I’m on the road for the next couple weeks traveling for a number of on-site consultations with clients so this blog post will be a summary of random thoughts on the most common questions that repeatedly brought to my e-mail inbox.
1) Chiropractic Audits: a few months ago I received a lovely piece of hate mail to accuse me of trying to disproportionately scare well intentioned, upstanding chiropractors in regards to the possibility of an audit. My latest “tweet” included a post to the most recent findings from Medicare reviews for the states of Nevada and Hawaii. In those two states, chiropractic documentation failed to meet requirements 60 to 70% of the time. Similar posts from other review results in the past were even higher than that and OIG reports even higher still.
I might not be the greatest mathematician, but it seems to me that the majority of chiropractors are not scared enough! If 60%+ of chiropractic documentation is substandard, that means most of you are in trouble or headed down the wrong road. It’s not a great picture for me either. There are roughly 50,000 chiropractors in the United States, so that it would be physically impossible for me to help roughly 30,000 of you get your documentation in order, teach you proper billing and coding, or come to your assistance in the case of an audit. I wish that I would live long enough to be able to help, but with those numbers, some of you are just going to have to suffer the consequences.
For those of you who think slightly more highly of me or take the potential of audits more seriously, now is the time to take action. It is obvious to all that audits are a big business for not only cash-starved government entities like Medicare, but also for insurance companies looking to expand profits by taking your money back. The audit numbers and amounts recovered in post-payment demands are so large that they are virtually beyond comprehension for the average chiropractor.
Since I don’t know most of you personally nor do I care to manipulate the facts to scare you, let me just share a few recent scenarios that came by my desk.
Chiropractic Audit case #1: Medicare audit, six patient, 94% error rate determined; post-payment demands made for 18 months (legal limit for that state). Total bill amounts to only a little over $2000. Big pain in the patootie is that this doc failed a previous audit and now has to submit all claims for “pre-payment review” which means that Medicare doesn’t pay him a dime until they receive and approve all notes and every treatment.
Chiropractic Audit case #2: Auto insurance carrier, handful of patients who were treated for the last 3 yrs on claim (bad state, no limitations statute). Total repayment demand is approx $56,000. Legal expenses totalled $8000 so far. Doctor may also face civil fines.
Chiropractic Audit case #3: Commercial insurance. Re-payment demands made by insurance company after extrapolation (process of configuring an error rate to apply across the board). Demand total was close to $95,000. Insurance in error on reviews in some instances and doctor’s repayment will be significantly less, but she will still have to re-pay. Doctor will likely be kicked off insurance provider list as well. Legal fees approximately $17,000.
Maybe this is all chump change to you and you have a life of leisure that can afford the time and hassle it takes to wrestle with the insurance companies, hire attorneys and formulate your audit defense. The rest of you, take note.
2) Business Building: Don’t chase your customers or patients. Find out where they are going and get yourself or your information in front of them. This simple advice (not mine but I can’t remember who I heard it from) is full of wisdom and potential applications. For example, people who are sick or hurting often go to the medical doctor. How can you get the MD to route them toward your office? Most people work. Which of your patients has a position in human resources or is the owner of a small business with a fair number of employees? Rather than try to come up with some fancy high-powered presentation that you will likely work on for the next four years until you’ve whittled it to perfection, why don’t you just approach people who already know and trust you as patients and see if they can help you make inroads into their company? People surf the Internet. First off, that means you need to have a website too. While the chances of catching random visitors that become patients are slim, but you can stack the deck and give them a reason to come to your site by writing articles, posting videos, and providing other informative content for your community.
Obviously if you are busy enough, you may not need to employ any or even all of these strategies. But for the rest of you, instead of spending time surfing the net do something tangible to improve your web presence. Rather than whining that referrals are down, take a concrete step towards leveraging your patient relationships to increase your referrals on your patience. Instead of sitting in your office hoping patients will come to you, reach out to where they are and bring them in.
3) Success. Keep in mind that your business should be there to serve you and not vice versa. I’ve run into too many chiropractors whose primary purpose seems to be providing jobs for their employees. Worse, I’ve seen too more “successful” chiropractors whose drive to succeed left their spouses, children, health and sanity by the side of the road. A few fortunate ones can come back and retrieve it. But for many once these items are lost, they are gone forever. Take a day off and go play while the weather is nice. Spend the afternoon with your children, the evening with your spouse. Your bank account may not look immediately better for it, but in the long run it is cheaper to stay married, stay healthy, stay sane and not have to pay for years of therapy for your screwed up kids!
As for me, I intend to practice what I preach both working and playing. If you have an Audit or business issue to discuss, feel free to drop me an email. That’s the beauty of the internet, it can be checked anywhere. On the other hand, if you see a bald man not acting his age on a wakeboard at a lake near you, it just might be me 🙂
