Dr. R. A. Foxworth, FICC, MCS-P
“Don’t Call Me… I’ll Call You,” are the famous last words of a patient who has just completed their last covered visit in your office. Often, cost-conscious patients are focused on their out-of-pocket expenses and not the value of the care they receive in your office. In fact, the lack of a financial report-of-findings in many offices across the country leaves patients to determine what their out-of-pocket expenses for future visits on their own, by reviewing their EOBs.
Does this sound familiar? Mrs. Smith comes into your office for low back pain. She has a $50 co-pay under her BCBS plan. You recommend a treatment plan of 30 visits, 15 of which BCBS will cover. Mrs. Smith receives an EOB with charges per visit totaling $115 per visit. Mrs. Smith is now aware that her $50 visits (with insurance) will quickly turn into $115 per visit once her insurance runs out. Lo and behold, on visit 15 her low back pain is improved. In fact, she hardly notices it all and lets the front desk know that she is feeling much better. Rather than making another appointment, she says she will call your office IF she needs to come back in.
Even the most devoted chiropractic patients are likely to focus on finances instead or results when it comes to the care in your office. That is why a Financial Report of Findings (FROF) is essential to the success of any chiropractic office and necessary to prevent patients from running out when insurance benefits are exhausted. The best way to keep patients happy, improve clinical outcomes, and enhance collections in your practice, is to clearly and openly discuss your fees and payment policy up front. By conducting a formal Financial Report of Findings in your office, you can clearly outline your treatment plan and the patient’s estimated out-of-pocket expenses. If you provide ways to make the care affordable, you have a win-win situation.
ChiroHealthUSA is a simple, compliant and profitable way to offer affordable care to your patients for their non-covered services or when insurance is no longer available. ChiroHealthUSA is a Network that works in conjunction with a Discount Medical Plan Organization (DMPO.) ChiroHealthUSA helps you provide legal and compliant discounts to your patients, often with fees the same, or even less, than their insurance co-pays. It costs the provider nothing to join the network and patients pay only $49 a year, which includes all legal dependents, and YOU get to set your own discounts.
Patients need and want care or they wouldn’t come to your office. Provide a thorough consult and exam, then offer a simple, compliant, Financial Report of Findings and you will find that more and more patients will stop running out along with their insurance. We offer some free tools you can use to show patients how you can help keep their care affordable whether they have insurance or not. To download our simple 1-page financial policy, a simple 1-page financial report of findings, and to learn how to create compliant care plans, CLICK HERE.
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Why is the Discount Challenge prize amount $15,024? Because that is the average “per-occurrence” fine for Medicare inducements. That’s not $15,024 per patient, that’s not per provider, that’s PER VISIT. Stinks, doesn’t it? To us, the prize amount is worth the investment if we can help our profession better understand proper discounting.