3 Steps to Keep Your Practice Alive During the Pandemic | Podcast Ep. 224

Foreign. Hello and welcome to the Evidence Based Chiropractor. I AM your host, Dr. Jeff Langmaid. On today's episode, I've been getting a ton of questions about telehealth, how you can implement in your practice. Today we're going to break down the three simple steps you can take to get started even if you're not tech savvy. The two ways chiropractors can get paid to provide value virtually and one way that you can booking appointments immediately. That's what we are going to break down on today's episode and talk a little bit even about insurance and billing. So last week's podcast episode we kind of talked telehealth at a high level. But today, as I said, we're going to talk about three simple steps that you can use to get started even if you are not super tech savvy. We're going to talk about two ways that you can get paid to provide a ton of value for people in your community and then one way to start booking appointments today. So three, two, one here, Three steps to get started even if you're not tech savvy. Step number one, decide on your technology. Talk about that in a second. Step number two, decide on what services you're going to provide. And step number three, promote those services. So let's start right there. Decide what technology to utilize. Last week we talked a lot about Doxy Me, D O X Y dot me. I also went through and did a video walkthrough and we'll be posting or it will be posted by the time you listen to this. A demo of what it looks like to actually do a telehealth visit on Doxy we found it. I don't have anything to do with the company. I just found it as a tool that is really, really well designed, it's really, really easy to use and your patients literally just have to click a link like they don't need any special software. There's no confusion whatsoever. And that is critical, right? As long as your patient has a microphone and a camera, aka an iPhone, an iPad, a MacBook, a computer, as long as they have a camera and a mic, then you'll be able to connect with them without any special software whatsoever. I think that's huge. The other aspect of it that's really, really great is that they have a free program or a free entry level platform with Doxy Me. So it costs nothing to get started and it's just really, really nice. So if you haven't checked out Doxy Me, please do so. Or I know that, Jane, the EHR company, they're doing some great things with a telehealth component of their EHR software. There's a lot of stuff out there, so if you find one that works, go for it. But if you do not know where to start, Doxy Me is a great place to start. Step number two are two ways to get paid. Right? And ultimately that is part of this. Providing value for the people in your community is one thing, but making sure that you can create revenue, especially while your patient volume is dramatically down, is super, super important. So there's a couple ways, two ways to get paid that I think are some of the most important. Number one is, is at home care giving recommendations for at home exercise. And we'll talk about that more in just a moment. And the second way to get paid are ergonomic assessments, workstation assessments. Right. Millions of people are working at home and their workstations are probably less than ideal. But let's hit that first one first. At Home care recommendations. Almost everybody that's probably listening to this podcast recommends people to do stretches and or exercises at home, potentially. You even have talked to Josh Satterley, Clinic gym Hybrid, and you're utilizing that in your practice, but maybe not as much right now. At Home Care recommendations, super, super important. We know it's important to overall patient outcomes, but don't hesitate to think of it as a way that can create monetization, income and revenue for you and your practice during these times. Hopping on a telehealth visit, doing a movement assessment, or understanding what the pain points literally are that your patients are struggling with. And then recommending at home care is one way that you can provide value and get paid. I've said it before, I'll say it again. More people are probably having musculoskeletal issues and spine issues right now than they were a few weeks ago. These issues did not go away. If anything, they're exacerbated by the lack of exercise, the stress, the ergonomics, all of those things combined. So now is the time to get out there and communicate with people. Yes. You cannot provide an adjustment over a video connection. I see docs like, well, what am I gonna do? Get creative. But here are some two ways. We'll also break down these two ways. Number one, actually, at home care recommendations recommend exercises. One of the great platforms to do that with is web exercises. They have templates, you can customize your own. They have 3,500 plus exercises. So web exercise, actually something we just recently added into the smart chiropractor. So if you're a member of the smart chiropractor, you're gonna have access to web exercises, complimentary or all new members. During our upcoming enrollment, we will have access to web exercises. You know, we are taking this seriously and doubling and tripling down the value that we provide because that's what we need. We need people out there getting stuff done and helping docs build their practice. There's a time and a place for positioning and position statements and all that kind of stuff. We're about getting stuff done. So building web exercises into the smart chiropractor is one huge avenue. But if you're not a member of the smart chiropractor yet, please check out web exercises independently. Number two is, is ergonomic assessments, as we said as well, many, many people, millions, tens of millions are now working from home and they probably did not have sit stand desks or great ergonomic conditions to begin with. And that leads into repetitive stress, muscular, all the whole kit and caboodle, right? So being able to hop on and provide value, provide ergonomic workstation assessments is super, super important. It can keep people from developing issues, it can calm down existing issues. It is a big, big help and it is a real, real need that you as a chiropractor can take, take advantage of and help people with. Right. And let's talk a little bit about billing on this. Right? So those are two ways you can get paid. Now the question always becomes what code do I use? This is evolving depending upon the state and the carrier. Depending upon what state you practice in and the specific insurance carrier, they may have different rules. This is evolving each and every day. They thankfully right now a lot of carriers are providing parity, meaning they've opened it up and they say we're going to pay just as much for an at home visit than an in office visit, which is great. Other states have opened up their borders, right? So you might be able to see somebody. Especially if you live in a border town right on the border of two states and you have patients coming cross border. This is an opportunity to connect with them even though they might not be in your state. So what does that mean practically? I think two separate items. Number one is this is a real opportunity to transition to cash. So cash fee for service. You know, cash services are great. You're not going to be limited or, you know, held up to these crazy copay. This is a conversation for you to have, you know, internally and make the decision. But I'm going to encourage you. If you've never thought about cash or want to do more cash services, this is a real opportunity to do that. Now, if you are just bent on Insurance and 99% of my business is insurance, I don't know how to do cash. I don't want to do cash. Well, here's the simple steps. Call up the top two to three carriers that you see your patients having in your practice. Literally call up the carriers and ask them, what are you currently doing with telehealth? How do I bill and code and document appropriately to get paid and what's the reimbursement? Very simple questions, but just literally call the top two or three carriers and get going and take action. Just because you take insurance does not mean, oh well, I take insurance. I guess this doesn't apply to me. No way. Your practice still needs income and revenue and you can still provide value. You might have to do an extra step or two to get there. So those are the couple steps to get paid. Incidentally, I'm also going to be interviewing Mike Massey, who is an expert in billing and coding. We're going to put up some more information from him as we get it. Third thing we're talking about today is the one way to start booking appointments today. So you got your technology set, hopefully using doxy, Me or something simple similar, you understand? Okay, two ways to get paid. I'm either gonna do ergonomics or I'm gonna do at home care recommendations. Maybe a combination of both. That's cool. So you get that set. Now the question becomes how do you start getting people on your schedule? Which I think is probably the most important question that you could be asking. Having it's one thing promoting it, the other thing. Right. You know, many of us, we have practices and everything else. There's so many docs out there that I always kind of jokingly say, you know, four weeks ago, a lot of docs struggled to market their core competency of come into, get an adjustment and get our care. So switching to telehealth does put a wrinkle in it because it's a new service, it's a new offering, and you have to be sensitive to the times and you have to have a great strategy to fill up your appointment. So one tip or strategy that you can utilize immediately is to email your patients. Yes, it's that simple. Take your email list and send out an email communication and email blast to your email list, letting them know that you're there for them, that you are taking this seriously. And having the proper precautions in your office and that if these individuals are struggling, if your patients are struggling with X or Y, you are now offering telehealth services. Click here to find out more information and to schedule your appointment. With just a few hundred people on your email list, sending something like that out will start to get appointments booked today. Now we're gonna put together a template that you can utilize and that's going to be available if you've signed up for the Calm Campaign C A L M which is a kind of the social toolkit we put together to help you stay consistently communicating with your audience via Facebook, online, email, et cetera. So if you head over to, if you want to pick up that email template, head over to commcampaign.com make sure you get over to calm campaign.com just sign up, we'll give you all the toolkit, but then you'll also get an email that showcases an email template that you can utilize to promote telehealth to the people in your community. So I'd encourage you to get out there and do that. That email blast can make a huge, huge difference. Now don't think that just a single email, a single post or a single Facebook video is going to do it. This is again going to come down to consistent communication. It's what we've been talking about at the Smart Chiropractor for years upon years upon years is getting out there and consistently communicating with the people in your community is critically important. Monthly campaign and not being scatter shot or you know, consistently inconsistent and sporadic with your messaging, having a plan, a monthly campaign, weekly topics and daily posts. Those posts could be videos, social graphics and or scripts. They all have calls to action. This is what we do with the Smart Chiropractor Social media posting for you, video scripts given to you, videos done for you. In addition, we've built out the entire telehealth module. So if you are getting ready to start or have started telehealth, let us help you fill your appointments. Let us help you get out there and maximize your time. I'll just say it, quite frankly, 99.9% of chiropractors cannot do this efficiently and effectively themselves. So let us help you with the content marketing. We are experts in automated content marketing. We would love to help you and your practice. If you want to learn more about that, head over to thesmartchiropractor.com and you can check it all out there. But make a consistent plan. Get emails out at least weekly talking about telehealth. Get posts out at least three to four times a week talking about telehealth. Do videos at least three to four times a week showcasing telehealth. It takes consistency in messaging, it takes consistency in outreach to get results. You have to be able to take consistent action. And if you need help having all of that content to do that and you want it automated for you even better, then Visit us@thesmartchiropractor.com if you have any questions about telehealth whatsoever, hit me up. Jeff at the Evidence Based Chiropractor. I am happy to do my best for you. And also if you have not, head over to. Com campaign. That's going to be a free social toolkit. You also make sure that you get all of the email templates, et cetera, that we're going to put out over the next week or so. So I hope you have a great day and I will talk to you soon.

Thank you for joining us on this episode of the Evidence Based Chiropractor. If you want to grow your practice, come back for next week's episode. If you want to grow faster, visit the evidencebasedchiropractor.com and join our MD Marketing membership today.