Reduce Patient No Shows
For chiropractors lost income due to patient no shows and the problems associated with rescheduling can be daunting. It is a dilemma that has perplexed practitioners for decades whether a patient was supposed to arrive for their first or a return visit.
There were attempts to use electronic schedulers to ensure appointments would be kept in order to maximized patient care and protect the integrity of chiropractic billing. But the electronic schedulers lacked the sophistication that allowed them to be fully integrated with the doctor’s practice. They were merely enhanced organizers and not an active part of the scheduling process.
Problems Identified
The basic problems from missed appointments and how they affected chiropractic billing were fairly clear. With the average rate of no shows in a practice averaging 30%, a chiropractor who saw 20 patients per day would average 6 no-shows. At $30 per visit, the doctor would lose $900 per week and more than $45,000 per year.
Plus the lost visits create a rescheduling nightmare and concerns regarding the continued well being of patients and patient loyalty. Chiropractors and companies hoping to help them solve their scheduling problems had to make the scheduling system much more efficient and dynamic.
Integration Key
Billing Precision was a company that focused its energies on solving the chiropractic billing dilemma that resulted from so many missed appointments. The challenge was to greatly reduce no-shows and un-billable appointments by creating a new type of billing system. The overall intended results were designed to make offices more productive and efficient.
The results of developing and offering an integrated system included:
- A scheduler that automatically called to remind patients a week and/or a day prior to their appointment.
- The ability to see if insurance coverage would be in effect at the time an appointment was put into the schedule.
- Easy to read end of the day summations for no-shows, unbilled and unbillable appointments.
- Better use of office personnel time and a reduction of office costs.
Going Beyond Electronic Paper
Early management schedulers were little more than electronic diaries. The real solution lay in a web-based system that could be configured for individual offices and fully integrated with every aspect of scheduling.
Features of such a system that works successfully are clearly evidenced by software created by companies such as Precision Billing. These included:
- Programmable reminders.
- Point of Service alerts for co-pays, unpaid balances and referrals.
- Simple and clear color-coded identification methods for types of appointments.
- The ability to schedule from various sites and for numerous providers.
- Detailed reports related to all scheduling aspects, including daily schedules, load reports, missed appointments, free time, canceled appointments and more.
- The integration of patient demographics, billing and Electronic Medical Records documentation.
Complexity Simplified
Chiropractic billing, which has always been an amazingly complex and time-consuming part of a practice, has been simplified and streamlined by web-based software and programming. This has made for a much more efficient and productive scheduling system with the result being a better use of office personnel and time, fewer missed appointments and a more cohesive and healthier patient base.
