4 Chiropractic Treatment Plan Tips for Running on Cash

The average chiropractor sees 139 patients a week. That’s a hefty workload, especially when you add in juggling patients and managing the paperwork and administrative side of the business.

Between dealing with multiple insurance carriers, third-party payers, and the additional documentation and reconciliation required, it’s no wonder that many doctors spend as much (or more) time doing paperwork as they do seeing patients.

Insurance billing is a major contributor. Whether it’s the doctor or the staff, it eats up time that could be spent on other business goals, and claim processing, disputed claims, and delays in payment all take time and disrupt cash flow.

It’s no wonder many chiropractors have shifted to a cash practice to reduce the administrative headaches, get paid faster, and reduce the time lost to filing and chasing insurance payments.

Strategies for Running a Cash Practice

One of the keys to making a cash practice run efficiently is structuring your chiropractic treatment plan for patients.

For chiropractors, establishing a long-term care plan can help eliminate unpredictable patient load and provide a more consistent income. For patients, care plans help make treatments affordable and lead to better outcomes.

So, how do you structure your chiropractic treatment plan for efficiency? Here are five tips to make things run more smoothly.

1. Structuring Short-Term and Long-Term Goals

Short-term goals for patients typically include reducing pain and restoring normal functions. Once these goals have been accomplished, many patients stop their treatment. By establishing long-term goals and helping patients achieve a better quality of life, patients are more likely to continue with the chiropractic treatment plan.

2. Progress Reporting

The best chiropractic care plans will include regular reporting against goals.

Patients need to be reminded of why they came to your practice in the first place. You need to remind patients at regular intervals about their progress, reduction in pain, and increase in movement or flexibility. You need to proactively demonstrate the clinical progress that patients are making to show them the value of continuing with treatment.

If patients no longer see progression, they can be frustrated and feel like they are wasting their time. Throughout the treatment plan, ongoing education is important to keep patients focused on the long-term benefits of care.

3. Affordable Payment Plans

Every chiropractic practice benefits from regular customers. Creating affordable payment plans as part of your chiropractic treatment plan can keep patients coming back.

Consider these strategies:

• Recurring monthly payments by spreading payments over the course of the care plan
• Initial payment up front with smaller payments as the care plan unfolds
• Discounts for prepayment of the entire course of care

Each of these strategies can enhance your cash flow and provide for more consistent forecasting.

4. Automated Processing

Every time that patients have to pull cash out of their pocket, use their credit card, or write a check, it reminds them of the cost of treatment. Offer to set up recurring payments through automatic electronic deductions and encourage the use of e-payments, such as ACH payments.

Recurring payments help ensure that you get paid on time and encourage patients to follow through with their chiropractic treatment plan.

5. Spelling Out Everything in Writing

Your chiropractic treatment plan should provide a detailed course of treatment with milestones. While much of the language in your plan can be boilerplate or templated, every patient deserves a customized care plan based on their individual health needs.

Besides care plans, you need to provide information about your cash payment stipulations and any recurring charges or subscription plans.

Making It All Work

To make this all work, you need robust and reliable EHR practice management software that’s built specifically for chiropractors, like ChiroSpring.

ChiroSpring makes the entire patient care planning and execution go smoothly. From online scheduling to appointment reminders, online intake and care plans, SOAP notes, billing, and integrated payments, you get everything that you need to run a successful cash practice in one platform.

Approximately 68% of patients prefer electronic payments for medical bills, so ChiroSpring makes billing and processing payments easy. Patients can pay in person, pay online, or set up automatic payments.

When you are running a cash practice, you need a simple way to create and track invoices and statements. That includes the ability to track accounts receivable in real time. ChiroSpring’s integrated payments module automatically posts payments to patient ledgers.

Even though you run a cash practice, you may still need to deal with insurance to varying degrees. Patients may pay you, but they still need documentation to file with their insurance carrier for reimbursement. You need an easy way to create billing and coding information that matches patient care plans that insurance carriers will accept.

Certain cash practices also accept Medicare patients, which must be filed directly from the provider. ChiroSpring automates the billing, tracking, and submission of claims for a more seamless solution.

ChiroSpring is an all-in-one practice management and EHR system built specifically for chiropractors to help them regain face-time with patients, spend less time on back-office tasks, maintain a limited staff, and save operational costs.

To see how ChiroSpring can help you simplify how you manage your practice, reach out to one of our specialists today!