physical therapy marketing Archives | Page 6 of 9

Physical Therapy Management: Importance of Technology and Automation for the New Economy Practice

by Nitin Chhoda PT, DPT | Jan 1, 2017 | Physical Therapy Documentation, Physical Therapy Management

Nitin Chhoda discusses the importance of an automated electronic medical records software to streamline and automate the ‘drivers’ of your practice. These include marketing, documentation, coding and billing.

Today’s society is a high-stress environment with a myriad of ways for injuries to occur that require the services of a physical therapist.

To meet the needs of a burgeoning clientele, physical therapy management must include office systems and automation to provide better patient care, control costs, increase revenues, and market practices efficiently.

Learn to Coordinate Physical Therapy Information from Other Sources

The day of the single healthcare provider is over. Today’s patient receives treatments from multiple providers and consumes a multitude of prescriptions.

The need to coordinate, as part of physical therapy management, of information from numerous sources is obvious, and electronic medical record (EMR) systems simplify the process for fewer errors, more effective treatments, less waste and faster payments.

Any therapist evaluating an EMR should choose one that allows for the exchange of information with other patient-centered care facilities.

Extreme sports and amusements, an aging population, and healthcare reform present an increased need for therapists to automate as many low-dollar activities as possible. Web-based EMRs provide the means for therapists to control labor costs, schedule staff, purchase equipment, and plan expansions.

The Role of Having a Physical Therapy Software

Physical therapy management EMRs provide metrics and analytics that assist therapists to define where marketing campaigns should be implemented for the highest return on investment and where referrals are originating.

Physical therapy management software allows information to be updated once, used in a variety of ways, and is available to other authorized professionals who require access. Data can be used to track patient progress, educate clients and manage better treatment outcomes.

Information contained within an EMR provides therapists with a powerful tool for reporting statistics, creating new and innovative treatments and providing data for the public good.

Use Electronic Medical Records or EMR

Electronic medical records utilize the latest physical therapy management technology to facilitate reimbursements through electronic billing for better cash flow, while reducing the instance of paybacks and denials. Web-based systems provide instant access to everything from patient records to billing from any location equipped with an Internet connection.

EMRs can be installed on laptops or the iPad and are compatible with Windows and Mac operating systems.

EMRs are positioned to become the norm for physical therapy management, providing essential automation for the 21st century practice.

Why Use EMR Technology?

Enhanced patient care, quicker reimbursements and more efficient physical therapy management allows practice owners to gain better control over every aspect of their clinic for greater profitability.

The technology is available and there’s no logical reason not to employ it to benefit physical therapy management. The systems handle low-dollar activities, allowing therapists to concentrate on innovative treatments, better patient care and future financial planning to establish their personal income goals.

Physical Therapy Marketing: Establishing Income Goals in Your Practice

by Nitin Chhoda PT, DPT | Dec 26, 2016 | Physical Therapy Management, Physical Therapy Marketing

Every business should have an income goal and physical therapy practices and medical practices are no exception. Nitin Chhoda explains how to establish income goals for your practice and set the stage for a profitable business.

Financial planning is a key element for any business owner, but it can be more difficult for physical therapists who deal with fluctuating patient numbers.

Those without a solid plan for physical therapy marketing can soon find themselves adrift in an economy where their services are undervalued and their standard of living is at risk.

It’s important to realize that in the beginning, the anticipated income that’s set in a financial action plan aren’t nearly as important as actually creating the plan to attain the goal.

Develop a Good Strategy

Developing a strategy to clarify direction and determine income not only helps eliminate unwelcome surprises, it also provides physical therapy marketing practice owners with a double dose of reality.

Implementing an electronic medical record system other office systems that automate low-dollar activities provide significant savings and present a good place to start.

A six-figure income isn’t beyond the realm of possibility, but it may not be attainable with the current state of the practice. By setting a dollar figure, therapists will have a clear physical therapy marketing plan of what they want to accomplish with their practice, the steps that need to be taken to reach their goals, and help them differentiate between valid opportunities and unproductive distractions.

Gather Financial Records From the Past Years

A good place to begin is by gathering financial records for the past three or four years and set aside an entire day to be incommunicado. Clear the calendar, turn off the phone and email, and shut down social media connections.

For a physical therapy marketing task of this importance, it’s essential to eliminate outside distractions.

Therapists will need to break down each year’s income into specific categories, leaving nothing out.

It’s helpful to use a spreadsheet for the exercise that encompasses income from all avenues, including teaching, speaking engagements, consulting services and product sales.

Leave a column for notes to record personal insights about the numbers. With the assistance of a spreadsheet, it will soon become apparent to therapists where their most profitable activities and biggest moneymakers for each month are generated.

Track Physical Therapy Marketing Trends

Therapists can track physical therapy marketing trends for various times of the year and use those to plan and organize high-dollar events to coincide with points of low income. It will quickly become clear if the anticipated income goals are achievable and if not, what must be done to boost revenues.

Physical therapy marketing and management requires practice owners to be ruthless in pursuit of a profitably operated clinic. Income levels fluctuate and they’re affected by a wide array of variables.

Physical therapy marketing campaigns, new referral sources, and the addition of services will all combine to affect the flow of patient traffic. Slow months can be augmented with special promotions and the upcoming year can be planned around a comprehensive plan of action.

Have a Definite Plan of Action

Physical therapy marketing is a critical element of profitable practices, and the most highly successful therapists have a definite plan of action to achieve their financial goals and those for their clinic.

Practice owners want the best possible treatments and outcomes for their patients, but they also need to make a living.

Therapists can easily define their efforts for future financial security by closely analyzing every aspect of their business. For those who prefer a more physical therapy marketing in-depth approach, therapists can reverse engineer their current operating system for enhanced income opportunities and patient care.

Physical Therapy Marketing: Identifying and Allocating Expenses in Your Practice

by Nitin Chhoda PT, DPT | Dec 19, 2016 | Physical Therapy Management, Physical Therapy Marketing

To maximize your income, you need effective marketing methods and proper allocation of the the expenses in your practice. In this article, Nitin Chhoda shares different ways to identify and calculate the expenses in your practice.

Assembling a team of reliable advisors and consultants is an excellent beginning to effective physical therapy marketing and management, but what therapists won’t learn in any medical school is practical information on money management and how to allocate expenses.

Operating a physical therapy business requires anticipating future trends, successful marketing endeavors, determining the cost of providing services, and planning ahead for foreseeable and unexpected expenses.

Effective Physical Therapy Marketing Is Important

Physical therapy marketing is the key to increasing the number of patients needed to meet income goals and finance the practice.

The most successful clinic owners utilize automated systems that can be customized to take advantage of traditional and mobile marketing opportunities that includes Clinical Contact, Therapy Newsletter, along with electronic medical record (EMR) systems.

Assets, acquisitions and depreciation are all terms with which therapists will quickly become acquainted. To remain profitable, therapists must determine the value of their time and services, even their physical therapy marketing strategies and what their clinic requires in terms of monthly funding to stay in business and implement capital projects.

Record All Your Expenses

All expenses must be accounted for, from labor and electric to equipment and office supplies. Direct costs related to a specific service, such as in physical therapy marketing, product or equipment procurement are obvious.

Clinic owners that want to add new equipment can shop around for the best products that fit within their budget and will work to pay for themselves in the shortest amount of time.

Determine Rates of Depreciation

Practice owners will also need to determine rates of depreciation and how assets will affect the value of the clinic.

Indirect costs are more difficult to quantify, can fluctuate monthly, and include items such as office supplies, cafeteria/break room costs or even cleaning supplies if the task isn’t contracted to an outside agency.

Start Allocating Your Expenses

Physical therapy marketing strategies that consume phone services, electric usage, and heating and cooling costs are all expenses that can vary widely and for which funds must be allocated.

No matter what method is utilized whether physical therapy marketing is included or not, the objective is to spread the expense across the patient base as equally as possible, to do so consistently and to have a physical therapy marketing plan in place that addresses the overall financial health of the clinic over time.

Some therapists choose to allocate costs based on individual departments or the employees within those divisions. Expenses can be allocated on the square footage of the practice or the number of labor hours expended.

Another way of allocating expenses can be implemented by establishing percentages for each department based on its contribution to the practice’s overall gross profit.

When a department is the only one that benefits, that department shoulders the entire expense.

If the expense, like physical therapy marketing expense, is shared by two or more departments, each bears a portion of the cost.

Physical Therapy Marketing: Understanding and Choosing the Best Payers For Your Practice

by Nitin Chhoda PT, DPT | Dec 11, 2016 | Physical Therapy Management, Physical Therapy Marketing

Contracting with payers can be like playing with landmines. Discover strategies to contract with the best payers and understand different types of payers, so you can negotiate increased pay rates.

marketing physical therapy Physical therapists quickly discover that not all payers reimburse at the same rate, forcing clinic owners to make tough decisions.

In the new economy, that can effectively eliminate a significant number of potential patients and works to defeat the purpose of the Affordable Care Act.

It also presents a moral and ethical quandary for physical therapy marketing and management.

Having Sufficient Income Is Very Important

Therapists provide essential treatments and services to relieve pain, restore mobility and enhance quality of life. They must also generate sufficient income to operate the practice and make a living, which can be difficult to achieve when insurers are reducing coverage, limiting visits and capping payments.

To provide access to the greatest number of patients, it’s essential for therapists not only to have effective physical therapy marketing, but also to identify and contract with insurers that maintain the best reimbursements.

Different Methods of Payments

A preferred provider network (PPO) may look attractive, but therapists can find that those offering such contracts pay a set fee that often falls far short of the actual cost of treatment. Clauses and exceptions may require the therapist to accept the PPO reimbursement as total payment.

A wealth of these types of situations will prove financially detrimental to the physical therapy marketing practice.

A fee-for-service (FFS) agreement is a similar arrangement. The advantage is that therapists can provide coding for billing purposes that explains each service, including physical therapy marketing and management, in detail. Some insurers offer per-visit payments that deliver a flat reimbursement rate each time the client is treated.

Per-visit payments resemble an FFS, but insurers often use this lump sum payment method as a means of capping the total amount paid per visit. An increasingly popular reimbursement program is the per-payment method, a bundled solution that provides payment for all services connected with a single incident/injury, while Medicare and Medicaid impose per-year payment caps on business and physical therapy marketing services.

More Methods of Payments Discussed

Capitation is a bundled payment method in which therapists receive a lump sum amount each month.

An insurer pays the therapist for each of their covered members that the physical therapy marketing practice owner treats.

This method pays well if the client requires minimal services, but it’s financially destructive for the therapist when patients needs multiple or complicated treatments.

Not as common, but equally detrimental to the financial health of a physical therapy marketing practice is the multiple procedure payment, also known as a cascade payment.

This model reimburses at 100 percent for the patient’s initial visit, but reduces payments by a set percentage for each visit thereafter. It’s becoming more popular within Workers’ Compensation programs.

Self-pay programs require payment from the patient at the time services are rendered, either in cash or via credit card. The method allows for increased cash flow and eliminates the submission of bills to insurers.

The disadvantage of the system is that many patients may not have the financial resources to pay for services, eliminating a significant number of individuals from the pool of patients.

Make Sure to Have a Balance Income

Each therapist must balance their desire to bring relief to their patients with the need to be paid adequately for their services.

Part of superior physical therapy marketing and management includes a careful examination of all contracts and a thorough understanding of how each mode of payment will affect the bottom line of the practice.

Practice Management and Its Fundamentals

by Nitin Chhoda PT, DPT | Dec 28, 2015 | Healthcare Practice Management, Physical Therapy Documentation, Physical Therapy Management

Some practitioners forget that regular monitoring of activities plays a vital role in determining the success of the practice. They feel that continuous cash flow is enough to determine that the business is thriving.

Nitin Chhoda reiterates the importance of the practice fundamentals and how reviewing of detailed information on the practice is valuable.

One of the fundamentals of health care practice management is working smart, not hard. For many therapists, practice management is one of life’s great mysteries.

Some clinicians hire expensive firms to manage their clinics, while others prefer a hands-on approach.

What EMR Has to Offer?

EMRs offer the tools to manage a practice as efficiently as any high-price practice management firm, while allowing clinic owners to keep a finger on the pulse of their business.

Information is knowledge and EMRs provide a wide array of data, facts and statistics to market any practice successfully.

The goal of any physical therapy practice is to be a financially sound enterprise with growth potential. Practice management and business owners have been taught to offer patients the best treatments possible, but they don’t receive training in how to manage a clinic.

They spend endless nights trying to decipher an array of disjointed information, arrange it into a coherent whole, and decide how to best use it for the clinic’s benefit.

What many don’t want to acknowledge is that their practice is a business and it must be operated as one.

Reimbursement claims have to be submitted in a timely manner, delinquent accounts must be addressed and payments collected from patients.

Even asking for money that’s legitimately owed can be an extremely unpalatable task of therapists of a practice management.

An EMR offers the tools to accomplish all those tasks and provides a whole office solution that will place practices on a pathway to profitability and efficiency.

Lessons to Learn

The first lesson to be learned through practice management is that a clinic may appear to be solvent on paper, even as it’s experiencing an exhausted cash flow. Therapists should view every encounter and opportunity as a marketing tool. Networking with other medical professionals is an important source of referrals and increased revenue streams.

In a well-managed practice, therapists know exactly how much it costs to provide a specific service, attract new patents, and pay the bills each month. EMRs provide the tools to track and monitor the best payers, clients who are most likely to self-terminate treatment, and referral and retention rates.

A practice management and physical therapy documentation systems ensure billing and coding is being conducted that provides clinics with the highest level of reimbursement.

Marketing is an essential part of practice management if a clinician is to grow the business, retain current clients, and persuade new patients who need services only in a specific clinic can provide.

Physical therapists know about the best treatments for their patients, but often feel lost and adrift when contemplating marketing strategies. Practices differ widely and there’s no one-size-fits-all magic formula, but the key ingredient is to stand out above the dozens of clinics vying for the same customers.

Therapists Must Always Keep in Mind

Perhaps the most important rule of practice management is never become complacent. It’s the difference between practices that are simply surviving and those that are expanding and regularly adding new patients.

Complacency has killed more practices than any other factor. Therapists must constantly strive to reach new clients, improve their range of services and become the clinic that others heartily recommend.

Practice management encompasses an extensive number of tasks, from scheduling staff and submitting timely reimbursement claims to communicating with patients and providing treatments. EMRs provide the tools to accomplish all those jobs efficiently and with an increased level of productivity, allowing therapists to work smart, not hard.

Healthcare Practice Management Best Tools

by Nitin Chhoda PT, DPT | Dec 21, 2015 | Healthcare Practice Management, Physical Therapy Documentation, Physical Therapy Management

Nitin Chhoda shares the best tools that can help the healthcare practice management succeed. He emphasizes that the tools should cover the four areas of the practice; Marketing, Scheduling, Documentation and Billing.

Healthcare practice management is no easy task, but the right tools will make it considerably easier.

Integrated EMR

An integrated EMR provides the resources to address customer service, finances, human resources, patient care and risk management for a whole practice solution.

Healthcare reform and the mandatory implementation of an EMR are changing the way therapists conduct business and practice owners must have the appropriate tools to meet the challenges of operating a 21st century practice.

There are dozens of EMRs available, with more than 150 healthcare practice management tool options that encompasses everything from patient portals and billing, to disease management and disaster preparedness.

From Scheduling to Billing

It’s essential for an electronic system to integrate within the office infrastructure. At the very least, therapists require healthcare practice management tools in four areas that address billing, marketing, scheduling and documentation.

Those four areas serve to increase revenues and offer a higher level of customer satisfaction, both key facets of a successful practice. Those tools allow therapists to cater to a clientele that’s mobile and assists in attaining the highest level of efficiency and staff productivity.

The technology exists through EMRs to automate tasks, interact with patients and assign staff where they will be most effective.

The process begins with scheduling when a client contacts the practice. There are only so many hours in the workday and each available appointment should be filled.

Efficiency of Technology

Modern technology provides the means to fill openings more efficiently, based on whether the client’s visit is their first or a follow-up, the reason for the patient’s visit, and the clinician’s notes.

EMRs for healthcare practice management can be automated and streamline the entire process.

Documentation is an essential part of every practice, affecting treatments, ongoing care and payments to the clinic. EMRs are compatible with tablets for optimum portability and offer the ability to create custom documents specific to individual practices.

Documentation is the key ingredient for correct coding and billing of health care practice management. The financial stability and profitability of practices relies on submitting the right codes for reimbursement and EMR systems keep errors and rejections to a bare minimum.

Whether funds are collected from self-pay patients or insurance companies, it’s a time consuming process. It’s much easier with an EMR and provides coding and billing experts with access to therapists’ notes and medical information to assist in the billing process.

EMRs Provide Complete Information

Payers want to know the full story behind a client’s complaints, treatments and the steps taken to return them to health. Electronic documentation of healthcare practice management provides that information, speeds the billing process, and ensures quicker reimbursements.

Integrated electronic systems capture a wide range of information that can be used to devise more effective marketing campaigns. Advertising and marketing a physical therapy business or other healthcare practice management is more complicated than in decades past when a clinician would simply run an ad in the local newspaper.

Today’s therapists must be able to reach patients using multiple modes of communication that includes email, voice and text messaging. EMRs provide the information needed to target specific groups utilizing a variety of demographics.

Every aspect of a physical therapy practice is interconnected. Healthcare practice management tools that recognize that symbiosis provide an integrated solution that facilitates the tasks associated with each individual department, connecting them in a meaningful way for the overall efficiency, productivity and financial stability of the business.

Clinicians avail themselves of new breakthroughs in equipment and treatment methods, and electronic systems are another tool in a therapist’s arsenal of healthcare practice management.