3 Reasons for Chiropractic Membership-Based Care Plans

More than a decade after the passage of the Affordable Care Act, the US healthcare system remains in transition. One model that emerged in the wake of the ACA was the growth of membership-based care plans.

While these first appeared as “concierge” plans, where people of means could secure special treatment from doctors of choice for a high monthly fee, chiropractic membership plans have now become more accessible to a wider population.

Here are four reasons that membership-based plans are beneficial to your business as a chiropractor.

1. Eliminate Insurance Headaches

All medical providers will cross paths with insurance companies at some point as they deliver care to patients. Dealing with the insurance process is a complicated matter that adds costs and complexity to your practice.

While you deliver care to patients, you need staff with experience in coding and claims processes. Without accurately navigating that system, you won’t get reimbursed in the timeliest fashion.

Chiropractic memberships offer opportunities to reduce or eliminate insurance headaches. The terms of payment—a monthly fee in exchange for a certain number of visits or other benefits—are between you and the patient alone. There is no third party involved.

In theory, you could leverage subscription-based plans to convert to an all-cash-based practice and thereby reduce your claims and coding overhead to zero. In practice, “it takes discipline” to keep costs low, even within a cash-based practice.

But membership plans can help limit your insurance headaches by streamlining various elements of the business side of your practice. For example, true multi-location practices can get a high-level picture of cost drivers at every site in their system.

2. Save Patients Money and Deliver More Predictable Revenue

Insurance benefits for chiropractic services can vary significantly from company to company. A patient may need to see a chiropractor more often than their insurance will allow.

Membership plans can balance that need. Since you are asking patients to buy a certain number of visits per month in advance, you can lower the cost of each individual visit and save the patient money over the long term. It also gives the patient peace of mind knowing that they have visits that they can use if necessary.

The predictability of the revenue helps make up for the lower per-price visit, as it takes less overhead to administer the plans. All you need to do is keep the patient’s card on file and arrange for it to be charged every month.

Subscription-based models enable chiropractors to position themselves differently and structure their services around their patients. For instance, a membership-based chiropractor in Gadsden, Alabama, has altered hours and built a practice that more closely resembles a gym. Part of what enables that move to innovate is the ability for chiropractic memberships to deliver more predictable revenue.

3. Have More Time to Spend with Patients

Chiropractic membership plans help doctors get back to what attracted them to the practice of medicine in the first place: caring for patients.

By shedding a few of the administrative burdens of the practice, particularly in engaging with insurance companies, chiropractors free up more time to spend with patients. That, in turn, has major benefits. Patients do not feel that they are being rushed out the door. Since they are being heard and listened to, they get the motivation to keep coming back.

For doctors, membership plans also take off the pressure from insurance companies to see more and more patients. Insurance companies set their rates based on certain estimates of patient volumes. If those volumes fall below those estimates, the reimbursement rates start to get unbalanced. But when doctors run an all-cash practice, they don’t have to answer to the insurance company’s concerns or considerations.

Choose the Right EHR/Practice Management System to Support Membership Plans

Chiropractic membership plans can simplify your business, but they still have to be managed effectively. Technology such as the right EHR/practice management system can help.

CHIROSPRING is a combined platform designed to address the specific workflow concerns and considerations of the chiropractic practice. Using this platform, you can track revenue from membership plans and make forecasts to help plan your needs for staffing and supplies.

The platform streamlines billing by providing automated and auditable bills to patients. ChiroSpring also provides modules that offer efficiencies in scheduling, patient flow, development of care plans, and other key areas of practice.

Whether you’re an all-cash practice relying on membership plans or a hybrid practice that also works with insurance, ChiroSpring can be configured to meet your needs.