Dr. Keith Sparks, DC

I do believe this is largely a byproduct from educational institutions. Even while I attended Cleveland College for Chiropractic in Overland Park, KS, much of our course work revolved around memorization of answers, not a deeper understanding and critical thinking. With education moving more online, I do fear this problem, emphasis on pathoanatomical model, will get worse. I do pray that it will get better. For us, constant education, as forever students, is vital to keep progressing healthcare forward as educators – to our customers.

This is a two-fold problem of curriculum standards and reimbursement structure.

Educational institutions are a business, and their game is to produce healthcare providers who can pass their board examinations. I once had a professor, after constant harassment from myself, tell me that the school and professors are not here to teach students how to be good at our craft - chiropractic; but to teach “red flags” of knowing when to refer and how not to kill someone. Yes, this is important but very limiting in producing quality healthcare providers. This is defensive medicine not productive medicine.

Lack of reimbursement to the healthcare provider has also caused lack of explanation or education to patients. Again, this is a multifactorial problem with everyone pointing fingers. Regardless, healthcare has become a numbers game of patient flow. Any business must follow a simple business statement, which does reign evident here, “money goes where it flows the easiest.” This is not a blame game or a quick answer but again a multifactorial problem. A healthcare business is not directly financially incentivized to provide better education, information, or referral to another healthcare provider, to the betterment of a patient.

We (myself and our team) do feel there must be a better balance surround reimbursement and time with patients to truly understand their problems, wants, fears, and desires of seeking care. After all, we chose healthcare to help people – and sometimes to our downfall. We have built this website to become a living extension of our education to help address health issues, improve customer and community understanding of pain, and why we integrate our skillset the way we do. Without clear understanding of the current pain, through customer-doctor communication, expectations will not be met.

Again, this comes back down to clear communication and education amongst all parties – customer, provider, and insurance company. Expectations are everything for any transaction between entity or person to entity or person. With a lack of clear expectations between parties, frustration more than likely will manifest. This again, is due to a lack of understanding the problem at hand and clear communication. This requires physical time and reimbursement to the healthcare provider is often structured as such. This leads to fast treatment times with a healthcare provider working to “keep the doors open.” Without being able to keep the doors open we, as healthcare providers, cannot help anyone. As a result of fast treatment times, cross party expectations are not met, and positive outcomes surrounding resolution of pain are not met.

Setting standards with clear expectations, community education, and overall becoming Wichita’s primary resource regarding pain education while guiding customers throughout their healthcare journey are our focus. It’s been a fun journey evolving this style of healthcare here in Wichita since opening in 2016. We did not know what to expect. Over the past several years, like any new business, we kept honing in on who we really are, how we want to help people, and how best to help people. This new “launch” is the accumulation of this identity. Who we are and who we want to become. What hill we will die on. We only have one life to live, and, for us, to help serve those by giving them more life to their years is our main objective. We want to help people eliminate the pain, restore their health, and hopefully optimize their health moving into the future.