Talk to any number of doctors of chiropractic in private practice, and they’ll tell you that along with treating patients using manual methods rather than focusing on invasive procedures or prescribing pharmaceuticals, they like being a trusted healthcare resource in the communities they serve.
Some chiropractors prefer urban locations; many others choose to be in smaller communities to more easily use their experience and knowledge in locations where there are fewer healthcare practitioners.
Perhaps that’s one of the reasons why more than 50% of chiropractors own their practices. As business owners, chiropractors can choose where they practice and set their own standards for high-quality patient care.
Some chiropractors choose to do that by returning to the area where they came from. And that’s precisely why Drs. Whitney Haase and Nolan Clausen returned to their native Nebraska and set up their practice in Elkhorn, Neb., a northwestern suburb of Omaha.
Dr. Haase was raised in the Omaha area; Dr. Clausen grew up in Ord, a small town of just over 2,200 people. The two doctors graduated from the Cleveland University-Kansas City (CUKC) College of Chiropractic in 2019. After discovering they each wanted to return home to practice, the doctors founded their Midwest Movement practice in January 2020.
“I was born and raised just a few miles from our practice,” Dr. Haase says. “All our family, both my husband and mine, are close to here. I knew that I wanted to be back somewhere in the Omaha metro, and Elkhorn just seemed like a perfect small town.”
From New Grads to New Business of the Year
In April 2021, the West Omaha Chamber of Commerce named Midwest Movement as the Chamber’s New Business of the Year for 2020. The award provided evidence their approach to healthcare and commitment to community service was right on track.
“Once we were nominated, we knew what kind of impact it could have,” Dr. Clausen says. “We had been growing pretty consistently anyway. That recognition from a trusted group like the West O Chamber gave us more trustworthiness with the community.”
Soon after opening, the COVID-19 pandemic began to emerge full force. Still, their practice endured, even providing some much-appreciated lessons in focusing on the needs of the community they chose to serve.
“The pandemic made us so aware of how valuable it is to have person-to-person communication, to have relationships in our practice,” Dr. Haase says. “We really focused on making sure our patients know how much we care about them as people.”
With area residents wanting to stay at home as much as possible, Dr. Haase says they realized the importance of increased communication with their patients – describing what to expect as they made their appointments, during the treatment sessions, and checking in on them post-treatment. They found ways to go the extra mile in patient care, like sending them exercises that they could do on their own.
And because people were less active, the doctors found that obesity and other comorbidities were affecting people in larger numbers.
When residents saw that change for themselves, Dr. Haase says, “people started to take fitness and health a bit more seriously, which helped them understand they also need to take advantage of the preventive care we offer.”
Like all doctors of chiropractic, Drs. Haase and Clausen use a natural, non-invasive, hands-on approach to musculoskeletal care. Treatments may include traditional chiropractic care, rehabilitative exercise, and cutting-edge manual therapy.
“We say we focus on function, meaning we’re not training individual muscle groups, but looking at the whole person, their whole body, not just the spine,” Dr. Clausen says. “We’re looking at all their joints and looking at how their brain controls their movement.”
“I had a high school athlete patient who had shoulder pain from other shoulder injuries,” he says. “When we did an evaluation, we found it wasn’t just her shoulder joints, but it was her whole upper torso, her cervical neck, and the way that she was stabilizing her body.”
Dr. Haase had a patient whose knee pain was so great she was scheduled for a knee replacement.
“We determined the pain was coming from her other hip’s lack of control and lack of mobility,” she says. “By treating that hip, her knee pain got better.”
Dr. Clausen emphasizes he likes knowing chiropractic healthcare is making a positive impact on people’s lives in the Elkhorn community. He enjoys the feeling that comes from seeing patients he’s treated getting back to the jobs they love or volunteering on the weekends to benefit their community.
“I’m so happy that I’m a chiropractor, and I’m where I am today,” Dr. Haase says. “We’re able to affect people in a way that a lot of other medical professionals can’t. I think if your goal is to make an impact on people’s quality of life, chiropractic is a wonderful career to get you there.”
Cleveland University-Kansas City (CUKC) is a private, nonprofit, chiropractic and health sciences university in Overland Park, Kansas, a large Kansas City suburb recognized for its family-friendliness and affordability.
Most CUKC students earn their Doctor of Chiropractic degree (D.C.) in 3.3 years through our year-round trimester schedule.
Points of distinction for the CUKC College of Chiropractic include:
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