Chiropractic Economics Article

 

Issue 4 - March 2003

Success Profile:
A river of success

Sabrina Morgen navigates the headwaters
of her practice with courage and zest

See practice Vital Stats

By Todd Stumpf

Dr. Sabrina Morgen, DC, has never paddled her kayak down a water verson of the Yellow Brick Road. But should one of her seaward journeys ever end in the Emerald City, the last thing she would bequest of Oz would be courage.

Far from cowardly, this lioness not only has courage, she preaches it. From a willingness to telemarket her practice, to the strength to get up in front of an audience of patients, to making a point of owning her office space, Morgen credits much of her success with having the courage to go after things and get them.

This courage has led to a multi-discipline practice, Physicians Wellness Care,Inc. in Lake Worth, Fla.  It's led to Morgen becoming debt-free at an early age and owning a 2,500-sq.-ft. office condominium free-and-clear. And it's allowed her to become brave enough to try anything, in or out of the office.
Morgen sets goals and then vigorously pursues them. And once she sets a goal, she doesn't let it out of her sight – literally. She posts each goal on her bathroom wall as a daily reminder. When she's brushing her teeth, she's reading her goals. 

“I've been doing that since I've been in practice,” Morgen says. “When you commit your goals to paper and in your heart,  they manifest themselves. You don't always need to go to anexpensive seminar. You write your goals down … Of course, you have to follow them with action steps. They have to be attainable and you have to want them in your heart.” She splits her goals up among personal, financial and business categories.

Making it count
In the business category, she doesn't merely achieve her goals, she annihilates them.  She had aimed to pay off her office condo within eight years, but she owned it outright in less than two.

Owning the building gives the option to expand or to sublease, and it provides a nice tax write-off. Perhaps most important, ownership has proved profitable in terms of cutting overhead.
“I looked on the Internet for office condos and there were not too many of them,” Morgen cautions. “I didn't want to purchase an entire building. After some negotiating, I got a great price. I found a place that was run down and bought it from other MDs.”

Taking a risk on buying the office condo took a little courage because there are considerable disadvantages of ownership – condo fees, property taxes and upkeep costs. But Morgen did some digging – and calculating – and decided the investment would pay off, especially since she wouldn't have to deal with escalating rents.

The condo fees are high. But, “it's still cheaper overall in the long run than what you pay somewhere else,” she says. “Your rent payments will never go up. My personal physician went out of business because her lease quadrupled when new management stepped in. She couldn't afford the payments and closed shop. It was really sad. I didn't ever want to be in that position.”

When the dust from her real estate transaction settled, Morgen found that while her overhead had quadrupled, her net income has increased 42 percent, more than making up the difference. That overhead number, as she notes, will stay about the same.

She recalls that when she began practicing, she and two other DCs leased 1,500 square feet of office space. Three people were practicing in 60 percent of the space she has available right now.

Mixing it up with MDs
Keeping it filled with patients is a challenge, considering the hundreds of chiropractic practices in the West Palm Beach area. With that in mind Morgen sought to find a market niche that she felt she could best serve. She decided to market herself to general practitioners. She called physicians directly or invites them to lunch to encourage referrals.

Why MDs? Morgen saw an untapped market. “Many people go to their PCP's for all sorts of conditions.  This seemed to be a great place because primary-care physicians are trained in medical school to refer out,” says Morgen.

Joining forces with general practitioners was only logical because, as Morgen points out, “they see everybody.” With that in mind, she joined a local women's physicians' group. She also watches for announcements in the local papers of doctors opening practices. Going straight to the source, she calls them in the hopes of establishing a working relationship right off the bat. Morgen is also more than willing to send her patients back to these primary-care MDs. She recognizes that MD market competition in her neighborhood is as fierce as that of the DCs.

“There are so many of them that they have to market too,” she says. “They have to build a practice, and to align themselves with a chiropractor is advantageous to them as well. In primary care they seem to be open-minded, especially the young ones coming out of school.”

Morgen took her relationship with MDs one step further when she invited one to join her practice. She created a multi-discipline practice, which includes Dr. Fred Dosdos, MD. Morgen says the doctor sees nearly all new patients.  He specializes in basic check-ups, performs new-patient exams and refers for physical therapy, nerve conduction velocity or any other necessary diagnostic testing in the office.


Marketing solutions
Once patients are through the doors, Morgen uses varying methods of patient retention.  Bi-weekly patient workshops play a large role in that. Many DCs have similar undertakings as part of their marketing plan, but Morgen's offers a unique twist.

In addition to educating patients, the seminars serve as powerful referral tools. On average six or seven people attend a seminar, although she's had as few as three and as many as 18. No matter how many attend, Morgen makes the most of each session.

The sessions themselves are basic educational workshops: patient education, a question and answer session about the health related topic and why regular adjustments are essential to maintaining healthy lifestyles. Each attendee receives a gift and healthy snack.  The seminars last about one hour.

Never stop learning
Morgen knows a bit about the benefits of seminars. She follows the teachings of such experts as motivational speaker Tony Robbins and financial guru Suze Orman. She credits Robbins' “Date With Destiny” seminar with changing her life. Robbins proved to be Morgen's wizard, showing her the power of courage and the importance of eliminating negativity from everything.

“Out of all the characteristics of what it takes to run a successful practice and have a successful life, the one you have to have is courage,” Morgen says. “It actually does take courage to ask for referrals. It teaches you to tap what's within. Many people are negative in our society. I don't associate with anyone negative. If a patient is negative, I'll dismiss them because it's not worth it.”

Orman's teachings emphasize emotion and tie financial management to emotional management. The idea is that those who can't manage their emotional lives have no hope of managing their financial lives.

“She teaches you the basics of investing but more so, how to manage your life,” Morgen said. “My proudest accomplishment is that at my age, I am debt-free. I don't have a mortgage, I don't have a student loan, I don't have a car loan. I own my office condominium outright. No one gave me any money. I didn't win the lotto and I'm not married. I work hard, I save about 80 percent of my income and I just pay down debt. I don't owe anyone a penny under the moon. I get much more pleasure out of putting money into an account or an investment than I do in spending it somewhere. That's a high for me.”

It also creates opportunities to do things she loves, like skiing, tennis, working out and kayaking. She says she has been a fitness buff of sorts since her late teens. She credits that sort of lifestyle maintenance with leading her toward chiropractic as a career.

Navigating the waters of success
But of all her loves, kayaking stands tallest. It's while paddling a single-person craft down the various waterways of south Florida that Morgen says she is freest. “To me it's breathing,” she says. “I don't perform the Eskimo rolls just basic kayaking skills.  I did my [chiropractic] training in California. In California kayaking is very common. I've always liked outdoor activities. You can go in the Intracoastal [Waterway] to view the nice homes or you can go in the ocean, or a river. “It allows you to go places where other people can't go.”

If early returns on her career are any indication, Morgen is well on her way to getting to all of them.

VITAL STATS
Physicians Wellness Care, Inc.
6894 Lake Worth Road Suite 104
Lake Worth, FL 33467
Phone: 561-964-9191
Fax 561-964-6491
Internet: www.drmorgen.com.
Email: drmorgen@drmorgen.com

Office Hours
Monday, Wednesday and Friday
9 a.m. – 12 noon
Monday – Thursday
2 p.m. – 7 p.m.
Staff meetings Monday
12 p.m. – 1 p.m.

Sabrina Morgen, DC
Dr. Morgen is the clinic director and is involved in all aspects of running a multidisciplinary office, from office administration to patient management