177 The Most Expensive Mistakes Chiropractic Clinics Make

Welcome to the KC CHIROpulse Podcast.  

This week’s topic:  The Most Expensive Mistakes Chiropractic Clinics Make

The KC CHIROpulse Podcast is designed for Chiropractic professionals ready to elevate their practice to new heights and is hosted by Kats Consultants coaches Dr. Michael Perusich and Marisa Mateja, both seasoned experts in Chiropractic care and business development.  This podcast provides invaluable insights and actionable strategies to help you create a flourishing and sustainable Chiropractic business.

In this episode, we discuss:

• The top ways you and your staff may be costing you money
• Why proper patient communication can actually increase your profits
• How to eliminate procedures that cost you and replace them with money-making processes
• How your team may be hurting your bottom line
• …and so much more…

In each episode of KC CHIROpulse, we delve into crucial aspects of building a successful Chiropractic practice, covering topics such as establishing a strong foundation, adopting a patient-centric approach, mastering marketing techniques, achieving financial fitness, fostering effective team building and leadership, integrating technology and innovation, and navigating common challenges in the field.

Whether you're a seasoned chiropractor or just starting your practice, the KC CHIROpulse Podcast offers a wealth of knowledge and practical advice to help you navigate the intricate world of Chiropractic business. Join us on this journey as we explore proven strategies, share success stories, and connect with industry experts to empower you in your pursuit of building a thriving Chiropractic practice.

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DISCLAIMER:  The information presented in this broadcast is for educational purposes only and is not intended to offer legal, investment, accounting, or medical advice.  Seek the consultation of a professional for advice in those areas. And remember…your results using this information may be different than described.

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Transcript

Dr. Michael Perusich: 0:00

doctors is your staff costing you money? Hi everybody. Welcome to the KC ChiroPulse podcast brought to you by Kats Consultants and ChiroHealth USA. I'm Dr. Michael Perusich, and I'm joined by my cohost, Marisa Mateja. Marisa, we see this a lot. We see doctors and these amazing practices and either. Because maybe they don't do enough staff development, enough training. They're not paying attention, which is, which is admittedly hard as the doctors, but things are happening behind the scenes that truly could be costing these doctors a lot of money. So I wanted to talk about that today. I know you have a lot of thoughts on that.

Marisa Mateja: 0:37

I do. I mean, there's so many reasons for you know, costly mistakes. So we can dive into those. You know, the very first thing that I think I see is probably poor communication and, you know, it's. It's spending the time that you need as the doctor, as the business owner with staff and talking about what are those good practices for communication with patients, you know, I mean, that's number one, spending the time to evaluate what you're saying with patients, you know, everybody gets busy. We can. You know, all be short sometimes or whatever. We heard that with an office today because they were so busy that sometimes staff gets overwhelmed, right? So being overwhelmed can definitely cause poor communication if we're not careful. So really staying on top of all those things is, is first and foremost for the docs.

Dr. Michael Perusich: 1:32

Well, and lack of coordinated communication, you know, when, when the doctor's telling the patient one thing and then they get to the front desk and the, The staff says something totally different, you know, in a simple example of that. But this happens is doctor says, Hey, if you're sore tonight, I want you to use moist heat, moist heat at home. And then you go to the front desk and the front desk says, Hey, you know, sometimes the doctor doctor recommends ice if you're sore tonight. At home tonight, you know, that miscommunication, that one little piece confuses patients and the minute you confuse patients a lot of times out the door.

Marisa Mateja: 2:08

Sure. It has to be coordinated. So when we talk about coordinated communication, you know, it's really important that everybody on the team is saying the same thing. I mean, it's as simple as that.

Dr. Michael Perusich: 2:19

So what's your, what's your take on this? Do you think, do you think staff should have an idea of what a patient's treatment plan might be?

Marisa Mateja: 2:27

Oh, gosh. Yes, they should know everything. There's, there's no way to keep that coordination of care going or communication or anything with that patient if staff are not involved in what's going to be happening with the patient. So, in my opinion, that's one of the number one things that docs and staff need to do as well. Coordination is talking through why is this patient coming in? What's their condition? Why are they going to be seeing us and what are we going to be doing for them? How are we going to help them through their journey through their wellness and everything? Everything has to be talked about and and shared amongst each other on the team

Dr. Michael Perusich: 3:08

Yeah, and that's a good good way to put it. They have to share that information. So here's another scenario. I just thought of patient comes up the front desk. They just got adjusted in the back. They come up to the front desk and that maybe the front desk person notices that they're kind of, you know, moving around funny. And maybe the patient says, you know, I just don't feel right after that adjustment. And let's say the staff person notices it, but doesn't say anything and just tells the patient, okay, well, you know, tell the doctor next time you're in, you know, is that good patient communication or not?

Marisa Mateja: 3:43

Bad, bad, bad. First thing's foremost, if the patient is feeling that way before they've left the office, they shouldn't leave the office. So I mean, that patient should be stopped right there. The doctor should be brought into that conversation and whether they need to be looked at, re evaluated more therapy, whatever it may be that day before they leave or at home directions or anything that has to be looked at before the patient leaves that door.

Dr. Michael Perusich: 4:12

Yeah. So this whole idea of just poor communication, missed communication, it's missed opportunities. It. Yeah, it, it, it has a negative effect on, on patient retention. People start missing appointments. You get, you know, potentially negative online reviews. I mean, there, there's a lot of missteps that can really happen with that.

Marisa Mateja: 4:33

Isn't that interesting? It's snowballs, right? I mean, one little, one little thing can really snowball into A laundry list of things that could go wrong with the patient. And we see this often in practices, unfortunately, that really don't spend the time to make sure that they are really on top of everything and ready for their day each day with who's coming in and what's happening with them and why we're treating them and, and all of those things pay our staff need to know why patients are coming in to see you. It helps them communicate with the patient to help you, the doctor out in the long run.

Dr. Michael Perusich: 5:10

And, and so what are, what are some things doctors can do kind of simply to to help make that communication process better?

Marisa Mateja: 5:18

I mean, one is spend time with your staff each morning before you start the day. Talk about schedule. I mean, that's

Dr. Michael Perusich: 5:25

a team meeting.

Marisa Mateja: 5:26

That's an easy thing to do, right? Asking staff, if any of the patients on the schedule have told them something that maybe they forgot to mention, you know, think in terms of we as staff probably have a little more authority than the doctor in those first few visits. And then that transfers. poses over to the doctor, right? It, it moves over to them at one point or another where they have more authority with the patient. Well, in that early stage, it's important for us as staff to be communicating well with the doctor. So that communication goes both ways.

Dr. Michael Perusich: 6:00

Yeah. And I think also making sure that staff knows how to in lay terms, explain a patient's treatment plan to them. You know, maybe a patient says, Why am I getting muscle stem? Well, oftentimes the doctor recommends that or puts that into a treatment plan, prescribes it because they want your muscles to relax. So the adjustments will hold a little bit better. You know, does your staff know how to explain little things like that? Those kinds of things are important.

Marisa Mateja: 6:24

Yeah. Little, and it doesn't have to be long explanations. We're not looking for a paragraph from everybody on why muscle stem does what, right? We're looking for a simple. Explanation that's in patient terminology, not doctor terminology, that is easy for the patient to go. Oh, that makes sense. Okay, great. You know, and if they have more questions, then we direct them back to the doctor at that point.

Dr. Michael Perusich: 6:48

Yep. Yeah, it's good stuff. So I want to take a minute. Just. Here, a quick word from one of our sponsors. But we've got some other interesting things to talk about here. So hang in there, everybody. We'll be right back. We're going to hear word from our sponsor. You're listening to the Casey cow reports podcast brought to you by cats consultants and Chiro health USA. We will be right back.

7:08

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Dr. Michael Perusich: 8:08

Hi everybody. Welcome back to the KC ChiroPulse podcast brought to you by Kats Consultants and ChiroHealth USA. We're talking about mistakes that can happen in your office that can sometimes be pretty costly, whether it costs you money, it costs you reputation, it costs you patients. You know, another one, Marissa, we talked about communication, but another one is inaccurate billing and mishandling of insurance claims.

Marisa Mateja: 8:31

Yeah, insurance claims is a big one. You know, one of the biggest things I can suggest is one pay attention to your clearinghouse. Your clearinghouse should be giving you reports on everything that was billed and they a lot of times will catch errors for you and you can a lot of times fix those on there. Again, go back to your main software system. Make sure they're fixed there so they don't continue to happen. But, you know, there's lots of things that you can figure out before the claim actually gets to the insurance company. But once it gets to the insurance company, that's when that explanation of benefits comes back to us. And again, we have to be watching for those codes at the bottom. And what are they telling us? Right? So a lot of times the insurance company tells us what the codes at the bottom, exactly why a claim was denied or not paid. And at that point. As staff, we've got to be able to investigate. We've got to not be scared. I see this a lot. Don't be scared to pick up that phone and call that insurance company. I know you may be on hold for a while. I know it's no fun, but a lot of times that person on the other end can help you through what you need to do, right? Whether it's fix the claim, send it back as a corrected claim, you know, whatever you need to do. Some of them have their own forms you have to fill out first, whatever that may be. They give you the idea of how to help fix that. Right. And if not look up what those error codes mean. Start there. You know, that's a big part of it. Don't, don't feel bad about it. So following up on deny claims, aired claims, all of those kinds of things are truly very important to make sure we're catching a what's covered and not covered. Right. A lot of times we're sending in things to insurance companies that are not covered and it should be patient responsibility. We want to make sure that those items are not getting to the insurance companies for them just to deny, make sure patients understand that those are their responsibility. You know, really part of your. Insurance handling is that transparency of communication up front with the patient. So that's another area of insurance that we kind of forget about. But that first phone call and making sure patients understand exactly what you're going to do for them, whether you're going to verify their benefits or you're going to file for them, you're going to do what and making sure they understand what that process looks like. Having them verify their own benefits. Benefits. Wow. That's a new concept, right? Make sure that they are involved in the process. This is their insurance. And sometimes I think we overlook that a little bit. So starting at that very first phone call, making sure you're sending your good faith estimate through the no surprises act. Transparency right now is huge.

Dr. Michael Perusich: 11:17

Huge. Yeah, it really is huge. You know, and another place with insurance billing and mistakes that happen is. Insurance companies, a lot of times will change codes and it's not always just at the beginning of the year. Sometimes they'll, they'll have a change mid year, especially with like a modifier or something like that. You know, so you really got to watch those EOBs to see why you may have been denied on a claim and be ready to correct it and keep correcting it by doing it correctly. Once you learn that Whatever you submitted was incorrect,

Marisa Mateja: 11:49

you know, and watch your insurance companies. They send out these notices or they may not, but it should be on your local coverage determination on their website. It should be in their newsletter or their most recent Communications, all of those kinds of things should be updated on their website. So make sure you're reading that information as well often, because you're going to learn some stuff through that.

Dr. Michael Perusich: 12:14

You should download those LCDs every year and read through them. Doctors, everybody should read through them.

Marisa Mateja: 12:20

Everyone should, everybody on the team.

Dr. Michael Perusich: 12:22

The crazy thing is we're all worried about documentation and those kinds of things. And those LCDs walk you through how they want you to document.

Marisa Mateja: 12:30

It's amazing. The information in there, right?

Dr. Michael Perusich: 12:32

It's crazy. So again, what are some solutions here? Obviously training. Is a solution to billing issues aren't happening.

Marisa Mateja: 12:44

Training's going to be huge for the whole process. I mean, that's one of the biggest things that you can do is make sure that as a team, you're working on some of these things and whatever management company you're with out there should be putting out information in regards to these things.

Dr. Michael Perusich: 13:01

Yeah. And you know, there's so many great billing softwares out there. Make sure you're using a billing software. I mean, in today's world, if you don't have that technology in your practice, you know, I know there's still a few practices around that drop claims to paper and send them away. And you know, they even do them on a typewriter.

Marisa Mateja: 13:21

I've seen some of those. The other thing with not only billing software, but Utilizing the Chiro Code manual, whether it's electronic or you actually buy the book, I don't care, but update that every single year. Remember ICD 10s are what we're on right now, but 11s are coming. So that is something to keep in mind when you're looking through that, they're always making changes. So make sure every single year you're updating that information. Chiro Code is a great resource for your practice. Not only do they talk about the codes in there, but there's half the book. Is also on best billing procedures and how to handle things and where to go when you have an issue. I mean, there's so much information in that book.

Dr. Michael Perusich: 14:05

Yeah. It's really kind of like a Bible. I mean, it's just everything. It's amazing. Everything is in there.

Marisa Mateja: 14:10

It really is.

Dr. Michael Perusich: 14:11

Plus it helps really kind of keep you up, up to date. So you need to buy one every year. It keeps you up to date on all those changes and things that are happening. So, you know, another big mistake that we see a lot of times is. Around scheduling and just the inefficiencies that offices sometimes create with scheduling and managing appointments and those kinds of things. I know you see this a lot from your, from your vantage point. So

Marisa Mateja: 14:38

I work with a lot of offices on scheduling. That's one of the main things that I get to help. And, and staff with we see a lot of, I'll call them unorganized schedules that can really trip up an office because if our schedule is unorganized, our day is unorganized and our patients feel that when they come in. So one of the biggest things that you know, we work on with. Our offices is making sure that their schedule is put together in a good manner, meaning the most efficient, the most efficient, but time consuming, non time time consuming, I guess is what I'm trying to say manner so that the doctor has the most maximized time in their day to see the most patients. Okay. So looking through some of that, then we look for, you know, what delays a schedule, you know, is the doctor actually spending too much time with patients? And that can happen because of what our goals are and how many patients we need to see that can happen. So really looking through our patients feeling rushed through the practice, or are they getting the time that they need or all of that, but on the business side, really knowing Is our schedule physically set up for us to be able to meet our goals? And a lot of times I see offices that are not set up that way.

Dr. Michael Perusich: 16:02

Well, and you mentioned, you know, trying to, you, you get overbooked when the doctor is, is slow, but the other way can happen too. You know, what if, what if the front desk is booking every five minutes, but the doctor utilizes a technique that takes 10.

Marisa Mateja: 16:18

Right.

Dr. Michael Perusich: 16:19

You know, now you're, you know, in that scenario, you're constantly behind. Patients get frustrated and, and, and where it winds up costing you money is it costs you in visits because now patients are going to back out, back off. They're not going to come as often worst case scenario. They're going to drop out of care. Yeah. So if you think of the lifetime value of a chiropractic patient, it can be pretty substantial. It can be a pretty substantial loss. If you lose that lifetime value, if it walks out of your clinic and goes to the clinic down the street. So you've really got to make sure that you're. On top of scheduling and scheduling isn't something that should be just haphazard. I was talking to an office earlier today and the doctor was lamenting over the fact that there was no room and I'm using air quotes. If you're listening, there's no room on my schedule for a new patient today. And my question was, Oh, are your new patient slots already filled? And it's come back was, what do you mean by new patient slots? We just stick them in where we can, you know, that I knew, I knew I'd get that reaction. Helter skelter scheduling mechanism really creates chaos in your day.

Marisa Mateja: 17:31

Well, it does. And you're also not planning. For what you need to be seeing. So your schedule needs to be evaluated often because as you're growing and as you're changing, the amount of new patients you need may also be changing. So do you have the time allotted for the number that you need? And it's not just the new patients, but we have to think about our existing patients. We have to think about the time for. If we're doing a report of findings, we have to think about the time for progress exams. There's all these things and events that can happen on your schedule. So the more organized and planned out you are, the more likely it is that you're setting yourself up to hit your goals. To see the patient numbers you want all of those kind of things. So an organized schedule is a number one for scheduling that, you know, I would see as a misstep a lot of times.

Dr. Michael Perusich: 18:25

Yeah. You just made me think of a scenario that used to happen to us once in a while. And you would, we'd have a very busy day going and you would come back and you would say something like, Hey, do you mind if I put Shirley In at a certain time, she's had a fall and I'd look at you like, no, we're too busy. And you'd, you'd look back at me and you'd say, you've got this and you'd walk off and you'd put her in. My point of that is, is your staff taking control of the scheduling process in that manner and making it work so that you as the doctor don't have to think about it?

Marisa Mateja: 19:00

Yeah. And when I would do that, a lot of times I really wasn't asking you, I was kind of Telling you, this is what's coming. Right. So you're mentally prepared for a, maybe an exam in a spot that we weren't used to an exam happening. Right. So when we think about an organized schedule, it's not just, Hey, this is set in stone, there's always going to be emergencies that happen. There's always going to be things that have to fit into a schedule. And so we look at those things as, Hey, how do we manage that then? So managing your schedule might be. Point number two of that, right? And not only managing emergencies and those kind of things, but let's talk about what if there's missed appointments? You know, are we managing the missed appointments? Are we calling those people? Are we texting them? Are we letting them know, Hey, we're sorry we missed you. Come on over if you can. Are we going to go ahead and work them in? It's however you guys do it in your office, but those are the things that keep people engaged with your practice and keep them coming back to you as long as you're.

Dr. Michael Perusich: 20:02

Exactly. So here's, here's another one. I'm going to pose this as a question to you, even though I know the answer. In your opinion, should we schedule one visit at a time or the entire treatment plan?

Marisa Mateja: 20:14

The entire treatment plan. So there's a couple of reasons why. And it goes back to consistency patients that have something that's consistent and recurring on their schedule. It makes it easy for them to not miss. Okay. So that that's the very first reason and it goes to If they are continually coming in, they're going to understand wellness better as well as we're talking about those things all the way through their treatment plan, we're going to make sure that they understand some of those things. So it's easy for them to, especially, and I'll bring this up just as a side note in. I'll call it an unstable economy that we have right now. As people start to stress over things like that, the value of why they're coming in to see you is going to come into play. And if they have value in what they're doing and it's recurring and they know that there's a, there's a reason why they come in every time they're less likely to eliminate your service.

Dr. Michael Perusich: 21:16

Right. Yeah. The scheduling one visit at a time, just Leads to a higher rate of dropouts,

Marisa Mateja: 21:23

a

Dr. Michael Perusich: 21:23

higher rate of missed appointments, and the chance that the patient's going to just. walk away and not come back. So

Marisa Mateja: 21:32

what happens if they walk away? They potentially didn't get better. They potentially are going to go tell 10 people that they didn't get better in your clinic.

Dr. Michael Perusich: 21:40

Exactly. I

Marisa Mateja: 21:41

mean, there's so many downfalls to that and they never made it to that wellness phase, which is typically when people start referring. So we've lost not only their lifetime value, but we've now lost the people that they would have referred to us as a lifetime value.

Dr. Michael Perusich: 21:58

And I have a real life example of that. I was talking to a doc a couple of days ago, and he was talking about the fact that he, he and his wife were out somewhere. And a former patient, they saw a former patient and he walked up to him and said, Hey, Bill, haven't seen you in a while. And he said, yeah, I quit coming to you because I never got better. And so he was talking to me about it. And I said, well, how many times did you see him? Well, I only saw him twice. Of course he wasn't fully better. And I said, but did he know that? No, we hadn't done a report of findings. He hadn't gone over the treatment plan. The patient had no idea then how many visits it was going to take. And they were only scheduling a visit at a time. So he gets to the front desk. He's not out of pain. He doesn't know what the, what the treatment plan is. He didn't know what the schedule is supposed to be nothing. So he says, I'll call you when I need you. Which means. Sayonara, I'm gone,

Marisa Mateja: 22:49

you know, and as soon as a patient says, I'll call you when I need you. It means we didn't fulfill something in our communication with them. And so it goes back to point number one of this whole thing, right? Poor communication. So if we don't have good communication with our patients and give them that transparency of here's what we expect from you. Here's what we expect your body to do. Here's when you're, you know, okay. How you're going to get well with us, all of those things. If we don't tell them that path, they don't know it. So the same thing happens when you know, we don't schedule them. And that's the point we're talking about, right? Scheduling. So if we don't schedule them all of those visits, they have no idea what to expect when they can expect it. They're more likely to stay under care. So when they don't expect it, you hear things like what you just said, which was, I'll call you when I need you because they don't know. When they're supposed to come back,

Dr. Michael Perusich: 23:43

right? We're supposed to lead them. That's our job as a doctor, as a clinic team. It's to lead the patient and patients want to be led. So it can be a win win scenario if you just take the bull by the horns. So here's another big mistake. And this goes back to scheduling and that is It's Tuesday morning. And what does the end of the week look like?

Marisa Mateja: 24:08

That's a big question, right? So most of the time, what we see is. We're not spending enough time looking forward,

Dr. Michael Perusich: 24:17

right?

Marisa Mateja: 24:18

So it's an interesting phenomenon in the chiropractic world, right? We live in 30 day cycles and so we're trying to break people out of that, but we live in this 30 day cycle and so everything's based on what's going to happen within that 30 days. Same thing happens if we break it down to a week or whatever, we spend too much time looking backwards. Then we do looking forward. So my big thing was staff is looking forward on the schedule and what's happening and how many people are going to be coming into your practice. Are you going to meet your goals? Does it look like who's scheduled out is we'll meet those goals. Will we exceed them? Or are we going to be under, and if we're under, where are the holes? What's happening on the schedule. Where can we put people? Have we communicated that with the doctor? There's so many things just within looking forward. That tells you a huge amount about your practice. Now docs, I will, I will. Challenge you to go look at your schedules and I don't want you to pass out, but go look at your schedules. And I want you to look out for six and eight weeks. And I want you to, I want you to think about who's on your schedule, how many patients are on and will you meet your goals next week based on today? What's on your schedule?

Dr. Michael Perusich: 25:36

And if your schedule is a little light.

Marisa Mateja: 25:38

Call us.

Dr. Michael Perusich: 25:39

Yes. Call us. Call us. You know, this is incredibly important. This goes back to, is your staff really taking control of the schedule? You know, Tuesday morning you might come back and say, Hey doc, Thursday afternoon is just a little light and you'd never tell me how light because I probably would have passed out. You would tell me. And so that just prompted me to pay more attention to what are the opportunities I might see coming in. Mm hmm. And I'd start listening to patients a little bit more, and I'd ask them questions like, Hey, bill, what'd you, what'd you do this last weekend? You're kind of tight today. Oh, I went out and I water skied and I wiped out really hard. Great bill. Here's what I want to do. We're going to treat you today, but because you're so tight, I want to bring you back in on Thursday afternoon. Huh? That's right. Cause I know there's space, but it's, It's good for the patient. So I want to bring you back in on Thursday afternoon. Make sure you're ready to go for the weekend.

Marisa Mateja: 26:35

You may have missed that opportunity had you not been focused on the fact that, hey, we may need some patient visits on the schedule, right? And so that's another part of that. Good organized schedule and scheduler that's ability to communicate those things. So the doctor ends up increasing patient visits. Remember if it's good for the patient, it's good for the practice, right? You have, you have to pay attention to those things, but so often we miss those opportunities and staff. I'll include you in that staff and doctors sometimes miss those opportunities because we're not spending the time looking forward. Like we should.

Dr. Michael Perusich: 27:15

Yep. And don't think we're talking about overutilization. We're not. No, no, no, no. If a patient needs extra care, you're just more, you're just more present time conscious about it.

Marisa Mateja: 27:26

In tune with it when you're focused on the fact that those kinds of things need to happen.

Dr. Michael Perusich: 27:30

Yeah. Otherwise you may be thinking, well, you know, the practice is full or, you know, the staff's going to take care of it or it, it just brings that present time consciousness. It may

Marisa Mateja: 27:38

change your communication with the patient is what it does. So it, In that scenario, if you thought the practice was going to be full that week, you may have told the patient something different. Not, I want to see you back Thursday afternoon. It may have been, okay, I'm going to schedule you for next week. But if by the end of the week, you're still not feeling better. I want you to come in. You didn't schedule them. We miss an opportunity because as soon as we do that, what happens? The patient never calls us unless they're really bad. Right? So, well, I had one scheduled, so I just thought I'd wait. We miss an opportunity because of our poor communication and we didn't look ahead on the schedule. So they go hand in hand.

Dr. Michael Perusich: 28:18

Yep. And nine out of 10 patients will do what you just said. If, if you're scheduled out two weeks and they're hurting before, they're going to wait the two weeks instead of coming in sooner. So get out of that habit of saying, you know, well, I'll see you out in two weeks, but if you come in, if you need to come in sooner, that's not a bad thing to say, but if you feel like they're going to need to come in sooner, just tell them. Hey, I'm going to put you out a week, but I want you to come in on Thursday if you're hurting, be specific with your patient. So this is all just training. It goes back to communication with your staff and train your staff on efficient scheduling practices. It, it, it really not only helps to fill your schedule up, but it creates a much more, use your terminology, a much more efficient schedule and

Marisa Mateja: 29:10

another solution to your schedule, maybe online scheduling,

Dr. Michael Perusich: 29:15

you know, reminders.

Marisa Mateja: 29:17

Yes, an appointment. Reminders. Those two things are excellent examples of technology that can change the way your practice functions. So, you know, make it easy for people to get to you. I see such a hard time being made of patients being able to get to you. Make it easy for them.

Dr. Michael Perusich: 29:38

Exactly. Okay. Good stuff. So we're going to take a quick little break. We're going to hear from one of our spot, one of our sponsors, and we'll come back and we're talking about different mistakes that can real be really costly in your practice. So we'll be right back.

29:52

Pat's Chiropractic Consultants, your partner in chiropractic success. We are dedicated with one on one guidance to bring you all your practice management needs. Let's supercharge your practice. Give us a call today.

Dr. Michael Perusich: 30:10

All right, everybody. Welcome back to the the KC ChiroPulse podcast brought to you by Kats Consultants and Chiro Health USA. We are talking about mistakes that happen in your practice that can be very costly. We've talked about some great things, but I want to talk a little bit about ineffective or a lack of good customer service and how profound of an impact that can have on a practice.

Marisa Mateja: 30:33

Customer service isn't just You know, greeting them and those kind of things. Yes, those things matter. Customer service, in my opinion, goes beyond. It's really becoming, for lack of better terms, friends with your patients. Right? And what I mean by that, it's knowing them. It's knowing where they work. It's knowing what activities they're doing when they're leaving your practice or over the weekend or where they're traveling. It's really getting to know the people that are coming to your practice so that you can best help them. In the last segment, we talked in regards of a, you know, scheduling a patient because they may have, On water skiing over the weekend, right? Right. Knowing that information, those details about each and every one of your patients that really creates excellent customer service, because then you can take their care to a whole new level. So that takes. All of us in the practice, the doctor can't do it alone. The front desk person can't do it alone. It takes everyone being in tune with what's happening with their patients. So customer service to me is not just being friendly and those kinds of things with patients. It's, it's having a deeper understanding of them. It's knowing what's happening with them.

Dr. Michael Perusich: 31:51

I always say it's kindness, caring, and grace. When you bring those three things into your practice. You really become much more connected with your patients, you know, and like you said, understanding who they are, what they do, what, what their kids do, what are, what are they involved in? Those are things that keep patients connected to you. And here's the crazy thing about it. It generates more referrals just automatically. And the referrals that you get are the like minded referrals. It's the people who, when they come to you, they already believe in what you do. Yeah. Yeah, they already have an understanding of who you are as a practice. And so you're not getting to know each other in the same way as a cold, new patient.

Marisa Mateja: 32:35

Yeah, it's that warm or hot lead, right? It's that, that those people that are already ready to schedule with you just because they know what people have told them about you. So our customer service has to go above and And beyond first and foremost obviously we have to be friendly with our patients. We have to be courteous with them. We have to talk gently to them sometimes you know, and those kinds of things, but we also have to watch our time that spent with them because we also on the flip side of all of that have to be keying into the fact that maybe they're in a hurry that day or they need to be in and out. We have to watch our wait times and how much time is spent in our practice. Too much time will run people away to little time. We'll do the same thing. So we have to have that nice little balance. Yeah. That keeps them coming in and out. So checking them in, checking them out, those two processes are very important to make sure that we have good solid procedures in place for those things so that we don't hold patient up, but we get what we need from them. So again, I'll go back to, there's a ton of electronic systems out there that do a ton of things to help you, whether it's scrambling that credit card and keeping it on file, whether it's you know, Advanced Multiple Scheduling, Online Scheduling. There's so many tools out there to help you with that process.

Dr. Michael Perusich: 34:05

Yes, absolutely. And, you know, I always say if you want to see good customer service, you have to go outside of your practice to find it. And I'm not saying you might not have it in your practice, but you need to witness it being being done elsewhere. So, Anytime you're out, whether you're at a department store or a restaurant or, you know, wherever you're at, pay attention to the customer service that you're getting and grade it. Is it good? Is it not so good? Are they doing something that we should be doing in our clinic? Learn from those kind of things. That's how you really. Understand how to affect a great customer service

Marisa Mateja: 34:45

and don't just look at other medical offices,

Dr. Michael Perusich: 34:48

right?

Marisa Mateja: 34:48

Look at department stores look at Restaurants look at all the different things that you do on a daily basis And where is the service that you get and and how is it does it exceed your expectations? You know think in terms of that and then take all that information back to the practice and try to figure out how you can Apply it to what you do

Dr. Michael Perusich: 35:09

Exactly. And what does that do? It gets people talking about you. You know, I've had a couple of amazing customer service experiences in my life. One with a hotel, one with a department store, and I'm not going to go into the stories right now.

Marisa Mateja: 35:22

Well, good. Cause I've heard them. No, I'm joking.

Dr. Michael Perusich: 35:26

It's a crazy thing. I have told those stories all over the country, hundreds of times. On a

Marisa Mateja: 35:33

lot of stages. On a

Dr. Michael Perusich: 35:34

lot of stages. And so. You know, and I'll, I'll tell the names of the, of the businesses. And so that's free advertising for those businesses along the way. So that's what you want to get to. You want to get to the point where. Everybody in your community is talking about you because what you do is so exciting and yes, you want to have great chiropractic outcomes and all those things too. You can't lose sight of the customer service because that's what brings people back.

Marisa Mateja: 36:03

It matters how you make them feel.

Dr. Michael Perusich: 36:06

Exactly.

Marisa Mateja: 36:07

Period.

Dr. Michael Perusich: 36:08

That was well said.

Marisa Mateja: 36:09

Thanks. It does. It matters how you make them feel that that's what our service experience should boil down to is how do they feel when they left your practice?

Dr. Michael Perusich: 36:21

And here's the funny thing. When you look at a lot of online reviews for chiropractors, most of the, of the good reviews really don't say anything about. How much better they felt or how great the adjustment was or how quickly we got out of pain. It's I love this place. They're so warm. They're friendly. I wanted to bring my family in. That's when, you know, you're doing a good job with your customer service. So think about that. You know, maybe, maybe you should offer A survey in your practice. How good are we at customer service and help identify some areas that maybe you need to improve? Here's another thing you should do. We used to do this all the time. Anytime something breaks down in your clinic. I don't mean a table, but anytime a process or a service, your customer service breaks down a little bit. Here's an example. You get behind your 30 minutes behind. Patients are waiting. Your staff's telling you people are getting impatient, wanting to reschedule at the end of the day. Stop. Get together. What happened?

Marisa Mateja: 37:25

Evaluate.

Dr. Michael Perusich: 37:26

What could we have done different? How could we have changed the outcome of that? When you do that, you will change the trajectory of your customer service. It will go straight through the roof when you're really paying attention to it and changing it and and making it better along the way.

Marisa Mateja: 37:43

And we just hit 0. 1 and three that we talked about today. Right. Communication and scheduling literally just touched on that at the end of our day and figured out what caused some of those hiccups or some of those things that maybe staff aren't catching. So make sure that you're tuning into some of those things.

Dr. Michael Perusich: 38:04

So, you know, if you haven't done so yet, go to cats, consultants. com, we've got all kinds of resources. You can check out our blogs. We've got some great downloads on there. One of the big things that we do is we help doctors train staff and not just train them to do tasks, but train them to do things like what we're talking about today. So they become your success partners. And we're not making these mistakes and things that are costing us money, costing us patients and costing us reputation. So when you have a chance, go check us out. No, no no twisting of arms or anything, but we're doing some great things with doctors, so check out those resources and if we can plug in with you, feel free to jump on one of our schedules and we'd love to talk to you.

Marisa Mateja: 38:49

Absolutely. There's a let's chat button at the top of our website and you can pick Dr. Kruse or myself, and I'm happy to talk to anybody. I love chatting with docs. So just let us know how we can help.

Dr. Michael Perusich: 39:00

Awesome. And thank you to our sponsors. We appreciate you. And from all of us here at cats consultants, thank you for tuning into the KC ChiroPulse podcast. Be sure to subscribe here somewhere. Be sure to share with everybody. Our podcast has really grown and it's because of you guys out there listening to it. So we greatly appreciate it. All right, everybody. This is that's all from those of us at Kats consultants. We'll see you next time.

39:28

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