May 17, 2017

Meet Philip Cordova of CORE Chiropractic

Local Stories

Today we’d like to introduce you to Philip Cordova.

So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
As a teenager, I was involved in martial arts. Around my Freshman year of high school, I tweaked my back. After a few weeks, the problem had gotten so bad that I had to drop out of all athletics. If I tried to run, or do anything more than just walk, my back would go out.

My dad took me to see the chiropractor down the road. At the time, I don’t think I had even heard the word “chiropractic” before. He took a look, adjusted me, and it wasn’t more than a few days later that I was back to resuming my normal activities.

He also took the time to explain health to us and our family started looking at how we care for ourselves very differently. I liked the idea of being able to help others and decided by my Sophomore year that I would also be a chiropractor.

I attended Parker College of Chiropractic (now Parker University) in Dallas, Texas. I met my wife there and after initially practicing in Glendale, Arizona, we moved to Houston in 2000.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
There’s always obstacles along the way. Fresh out of chiropractic school, I really had no clue that I would have to learn how to run a business. My first year in practice was slow and unsuccessful, with me renting a room from another chiropractor in Phoenix. I decided after that first year to hire a practice mentor and learn how to run a business.

Within a year, I was ready to open up my own office, which I did until selling it to move to Houston. I was ready for a change and wanted to get back to Texas. I looked at Austin and Houston before settling on Houston. My family and I love Houston and are happy to be here.

CORE Chiropractic – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
Spinal adjustments are a skill, and I think we do them very well. All of our doctors are excellent chiropractic adjusters – something that is starting to go away in a lot of chiropractic offices. Many doctors have become more interested in working on soft-tissue instead of spinal adjustments.

Our focus is on delivering a quality chiropractic adjustment in an efficient and timely manner that will help our patients get results. We do some therapies, but not a lot of in office physical rehabilitation. We educate our patients on specific exercises and stretches that they can do at home, saving them time and money.

More recently, we have stepped up our posture exercise education since so many of our patients are at computers all day. They are almost always doing things in an attempt to help their bad posture, but making it worse. Getting them set up on the right program really helps speed their results and create a more lasting change.

We also will perform leg length x-rays when needed. Many patients (so far 80-90%) of the time, have an undiagnosed anatomically short leg of at least 3mm. This means they walk and exercise unevenly, causing the same spinal misalignments to return again and again. A simple heel lift inside the shoe can make all the difference, but you need to know the needed correction accurately in order achieve this.

We want our patients to get adjusted for life because they love chiropractic, not because they continue to be in pain. Adding in posture exercises and evaluating structural causes to their problems helps create a lasting difference.

We are always educating our patients – we just want to help them be healthier!

What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
So many patient success stories, but that’s what helps you stay focused on delivering a good result. Patients that have had pain for ten, twenty years or more getting relief even when they weren’t 100% convinced chiropractic could help them.

Patients that come in and tell you about a problem they had, but didn’t tell you about suddenly get better. We look at our care as caring for the spine, which helps the nerves work and function as they should. Still, it continues to make me proud to be a chiropractor when people get their health back.

The team at CORE Chiropractic regularly makes me proud. They work hard and are very dedicated to our patients. I’m also proud of being named “Best Chiropractor” by the Houston Press in 2009.

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