Why Most Chiropractic Partnerships Don't Work

Most chiropractors think the answer to growing a practice is bringing on a partner. Dr. Gregg Gerstin tried it nine months into his career and almost lost everything. One Monday morning he walked into the office and the place was empty. His partner had cleaned out the entire clinic over the weekend without a word. He raced home, grabbed his portable table and a folding chair, and saw patients that morning anyway. There was no going back, no failure option, no plan B.

Gregg is the owner of Align Wellness Center in Northbrook, Illinois, a $1M-plus practice he's built over the last 23 years in a building he now owns around the corner from that original empty office. He's married 15 years, in the boom phase of practice growth with two associates added in the last six months, and runs one of the only chiropractic YouTube channels in the country with a serious vertigo following.

In this episode, Gregg breaks down why he calls partnerships "the only ship that doesn't sail" and what he wishes he'd known going in (alignment of technique, alignment of vision, alignment of roles and responsibilities, and the rare-but-real visionary/executor pairing that's the only structure he'd consider revisiting). He also makes the case that most chiropractors are being pushed into ownership and vision-casting roles they were never wired for, and that the profession's "you have to be the visionary or you're not legitimate" mythology is doing real damage.

The conversation then gets into the content playbook that turned his practice into a referral magnet for vertigo patients from across the country (one drove four hours from Fort Wayne for an appointment the day of recording). He explains the origin story (a local public-access TV invitation, 250 patient questions, an iPad and a standing desk, and a hire-anyone-on-Upwork-to-upload-to-YouTube starting point), the moment vertigo emerged as the niche, the 3-videos-a-week-for-2-years-on-one-topic discipline that built the channel, the 9-videos-per-month/3-problem/3-solution/3-home-care content framework, and the "if it's done with a mouse, get it out of the house" rule he uses now to move non-patient-facing work off the clinic floor.

If you've ever been burned by a partnership, considered one and didn't know what to look for, or wondered whether the YouTube-for-chiropractors play is actually viable in 2026, this episode is the playbook and the warning shot wrapped together.