Established: 2018

Location: Christchurch

Contact Name: Matthew Wild

Website: www.connectchiro.co.nz

Business mission and vision:

“Our mission is to connect and empower, enhancing our community’s health and happiness, igniting a ripple effect that changes the world.

“We are a community focused Chiropractic practice that provides affordable, accessible Chiropractic Care to make care possible for absolutely anyone regardless of their financial situation”

We run a Koha (Pay as you can) fee system. This allows people to pay as they can instead of a fixed fee. People often put off dealing with their spinal health issues because of the financial burden that can come with getting care. By removing the financial barrier, we’ve made chiropractic care available to those who otherwise would not have been able to access it. We also run a community program that helps to profile, raise awareness of and financially assist local community organisations. Three different community groups are profiled each month, with the winner receiving 1% of our earnings for that month. The two groups who do not win, continue to be profiled in our practice until they win.
No awards, however we have been recognised by TV1 and Stuff News
We had been building up ideas for years how we would run a practice when we had our own. It wasn’t until we had our first baby in September last year that we realised we needed our own thing to make it all work. We wanted to be closer to our home, we wanted to be flexible for our family, and we wanted to dictate our own hours. My wife is also a chiropractor so we wanted her to be able to slowly get back into practice after the baby came, so having our own practice really facilitated that. Above all, what we are achieving now would never have been possible without it being our own business. We’ve had the liberty and freedom to do things exactly the way we wanted to, support the community exactly how we dreamed of, and truly make vital Chiropractic healthcare accessible to absolutely everyone.
The biggest challenge for any health practice starting out from scratch is building a base of people who utilise our services. We were very confident in our values and the service we provide, all we needed to do was make sure people knew about us. We utilised social media extensively and sent out media proposals to different media outlets. Connect had a very positive response from both the community and media outlets. Dr Matt spoke on the AM Show about the benefits of Chiropractic Care. Avenues magazine, Stuff News, and TV1 all did stories and segments on our practice and how we do business different. This was a massive boost to our business. Since then our practice has grown from strength to strength.
Taking the big leap to accept Koha for chiropractic care was a significant challenge for us. We had a lot of people feeling very nervous for us and also people who had advised us that it wouldn’t be a smart idea. Once clearly outlining what it is we wanted to achieve through our business the decision became an easy one. The only way we were going to make Chiropractic care truly accessible to Christchurch was to make our fees financially flexible. We had to trust in people. We had to trust that people would value our care to the best of their ability if we treated them with compassion, respect and care. We’re very glad and proud to say they have. The people who pay less do need to, and those who can pay a relatively standard chiropractic do willingly. It is an extremely amazing exchange of gratitude.
Overcoming adversity was a rather emotional and difficult one for us. After our media exposure on Stuff and TV1, we had been given feedback from other chiropractors in our profession about how we were devaluing chiropractic. We knew that what we were doing was right for our community and our profession. It wasn’t devaluing chiropractic, it was allowing the public to value chiropractic themselves, and hence make chiropractic more accessible to them. It is something we continue to hear ongoing murmurs of from other chiropractors; we simply ignore them and stay the course.
In 10 months we have subsidised over $50,000 worth of Chiropractic Care, supported 15 different Community Organisations, and donated over $2000 to these organisations. Starting up private practice is usually a relatively slow process however each week we currently provide over 200 chiropractic appointments. Our practice grows with an average of 15-20 new patients each week. Since our conception we have provided over 5000 chiropractic appointments. Because of demand we had to hire another chiropractor after just four months.
It’s been a real surprise the impact we have made in such a short amount of time. We never thought that in less than a year we would have grown this much. We certainly didn’t think we would have subsidised over $50,000 worth of Chiropractic care. The Community Connect Program has been super empowering and rewarding. But in the end for us the most important aspect of our success is that we’ve been able to grow in such a way that we didn’t have to sacrifice our family life and relationships to get to where we are.
We only have Chiropractic contractors – Currently we have three chiropractors
Simply our chiropractors are contractors. Other general business expenses are mainly on a subscription basis with different businesses and online platforms.
We either pay for or subsidise continuing professional development for our chiropractors. We run a fortnightly team meeting and development workshop. If there are any particular aspects that our chiropractors want to develop we always help facilitate this desire.
As health professionals we are not allowed to use testimonials; however we have a 5 rating on google with 50 – 5 star reviews and have been recommended 27 times on facebook.
SAME REASONS AS PREVIOUSLY DISCUSSED – We had been building up ideas for years how we would run a practice when we had our own. It wasn’t until we had our baby in September last year that we realised we needed our own thing to make it all work. We wanted to be closer to our home, we wanted to flexible for our family, and we wanted to dictate our own hours. My wife is also a chiropractor so we wanted her to be able to slowly get back into practice after the baby came, so having our own practice really facilitated that. Above all what we are achieving now would never have been possible without it being our own business. We’ve had a liberty and freedom to do things exactly the we wanted to, support the community exactly how we dreamed of, and truly make vital healthcare accessible to absolutely everyone.
Besides from our Community Connect Program we’ve organised a Coastal Christchurch Business Meeting for Social Impact & Change, Monday 7th October. The intention is an annual meeting. The vision is to have a community of businesses all making small, sustainable contributions to our local community. We have guest speakers talking about the positive opportunities for businesses by doing good in your community. We will also have present local community organisations and leaders, including Dame Sue Bagshaw and Ruth Dyson MP, to further communicate how big an impact we can make and how we can help them. The goal is to help businesses realise that supporting your community can be very empowering and positive boost to your business.
The main two ways we give back and support our community is through our Community Connect Program and our Koha Fee System as described earlier. However each month we also provide complementary spinal health workshops for different organisations and businesses; we do this to help raise awareness of the build up of everyday postural stresses, how we can minimise them and how to prevent problems before they happen.

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