ABOUT THIS EPISODE
Dr. Allen Miner (15:10.17)
Hey everyone, this is a fun episode of Dr. Andrew Powell out of Sydney, Australia, who has a foot orthotic that he originally used to treat scoliosis, but it's a different product because it's not based on arches in the foot, it's based on proprioception. It's called the Better Balance Orthotic and Dr. Andrew's going to talk about how he came to acquire this business, how he's used it inside of his practice to build value for his practice members. It's a really good best practice and something we haven't really had anybody in here talk about in a classic UAC story of somebody who has a successful business and then now is moving on to that next iteration of their journey. Also, for today's episode, if you leave a review and a comment, we're going to send a pair of those orthotics within the first, you know, we'll give it two weeks after the episode drops. And for one of you who leaves a comment and a review, we'll make sure we get you a pair of these orthotics if you're a winner. Final note.
We have a sponsorship for this episode. It's Genesis Back and Neck, which is decompression. They specialize in putting decompression clinics inside of your existing business. Genesis Back and Neck can help you add spinal decompression clinics to your existing chiropractic office, potentially generating an additional $50,000 to $70,000 a month. I've done a lot better than that in our clinics.
From lead generation to ongoing support, Genesis does the heavy lifting so you can focus on your patients. If you want to learn more about it, get on the call, get on the call with Dr. Caleb, Dr. Chad. You can email them at corporate at GenesisBack.com. Corporate at GenesisBack.com. Let them know that UAC sent you. Let's jump into this episode. It's a good one. Welcome to Best Practices with UAC.
Dr. Allen Miner (00:01.152)
Hey everyone, I'm Dr. Allen Miner here with the UAC Best Practices podcast. I'm flying solo today without my co-host partner, Dr. Brian Capra. We have somebody I've known for a long time now from the UAC who hails from Australia, Dr. Andrew Powell. We're going to be with him in just a minute. Really has some interesting insights on a product he's created and owns and now uses in his practice. But before we jump in,
Little word from our success sponsor today first, which is Genesis Chiropractic Software. Dr. Brian, who's normally my co-host, is the CEO of Genesis. And so, his commercial, I'll just read it on his behalf. As a UAC member, you know how crucial the right systems are for your practice. That's why UAC recommends Genesis Chiropractic Software. This all-in-one solution covers everything from patient scheduling to documentation and billing. And with AI-powered automation,
Genesis helps prevent tasks from slipping through the cracks and allows your practice to run more efficiently. If you're interested in more info, can visit them at GenesisKyropracticSoftware.com and mention UAC and please, just so they know where you came from. That's Genesis Chiropractic Software. All right, with that said, I get to introduce Dr. Andrew Powell. Dr. Andrew has practiced for 23 years out of Sydney, Australia. How long you been a member for UAC now, Dr. Andrew?
Andrew Powell (01:27.438)
I think probably about seven or eight years now.
Dr. Allen Miner (01:30.701)
Yeah, yeah, it's always impressive when our members from UAC travel out. I always appreciate Andrew for your favorite band, 311. I've never known anybody who likes that band, and I always loved them, and your kind of a super fan version of that. So that was where I first was like, oh, that's awesome. But what I want to talk about here is Dr. Andrew Yu.
I in your community who used an orthotic to treat scoliosis, and you've now purchased that company, and you started using those in your clinic, but now you're putting them in practices all over the world. you know, tell us a little bit about that story. Let's start there. Why orthotics? What's been the benefit? You know, how have you seen that help people? And then we'll talk a little bit about more in other practices.
Andrew Powell (02:06.08)
Yes.
Andrew Powell (02:26.637)
Sure, awesome. So, I guess for me there was a personal story to it which was really that I just grew up my whole life with really flat feet and you know that caused a whole lot of problems. I couldn't run or even walk properly. You know, I played soccer forever. I was always the goalie. It ended up causing problems with my lower back and my hips and everybody knew I had flat feet. My family used to joke about it, but no one ever thought there was anything you could do about it. So...
you know, when I got into practice and I learned about orthotics, I started using traditional orthotics in my practice. And I probably did that for about 10 years. And my experience of that was that they didn't really make any difference, right? My feet didn't change, nothing else in my body changed. In fact, if anything, my feet continued to get worse over time. And I was prescribing them to my practice members. But again, I wasn't really seeing the sort of results that I wanted.
Dr. Allen (03:10.22)
Hmm.
Andrew Powell (03:17.739)
And so when I came across this doctor, his name was Dr. Ed Butterworth and what he'd created, it was an orthotic in name only, but it was really based on a completely different paradigm. There was no arch support whatsoever. It was purely about stimulating the nerves in the feet. So, it actually causes the muscles in the feet to work better and that creates a whole lot of changes in a person's posture and their balance and their neurology. So that kind of got me excited. It was like, this is something that's much more aligned with our chiropractic paradigm. You know, it's about
optimizing the nervous system and I'm seeing lasting functional changes. I started seeing that in my own body. I've got good archers in my feet now, which I never had for the first 30 years of my life. Yeah, absolutely. My wife pointed out one day walking on the beach, she's like, hey, look at your feet, like look at your footprint, right? Because it went from this big surfboard to like footprint. So that's kind of cool, right? They're like a rehab device for the feet. So
Dr. Allen Miner (03:55.313)
Really, they came back in. Fascinating.
Dr. Allen Miner (04:05.04)
Wow. Yeah.
Andrew Powell (04:10.878)
I started to see changes in myself. I've been wearing them for about 10 years now and I started to see big changes in my patients. And we track all of that. We record it. We take posture photos. We use a vestibular plate. We use all these objective measures to try and quantify those changes. And they're consistent and repeatable. And they weren't just in people's feet. They were in all sorts of aspects of their neurology, their vestibular system, their balance got better, their posture improved dramatically. All sorts of things changed.
Um, so it started me, it sorts of led me down this rabbit hole really, because like I think many chiropractors, I just didn't pay that much attention to feet. It's like, you know, you know, they're important, you know, the basic mechanics. But one thing I really noticed when I got into practice and started looking at people's bodies, their spines was that everybody's got bad feet, right? I would see flat arches, high arches, bunions, pronation, all these issues that I really didn't know how to fix. And I really didn't.
Dr. Allen Miner (04:51.339)
Yeah.
Andrew Powell (05:07.816)
understand how they correlated with people's symptoms. And so, I kind of just over time wrote it off, went well, you know, I see people with bad feet, and they seem to be doing okay, it just can't be that important. And I just kind of stopped paying attention to it. And now having gone on this journey, I realized that's a huge mistake. In fact, your patient's feet are actually impacting every aspect of their neurology, their balance, their posture, and their clinical outcomes. And if we're ignoring that,
Dr. Allen Miner (05:23.819)
you
Andrew Powell (05:35.423)
we're really missing a huge opportunity in our practice to serve our patients better.
Dr. Allen Miner (05:40.034)
Yeah, wow, that's brilliant. So how did it come along with you? How'd you find these and then you bought this business and tell us a little bit about that journey. When did you take it over and how are you teaching chiropractors and how do people find your product? But give us a little bit of the backstory.
Andrew Powell (05:57.803)
Cool, so actually when I was at school, chiropractic school studying, I was introduced to applied kinesiology, which was a real passion for me. been an AK practitioner my whole career. And my teacher and mentor at the time had actually said to me, if you're ever going to use orthotics, these are the only ones to use. Because Ed, the doctor who had invented them had presented them to the AK community at one of the ICAK meetings.
You know, I heard that, I just didn't, it didn't click. You know, I was brand new in practice. hadn't, it didn't sink in. but after many years of getting no results with traditional orthotics, I mean, you know what? I've got to actually get hold of these. And I went and I sought out Ed. He was actually quiet, quite hard to find. I had to go and see him as a patient in his medical clinic to actually get hold of him.
Dr. Allen Miner (06:50.554)
Well.
Andrew Powell (06:53.483)
And so that was how it started. ...
