Is Your Chiropractic Practice Management System Built Backwards? Part I

Copyright (c) 2012 Dr. Brian Capra

I managing billing operations for over 300 practices across the country. These practices see anywhere from 100 and 2500 patient visits per week. I have had the opportunity to see the "best of the best" chiropractic practice management and software systems. The more I see the more I realize they are all built in the same way, however different they seemed on the surface. They all had the some or all of the following components.
1. Scheduler
2. Notifications
3. SOAP Notes
4. Custom
5. X-rays
6. Paperless
7. Electronic Billing Component
8. Care Plan Management
9. POS
10. Text and Email Appointment Reminders

While every good chiropractic practice management system should have all of these components, the above mentioned features are relatively easy to build. There are some much more complex issues that face today's chiropractic office. If the doctor does not have a system, technology and people in place to handle them effectively it could cost him not only tens or thousands of dollars but possibly criminal investigation and jail time.

These Issues are:
1. Maximized Insurance Collections
2. 100% Transparency into the billing process (weather in house billing or with an outsourced billing company)
3. Audit Warning System (Post Payment Insurance Audit)
4. Compliant SOAP Notes and documentation
5. Practice Workflow Automation in order increase staff efficiency and lower overhead

Without a system that measures workflow it is impossible to measure where workload bottlenecks are occurring. Weather with billing or patient relationship management, bottlenecks create a growing backlog of critical tasks. Doctors and staff are left with a feeling of lack of control. They manage by fire putting out the fire of the day and never implementing new practice growth tools. It is exhausting, stressful and in many cases depressing.

Today Insurance billing and collections is simply becoming infinitely more difficult with each passing year. Insurance companies are not only making things more complicated with copays, deductibles, coinsurance, allowables, medical necessity, etc. but they are also changing the rules as they go. They change diagnosis code hierarchy without warning. To top it off the changes are not the same state to state or in some cases region to region. They randomly change the allowable rate. Without technology in place to tell you when any one of these things occur any biller can and will be easily overwhelmed as changes occur faster than they can stay on top of them. The bottom line is decreased overall collections, cash and insurance, and an accounts receivable that spirals out of control as your staff scambles to keep up.

Dr. Brian Capra is a master at managing people, process and technology to build a methodology that has leveled the playing field for chiropractors against insurance companies, beating them at their own game, and building the first software that helps manage "cash practice" patient relationships. Genesis is a one of a kind chiropractic software!
http://www.GenesisChiropracticSoftware.com

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Audio Conferencing Best Practice

To get the most out of your conferencing service investment (whether it be audio conferencing or web conferencing), all of your attendees need to be engaged and participating to the fullest extent possible. It's not enough to simply keep them from being distracted. While this can seem like a tall order, we've put together a small list of tips to help you do just that.
Prepare - create an outline or agenda for your meeting and send to all of your attendees along with a few specific review items or tasks you would like them to go over. In addition, gather any additional hosts or presenters and perform a few trial runs to get everyone acquainted with the available conferencing features. This will prevent any confusion on the day of your meeting and help iron out any unforeseen issues.
K.I.S.S. - stands for Keep It Simple (Stupid/Smarty/any other 'S' word you see fit). The last thing anyone wants to do is be stuck in a meeting that should have ended 5, 10, 30, 60 minutes ago. If all you require is a brief conversation, don't feel as though you need to entertain everyone on the line as long as possible. As a general rule of thumb, larger web and audio conferences should be kept around the one hour mark, while smaller more intimate conferences typically last around 30 minutes.
Watch - if you're holding an audio conferencing call and are concerned that one or more of your participants are on the call but not engaged, consider integrating web conferencing into your meeting. With real-time video feeds you'll be able to see each participant throughout your meeting, which leads to less sneaking off or multi-tasking on the job.
Inform - prior to starting your meeting, send out an email to all participants that covers the topics that will be discussed and provide a clear list of objectives and expected outcomes that you are looking for. As a side note, it wouldn't hurt to add in a few reasons why your meeting will help make their day/week/etc. easier and enhance performance.
Ask - unexpected questions will keep participants on their toes and focused, making them less likely to multi-task. It's not unusual for one or more attendees to hold off on making comments or suggesting ideas because they are unsure of when to jump in and add their input. If you feel you are not getting enough participation from certain attendees feel free to direct questions specifically at them.
Audio conference hosts, might want to try asking all participants to leave their mute buttons off so they are less likely to be tempted by distractions (although if mobile workers are located in an area with a lot of background noise this might not be an option).
Provide - web and audio conferences require just as much planning and forethought as face-to-face meetings, so be sure to offer your participants an informative, memorable experience.
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