2022 and Beyond
We are all aware that things can change very quickly in today’s business environment sometimes creating a stressful situation, other times creating opportunity. The focus of this consultation is on the opportunity side of things, which if embraced properly will help to reduce or eliminate some of the stressful situations. Interestingly, all the opportunities are available to help you ADMINISTER chiropractic care more efficiently and accurately, none have anything to do with treatment. Here are the biggest opportunities that I see being available to you and your practice in Quarter 1, 2022 (January – March) …
BILLING AND COLLECTIONS
This is a significant one. Right now, most of not all PI and COMP carriers are transitioning to electronic claims management. We can thank a variety of factors, the pandemic being one of them. What this means for your practice is streamlined processes that can help to automate (as much as possible) the system of billing and collections. I have NEVER been a fan of outsourcing the single most important administrative duty in your practice to a company that has tens if not hundreds of clients. These billing companies are just that, BILLING. There is typically a non-existent collections process overtime, it is too time-consuming and costly for what they are charging you. You can insert your own numbers here, but the average chiropractic office sees about 120 visits per week and averages about $65 per visit. That results in a weekly average billing of $7800, totaling $31,200 per month. The average billing company charges approximately 6% which means that every month you are giving them $1872.00 and annually $22,464.00. Now, even in the old days this would be a little steep since the billing company cannot multi-task for you. Billing and collections should only take 5-10 hours per week, that means your billing fees are equal to someone making $45.50 per hour (40 hours per month), you can do WAY better. The devil in the e-billing details was always the attachments since PI carriers require them AND Medicare should be asking for clinical documentation to avoid drawn out audits. That has all changed…I am working with a company for my own practice that will start automating our collections process starting in February 2022. This will allow e-billing WITH attachments, near automated postings and claims tracking. Once you go electronic on PI there is proof of mailing and no BS from the insurance carriers. The overall cost for e-billing is approximately $0.40- $0.50 per claim which would be a considerable cost savings to you and your practice. Over a ten-year period, the average chiropractic office is paying a billing company over $200,000! 2022 is the year to implement a better strategy and take advantage of the opportunity that updated tech and the pandemic has provided us. I will guide you through that after my practice makes all the mistakes. More details will follow in February at the conference.
MARKETING PERSONNEL
There are many misconceptions out there on how to properly market a chiropractic practice, one of them is that you need to hire someone for “outreach”. This is a very important point since many times the idea of having a dedicated employee to conduct your marketing campaign is tempting. There are many issues with this approach but here are the most important ones.
A: When it comes to marketing to the lawyer, they want to talk to the doctor not a representative of the doctor. In this case the marketing professional is not really marketing they are simply setting appointments, you can have your front desk or office manager make those calls during their regular working day for no extra money.
B: When it comes to marketing to the medical community, the MDs want to talk to the doctor (you) and the administrative staff will generally have their guard up. It is important to use the “administrative vs provider” approach when dealing with MDs and we can use staff for that easily without hiring an additional marketing professional.
C: After a while the marketing professional runs out of things to do, you have met everyone and there is little left for them to “discover”. This in turn creates a situation where the rep visits a few offices in the am then goes to Starbucks to hang out until the end of the day. Most of the time it only takes 90 days or so for this to start happening. That is when everyone gets frustrated.
D: The secret to marketing is on the clinical side, a marketing representative cannot do that, you must start with an internal process FIRST then work through appointments. You can easily save yourself $45-$60,000 a year in eliminating a marketing professional. That is a good place to start!
INVEST IN YOURSELF
Today more than ever education is KING/QUEEN. You must put yourself on the pathway that will get you to where you want to be, it is no different than investing and saving for retirement. That path is different for everyone in Chiropractic and in the case of building a large practice with multiple DCs practicing, you need to be on the Spine Management Physician pathway. The pathway includes both stating in touch with the process and the other is education. These are accomplished a few different times during the year in our East and West Coast conferences as well as through the National Spine Management’s Fellowship in Spinal Biomechanics and Trauma. Here are more details including the months that we have these events scheduled.
A: February – Winter Conference – this year we will be at the GalleryOne by Hilton for the 7 years in a row. This is our annual “kick off” conference. This year’s agenda, speakers and registration are listed at the button below. This seminar includes Fellowship Friday with special events scheduled, this year we are hosting a mock trail.
B: Summer 2022 – National Spine Management’s Technique Conference – we are currently planning a chiropractic technique LIVE symposium this summer at Cleveland University Kansas City College of Chiropractic. We are anticipating having access to the Force Lab (high tech adjusting tables) to help gauge proficiency in delivering Chiropractic Adjustments. It is critically important that we continue to test and evaluate proficiency in chiropractic adjusting to continue to work at the highest level possible. Curriculum would include radiographic assessment as well as adjusting patients with spinal implants. Currently reaching out to spinal implant representatives to address the structural integrity of spinal cord stimulators, disc replacements and other hardware.
C: September – Summer Conference – this is the second of National Spine Management’s annual conferences and adds to the information presented at the winter conference. This agenda is released in May/June preceding the conference. This conference is especially important because we have access to biomechanical engineers, neuroradiologists and surgeons unlike anywhere in the country. These professionals are presenting during the Fellowship Friday events. This event is done typically the second week of September in Lehi, UT.
D: September – Spine Management Summit – this is Dr. Edward’s summit at the acclaimed Sundance Resort in Utah. This is by invitation only and centers around Fellowship Candidates and Fellowship Graduates only. The summit includes case discussions surrounding the short and long-term management of spine conditions and includes professionals from all disciplines including spinal surgery, rehabilitation, mental health, hospital administration, chiropractic, and physical therapy to name a few. There is no other event like this in the nation.
We will be kicking off 2022 in a major way with the announcement of our Clinical Advisory Board, updated Fellowship Programming, new corporate sponsors, and an unbelievable partnership with an international academic organization. Below is the most recent Weekly Webinar Broadcast for more details on how to prepare for 2022.
