These providers do more than ‘crack backs’ — according to ziprecruiter, the average salary for a chiropractor in the Syracuse area is $85,168.
By Deborah Jeanne Sergeant
Helping others find immediate pain relief attracted Vincent Sportelli to the chiropractic field. He owns Sportelli Chiropractic Health & Wellness Center in Syracuse where he works as a doctor of chiropractic. While still in college, he hurt his knee playing football. Instead of surgery, his athletic trainer suggested visiting a chiropractor to see if that would help.
“I felt skeptical,” Sportelli recalled. “My knee was out of position. He adjusted my knee, told me exercises to do and I was playing games a week and a half later. The implication was tremendous and it stuck with me.”
He believes that in addition to the required education and licensure, possessing a desire to help people without drugs or surgery is essential for success in the field. While at chiropractic school, he met many who left conventional medicine to study chiropractic care, as they “felt disenchanted with the drugs and sought a holistic approach to healthcare,” Sportelli said. “A desire to help people safely is a motivating factor.”
He said that chiropractic combines art and science, as it’s very hands-on and looks at all aspect of patient health and how they affect the patient’s presenting issue.
Some chiropractors focus on athletics, pediatrics, maternity care, among other specialties. In addition, chiropractors may work in education, training other chiropractors.
Like Barrett Parker, doctor of chiropractic at Allied Spine & Sports Chiropractic in Syracuse, many chiropractors practice as independent providers and small business owners.
“We have many hats we have to wear,” he said. “We take a thorough patient history of previous problems and previous providers. We do a full orthopedic and neurological exam, range of motion and palpitation, soft tissue exam with joint and muscle palpation. Then devise a treatment plan that we think will be appropriate for their condition. It can be an acute management of a sprain or strain or long-term for a rheumatology condition or chronic spine condition like stenosis.”
In addition, chiropractors must document the visit and as needed bill insurance companies.
Parker’s office offers the Graston Technique, an active release technique, which can help desensitize injured tissue. Because the positive effects typically occur quickly, Parker said that many people in the athletic world like the technique so they can get back to their active life sooner. But general rehabilitation and restoration is also a big part of the practice.
Many people have turned to chiropractic care to avoid taking pain medications.
“Chiropractic users had 64% lower odds of receiving an opioid prescription,” Parker said. “We know what a problem the opioid epidemic is.”
Working as a chiropractor carries the typical challenges of any health career and owning a business. Ed Galvin, chiropractor and owner of Port City Chiropractic Chiropractors in Oswego, mitigates these challenges through planning.
“The best businesses run on systems and then you have to hire the best people to run the systems,” Galvin said. “I’ve been fortunate to always have a great team that helps me to run our office. Dealing with insurance companies is probably the greatest challenge for providers but also for patients.”
Chiropractic coverage differs from standard medical coverage and each insurance plan has a potentially different co-pay, deductible and what they do or do not cover. Medicare covers only chiropractic adjustment, but Galvin hopes that it will someday cover all types of chiropractic care.
“That has been an on-going struggle to get that legislation passed even though it has the potential for huge savings to Medicare,” Galvin said. “Dealing with insurance denials for no reason is both time consuming and frustrating.”
Despite these difficulties, he enjoys his field and enjoys watching patients get well naturally, “oftentimes when nothing else helped them and they thought they were destined to a lifetime of pain and limitation. I’ve been in practice long enough now that some of my patients that I took care of when they were kids are now bringing their children in to have care.”
Richard “Rick” Tesoriero, owner of Tesoriero Chiropractic Office, PC in Oswego, said that beyond the New York state-issued license and the required education and exams — an undergraduate degree, four-year Doctor of Chiropractic degree and pass the National Board of Chiropractic Examiners exam and the New York state jurisprudence exam — a chiropractor should have “a good, outgoing personality. You can’t be an introvert; you have to be able to speak with your patients and help them open up. You need a personality to listen intently and deal with them.”
Chiropractors are required to complete 36 hours of continuing education credits every three years to maintain their licensure.
Tesoriero finds that most misconceptions about chiropractors derive from how people generally describe how a chiropractor “broke my back” or “crunched my spine” when a patient experiences soreness after a treatment.
Despite these and other challenges, Tesoriero said that he loves his work and doesn’t see himself slowing down anytime soon.
He advises people who are possibly interested in working as a chiropractor to earn a degree in chemistry or biology, which would leave them open to earn a degree in any medical field.
The median salary for a chiropractor in the Syracuse area is not listed on the Bureau of Labor Statistics website. However, in Rochester area it is $79,260.