Any successful DC knows that the secret to running a thriving chiropractic practice involves having patients who return time and time again for your health-related services. But how do you get them to want to continue to walk in your door? You keep them satisfied. Case in point, one article in the Journal of Cutaneous and Aesthetic Surgery reports that patient satisfaction is “a very effective indicator to measure the success of doctors and hospitals,” due in part to its effect on patient retention. In other words, making your patients happy is critical your business success. Sadly, this is sometimes harder than DCs anticipate which means struggling to keep the doors open, even if you are a master in your field. So what can you do to make your patients want to keep you as their primary health provider? The answer is simple. You can avoid the three main reasons patients leave their chiropractor in the first place, and these revolve around issues with billing, scheduling, and service. (more…)
Have you ever walked into a business, saw something, and thought, “Wow! I don’t like that. I’m never coming here again!” Yet you never said a word to the person working about what it was that put you off? If so, you’re not alone. According to Erika Andersen, founding partner of Proteus International and author of Be Bad First—Get Good at Things FAST to Stay Ready for the Future, giving feedback is a struggle for a lot of people. Worries of how a person will react and not knowing what to say are two reasons people fail to speak up. In the healthcare field specifically, there are some pieces of feedback which patients often choose not to share, preventing you from increasing your patient base. Here are the top ten: (more…)
According to the Spine Research Institute at Ohio State University, work-related musculoskeletal issues cost Americans up to $25 billion annually. Low back pain alone racks up as much as $78 billion in direct costs. Altogether, that’s more than $100 billion—a large portion of which is likely spent on chiropractic. (more…)
Finding the right employee for your chiropractic practice is important for a lot of reasons. Green Job Interview, an interviewing solutions company, shares a number of them, ranging from financial (hiring the wrong person can cost you 30 percent of the position’s first year’s wages) to lower office morale to even negatively impacting your relationship with your clients. Additionally, up to 80 percent of employee turnover is a result of hiring the wrong person for the job.
So how do you make sure you get the right employee from the start? This begins with first taking a look at what you’re offering the new-hire so you’re more appealing than your competitors. (more…)
The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) says that “as a general rule, small businesses with revenues less than $5 million should allocate 7-8 percent of their revenues to marketing.” Of this 7-8 percent, the SBA further recommends that half of it should go towards business promotion, of which internal marketing is one important option to consider. So what is internal marketing?
In the simplest terms, Internal marketing involves marketing to your current patients. While this may seem like a waste of time, it’s extremely beneficial because existing patients are easier and cheaper to reach and, if done the right way, they’ll help market for you.
There are many different internal marketing methods. Some offer higher rates of success than others. But the ones most effective can be broken down into five basic categories: digital-based marketing, direct mail marketing, referral marketing, events marketing, and brand marketing. (more…)
Chiropractic Economics reported average gross billing for chiropractors in 2016 was $689,092 and the average total collections were $384,627. What this means is almost half of chiropractors services was uncollected. What would you do with an extra $300,000? Even if you improved your collections rate by 50%, that’s enough for the average chiropractor to buy a new office every year. So as you can see, an efficient collections process is a critical component to the success of your business.
Since the majority of chiropractic patients have insurance, it’s important to focus first on a reliable insurance collections process. The most effective and cost-free way to do this is to manage insurance claims yourself instead of paying thousands to outsource this service. (more…)
You’ve heard it all before: “Take these pills for you back pain and in 2-3 weeks it should be gone.” Well, that’s what the research said, 20 years ago. Now we know back pain episodes are likely to re-occur over time with increased frequency and intensity. So basically any pill you take is like kicking the can down the road.
So here’s the 10 million dollar question: Why do the vast majority of PCP’s prescribe medication for low back pain? Are they expecting different results? That’s hard to believe given today’s epidemic of prescription drug overuse. And how can they be ignoring the volumes of research that tell them otherwise? Regardless, PCP patients deserve to know better ways to managing low back pain. It’s called Chiropractic. (more…)
There are many wonderful benefits of being a chiropractor. Perhaps the most obvious one is that it gives you the opportunity to help people live higher quality lives: lives with less pain and greater levels of health. It also helps that, unless one of your patients has an emergency, you normally get nights and weekends off, an advantage that a lot of healthcare professionals often don’t enjoy.
However, it takes more than just a drive to help others to keep your business doors open. It takes adherence to a few basic “rules” which, when put together collectively, become the formula for true, lifelong success. Doing this will allow you to help more patients while putting your practice miles ahead of the competition. (more…)
Anne Mulcahy, former CEO of Xerox Corporation once said, “Employees are a company’s greatest asset; they’re your competitive advantage.” And it’s true. Having the right staff comprised of motivated and hardworking people can really take your chiropractic business to the next level, enabling you to rise far above your competition.
Yet a lot of employees aren’t quite as productive as they could be, which also means that you’re not as successful as you could be. So what’s causing this issue and, perhaps most importantly, how can you overcome it? (more…)
In May of 2009, the Office of Inspector General (OIG) issued a report which revealed that, out of $466 million paid to chiropractic providers in 2006, “Medicare inappropriately paid $178 million…representing 47 percent of claims.” Put another way, almost one out of every two claims is filed improperly by chiropractors. As the OIG believes, this is a situation where they have grossly overpaid.
The Inspector General further reported that these “inappropriate” payments were due to the claims that were erroneous in one of three ways. First, some were classified as being miscoded (this amount being responsible for $11 million of the payments). Second, some were undocumented (approximately $46 million of the total). And third, the remaining amount ($157 million) were for services considered “maintenance therapy”; a service not covered under Medicare benefits.
So what does this mean if you’re a chiropractor who takes Medicare payments? It means you should be prepared for not if an audit happens but when. (more…)
The chiropractic road to health can be a better way than taking medication. Its safer, natural and treats the source of pain. In most cases its less expensive and may result in faster relief. (more…)
This is a very important chiropractic public service announcement regarding your health. As musculoskeletal specialists, chiropractors know how important 20 minutes of low impact daily exercise and regular chiropractic checkups is for optimal joint and muscle function. So when it comes to living a healthy and active lifestyle, you need to move it or lose it.
Here is a chiropractic poster showing the association between poor posture and common musculoskeletal symptoms. This is a great teaching tool because patients can see how their symptoms are directly related to structural imbalances. Patients can also understand, through this poster, that their pain and symptoms may likely return without correcting the underlying structural cause.
A chiropractic marketing poster designed to get patients to think about chiropractic first before taking medication to treat their pain. Most back and neck pain is mechanical in nature (i.e. muscle and joint function). Drugs may temporarily mask the pain but fail to correct these underlying mechanical problems. Therefore, the only way to prevent mechanically related pain from returning is to correct the underlying mechanical problems. Chiropractors are doctors who can diagnose and correct mechanically related pain through highly skilled adjustments.
Here is a great chiropractic poster that shows patients how often they should receive chiropractic wellness checkups. The chart shown illustrates the relative frequency of wellness visits based on the patients age. It should be used for educational purposes and as guideline for patients to follow. This poster shall not be used as the standard of care for all patients due to the unique needs of every patient.
This chiropractic infograph summarizes a research study showing chiropractic care with medical care is superior than medical care alone. This is a powerful way to educate the public and other health care providers on the benefits of chiropractic services.
Need more patient referrals? Too embarrassed to ask? Use this poster to passively ask patients to refer their friends and family. Patient referrals are your #1 resource for new patients.
