How to Use Patient Care Plans
Do you set-up care plans for your patients? Care Plans for your patients is a critical tool that you need to use in your Chiropractic Practice. How do you track the financial commitments of your patients on plans as well as their scheduled visits throughout the time period of their plan? One patient visit is never enough to completely solve their problem so how do you track it all? View this free webinar to see how to create your patient plans of care and then apply automation to them. Automatic care plans will save you a lot of time and you won’t have to memory manage any of it. You can even setup a notification when visits are running out. Plus, projecting staffing and cash flow levels will be easier and more accurate. Learn how with the free webinar that can be viewed right on this page. Read the transcript: Jason: All right, well, we’re gonna get started. Thanks, everyone, for joining us today. And one of our hotter topics, I would say, in just the sense that it comes up quite a bit because one of the features that we’re going to review today is one that is used quite often. And today, we’re actually gonna get into the nuts and bolts almost immediately. Lots of people use care plans, and let me be very clear what I’m talking about when I say care plan is this is not something…we’re not reviewing anything clinical today, we’re not talking about how to diagnose somebody, or how to treat them or even speak to them about that treatment. Today, we’re talking about how are you gonna track the financial commitments that you put in place for the patient, as well as their scheduled visits throughout a prescribed either time frame or set number of visits. So that’s the topic for today. And care plans are something that people ask about in a lot of different ways because not everybody uses them the same. Jess, you’ve gotta come across lots of folks who use care plans different from one another. Is that pretty common? Jessica: Yes. Jason: So today, we’re going to review the nuts and bolts of that care plan, how you can use it with your patient, how it’s beneficial. And we’d love to field any questions that people have regarding ways that they would like to apply it. Before we get into that, just the why, is something I always like to start with. Patient walks through your door and you want to help that person achieve and realize their health goals, maybe their fitness goals or both. And that patient at some point has to commit to more than one visit to make that happen. With almost every single clinician that we have in our system, one visit is never going to solve the problem. They’ve gotta commit to changing lifestyles, and changing habits. And our doctors are going to have to work with that patient and specifically coach them through, and treat them multiple times to get them there. That being the case, that commitment for that type of lifestyle change can span weeks, months, and sometimes even I’ve seen care plans last for entire calendar years. So today, as we’re going over those, we wanna to make sure that we understand how they’re going to be charged, how they’ll make payments, and then finally, how they’re going to schedule those visits, coupled with how are you gonna know when a care plan is off track? So we’re actually gonna go over all of those things today while talking about care plans and, Jess, this is where I’ll ask you to start jumping in and helping us here. Care plans, when somebody asks how to do it, I’d like to go through basically top to bottom creating one, setting up notifications, and then showing everybody who’s on today, how we would go about the workflow of where we would see those notifications and running reports. So can you start with the nuts and bolts on how to create one? Jessica: Sure, and I’m actually going to go ahead and create a new patient who will not have a care plan already created. So I’m just making up some information here, and create an account real quick. Jason: I looked at our webinar from last week, one Ctrl+ might do you some good just for the way that people are seeing it. And then if anybody ever has any questions, if they could chat them in, we’d be happy to answer them. Jessica: So I’m going to go into the Patient Care Plan tab, the CP tab. So this Care Plan tab is absolutely blank. It’s a new patient, never had a care plan set up a before. So what you’re gonna do, you’re gonna come down to the bottom because the top part would lift all…any care plans that are on this patient’s account. And I’m going to hit the New button. Hitting this button will give me an asterisk next to each of the required fields. So the first thing you’re gonna do is you’re gonna name your care plan. What I see many practices do is they come up with a naming convention such as how many insurance visits over how many total visits, or wellness spring 2016, that type of thing. Most practices come up with a way to name things so that by seeing the care plan name, they have a general idea of how many visits it should have and how long it should last. So that’s different per practice but that is, in general, what I do see. So I’m just going to go ahead and name this one 12/36 2016. So, we’re going to select the start date. Please be aware that the start date will… You can set it to go back. So right now it’s the 12th of April. I can set it so that it starts on
Can Chiropractic Software Create Peace of Mind?
Over our last posts, we’ve been talking about a theme….It’s About Time. Today, I would like to continue on that path but in a way that is a little more personal for each of us as Chiropractors. I want to talk about how we feel each night when we get home from our office, when taking care of patients is over for the day because I think that it’s about time that we all have peace of mind. It’s about time that when our day is over, we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that everything that could have been done to make our day successful and our patient experience the best it could possibly be has been done. It’s about time that we don’t have to lay in bed at night and try to remember if every chart was updated and wonder if every no-show was rescheduled. Most of the Chiropractic systems that we put to work in our offices are reactive in nature. If a patient doesn’t show up for an appointment, someone has to remember to call them and then actually do it. We have to look through report after report to see if all of the insurance claims have been filed, followed-up on, and paid. There is another report to look at to see if re-exams have been scheduled and another one to go over for follow-up calls. These reports may give us insight into our businesses if we have time to read them but they also create a paperwork nightmare. As a Chiropractor, we already have to wear so many hats as a business owner, manager of employees, and doctor and educator to our patients. Adding on the necessity to read multiple reports every single day just to make sure the necessary actions for the day have been taken is overwhelming. Even worse, systems like these mean that your mind can never really leave your office because you have to memory manage every little detail. I believe that it is time for a change, a complete shift from these reactive chiropractic systems that leave us overwhelmed and stressed out to a proactive system that gives us the peace of mind we’ve been searching for. I know that when I shifted my own office from my old, outdated processes to a new proactive chiropractic software EHR system, the relief that came with it was immeasurable and created peace of mind for me in my practice. With a proactive chiropractic practice management software system in place, each and every day can be distilled down to one number. That number tells you how many tasks that should have been completed were left undone so your goal for this number is always zero. That zero at the end of the day tells you in one number that every task that needed to be completed for your day to be successful was done. That is peace of mind. Even more, if the number isn’t zero, it tells you specifically which task was not completed and whose responsibility that task was. This lets you better manage both your own time and that of your staff and assign the people to the tasks that best suit their abilities. There is no better way to make sure your practice is running smoothly each and every day. As Chiropractors, we face many challenges both as a profession and in our day-to-day practices. This is one area that we can control. We don’t have to live with the worry and stress that those old, reactive systems cause. We don’t have to search report after report, memory manage the details, and still wonder at the end of the day if everything has been done. We can choose to eliminate the worry, manage our offices better and easier than ever before, and improve the care and experience of our patients simply by changing our system. Proactive chiropractic EHR software that distills our days down to one report, one number is the answer because isn’t it about time for peace of mind.
Top 10 Metrics You Should Track
What Metrics Should You Track in Your Practice? Are metrics important to you? Our clients have determined that these are the most important metrics to track in your practice: Collections, Patients Visits, Charges, New Patients, No Shows, No Future Appointments, Accounts Receivable, Unbilled Visits, Unsigned Notes and Claims needing to be corrected by the Practice. They’re related to each other and they affect each other. How do you track them? Do you have a tool to monitor them with a simple glance at a chart? Do you have a radar chart or a histogram that you can understand with a quick look on the home screen? The tools to track these metrics are built into our software and your Practice Success Coach will help you to understand the numbers and their relationships to the others. These Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) must be measured to know the health of your Practice. You’ll be able to see if you’re reaching your goals instantly because two time ranges compared show your improvements. Learn more with the free webinar that can be viewed right on this page. Read the transcript: This week’s webinar, the topic for this week is How to Measure the Success of Your Practice. Really what to measure? What things as a practice owner should you be looking at? What things should you have in place as weekly, monthly, yearly things that should be measured and then managed? So today is going to be which metrics you should look at, and we can talk about frequency, but that frequency is only recommended. You as a practice owner will be able to choose whatever frequency you’re looking at there. and we’ll actually get into how to find information within our system so practice owners can have this happen a little bit more easily should they be concerned about something, so the key indicators are going to be discussed today. And aside from that though, we’re going to…well, first I’ll start by introducing myself. My name is Jason Barnes, I’m the Chief Operations Officer here, and I may have been sitting here for about six and a half now helping practice owners figure out what to measure, and how to measure it in their practices. So what things should be measured, first of all? And why do you need to do it? And how it is going to begin? When you talk about the success of your practice, I have differing opinions from one practice owner to another. Some practice owners want to measure it on the amount of money that we’ve brought in. Others, the number of visits. Both of those numbers are very important, I would recommend that they both be looked at. But at the end of the day, you’re going to have to figure out which one is more important to you because there can be only one top number that will drive your practice and typically that number is dollars. A lot of practice owners prefer to look at visits but visits can be viewed in a number of different ways. So looking at this moving forward, we’re gonna take it down to the ones that we talk about the most, the ones that we’re going to utilize while actually making recommendations to practice. Collections. Now, collections can be viewed in a couple of different ways. The amount of money in your bank account, the amount of money posted in your system. If they’re the same amount of money, you’re doing really well, but if they’re not the same amount of money you’ve got a problem, and we need to figure out why there could be an issue there. But where do collections come from? And if they’re low, what can be done about them? So the first thing to show you is a diagram. You have a practice here…and I’ll make this slightly larger. You have a practice here with three different numbers on it, right? The blue line is their total collected, their green line is their cash collected, and their red line is their insurance collected. As trends would go, it looks like they’re trending down as they went in from the end of the year to the beginning of this year. It’s pretty typical for the end of the year where you’re having less [ inaudible 00:03:16] visits due to the holidays than in the beginning of the year where you see deductibles kick in. However, if you were to contrast that over patient visits, this is the same exact timeframe right now, you would know that visits dictate your collections. But there’s a big trend of going down from 2,088 ending at a much, much lower number here in the 1,400 range. So for this particular example, I brought up and put together a few diagrams. If you’re looking to increase collections, if the collections are indicating that they’re going down, there are a few obvious places to look, like going to visits. You would have to increase patient visits or you would have to fight underpayments. So if your visits weren’t going down, it means that the amount of money you were getting paid was going down. So there’s really only two ways that you could look at the metric of collections, two possible things that could be bringing it down. Either my visits went down or the amount I’m getting paid per visit went down. Either way, you have to know what to do next and which metric to look at next. So visits are fairly easy. You know, if you check somebody in, that’s a visit, and underpayment is a much more challenging thing. And I’d like for you guys to see a separate webinar we did on fighting underpayments and you can find it in any of our websites to go over how we do that. But then what? What is it that you’re gonna change? How is it you’re gonna manage your practice if you have
It’s About Time For Us to Show Our Support for Chiropractic
We’ve been talking about a theme, “It’s about time…”. There are so many things that we can say about that when it comes to our profession, but today, I want to talk about one of the most important ones. It’s about time that we as Chiropractors show our support for Chiropractic and the place to start is with our pocketbooks. We have to begin giving our money only to companies that support Chiros and stop funding companies that support anti-Chiro legislation. Chiropractors and the Chiropractic profession itself have been under fire for a quite a while now and make no mistake, it is not over. In order to preserve our livelihoods, our profession, the message of Chiropractic we bring to our patients, and the good we bring to their health and their lives, we are going to have to take a stand for what we believe in. Too many of the companies that Chiropractors give their money to every day are not pro-Chiro. Instead, they not only support legislation that is damaging to Chiropractic, but many of them want to turn us into medical doctors, forcing us to give vaccines in our office and ignore the basic principles of health that Chiropractic was founded upon. When we choose to do business with these companies, whether they handle our phone service, our billing, or our electronic health records, we are helping them in their fight to mold Chiropractic into the medical model, make us subservient to the MDs and the insurance companies, and even put us out of business completely. We need to choose where we spend our money more wisely and use our dollars to show companies that we as Chiros will stand together. We can and should do business only with companies who support Chiropractic and by extension support who we are and what we believe. There are so many good pro-Chiro companies out there that it is not hard to find them. We must be diligent in researching and choosing with whom we do business. By choosing to spend our money only with businesses who support our profession, we can send a message that we will no longer tolerate these companies attacking Chiropractic and by extension ourselves and our practices. Let’s start putting our money where our mouths are and start spending our hard earned dollars where they can do some good, with companies who are clearly pro-Chiro, who work to advance our profession and who believe in the power of Chiropractic to change the lives of our patients. It’s about time that we support Chiropractic by supporting the companies that work so hard to advance the profession every day.
It’s About Time for Chiropractic to Become the Profession to Choose
In my last post, we talked about getting back to the beginning and starting with why…why we became Chiropractors in the first place, why Chiropractic works, why we do what we do every day. Now, I want to take a look at the next generation of Chiropractors and whether or not we are doing enough as a profession to make Chiropractic an attractive choice for those students that are trying to decide what to do with the rest of their lives. Don’t you think that it’s about time we made Chiropractic a great career choice? Yes, it should be about the satisfaction of helping others but we also need to make Chiropractic an economically viable choice as well. Let’s face it…getting an education today is expensive and most students who come out of college are carrying student loan debts, probably in the tens of thousands of dollars. In fact, according to an analysis of government data, the average amount of student loan debt for a graduating college senior is a little over $35,000 and 71% of these graduates have loans to pay back. Add to that the statistics from a 2014 study published in the Journal of the Canadian Chiropractic Association estimating that 88% of Chiropractic students graduate with between $100,000 and $175,000 in student loans, a massive burden to any Doctor first out of school. In order for students graduating from college to decide to go to Chiropractic school, spending more time, and taking on more debt, they have to be able to see a future where Chiropractic not only allows them to pay off their student loans but also provides them and their families with a nice life. The problem the Chiropractic profession has experienced for many years is that so many of us struggle just to make a living, much less the nice income that we should be able to expect in return for the number of years we spend becoming Chiropractors, the risk we take opening and running our own business, and the hours we devote every week toward improving the lives of others. In fact, in 2010, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported a median wage for Chiropractors at just over $67,000, not much in comparison the $140,000 to $300,000 incomes reported by Osteopathic Physicians. I think that it’s about time we made Chiropractic an economically viable profession choice for future students. This means that not only do we need to see more patients, we need to price our services to reflect their importance to the health of our patients. We also have to put systems in place to manage and improve the patient experience so that more people continue Chiropractic care not just through corrective care but also to maintain their health. We must also scrutinize our processes to ensure that every step we take each day is done in the most effective and efficient way. Our offices should function smoothly and at the end of the day when we go home, we should know with 100% certainty that everything has been done and done to the highest possible standards. Making the choice to become a Chiropractor has never been and never will be solely about money. I firmly believe that myself and my fellow Chiropractors have a calling to help others and improve the health and lives of our patients. Still, we can no longer ignore the economic realities and disparities of income experienced by Chiropractors in comparison to other healthcare professionals. We have a duty to future Chiropractors to increase the income of our profession as a whole and make Chiropractic an economically viable choice. It’s about time.
Starting with My Why
I recently read the book “Start with Why” by Simon Sinek . It really hit home with me that the reason behind why we do something is often so much more important than our actions themselves. This made me re-evaluate my life, my business, and the Chiropractic profession as a whole. In many ways, our profession has come so far but looking at it from this new perspective, I could see how we have often gotten away from our true values, what made us Chiropractors in the first place. It made me think of one phrase, again and again…”It’s about time.” There are so many things in Chiropractic that it’s about time for, don’t you think? It’s something you are going to be hearing from me over and over because it is time for progress. In that spirit, I think that it’s about time that you know my background and why I became a Chiropractor in the first place. It’s important because my why has made me who I am. It’s driven me to not only help patients but to help other Chiropractors improve the patient experience and build practices that get back to the root of the profession, making sure that every patient understands the importance of Chiropractic in their lives, in their health, and in creating their futures. I was always an athlete and into health and wellness. I always steered away from medications. I was also very into science and found that I was good at biology and math, so in my second year of undergraduate, I decided to become a biology major. The problem was that I didn’t have a direction, a passion. By the end of college, I still did not know what I was going to do until one day, my mother gave me a call. She told me that she worked with a woman who had a son who was a Chiropractor. He was going to be speaking and asked if I wanted to check it out. I wasn’t expecting much because I had a cousin who was a Chiropractor and I had actually seen one myself for an injury in high school but had never heard anything about the Chiropractic philosophy. Still, I went to the seminar and when he began speaking about what Chiropractic was really about and how it really worked, I knew with 100% certainty that I had found my life’s work. It was a moment of total congruency and surety that only happens a few times in your life. I drove back to school that night where I was just finishing up my biology degree and said, “Hey, I’m moving to Georgia and going to Chiropractic school.” The Chiropractic philosophy became “my why”. It is the reason that I knew with such certainty that Chiropractic held the path for my life, that it was my passion. It is still the reason that I get up each day and work toward improving the patient experience in all Chiropractic offices. The Chiropractic philosophy is the reason behind everything we do in our profession, so isn’t it about time that we all remember why we became Chiropractors in the first place?
MyRxX.com – Save Time, Help Lives
My name is Dr. Scott Levine and, like you, I am a chiropractor. Four years ago, I struggled to get my patients to do their exercises. I would hand a patient an exercise sheet and demonstrate the exercises. Eventually, however, after many follow-ups, I realized that many of my patients were getting poor results because they were not doing the exercises on their own, or not doing them properly. At the time, available exercise videos were limited and of poor quality, so I started to build a software product to help my clients and my profession. The result is MyRxX.com – an exercise video delivery service designed to help chiropractors and their patients. As a chiropractor practicing in a multi-disciplinary clinic, I had the benefit of using the site with my patients daily so I could receive feedback about how to make myRxX better by tweaking. It was then successfully tested in international clinics to ensure that it worked perfectly before we launched it. MyRxX.com is much more than a video-exercise delivery site. It also functions as a marketing, communications and lead generation site. Each exercise is based on functional strengthening. My background has been specializing in muscle testing and Kinesiology. I created a 12 hour CE course in CE4you.com to teach those interested in how to test all the muscles for weakness. Prescribing the appropriate exercise was an easy extension. Imagine ending your next health talk by offering a free video exercise program to help improve the musculoskeletal (MSK) complaints of the participants. I can assure you that the majority will sign up. This software can help you quickly and simply manage these leads by tracking activity and sending messages to the group. Instead of giving my business card to potential patients, I provide them with exercises through the site. As they follow their exercises online, they are also viewing my white-labeled clinic information so they know how to reach me for further chiropractic help. This patient portal becomes an extension to your brand, location and online presence. The patient portal has a separate patient site called VideoExercises.com which allows them to view their program on any mobile device. In a marketing and communications capacity, the site allows you to upload your own clinic videos. Think of the possibilities – videos like “Welcome to the Clinic,” “Why Orthotics,” or introducing yourself to potential clients. Better than YouTube, because of the virtual wall that keeps them focused on only your prescribed health videos. Additionally, the Doctor’s Portal gives quick optics on patient engagement which allows you to monitor your patient’s’ compliance with the recommended exercises or clinic health videos. I have found that my patients are even more motivated to do their exercises now because they know that I am tracking their progress and keeping them accountable. Imagine your patient comes in and tells you their back pain has returned, instead of feeling the sole responsibility to getting them better, you can now check their engagement and address if they have not been keeping up with their core routine. This transfer has changed the responsibility to an equal partnership. Doctor-patient communication has never been easier or more secure with our 2-way messaging system that connects you and your patients. It is much more responsive than email, and the saved communications can become part of the patient files. The biggest benefit of the website is its ability to provide high-quality, personalized and easily-accessible exercise programs which improve the quality of your patients’ lives by helping them manage and prevent the pain and disability associated with MSK weakness. Ongoing support and feedback, as well as the ability to access the exercises on their own time will empower your patients to stay active between visits and to have a more direct role in their own health. This year we are integrating with your Genesis patient management software. This will allow you to click prescribe exercises right from the patients SOAP notes. A seamless, quick method to further your patient care without slowing you down. For any questions about the MyRxX service, or for further information, please email me personally. I would be happy to connect with you and your team. Feature Benefit Benefit of Benefit 2 Click Prescription Fast Save Time White Labeled Exercises are with your branding Easy to contact, easy to refer Drop down searching No exercise Knowledge necessary Accurate Doctor prescriptions Views See how many times your patient is exercising. Able to motivate and create accountability with your patient. Leads Keeps potential patients separate from patient list. Allows for 1-click prescription to large groups of patients. (ie. Giving a running group stretches) We recommend giving exercises to everyone you meet. It becomes your electronic business card. Messaging 2-way communication between you and your patients Keeps you and you patient connected. Patient feels taken care of even when they are not in your office. Progressions (up to 7 levels) Help patients rehab and get stronger Easy to choose the next exercise by searching for the next level Customizable Allows you to create your own programs Create programs that work for your patient demographic, or simply name the exercise after your clinic. Patient Mobile Patient sees exercises on phone, tablet. Exercise anywhere. Doctor Mobile Send exercises from your phone Treat from anywhere. 1 License for a clinic of doctors & therapists Unified look for the clinic, split fee Low cost Daily Living Videos Self -searchable videos of ADL Help prevent injuries Motivational Email Patient is reminded of your recommendations Patient is more likely to exercise. Functional Exercises Rehab based that are real world Patient gets better with no injuries Transfer to Chiropractic Assistant Manager can Rx exercises on behalf of the doctors Now you pass a note and move on. All Workouts created by all doctors are shared and available to everyone Everyone contributes to the rapid organic growth of the workout library Learn from others with greater expertise. Dr. Scott Levine has been practicing Chiropractic for 18 years.
Dr. Dan Yachter Podcast – Success Principles
Dr. Dan Yachter Podcast about Success Principles View all of the available podcasts on our Chiropractic Leaders Podcasts page.
The Three Components of Business – People, Processes, & Technology
We’ve talked a lot about managing a practice and creating a successful patient experience. We’ve also demonstrated how we can operate our practices in the same manner as Big Business runs their operations to be more effective, thereby increasing our bottom line, decreasing no-shows, and achieving higher patient retention. Now, we’re going to go over how this all comes together in your daily practice through the three components of business – people, processes and technology. People – The people, i.e. your staff, are the first component of any business. You have to be able to answer the questions of “Who are the people I can rely on?” and “What are their strengths and weaknesses?”. Once you have answered these questions you will be able to assign responsibilities to each staff member that will ensure the most effective operation of your practice. Processes – Your “Processes” section will be extensive. This is where you need to have every task to complete a successful day broken down into simple steps. Imagine a new patient comes into your office. What actually has to happen? What do you say to them? What paperwork do they have to fill out? What different options will you present to them? Every single step has to be documented. This is where big businesses like the Ritz-Carlton really set itself apart by creating an unrivaled experience. You can too, if you are diligent about your processes. We talked before about how just to make the bed at the Ritz-Carlton, the housekeeper has to complete over 30 steps on their checklist. The process is broken down into these tasks to make sure that every bed is perfect, every time. By simplifying your processes into each of the component steps needed to achieve perfection, you can manage your patient experience at the highest possible level. Technology – The final component of business that brings it all together is technology. Without proactive software capable of finding the tasks needed to be completed and assigning them to a staff member, companies like Amazon and Zappos would not be known as the leaders of the customer experience that they are today. Thanks to the technology they employ, the Ritz-Carlton can keep track of each and every preference of their guests, down to how they like their steak cooked. They know you are coming and know your name before you even step out of your car. Without their technology, achieving their “Gold Standards” would be much more difficult, less scalable, and harder to track for the Ritz-Carlton The technology component of business is vital to bring the people and process parts of the business together. It automates the tasks and makes it simple for the people in your business to follow the steps you have created. And, it makes following the three rules of managing a business or team effectively that we talked about last time achievable, through processes of quantifying, delegating, and verifying. People, processes, and technology…these three components of business must function together at the highest possible level for you to create the best patient experience possible. When you have the right staff members assigned to the tasks that best suit them and each part of your processes broken down into the number of tasks needed to complete them successfully, you have started on the right track. Adding in the final component, a proactive technology, brings it all together and manages the tasks of quantifying, delegating, and verifying. Now, there is no limit to the success of your practice. Don’t miss our next post where we’re going to talk about how to start the journey of creating both your dream practice and your dream life.
Revenue: Workflow Dictates the Money
How Do You Track Unpaid Insurance Claims in Your Chiropractic Practice? Chiropractic Practices rely on separate reports to keep track of Insurance Claims that are either paid, rejected or unprocessed. Are all of your claims being paid as they should be? How do you detect if the insurance companies are deliberately underpaying your claims? Imagine never using a report to find out which claims are paid and which are not. Imagine a tool that tells your billing staff exactly which claim is unpaid and for what reason. Imagine that this process was automatic. Imagine 100% follow-up with every insurance claim. Imagine the increased revenue for your Chiropractic Practice when you correct and submit every insurance claim. Well, imagine no more. The tool is called Genesis Workflow and you can learn about it in this 18 minute webinar. It will be time well spent.
