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As chiropractors we have a natural instinct to heal and help peo-ple get on the road to wellness, and build-ing your practice and

managing it properly is a vital aspect of doing more to achieve the goal of helping and healing the world – one patient at a time. While we are doing our part to help each patient live in good health we still need to make a living; plus, the more successful we are the more likely we can help even more patients.

So often, while our commitment and dedication to our purpose is strong there are only so many hours in a day. How do we find more time; reduce distraction and still stay on top of all the regulations and re-quirements needed to treat patients with our undivided attention; be profitable so we can grow our busi-ness; and stay compliant – all at the same time?

Top Time And Energy Killers

Hiring, firing, and training are some of the most tedious tasks small clin-ics face, tasks that take time away from your patients, cause disorga-nization when getting new team members up to speed, and ultimate-ly hinder you from focusing on how to effectively grow your business to realize your goals for success. Unfortunately, you might find the right people to hire but the tools and software you’re using to run your practice handcuff them from truly helping you find the time and

success you envision. Conversely, with the right chiropractic software even ho-hum employees can help you reach your goals.

Choosing the right practice man-agement and Electronic Health Record (EHR) platform may be the most important “hire” your practice acquires. For a few hundred dollars per month (a fraction of the cost of a part-time biller), the right software can do most of the work needed,

improving your ability to manage your practice, help keep you com-pliant, and ultimately freeing you to focus on strategies to more effec-tively build your business.

How Much Time Is Lost?

For you and your staff, how much time is lost in making sure that patient care, payments and billing, scheduling, et al, are all being done correctly to maximize clinical results and revenue expectations for each patient? How many claims bounce back because they are considered “dirty”? Are you using multiple different software applications to accomplish several different areas of patient care? How much time is lost learning, then training staff on different systems, and then trying to keep track of it all to manually

integrate the management of each patient (including billing, schedul-ing, securing payments, etc. that go with it)?

This lost time represents the critical hours you could be using to better care for patients, or to focus on the marketing needed to monthly add new patients to your practice. Ten or twenty hours per week could be redirected into growth if your software were able to handle most

of the tedious administrative tasks that you no longer would need staff to oversee. In addition to compliant and fast treatment plans and SOAP Notes, your software can make sure that your billing and coding is accomplished properly, thereby im-proving cash flow and streamlining office processes.

The Perfect Hire For PracticeManagement And Growth

Unfortunately, this is a paradox, but finding the perfect hire to help man-age your practice, show compas-sion with a smile to your patients, answer the phone and re-schedule patients properly is definitely pos-sible. However, you won’t find that same hire also knows state require-ments, compliance guidelines, and billing codes; typically, that type of

This lost time represents the critical hours you could be using to better care for patients, or to focus on the marketing need-ed to monthly add new patients to your practice. Ten or twenty hours per week could be redirected into growth if your software were able to handle most of the tedious administrative tasks that you no longer would need staff to oversee.

How The Right Office Software

Can Be Your Best Employee

by Dr. Evan Gwilliam

issue three 2019 • ChiropraCtiC produCts | 13

experience and knowledge is only represented by usually-very-costly practice consultants.

Most of us cannot afford expensive consultants to be on hand day-to-day to make sure we’re keeping a compliant practice, properly billing, and helping us avoid recoupment in the case of an audit. So how do you better manage and grow your practice in a compliant, affordable and consistent way without having to pay consultants a great chunk of your earnings?

Hire The Right Software First

Having the right EHR in place for your practice can make or break the success of your practice, and can be the key element in whether your staff helps you manage your practice, or makes a mess of every-thing. Fortunately, there are now many EHR platforms available that integrate several of the key aspects of the successful management and growth of your practice.

Does your chiropractic software fully integrate every aspect of patient care? Is it easy for your staff to answer patient questions such as “How much do I owe for my care at this point?” Does it automatically tie your SOAP Notes into the unique treatment plan that’s been created for each patient? Does it securely process patient credit card pay-ments and apply it appropriately to visits? Does it help you maintain a compliant practice without extra ef-fort so you get paid, while allowing you peace-of-mind in case of an audit?

Due diligence in selecting the right software for your practice can be the deciding factor in the future growth of your practice, making hiring and training easier; improv-ing clinical results for patients; and providing you with the time needed to plan and implement the stepsrequired for much more growthand much higher earnings.

Compliance – Keeping What

You Have Earned

If a third party decides to audit your practice they may be able to request paybacks in excess of $100,000. For most practices, amounts like this can put you out of business. You and your team put in a great deal of work to help patients reclaim their lives…now imagine an audit hits you so hard that it nearly puts you out of business? It is not right to work so hard just to have an audit take it all away from you due to poor doc-umentation and/or billing. Growing your practice in a compliant way will enable you to continue helping your patients, while staying in the black;all that you really need are the righttools at your disposal.

Compliance is not something to ignore. Luckily there is software that can address many of your compliance issues automatical-ly, thus lightening your load. For example, your staff should not need to review every record to ensure that you’ve properly documented the total time for a code, e.g. 97110 therapeutic exercises. Compliant software should be able to pick that up and prompt the provider to

include those essential details in records that support the billingcorrectly and automatically.

The last thing you want is for a payer to request records and find out that you have been billing for years for time-based codes but neglecting to support it in your documentation. From a time and cost standpoint the nature of an audit like that can be devastating to a practice.

What you need to do is know the rules and have the right tools. The best software can help with both; it can be the tool that solves all of your issues with a wide range of things, from scheduling and remind-ers to billing and clearinghouse reports. And the ideal program will prevent you from breaking the above-mentioned rules. (As it is, you have enough trouble keeping the money flowing in from third-party payers.) If the program can prevent you from submitting dirty claims, i.e. claims that are missing simple things like a patient’s address, that is one less barrier to payment. A compliant practice will run more smoothly and be ready for true

A compliant practice will run more smoothly and be ready for true growth. Especially in the case of compliance, prevention is always better than ignoring it and then risking paying it all back. If your office outlines policies and procedures that keep you from being targeted by regulators it will free up staff to work on other revenue-generating activities.

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growth. Especially in the case of compliance, prevention is always better than ignoring it and then risking paying it all back. If your office outlines policies and procedures that keep you from being targeted by regulators it will free up staff to work on other revenue-generating activities. As they say, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” Software that has been designed with compliance in mind can remove some of the burden of learning how to be compliant and ensure that the office works in a way that follows the rules, without additional training or over-stressing new hires.

Your Software? Your Best Hire?

Hiring, as we know, can be extremely difficult so you need to focus on making sure that you have the right EHR software in place – and think of it as an affordable employee that already knows all the rules. Then, when it comes to hiring a CA or a front desk person, half of the challenging efforts of training are already done; all that is needed then is to show staff how to manage the proper workflow of the software, without expecting them to instantaneously understand coding, compliance require-ments, and the pitfalls that can sink you if audited. Let your EHR be the trainer.

Of course, your personality and the characteristics of your practice are different from every other clinic out there, so it is crucial that you hire according to your own principles, vision, goals, and the particular requirements of your clinic. However, while your style of running your business may be different than others, compliance and require-ments for billing and treatment protocols force us all into the same guidelines. And using a chiropractic EHR that automatically guides you and your staff to be more orga-nized and compliant will allow you more time and free-dom to consider and learn how to grow and manage your practice successfully, and with much more peace-of-mind.

About The Author: Dr. Evan M. Gwilliam, Clinical Director for PayDC Chiropractic Software, graduated from Palmer College of Chiroprac-tic as valedictorian. He is a Certified Professional Coding and ICD-10 Instructor, Medical Compliance Specialist, and Certified Professional Medical Auditor. A clinician with a Bachelor’s degree in accounting and an MBA, Dr. Gwilliam is a sought-after seminar speaker. He provides expert witness testimony, medical record audits, consulting and online courses for healthcare providers, and he has authored and contributed to reference books and articles for many publications.

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