3 Common Profit Leaks That Cost Chiropractors Thousands of Dollars While some chiropractors need to get more patients in the door to grow, most established practices can find significantly increased profits by focusing on firming up their systems and preventing revenue leaks. In fact, most chiropractic practices have an average of 25-35% profit leak without ever knowing or doing anything about it. In the doctor’s defense, there is a lot to manage. There’s providing patient care and building those relationships, monitoring staff, taking care of SOAP note documentation, making sure the business is compliant, marketing the practice, accounting, running all day to day operations, and at least a dozen other details that require daily attention. Without solid procedures, systems, and tools in place, everyday tasks will start to wear you down and dry up cash flow. The sooner you identify these problem areas, the sooner you’ll be able to identify where your business is leaking revenue. Then and only then, you’ll be able to find solutions and improve your revenue cycle. Since we have worked with all types of chiropractors for several years, we have identified the 3 most common profit leaks seen in a chiropractic practice. 1. FRONT DESK PROCEDURES Many docs make the mistake of viewing the front desk primarily as their “customer service” center. Consequently, their opinion of a successful employee at the front desk revolves around a bubbly personality, a friendly face, and a welcoming smile. While these features are indeed helpful to have, chiropractors also need to appreciate that the front desk isn’t just the face of your chiropractic practice—it’s a critical data entry point to ensuring complete and accurate collections, appointment scheduling, and a host of revenue producing activities. In that respect, the front desk staff have unique opportunities to verify or confirm patient insurance information, obtain important patient demographics, convey past due balances, discuss billing options, and collect payments over the counter to produce the best possible results on your collections and accounts receivable. Great front desk staff actually make the billing cycle shorter, reduce A/R and help you get paid better for what you are doing by proactively eliminating time consuming tasks that often get pushed onto the already overworked billing department. On the other hand, without efficient front desk processes in place, your A/R will always be higher than it should be as staff are missing an important window to address payment issues and prevent billing problems for your patients and your practice. To make matters worse, poor front desk systems will not only affect your collections, they will even handicap your services as appointments be missed and not rescheduled, care plans are ignored, and necessary services fall through the cracks. If you don’t have an All Star in your front office then you had better have an A+ billing team to cover their tracks and resolve billing issues to ensure maximum reimbursements. A Best Practice will have both. How dangerous can poor front desk procedures be? Some quick math can reveal the disastrous potential. According to industry stats and surveys, the average chiropractor sees approximately 100 patients per week and is 80% insurance based. That’s 80 or so patients a week who owe copays, coinsurance, deductibles and/or past due balances. If you take an average patient … read more →
Did you know that 50% of chiropractic offices close within 5 years? That staggering number has a lot to do with time wasted on processes that could easily be automated. Chiropractic software is designed to make your office less stressful, more efficient, and (most importantly) more profitable. It also… read more →
Chiropractic billing and reimbursement can often appear simple at one moment, but then become maddeningly complex the next. Most chiropractors are familiar with the codes required for billing, but often are not fully aware of the complexities and nuances that lead to reimbursement or denial. In this installment of “Ask… read more →
25 bright marketing ideas Practitioners, consultants share their marketing tips How will you market your practice in 2006? Chiropractic Economics asked practitioners and marketing experts to share their ideas with us. We picked 25 of the hottest tips to help you kick-start your marketing effort in the New Year. Our… read more →
The Internet has drastically altered the way in which information is shared, and has had a profound impact on marketing. Over the past few years, there has been more of a shift toward inbound techniques, while many outbound tactics have become antiquated. More businesses are finding success publishing original content… read more →
What is the most cost effective billing method for chiropractors? Whether you are fresh out of graduate school or you are an established chiropractor, you have probably asked yourself if you should collect your money internally or use a third party billing agency. Deciding on in-house or outsourced billing can… read more →
Location could make all the difference in the world A chiropractor in California is going to have different issues to consider than one in Florida will, even though both are coastal states. Chiropractic has been growing internationally, and there are many more opportunities than there were 10 years ago. Remember… read more →
A Chiropractor’s Guide What exactly does Meaningful Use mean in the chiropractic world? “Meaningful Use” means chiropractors must show they are using certified EMR/EHR technology in ways that can be measured significantly in quality and quantity. However, EHRs are often capable of doing much more than just recording information. The… read more →
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