How “green” is chiropractic as a profession? What kind of impact does your profession have on the environment? Everything you do has an effect on the world around you. Are you making it better or worse? Can modern technology make your office better, more efficient, and greener at the same time?

Most chiropractors own or work in small businesses. So it’s fair to ask whether your offices really are polluters of the environment. Thankfully, most chiropractic practices don’t burn coal, dispose of nuclear waste, or flood parking lots with uncapped oil wells.

At first glance, chiropractic doesn’t look too bad as a profession, but most still do things that cause a negative impact on the environment. That means you can change things a bit to make an improvement and make your life better and less stressful at the same time.

A mainstream concern

You can show concern for the environment, and take steps to preserve it and lesson your impact on it without being an environmental extremist. Most people enjoy the outdoors and want to see it stay nice for their grandchildren and great grandchildren. So with that in mind, here’s a closer look at how you can make a positive impact on the environment, right from the confines of your practice.

A good place to start is with the amount of paper you use in your office. Most people use more than they think.

Paper use depends on many things, such as the number of paper bills and statements you send out, and the amount of letterhead, envelopes, files, charts, and records you use and store.

Some offices have so much paper they have to rent storage units to house their excess files. Some offices even have a full-time person who only deals with filing and other paper management tasks.

Based on experience and informal surveys, it’s safe to estimate that the average doctor, in the average clinic, uses approximately two cases of paper a month. That equates to around 24 cases per year. In terms of environmental impact, that’s about one and a half trees per year, per doctor, per clinic.

That may not sound like much, but consider that there are more than 30,000 practicing chiropractors in the U.S. Some estimate there are nearly double this number, but even if you take 30,000 offices and multiply them by 1.5 trees per office, that’s 45,000 trees — a lot of lost camping spots.

On the high end, 45,000 trees would be about 130 acres of trees at 350 trees per acre; on the low end, it would be about 70 acres. So you could split the difference and call it 100 acres even.

A hundred acres of forest is a lot to cut down for paperwork but it feels like even more when you know that something can be done about it.

Re-imagine your office

The answer is to move toward becoming a paperless office. Every insurance company, the government, and most others want this to happen. There is pressure from nearly every corner to enact electronic health records (EHR) and electronic billing. So can you go completely without paper?

If you suspect that the “fully paperless office” is not here yet, you are right. But being nearly paperless is possible. Imagine an office where there is no paper sign-in sheet because it has been replaced by a digital sign-in pad.

Imagine an office where a computerized appointment book handles scheduling instead of a paper one.

Now envision an electronic documentation system where most of the patient’s paperwork is handled by computer, where SOAP notes and narratives are completely digital, and can be sent to insurance companies and attorneys over the Internet without the need for a single sheet of paper.

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