Set Your Practice Up for Success in the New Year

by Ray Foxworth, D.C., FICC • 

President & Founder, ChiroHealthUSA • 

Like most of you, I associate the new year with a chance for a fresh start. Actually, I also associate fresh starts with back-to-school time, the first of each month, and, for that matter, every Monday. My point? While the beginning of January is a natural time to finally make the changes you want to see in your life and your practice, the truth is positive change is possible in every moment if you’re willing to see it and seize it. Here are three changes I’d love to see more chiropractors make this year:

1. Fall in love with chiropractic all over again.

When you walked across that stage or platform to get your degree, it’s likely that you had hope, big dreams, and an eagerness to help others with your hard-won new skills as a doctor. Then the realities of being a business owner, in addition to being a healer, set in. You got bogged down in regulations, documentation, red tape, training staff–the business side of running your practice. By now, you may feel you spend more time worrying about and dealing with Medicare and other third-party payers than you do your patients.

2. Get right with your fees.

Do you have an actual fee schedule in place? Did you arrive at it based on actual data, or did you wing it? The financial stability of any practice starts with the UCR (usual and customary) fee schedule. All too often, we neglect to review and update our fees each year. Problems arise when our expenses go up each year due to inflation and our fees stay the same. With current economic challenges, I can guarantee you that you’ve had an increase in overhead, and most doctors will “eat it” rather than consider adjusting their fees. If we are seeing the same number of patients each year, our profits begin to diminish, and we are left wondering, “what happened?” If you are looking for guidance on refreshing your fees, download this whitepaper.

3. Support your staff, so they can support you.

Do you have rock-solid training in place on HIPPA, Medicare, coding, billing and collections procedures, new patient scripting, and patient education? When you get your team up to speed, you’d be amazed at how much less stressful your workday—and theirs–becomes. Just like you, your staff can’t know what they don’t know.

Like you, I was once frustrated that so much of my day was taken up with paperwork, staying on top of regulatory changes, answering questions from confused employees, and just plain worrying that I was missing something critical that could threaten the safety of my business. Like you, I became a doctor of chiropractic so I could help people achieve maximum wellness, not so I could go to battle with third-party payers. Like you, I was heartbroken to turn away patients who couldn’t afford the care they needed but to whom I couldn’t legally offer discounts, or if I did…I put MYSELF at risk! The good news is there is a perfectly legal way to offer discounts to patients that don’t put you at risk. Do your homework and consider a Discount Medical Plan like ChiroHealthUSA.

There are also many resources available to you and your team to help improve processes and make life in your practice more profitable and productive. Check out our website and take advantage of webinars, articles, and other resources.

Dr. Ray Foxworth is a former Medical Compliance Specialist and President of ChiroHealthUSA. He spent over 35 years “in the trenches,” facing challenges with billing, coding, documentation, and compliance. He has served as Chairman of the Chiropractic Summit and currently serves on the Executive Committee for the Foundation for Chiropractic Progress and the Leadership Committee of ChiropracticFuture.org. You can contact Dr. Foxworth at 1-888-719-9990 or info@chirohealthusa.com.