became interested in trying it out. “Dr. Miller is obviously a wizard,” he says. “He’s very, very in tune with marketing concepts, so I signed up.”

The online health magazine idea revolutionized Dr. Amari’s approach to building his practice. “It’s doing marketing in a nice way, for a change,” he says. “I have been using my online health magazine as a tool to build relationships with other healing practitioners and businesses, churches, and Chambers of Commerce. It’s truly a 21st century way to advertise and establish wonderful relationships in your own town, using a global medium to market yourself locally.”

The online health magazine program is both easy to use and dynamic. By having an “e-zine”, maintains Dr. Amari, a doctor can appear as a kingpin – not only in chiropractic, but also in the whole healthcare field for one’s own community. “No one else is doing this kind of thing right now,” he says. “As a result, in just a few short months we’ve made much better relationships with local physicians, business community people, and attorneys. I’ve been running this program since February and in that time have seen at least a 25% increase in new patients. I have patients I haven’t seen in years who are now coming in, saying they saw an article that prompted them to re-establish contact. The bottom line is this provides a free community service. These people are getting something they really enjoy every month. It’s helping them make decisions about their own healthcare. So when you have a tool that helps to build you as an office in the community, which is easy to run and provides a community service nobody else is giving them, you just can’t go wrong.”

Dr. Amari praises Dr. Sig Miller, calling him a real professional, always there to answer your questions and work with you to maximize the program’s effectiveness. “Chiropractors simply can’t afford not to be a part of this,” he says, and adds that chiropractors also are able to generate cash income from the program by linking up with business sponsors and clinic advisors. He asserts a chiropractor can make upwards of $20,000 to $30,000 a year just signing these people up in the different health departments offered through the online magazine. “There is a Community Partners page, where you can offer businesses a free listing with a hyperlink to their web site,” he says. “Once they find out they like that, you can go back to them and ask them if they would like to become a business sponsor, whereby anyone who goes into an online health department can find all the information they need about that sponsor, plus a hyperlink to their web site. This gives their business better exposure. It’s only $50 a month for this service, which is a tremendous deal.”

Dr. Amari states you need to put some work into the process to get it off the ground, but insists the effort is worthwhile, because the results are extraordinary. “You want to use this as a tool. It’s amazing the response you can get from it,” he says. An attorney mentioned to him how impressed he was with the site, to which Dr. Amari responded that he would be happy to put that attorney in the Community Partners section. One of the areas the attorney deals in is personal injury. Some synergies emerged, from which Dr. Amari got referrals for his practice. Next, he approached civic organizations. He found commonalities with some of them as well, particularly along the lines of workman’s compensation and personal injury, and again received more referrals. “Once you get them signed up in the Community Partners section for free, you can go back and send them e-mails and keep in touch with them, fostering the relationships,” he says. “As a result, you get nice referrals!”

If you would like more information about becoming the publisher of your own online health magazine, you can e-mail Dr. Sigmund Miller at sig@healthypractices.com. Dr. Miller schedules conference calls daily for chiropractors wishing to take an online tour to see how easy it is to get started. “This is one of only a couple of things I’ve ever seen in the last 15 years that has really been practical, well-priced, and dynamic for chiropractors,” says Dr. Amari. “If done properly, and you utilize the techniques provided in Dr. Sig’s wonderful manual and conference calls, you will make money as a result of it in terms of referrals and most important, you’ll build those relationships. That’s the key to this whole concept. It sets you up as the health provider of your community. I could never afford to be without this for the rest of my career.”