When Dr. Stephanie Lillis D.C. was 19, she was in a serious car accident that changed her life. The accident left her severely injured and in chronic pain. When nothing her doctors tried worked to relieve her pain, they suggested surgery as a treatment. Thankfully, she decided to try out a chiropractor before the surgery and was amazed. “He took away the pain and gave me back my life,” she said. “I really truly felt like I was called to this profession through that experience.”
Dr. Lillis began her career working for a chiropractic office in Cincinnati for five years, but when she and her husband started their family, she knew it was time for a change. “We didn’t want to raise the kids in a big city,” she said. So, they uprooted and moved to Rochester, where Dr. Lillis is originally from.
Dr. Lillis and her husband have co-owned Advanced Body Chiropractic in Stewartville for 14 years now. “He’s not a chiropracter, but he does everything else,” she laughed.
In 2016, Dr. Lillis was approached by Dr. Julie Elder from Elder Chiropractic who asked if she would be interested in purchasing her practice and expanding Advanced Body Chiropractic to Chatfield. Dr. Elder had sustained a serious elbow injury while out walking her dog and was unable to continue running her practice.
“I’ve known her for many years and felt honored to be the one that she reached out to,” Dr. Lillis said. “I didn’t want to see something that she’d been building her whole life just go away.”
After meeting with Dr. Elder, Dr. Lillis talked to her husband and spent some time praying over the big decision facing them before deciding to go ahead with the purchase.
Originally, the plan was to open the new location in November 2016, but one weekend in October, Dr. Lillis couldn’t stop thinking about Dr. Elder’s patients who were without care. “I knew the need was here, and I wanted to fill that need.”
And with that in mind, she decided to open that coming week rather than waiting, a decision her husband was surprised to hear.
Getting started was tough, but Dr. Elder frequented the clinic for the first few months after Dr. Lillis took ownership to help with the transition. “She was an amazing help,” Dr. Lillis expressed.
“We want to keep the experience consistent for her (Dr. Elder’s) existing patients,” assured Dr. Lillis.
Dr. Lillis currently splits her time between the two locations, working about 40 hours a week. She plans to add more hours and staffing to the Chatfield clinic as it continues to grow. “The goal is to branch out and do more for the community,” she said. Currently, she is able to offer a wide variety of services from her Stewartville clinic such as DOT physicials, monthly wellness visits for corporations, wellness talks at companies/organizations, acupuncture, massage therapy, etc. She is working to add all of those services at Chatfield in the future as well.
“Chiropractic care is an inexpensive place to start with health care costs soaring and deductibles getting so high,” Dr. Lillis pointed out. With that being said, she doesn’t discount modern medicine’s value. “I work very closely with the medical community. Medicine and chiropractic care should always work together. If we don’t feel we can help a patient, we have no problem referring them to someone who can.”
Advanced Body Chiropractic was recently named one of America’s Best Chiropractors, an big honor for the small town practice. Dr. Lillis can’t wait to see what the future holds for Advanced Body Chiropractic.