CBP Club! Helping Students Find Their “Why”
This past Friday I had my first ever opportunity to speak to the CBP club students at Life University in Marietta, GA. It has been a few years since I have been back on campus and I was happy to see all of the changes. From the huge cafeteria to the new apartments and day care I could not believe what I saw. The parking deck! Man we could have used that when I was a student. When I was a student we had to park in Roswell and walk to class up hill both ways. 😉 When I left campus 10 years ago the school was in crisis. Accreditation just got pulled and I stuck out of there like Indiana Jones reaching under the rock door and grabbing my hat before it came slamming down. When I got to campus I was graciously greeted by the CBP club president, Ryan Stamp. He recently took over the reigns from the former president Rachel Stockwell. He did a great job letting the students know I was coming and putting on a great event. We had 37 students show up! Great job Ryan! It was a great experience trying to prepare for the talk. It forced me to think about what I could speak about that would help the students the most. It made me really think about how far I have come in the past 10 years since graduation. It is truly amazing how much information I have gathered over the years. If I only knew then what I know now……. Actually there is not a lot I would change. I would have probably just been where I am now in half the time :). Trying to sum up what I have learned or pick some of the most important points was a challenge to say the least. After all I decided to focus what I have come to believe is the most important skill a doctor can learn both from a patient care perspective and business perspective. That being Patient Relationship Management. That is how to help patients realize the true benefits of care and coaching them to the place where they can determine their own reason/s (Their big Why) for committing to life time chiropractic care. From a business perspective I spoke about the 3 types of risks to patient relationships that can be measured in a practice. These are the tings that show the doctor patient may have forgotten their Why. Patient Retention Cash Flow Compliance The other Why was the doctor’s why. Learning why you do what you do is more important that learning how you do what you do. I thought this was important for students. They are always so focused on what to do. CBP docs especially. Hoe to fix a spine, what new patient process to follow… In the real world teaching chiropractic is met with a lot of resistance and without a big enough reason for doing what you do, that little resistance can be enough to discourage a doc right out of practice. At that point it does not matter how good you are at the “how”. We spoke a little bit about the hows too. Communication and confronting objections, billing, chiropractic software (of course), EMR/EHR, SOAP notes, the right forms, etc. I would say that if anything could be learned that would change the potential for success it was finding your big why. Why will you go to the office when you are exhausted? Why will you be willing to confront a patient who has missed a visit? Why are you committed to learning CBP if that is your chosen technique? Why are you willing to help patients find their big why? Or as Garret Gunderson says the “Soul Purpose”. If you are a student or doc and you are reading this, please share your Big Why. Was it a patient or family member who’s life was changed by chiropractic? Was it your own chiropractic miracle? Please share! Maybe if we hear others we can also use them to add to our motivation!
Audit Proof Chiropractic SOAP Note Software and EMR/EHR
I have been in the chiropractic software and billing industry for a long time. Managing a business that develops software to help doctors get paid on time and protect their earnings from an audit is one thing. When your income is tied to your clients income, like it is for many of my clients, that is another thing. I have both perspectives. If a doctor does not get paid I don’t either. If they get audited, and lose, we all lose. A lot is said by software vendors out there about their SOAP notes. They are the “best”, the “fastest”, “bullet proof”. I question how many of them have tried to get a claim appeal won with the notes their systems generates. I can say lots of things if I were just selling software one time but clients of mine buy, or do not buy, every day. When doctors using other software lose and appeal or get audited is their first call to the software vendor? I think not. I would like to share real world experience when it comes to audits and SOAP notes, not hot air that will not help you at all, let alone make you bullet proof. First understand that the biggest money maker (most profitable) for insurance companies today is not higher premiums like you might think. It is Audits. A 13:1 ROI has been reported. If I spent $1 on marketing and got $13 back I would be dumping all of my money into whatever gave me that return. So here is my prediction. You, and your bullet proof notes, are going to get audited. That goes for me too by the way. I made this prediction 7 years ago before doctors really knew what an audit was. The frequency and scope of audits has since skyrocketed and broadened dramatically. So it is coming to a head. Insurance companies are actively building technology, processes, and gathering the man power to efficiently audit everyone and become even more profitable doing it. Here is what will happen, if you ask me. Technology There will be automated technology that scans EVERY SOAP note to look for weak points. Of course that means every insurance company would need a digital copy of every note for every visit. Have you heard of some insurance companies requesting notes on all visits? I have. Sophisticated systems are being built and have been around for years to profile what codes you bill and what you charge. Wouldn’t it be nice if the government mandated that every doctor have an electronic health record? Even better if there was government regulated certification so all the systems worked the same way right? That would really help patients so much. Process More on the levels of audits in a bit. I am already hearing reports in some states where every doctor who billed a specific carrier got an audit letter. Man Power Insurance companies are hiring outside independent contractors to conduct the audits. This gives them basically an unlimited number of auditors. They share a % of the money collected in the audit with these contractors. They are outsourcing claims processing, note review, and appeal processing to India and other countries at a fraction of the cost you would pay to defend against them. All the stars are aligning. Every claim, every note, audited in real time. There is one final automation that will happen and is actually happening already on some level. The technology will “pluck” providers and spoon feed them to audit teams. The audit team will on lower levels be more computers. The computers will generate threatening letters. Some doctors will pay just to avoid the hassle. With this in mind your question should be “How do I minimize the chance that when the technology scans my profile, I do not look like easy pickings”. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Brian_Capra