382- Predictive Analytics, AI, and Your EHR

Welcome to the Evidence Based Chiropractor, where each week we deliver the latest chiropractic research and marketing strategies all in the time it takes to get to your office. Now here's your host, Dr. Jeff Langmaid.

Hello and welcome to the Evidence Based Chiropractor. I AM your host, Dr. Jeff Langmaid. On today's episode, I have an awesome interview. I had the opportunity to sit down just a few days ago with Brian Alberry at Kairo Spring. Kiro Spring is an EHR company. They are doing some awesome things in the space of AI, in the space of understanding what I like to call predictive analytics within an ehr. Nothing that I've ever seen before. They're also supporting this episode. So if you want to check out what they have going on and I'd.

Encourage you to do so, keep head over to kyrospring.comoffer.

That'S kyrospring.comoffer. they will hook you up with a $50Amazon gift card for doing a demo with their team. I'll drop that link down in the show notes, but stay tuned for a really insightful interview with Brian Alberry of Cairo Spring.

Let's pick it up with something. I'm going to, I'm going to make a little bit of a left turn. You and I talked in memberships. They're a component of Cairo Spring. I love the idea of recurring revenue in a chiropractic practice. You're one of the first people I've talked to in the software world that's really taken that to heart and embedded it into what you do. Spend a few moments and elaborate on. Why did you think memberships were so important to include in Kairo Spring? And what can docs expect with how it sits and lives within your ecosystem?

Yeah. So, Jeff, I mean, that's a great question. You know, the first thing I want to focus on is that any feature that we roll out in chiropring has a lot of thought behind it. We don't just roll out a feature just to say, hey, here it is, we want the feature to work in your practice. And not only that, but kind of set it and forget it. And you know, you just touched on recurring revenue. That's what, that's everybody's dream. You know, look at, you know, car washes, cable cutters, your Netflix, everything is a subscription now. In the industry, chiropractors for years have suffered with reduced rates from insurance reimbursement. They've suffered with, hey, we have to submit a claim three times or fight a denial to get reimbursements. And there's a lot of effort that goes into that. What chiropractors, when I'm told, and what we've heard is, is that they want a better way to service their patients. And we've created memberships as a win win opportunity. So here's how they work. So first of all, we made it easy for the patient. They can go to the doctor's website, they can see that there's a membership opportunity. They select the membership, which by the way, Jeff, the doctor customized those so they can, you know, gold, silver, bronze, whatever they want. And then it asks for their credit card information, something that the doctor is going to want. So this is a true engagement opportunity. They enter their credit card details and that goes right into chiropracting. Now, from there, the memberships are tracked and you can set it as a use it or lose it option, which if you don't want to do that, you can also choose not to. But that's a true reoccurring revenue model. So if you do four adjustments a month for call it 100 bucks, if they only come in for three, the software automatically writes off that remainder. So just a, just another opportunity for the docs.

I absolutely love it. Last year I released a book called the Payday Practice which is all around building recurring revenue in a practice. So you are speaking my language. Everybody listening and watching has heard me talk about this so often over the last few years. I love that there's a software solution that makes it super easy. Now when you said chiropractors, I know a little bit about the behind the scenes. So I want to talk about some of the goal. You have chiropractic in the family and I would love to tie that to some of your original goals when developing Cairo Spring. Doing software is no small deal. It is a big project. But as I understand it, and you can set the record straight, there's maybe some personal pain in the family for some of the other softwares out there that led to the development of such a physician and patient focused ehr, which is known as Cairo Spring. So what's the history there?

Yeah, so I mean, absolutely, you touched on it. Pain is what really drove us. And for listeners out there, my wife is a chiropractor, Dr. Chrissy Alberry. I just happen to be, if you want to call me, a tech geek that just loves technology. So it was kind of, you know, the two elements necessary to build a great company. And when she was looking for software, and this was 11 years ago there truly was not anything in our opinion that was decent. You know, there were options out there. Most of them are server based at the time. So what we did is we set out on core criteria, ease of use. So that's number one complete system. I don't want people to have to go and have three or four different modules to run their practice and affordability and then really just mobility, cloud based access anywhere. So from that we worked and we built a company and now we service over a thousand practices in all 50 states and we're also the highest rated system in the industry. So I'd say it's gone pretty well.

I would definitely say so. And one of the things that I noticed, I've cruised around Kairospring.com we'll be sure to drop that link down below as among others. But one of the things I love, love and it might not, it's less, I'm going to say form than function. We're described some of the function, we're going to dive deeper into that so please stay tuned. But the aesthetics are awesome is where I'm trying to go with this. When I look at the big hero image at the top of the website, man, the software looks clean, it looks easy to read, it looks inviting to use. I, as somebody who loves esthetics of software, of design, really appreciate that. I'm curious on any of the background there, how do you think about aesthetics and how it plays a role and how docs interact with it? Because to me it's one of the most important things yet for so many EHR systems. It's so overlooked. What do you think?

Sure. Yeah. So you know, again you're touching on my nerdiness or my, my love for technology and appreciation for user interface. So that is one of the things and I already touched on when we create a feature, we put a lot of thought behind it before we roll it out and aesthetics are high on that list in terms of usability. So you'll find in our application that navigating to different menus is easy. There's a dashboard, there's a virtual front desk. Things just make sense and you know, toggles that you find on modern UIs like iPhones or Androids are present within our system. It's, it's a sexy interface and you know, that's kind of what we're going with the colors and things like that, the scheme, because you're going to use this every day and not just you, not just the doctor, but your front desk staff is using it your cas. Yeah, you know, therapist, anybody really needs to enjoy the system they're using.

Yeah, I could not agree more. And one of the things I think from an ease of use perspective or patients convenience matters more and more as time goes on and us as chiropractors, all healthcare providers really need to be mindful of that. One of the things that I love within the Chiro Spring platform is the ability for online scheduling. That convenience factor is so critical from a patient perspective and it just opens up a world of possibilities from a Dr. Perspective, improving workflow. You mentioned team. I love all of that. Let's dive a little bit deeper onto the online scheduling component within Cairo Spring. Why did you think that was a feature that was so important to have? What have you seen for results? How should docs be thinking about that?

Yeah, so, you know, first of all, online scheduling comes in a lot of different forms and it's not really true online scheduling unless you have the ability to customize your calendar on the user interface side. So the doctor should be able to put in their work schedule, block off times they're not there, vacations, lunches, so forth. Furthermore, they should also indicate times where they're willing to see new patients and times where they're willing to see, you know, just repeat visits, adjustments and that sort of thing. Some docs like to schedule 3, 4 across in a given time slot. So it's very flexible. But really, Jeff, what I consider true online scheduling is when a patient can go to your website, select the time, date, service and book that appointment and have it go right into the ehr. And that's what ours does. So it'll automatically appear on the calendar as long as that patient's in your system. Now if they're not in the system, just add them. And there's a little, you know, cue where you can add the patients that are not in the system.

I love that that is a critical point. And I want to reiterate that for everybody listening and watching, really having the true integration as Brian just described. When you have what's reflected on your website being a reflection of your real calendar that's fully customized for you and makes it easy for the patient to hop on. This leads into a perfect transition to where I wanted to go next, which is once a patient gets in the system, you have what's called the growth hub. And this is really a fantastic opportunity for practices to stay connected with their patients. Maybe spend a few moments just describing what the growth hub is and what docs can expect from a benefit point of view when they begin using it.

Yeah. So it's, it's an excellent question. One thing that a lot of doctors don't really, you know, they, they're busy, they don't stop and think about, hey, I get a patient in the door, but I need to nurture that patient. There's a patient journey that takes place. And what our growth hub has done is first of all, it's fully integrated. You don't have to go and use an external vendor that, that sends messages and that sort of thing. There's lots of those, by the way, they're more expensive. But our growth hub does several core things. So first of all we're going to get patient messages, reminders, they're going to be sent out automated. You can customize reminders on a per patient basis, which is really cool. You can also do birthday messages. So if you want to say happy birthday, that's great. But if I said, hey, happy birthday, by the way, your football team just won, that's great. Patients are, they're surprised, you know, that the doctor would take the time to do that. So that's covered. Patient reviews are becoming increasingly more important, more, more so now than ever. Just like when you're looking to find a great place to eat, people are turning to Google and reviews to find their chiropractor and Google ranks those who have more reviews, they give them a higher ranking. So naturally you're going to want an automated system to get those. So we've got that now. What a lot of systems also fail to have is patient recall and marketing again both built into our system. We have beautiful templates you can create with our editor. Any emails you want, campaigns like that, lead management, it's all there. And again the main take home point, it's integrated and two way chat. If a patient's running five minutes late, they can text you. It goes right into the system and you can respond back within seconds. It's awesome.

Yeah. The two way text feature is incredibly powerful. Really being able to communicate with your patients as Brian just described in A Moment in Time, those sort of transactional text, you know, aside from the relationship building and some of the campaign structure that can happen behind the scenes really from an immediate impact in your practice. If you are not utilizing a tax based solution again, I'm going to encourage you to head over to chiroping and check it out because this is something that can make an impact in your practice literally tomorrow. We all deal with patients every day that are late, need to reschedule, just the host of things that's running a chiropractic practice. So being able to have automated when needed and yet personalized when needed solutions with real time communication is so, so powerful. I love it. Brian, it looks like you had something to tack onto there.

Well, I was just going to say, I mean everybody wants immediate response today and to be able to text and have, have the office respond within seconds, it's engagement and patients can go somewhere else easily and, and when they feel engaged, they're going to have more stickiness, they're going to come in and, you know, tie that back into the memberships. Right. They're going to come in more for that. So it's really just having. And that's where the 360 name came from, by the way, Jeff. Chiropring 360. It's the entire circle, the patient journey from finding you on the website, the reviews, getting your forms filled out, seeing you for the visit, quick notes, all those things and then re engaging them through engagement.

Yep, that is, that is a great way to put it. We've talked on this podcast a couple times about the patient journey, being able to guide it. So having an EHR that can actually step into that role and provide much of that guidance, so, so powerful. One of the things you mentioned is, you know, with the real time communication, being able to potentially generate a recall, a reactivation, a new member to the. That you decide to offer. And that all ties into billing. You know, one of the things that I noticed within Cairo Spring was integrated billing. And this is a question I think a lot of docs have when they sign up with an ehr, because people listening have. They span the gamut. Some are cash practices, some are insurance based, some do mostly PI, et cetera. And some softwares out there have had difficulty really integrating billing in a way that just works, I guess. And it seems like a herculean task. You guys have taken it on and really done a great job with it. For the docs listening, maybe spend a moment or two just describing the integrated billing capacity within Cairo Spring. So docs know what to expect once they get up and running.

Yeah. So first of all, you touched on, really a core belief is that billing is terrible. Just in a nutshell, just from the submission process to the denial process, to the why is this rejected? And oh man, it's 180 days and now I'm not getting paid. And really, come on, it's a nightmare. So we have done a lot of work, Jeff, to make sure that the billing is simple and There's a couple things that, you know, the listeners on this podcast should really pay attention to. First of all, when you're creating your, your SOAP note, it'll walk you through the process. We have over 50 templates, and a lot of those will walk you through the process for compliance. So to make sure that you're compliant, that's, that's a big one. So if you ever get audited, you want to make sure you're compliant. The second one is that things like diagnosis, diagnosis pointers, charges those automatically copy over visit to visit. They're easy to change. But where chiropring really shines is with two tools that we offer. Advanced claim scrubbing, which means we're scrubbing your claims, which, by the way, are automatically created when you complete your note, so no added work. We're scrubbing those claims for a lot of things. Not just basic things like missing birthdays, but if diagnosis pointing to a code that doesn't make sense, invalid NPI numbers, modifiers, missing, that kind of thing. So that's there. There's little flags, you can fix them right in the system. This saves weeks of time because if you submit those claims and they get rejected, you're now three or four weeks behind the ball on getting paid. Now the next thing, which we're the only system that I've ever seen had this. We invented this. We have an AI claims assistant, Jeff, and this is amazing. We're taking millions of data points from claims submitted by our customers, analyzing them based on the insurance carrier, and we're telling the doctors the likelihood of reimbursement. So imagine if a patient comes in, they want to do some therapy with you, or decompression. Wouldn't it be nice to know if that had a 97% reimbursement chance or maybe a 2%. So these are, you know, at time of, with the patient, decisions that you can make. And you could say, hey, look, we're going to do cash on this. Your insurance isn't covering it. So it's just really the tools that you need to get paid faster.

That's a really critical, really critical point that you brought up. I want to just come back on that because I want everybody listening to really understand what you just said. You guys work with, you know, thousands of practices, you know, doing many, many, many, many visits. Being able to, you know, anonymously and, and, and, and appropriately tap into that knowledge and data is so impactful. There's so many docs out there that send it out and hope for the best, which is like you know, we say hope is not a good marketing strategy, right? Nor is it a good billing strategy. So being able to have not only the system provide a scrubbing capability but also as you just mentioned, really being able to have, I'm going to call it practically predictive analytics so that you can understand how to have an accurate conversation with your patient and that protects you on the back end as a business as well. That right there has the potential, depending upon the size of your practice to equate I'm going to say to 1000s, tens of thousands, potentially even hundreds of thousands of dollars for the larger practices year in not only the ability to head off challenges before they occur, but also being able to provide an even better patient experience because you have all the information to have the right conversation as opposed to trying to deal with it one month down the road, as you mentioned, two months down the road you've costed time and money, you're going back and having an awkward conversation with a patient. And this is a absolute power tool that everybody listening needs to be super in tune with. And I'm going to encourage everybody listening and watching ask who you use with billing right now. Get a feel for what's going on with your own billings because I have a feeling you're going to find a lot of information that is cringeworthy but that also this these two direct systems, the claim scrubbing and the AI claims assistant will directly make an impact similar to two way tax like today. Imagine being able to tap into that knowledge, be able to have a proactive conversation. I absolutely love it. Brian. We've been moving super fast and furious. We barely got the surface of what Kairo Spring can offer. But I want to say thank you number one for coming on and sharing. Number two, thanks for taking the time to really build a software solution that helps a practice run more effectively and efficiently in a very meaningful way as we just described those things. And I also want to encourage everybody listening watching hop on a demo, see what Cairo Spring and how it can impact and benefit your practice. I'm going to drop those links down in the show notes. So regardless of where you're watching or listening, click on down below. Schedule a demo, ask some questions about the claims assistant, ask some questions about the claim scrubbing, talk about the growth hub because these are really important technology steps forward that Kyro Spring is on the forefront of. So that was a long winded way of getting towards. Brian, I really appreciate, appreciate you hopping on, chatting today and sharing everything that Kairos brings about.

Absolutely happy to take the time. Thanks Jeff.

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.