Your holistic practice exists to deliver quality care to your community; no matter what specialty you offer, it’s crucial that your patients recognize, value, and return to your practice. After all, you won’t last long if you don’t attract patients!
But how can you go beyond simply making your patients aware of your practice and foster a long-term, genuine connection between you, your practice, and your community? How can you instill patient loyalty in a manner that is sincere and beneficial to the future of your practice?
Patient loyalty is a key component of your healthcare revenue cycle and this article strives to provide you with the context and measures to take in order to grow and nurture it within your practice. Keep reading to learn more!
How Does Patient Loyalty Impact Your Healthcare Revenue Cycle?
Let’s look at a few key statistics regarding customer loyalty that can apply to your holistic practice:
- 82% of companies agree that retention is cheaper than acquisition
- 65% of a company’s business comes from existing customers
- Increasing customer retention by just 5% boosts profits by 25% to 95%
As with any business venture, minimizing churn and turnover results in a more stabilized, consistent revenue stream. It’s cheaper to keep the customer you already have than to attract a new customer to replace them.
This directly applies to your holistic practice and your overall healthcare revenue cycle! Putting in the effort and developing an enduring, profitable relationship with your patients leads to a better revenue cycle and empowers you to scale your business as more patients come your way. But how can you achieve genuine patient loyalty?
How to Instill Patient Loyalty in Your Holistic Practice
Patient loyalty can be nurtured in a variety of manners in addition to providing excellent holistic services! Consider these tips to further solidify the relationship between your practice, your patients, and your community:
Create and Maintain a Comfortable, Clean Environment
Nobody wants to enter a place of business that is disorganized, dusty, or cluttered—particularly not in a holistic environment where wellness, healing, and good energy are synonyms with your business. From the steps leading up to your practice to the waiting room, bathroom, and everything along the way, make an effort to reflect your holistic values in the environment of your practice.
This might include:
- Dusting shelves, decorations, ledges, etc once a week
- Burning incense
- Softly playing relaxing music
- Sanitizing high-touch points
- Keeping your waiting room clean and organized without making it crowded with furniture or other objects
- Maintaining a clean, sanitary bathroom for patients
- And more!
Setting the tone for your patients’ experience and delivering a fantastic first and lasting impression is a surefire way to get patients returning to your office again and again.
Be Professionally and Administratively Organized
Scrambling to find a patient’s misplaced file or having a desk littered with sticky notes doesn’t bode well for appearing to run your practice smoothly and efficiently. Your patients want to see that your office is professional and organized, meaning they can trust you to deliver a great experience in terms of treatment and administration.
From answering the phone in a clear, consistent manner to handling scheduling conflicts and following up with patients about any billing issues, your holistic practice needs to be on its game to demonstrate trust and loyalty.
Build Rapport with Your Patients and Create an Individualized Treatment Plan For Each of Them
If you and any team members appear cold or indifferent to a patient, that can leave a negative impression. Instead, make an effort to engage the patient in conversation and use their name in communication. Deploying active listening skills and exhibiting you have an interest in your patient—not their pocketbook—can help build patient loyalty, engagement, and overall satisfaction.
Taking this even further means creating an individualized treatment plan for each of your patients and maintaining a dialogue with them about it. While this might sound like common sense, and that’s great if it does, making the effort to inform each patient about their treatment plan, check in with them over time, and encourage questions are all great ways to nurture patient loyalty.
Leverage the Power of Social Media
Social media platforms can be the ace up your sleeve if you leverage them appropriately for your holistic practice. Use your accounts to post about:
- Upcoming events, like open houses or charity events
- Holidays or moments in history related to your practice’s specialty
- Polls to get patient feedback, such as which composer to play in the office next
- Encourage honest reviews
- Some personal, yet professional, information about you and your practice—for example, showing off your beloved pet so that patients can get to know you a little better
Social media doesn’t have to be overwhelming or feel superfluous if you build and facilitate engagement with your patients!
Leave Your Medical Billing Stress to the Experts at HBS!
Want to deepen the relationship between you, your practice, and your community but feel overwhelmed with the medical coding and billing process? Find yourself frequently fielding questions from patients regarding the status of their claims? Unsure if you should accept insurance, how to bill Medicare, and have other important questions relating to your healthcare revenue cycle?
Turn to the experts at Holistic Billing Services to effectively handle your medical billing and coding so that you can get back to what matters most: your patients. Our team of friendly professionals has experience in your expertise and we’re eager to help your practice thrive so you remain a cornerstone in your community!
Employee onboarding entails all the tasks and procedures that empower a new hire to adjust to your holistic practice environment, their position, and new set of responsibilities. On the flip side, offboarding ties up any loose ends between your holistic practice and the recently departed employee. Whether you’re welcoming a new staff member or saying farewell to a colleague, there are certain measures you should take to onboard—or offboard—members at your holistic practice.
The Importance of Smooth Onboarding and Offboarding Procedures
Employee onboarding practices help set the tone for a new hire at your holistic practice. You’ll want to provide a smooth onboarding experience for new employees so they feel welcomed to your office and can quickly navigate their position and the responsibilities entailed. Establishing a standard onboarding process further demonstrates professionalism at your holistic practice as well as consideration for the new employee who doesn’t know the particularities of your practice.
It’s important to note that onboarding practices should be established in addition to offboarding procedures. Whatever the reason may be—whether it’s due to termination of employment or the colleague is moving to another state or something else—over the course of managing your holistic practice, you’ll have employees leave.
Since it’s an inevitable part of working with people, it’s essential that your practice’s offboarding measures are established and followed. Many of these measures are in place to secure your holistic practice’s patient information and fortify cybersecurity measures, which helps to keep your patients’ personal health information safe. The last thing you’ll want to worry about is whether or not a former employee still has access to your electronic health record system weeks after their last day at your holistic practice.
Best Practices for Onboarding Holistic Practice Staff
Congratulations on growing your holistic practice! When outlining an onboarding program for your holistic practice, consider a few different ideas, including:
Encourage Questions
If they express feeling self-conscious or hesitant to ask for something, then challenge them to ask at least 20 questions by the end of the day. Being steadfast in your openness to questions will help put them at ease and overcome any sense that they might be bothering you too much.
Assign All Relevant Training
Working in an environment where personal health information is stored, managed, and handled means your new hire will need to be HIPAA certified to ensure they know how to properly work with this sensitive information. This secures your patients’ data and keeps your holistic practice in HIPAA compliance, which is crucial in the healthcare industry. Be sure they also are trained in healthcare fraud, waste, and abuse, and cybersecurity best practices that include strong password efforts, etc.
You’ll also want to train them on your holistic practice’s electronic health record system and outline their limitations regarding transferring protected health information on external storage devices, such as thumb drives.
Write and Provide an Employee Handbook
One of the best resources you can provide to a new employee is an employee handbook that features a variety of information and outlines important components of their job. This document will serve as a handy reference for them over the course of their employment at your practice and also functions as a helpful way to discuss in-depth or legal-related information relating to their role.
When putting together an employee handbook, consider the following:
- Your practice’s history, mission, vision and goals
- Your practice’s core values and culture
- Human resources and legal information related to employment
- Your practice’s policies
- Employee benefits
This will ensure your new hire is on the same page as your holistic practice and can further facilitate questions.
Best Practices for Offboarding Staff
Offboarding practices are just as important as onboarding procedures at your holistic practice; a colleague can leave for a number of reasons so it’s crucial your practice is prepared to offboard an employee.
When establishing these practices for offboarding staff, consider the following:
Secure Your Practice’s Data
A survey from 2018 reveals that 72% of departing employees admitted to taking company data within the 90 days before leaving their employer. Obviously, this is especially heinous in the healthcare world that deals with sensitive patient information and other protected health information. That’s why it’s particularly important that you revoke an employee’s access to your electronic health record system immediately upon their termination and consider restricting their access upon their submission of a two-week’s notice.
Routinely Delete and Remove Access for Former Employees
Be sure to remove the former employee from any user accounts, like emails or shared servers, and deactivate their access to programs or software your holistic practice might use. This includes restricting their physical access to your holistic practice, including key cards or updating building access codes. Get in the habit of routinely verifying all personnel with access to various components of your holistic practice because this will allow you to clear out old files, accounts, and delete inactive users from your systems.
Ask for their Feedback (When Appropriate)
Obviously this tip won’t apply to employees who have had to be terminated and therefore are likely to be disgruntled, but in situations where the employee is leaving on amicable terms, consider asking for their feedback. Put together an informal kind of questionnaire to get their experience and any suggestions for improvement regarding the onboarding process, their time working with you, and anything else you feel is relevant.
The offboarding process, like onboarding, should ensure a smooth transition out of the practice for you and your employee.
Streamline Your Holistic Practice Management with Holistic Billing Services!
Wish you had more time or resources to bring on additional staff at your holistic practice? The employee onboarding process can be extensive and time-consuming; let Holistic Billing Services handle your practice’s medical billing and coding to optimize your revenue cycle and spend more time growing your holistic practice.
Our team of experts have extensive experience in your specialty, and your success is our success. Contact us today to learn more!
One vital component for your holistic practice’s success is maintaining HIPAA compliance because it protects patient information, secures your operations, and prevents the chance of a breach that can greatly impact your practice’s reputation. We’ve compiled this comprehensive HIPAA cheat sheet to help you further understand this important legislation and how it pertains to your holistic practice.
History of HIPAA
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act was signed into law on August 21, 1996. This vital piece of legislation created national standards to protect sensitive information regarding patient health from being shared or disclosed without the patient’s knowledge or consent. Basically, HIPAA prevents personal health information (PHI) from being discussed without the patient’s awareness and fortifies a patient’s privacy.
In addition to securing patient privacy and health information, HIPAA legislation aimed to prevent fraud and waste while also promoting medical saving opportunities across the healthcare industry as a whole. For example, certain tax breaks were established in this Act.
In 2009, the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH) was passed, which establishes technological compliance requirements in alignment with HIPAA practices. This Act encourages the implementation of electronic health records to secure patient information and features the Breach Notification Rule stating that breaches exceeding 500 individual records must be reported to the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights (OCR).
The latest legislation related to HIPAA was the Final Omnibus Rule, approved in 2013. The purpose of this Rule is primarily to refine HIPAA definitions and include compliance requirements for new pieces of technology, such as mobile devices.
Why Is HIPAA Important for Your Holistic Practice?
Besides protecting your patients’ information and safeguarding their privacy, HIPAA provides some administrative benefits to your holistic practice. Encouraging the transition from paper to electronic health records streamlines your practice and allows for more collaboration with other providers pertinent to your patients. Plus, all HIPAA-covered entities must utilize the same set of codes, so communication from one practice to another organization is further streamlined for efficiency.
Your HIPAA Cheat Sheet
Let’s break down some of the most essential components of HIPAA for your holistic practice’s reference:
PHI and ePHI
Personal health information, known as PHI, can take on a variety of forms that are all relevant to following HIPAA compliance. Here are the 18 types of information that are considered protected health information (PHI) under HIPAA:
- Name
- Address (Including any information more localized than state)
- Any dates (except years) related to the individual, including birthdays, date of death, date of admission/discharge, etc.
- Telephone Number
- Fax Number
- Email address
- Social Security number
- Medical record number
- Health plan beneficiary number
- Account number
- Certificate/license number
- Vehicle identifiers, serial numbers, license plate numbers
- Device identifiers/serial numbers
- Web URLs
- IP address
- Biometric identifiers such as fingerprints or voiceprints
- Full-face photos
- Any other unique identifying numbers, characteristics, or codes
ePHI, or electronic personal health information, simply refers to PHI that is transferred, accessed, or stored electronically. The same protections apply across PHI and ePHI.
Who Needs To Follow HIPAA Compliance?
Since PHI can be present in a variety of fields and formats, there are multiple types of individuals and organizations who must comply with HIPAA guidelines as they come across it, including:
- Healthcare providers: This is obvious, but it’s worth noting—healthcare professionals can have access to a plethora of patient information, so it’s crucial that they maintain HIPAA confidentiality when handling this sensitive data
- Health plans: Whether privately run or publicly operated programs like Medicare, health insurance-related agencies and their staff must adhere to HIPAA regulations
- Healthcare clearinghouses: These companies act as a kind of go-between for processing sensitive information and still need to maintain HIPAA standards
- Business associates: This covers the overarching third-party vendors or other businesses who interact with PHI for a variety of reasons
The ultimate aim of HIPAA legislation is to protect sensitive patient information across all platforms, so it’s vital that all parties follow HIPAA regulations when applicable.
Privacy Rule
The Privacy Rule essentially dictates that sensitive information is only used or disclosed with appropriate safeguards in place. It also stipulates that patients have rights to access their personal health information, obtain a copy of their records, authorize the communication of their records, and more.
The Privacy Rule is located at 45 CFR Part 160 and Subparts A and E of Part 164
Security Rule
Proposed in 1998 by the Department of Health and Human Services, and later ratified in 2003, the Security Rule sought to improve the security of a person’s health information that is shared between authorized parties, such as healthcare providers, health plans, and other pertinent organizations.
The Security Rule is located at 45 CFR Part 160 and Subparts A and C of Part 164.
Breach Notification Rule
The Breach Notification Rule was officially adopted in September 2009 and stipulates that any breach of electronic personal health information exceeding 500 individual records must be reported to the OCR and that each individual must be alerted to the breach, as well.
A breach is defined in HIPAA section 164.402 as:
“The acquisition, access, use, or disclosure of protected health information in a manner not permitted which compromises the security or privacy of the protected health information.”
When a breach occurs, the business or organization affected must determine the severity by considering what type of information was involved, who potentially saw this information, and evaluate the risk of the incident. From there, the organization can proceed with either patient notification—if the incident qualifies as a breach—or further risk mitigation.
There are also three exclusions to what counts as a breach:
- If the exposure was unintentional and is not expected to be a repeated offense
- If it was an accidental exposure from one HIPAA-certified person to another HIPAA-certified person
- If the covered entity—or organization—has reason to believe the unauthorized person wouldn’t be able to retain details of the personal information
Omnibus Rule
The Omnibus Rule is the latest piece of legislation to be associated with HIPAA. Taking effect in 2013, this Rule updates some definitions contained within the original act and expands the liability of businesses for not being HIPAA compliant. It also further protects patient information since it requires businesses to adhere to the Privacy and Security Rules which strengthen security measures when handling PHI and ePHI.
Maintain HIPAA Compliance with HBS
The experts here at Holistic Billing Services are HIPAA certified to handle your patients’ personal health information while streamlining your overall revenue cycle with excellent medical billing and coding processing. Your success is our success, and we offer a range of services to partner with your holistic practice including medical billing, consultation services, and more!
Our expertise is rooted in professional, technical, and global billing for hospital and stand-alone holistic care practices. To learn more about how outsourced medical billing with Holistic Billing Services can empower your practice, contact us today. We’ll work with you to build a customized solution that meets the specific needs of your practice and allows you to get back to treating patients.
Today, holistic care is a $37 billion-a-year business. That’s a huge number—but how are patients navigating the ever-growing market of options available to them to find the provider that best fits their needs and budget? Known as “healthcare consumerism,” patients are shopping around for their holistic wellness providers in the same way they find the best deals in the grocery store.
Why Does Patient Consumerism Affect Your Holistic Practice?
Americans spend an estimated $14.7 billion out-of-pocket for visits to complementary and integrative health practitioners such as chiropractors, acupuncturists, and massage therapists. Although there have been recent legislative developments to broaden coverage, holistic medicine is largely not yet covered by health insurance policies. As such, patients who utilize holistic medicine as a component of their overall wellness plan are compelled to shop around for the best quality at an affordable price.
Essentially, this is “patient consumerism”—the term used to describe this pattern of patients behaving more like shoppers than ever before. In order to be so discerning and cost-conscious about their care, patients are putting more proactive effort and research into their care options and associated costs, especially since they’re personally paying for it.
Holistic providers need to continue focusing on improving the patient experience, building their brands, and operating more like a retail business in a highly competitive market. While this trend of patient behavior isn’t as jarring in the holistic health world as it is in the conventional medicine market—where health insurance was once wholly relied upon to cover the cost of care—it’s still important for holistic practices to emphasize the experience of the patient in their practice from start to finish.
Patient acquisition is one of the most important components of running a long-lasting holistic practice, and it is a cornerstone of your revenue cycle. As more Americans are turning to holistic healthcare than ever before, your holistic practice has the opportunity to bring in new patients and serve more members of your community. Recognizing the underlying psychology of the patient as a consumer can help your practice effectively engage new patients by speaking to their journey of shopping around for holistic healthcare.
5 Tips for Patient Acquisition at Your Holistic Practice
When it comes to patient acquisition, your marketing efforts are aimed to give the patient enough information and motivation to go to your clinic for service. This marketing is highlighting the best parts of your holistic practice and makes a compelling argument for someone to make a choice.
Here are five actions to take when considering the potential consumer’s relationship with your holistic practice:
Develop Your Brand
Part of what will set your holistic practice apart from the competition is developing your unique brand. This includes your message style and overall mission statement. You’ll have to address what kind of approach you’ll take to market your practice to the public and what tools you’ll use.
All of this will influence your message tone. For instance, if you’re marketing massage therapy to the elderly, you would use a different tone, style, and content than if you were attracting a millennial client base. Or, let’s say you’re focusing on delivering acupuncture services as an opioid alternative for patients recovering from addiction or surgery. You would use a distinct tone of voice in your marketing that speaks to their specific needs than if you were trying to attract a more generic audience.
Get Technologically Savvy
Patients who booked healthcare appointments ran three times more searches than those who didn’t, which means that enhancing your holistic practice’s online options and overall digital presence is key to success in a patient-first landscape.
If possible, add a chat feature to your website that connects customers with members of your staff to answer quick questions. Additionally, flesh out your practice’s digital appointment-booking options and make online medical records and payment options as accessible as possible.
Provide Price Transparency
Posting cost information online can make a big difference to patients, as well. Make the prices of any services you provide to patients readily available on your website, as well as inside your office. This further informs your patients about what to expect to pay and sets the foundation for dialogue about payment options, etc.
While you’re at it, consider expanding the type and amount of options of holistic care you deliver. For example, you could add a pediatric acupuncture specialist to your acupuncture practice to attract new types of patients and provide additional services to your community.
Deliver Patient Education Resources
Patient education resources are essential to a well-rounded holistic practice because they help empower the patient. When receiving literature from a trusted wellness provider, the patient can learn more about their diagnosis, condition, treatment plan, and further their own understanding and use this information to do more research, if needed.
This can lead to a healthy dialogue between patient and provider, as the patient can ask more informed questions about their health and feel more empowered in their healthcare journey.
Partner with a Medical Billing Firm
Every holistic practice aims to deliver excellent care and customer service, but juggling everything on your practice’s plate makes it difficult to meet all your patients’ expectations. Your support staff is always going to be responsible for managing scheduling tasks, executing patient check-in and check-out, keeping the books, and handling clinical concerns. By outsourcing medical billing, you’re freeing up your staff’s time to better attend to patient needs, resulting in higher satisfaction rates and better patient retention.
The experts here at Holistic Billing Services believe that our success is your success. From handling medical billing and coding to offering consulting services and much more, our team is dedicated to making it feel like we’re in-house. With a focus on holistic practices, insurance background, and proven consultants, our team can effectively ensure the financial success of clients, allowing your medical practice to focus on what it does best: treat patients.
Our expertise is rooted in professional, technical, and global billing for hospital and stand-alone holistic care practices. To learn more about how outsourced medical billing with Holistic Billing Services can empower your practice, contact us today. We’ll work with you to build a customized solution that meets the specific needs of your practice and allows you to get back to treating patients.
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Like millions of people, watching a lot of fictionalized law shows on TV might leave you with the impression that you fully grasp various facets of the legal system and its regulations. In reality, laws and regulations can vary wildly between states, and it’s important to recognize that there are guaranteed to be far more complications than what might be explained in a crime drama. One such example is non-compete agreements, which sound pretty straightforward but can be handled differently across the country. This blog outlines what non-compete agreements are, how they’re enforced, in which states they’re illegal, and much more.
What is a Non-Compete Agreement?
A non-compete agreement is a contract that prohibits an employee from working for or becoming a competitor for a certain period. These arrangements are enforced when a relationship between an employer and employee ends, and the employer wishes to prevent the employee from competing against them in their next position, whether working for a competitor in the same market or starting up another business in the same field.
Non-compete clauses usually contain language that limits you from engaging in competition with your employer. In the healthcare industry, for example, these provisions often preclude you from practicing within a specific distance surrounding the practice and for a specified period. Under most state laws, a practice can enforce a non-compete agreement if it meets the following criteria:
- protects the practice’s legitimate business interest
- is specific in geographical scope
- has a narrowly tailored durational scope
How an Employee Non-Compete Agreement Works
Non-compete agreements overall should be both fair and equitable for all parties. They require certain information to be considered enforceable, including:
- An effective date on which the agreement will begin
- A reason for enacting the agreement
- Specific dates during which the employee will be barred from working in a competitive sense and the location covered by the agreement
- Details as to how the non-competing party will be compensated for agreeing to the terms
If your employer’s practice has more than one location, then you may be restricted within a radius from each location under your contract, even if you’ve never been to that particular location. If the language in the clause is vague or does not clearly describe the exact terms of your restrictions, the clause might be unenforceable or open to greater interpretation than either party anticipated. This is why having an attorney review your employment contract prior to signing is recommended since non-competes will greatly limit where – and when – you practice.
Which States Allow Non-Compete Agreements?
A majority of states do allow and enforce non-compete agreements, but several have specific exemptions. For example, Arizona exempts broadcasters; Florida exempts mediators; Vermont exempts beauticians; and so on.
The following states specifically exempt physicians from non-compete agreements:
- Alabama
- Arizona
- Colorado
- Delaware
- Illinois
- Maryland
- Tennessee
- Texas
In a few states, non-compete agreements are not enforced at all. In North Dakota and Oklahoma, for example, non-compete agreements are unenforceable. California has gone a step further: Not only are noncompete agreements unenforceable, but an employer who requires employees to sign them can be sued, even if the employer never tries to enforce the agreement.
If your state doesn’t allow employers to require employees to sign noncompetes, you should bring this to your employer’s attention immediately – and don’t sign the agreement. Be sure to verify your state’s regulations regarding non-compete agreements before implementing them in your practice.
What Happens If You Break a Non-Compete Agreement?
Generally, if you violate a valid and enforceable non-compete agreement, it is likely that your former employer will file a lawsuit against you. This lawsuit could seek compensation for money damages and actual losses suffered by your employer, it could simply seek to enforce the non-compete agreement by filing a court order against you, or could seek both money damages and a court order. In very rare cases, the court may prevent you from working for a competitor for the duration specified in the non-compete.
There could be serious legal consequences, so be sure you have appropriate counsel evaluate the agreement before signing it and advise you of professional moves after signing it.
What to Do If You Are Asked to Sign a Non-compete Contract
Bottom line, our recommendation is before you sign any papers, always have a lawyer well-versed in your particular state laws review your agreement, then negotiate something you feel is reasonable. This empowers you to be more informed of the legal ramifications of signing a non-compete agreement rather than just hoping things will work out – you’ll be saving yourself money and headaches down the line. 
For example, if you’re asked to sign a broad agreement that could significantly restrict your ability to earn a living in the future, it would be well worth consulting with a lawyer to find out whether the agreement is legal and learn what steps you can take to negotiate a more limited arrangement with your employer. One of the most important factors of a non-compete agreement is the time frame it encompasses. Determine the effective dates of the agreement well in advance and seek legal counsel, as employers can set non-compete agreements only within a realistic timeline and cannot permanently prevent former employees from furthering their careers in that field.
Holistic Billing Services knows it takes a lot to run a streamlined and effective practice. Serving your patients and treating them with the best holistic approaches should always be your top priority, but sometimes massive piles of paperwork, billing errors, and insurance delays can weigh you down and poorly affect your practice.
Our experts here at HBS believe that your success is our success. From handling medical billing and coding to offering consulting services and much more, our team is dedicated to making it feel like we’re in-house. With a focus on holistic practices, insurance background, and proven consultants, our team can work with you regarding all holistic practice-related matters, and even help you navigate legal complexities like non-compete agreements. Contact us today!
The COVID-19 coronavirus had a profound effect on holistic patient care. Many practices were forced to see patients under highly restrictive circumstances, and sometimes they were not able to see them at all. As state-mandated social distancing guidelines are slowly relaxed, many holistic practices are wondering what to do with themselves until patient levels return to the pre-lockdown levels.
What COVID-19 Has Meant for Holistic Patient Care
The impact of the coronavirus pandemic on holistic patient care has been somewhat uneven and determined primarily by whether or not a particular practice area is designated as an essential service. Chiropractic providers were given that distinction by the Department of Homeland Security in late March, which allowed many chiropractors to remain open and see patients even during the height of state-imposed social distancing requirements.
Unfortunately, massage therapy and acupuncture practices did not receive the same endorsement from federal authorities, which meant that most states ended up designating them as “non-essential” medical services. These practices often had no choice but to close their offices for the duration of the stay-at-home restrictions.
While most states have taken steps to roll back restrictions and allow businesses to reopen, some holistic practices either aren’t ready to resume seeing patients or will be serving fewer patients than they did prior to the crisis. Whether an office is reopening or taking a “wait and see” approach for the time being, many holistic practitioners are looking for ways to remain productive until they’re able to get back to full capacity.
5 Ways to Stay Productive While Unable to Give Holistic Patient Care or Operate at Maximum Capacity
1. Focus on Continuing Education
If your holistic practice is still closed or you’re only seeing a much smaller number of patients, this is a perfect opportunity to catch up on the latest trends and developments within your specialty. Most states have some form of licensing system in place that requires holistic patient care providers to take part in continuing education to ensure that they’re aware of changing best practices when it comes to delivering care. Finding the time to fit this training in between a full schedule of patients can be quite a challenge, but it should be much easier to do so during the temporary slowdown. Focusing on education will also help you to keep your skills sharp for when your patients return.
2. Reassess (or Create) Infection/Disease Prevention Policies
The impact of COVID-19 will continue to be felt even after most businesses reopen. Until an effective treatment or a vaccine is developed, there will be an ongoing risk of infection and potentially even another rapid outbreak. It’s critical, then, for every holistic practice to take extreme caution as they begin seeing patients again. One thing you can do to promote better safety is to review your policies for limiting disease exposure (or developing them if you don’t have them). This could include how you schedule and manage patients all the way down to what items you keep in your waiting room. Taking these steps now will help to reassure patients when they return that you’ve done everything in your power to create a safe and healthy environment for them.
3. Reevaluate Your Practice Procedures
Is there something about the way you schedule clients or manage your records that always caused your holistic practice headaches in the past? Now is the perfect time to solve those problems. Many practices tolerate certain inefficiencies or systems because it would be too disruptive to change them. Now that your holistic practice is functioning well below capacity, however, it’s the perfect time to make those policy changes you’ve always had in mind, whether it’s changing the way you communicate with patients or how you bill holistic patient care to insurance companies. It may also be a good time to review PPP loan forgiveness guidelines if your practice received such a loan.
4. Clean and Repair Your Office
While your office should never be dirty, there’s always a deeper level of cleaning that simply takes too much time to complete when you have a steady schedule of patients. The same goes for longstanding repairs that need to be done. It simply isn’t practical to close down your waiting room for a few days to have the carpeting torn out and replaced with wood floors, just as there never seems to be the time to steam clean or disinfect every corner of the office. Make sure that when you do begin seeing patients again, they’ll know immediately that you’re committed to making their visit as accomodating and as comfortable as possible.
5. Network, Network, Network
Managing a full load of patients can be overwhelming at times, leaving little opportunity to connect with fellow holistic care providers. The slowdown is a good time to start building (or rebuilding, in some cases) those connections. Find out what other practices are doing to address the COVID-19 crisis. How are they handling their billing and coding? Are they attending industry events and putting their names out in the community to attract new patients? Networking with your peers not only exposes you to new ways of managing your practice, but also creates opportunities for you to reach new patients and partners.
Keep Your Holistic Practice Productive and Profitable with Holistic Billing!
As a medical insurance billing provider dedicated solely to the unique needs of holistic practices, Holistic Billing Services is here to help as you prepare to reopen your practice following the COVID-19 shutdown. With many people losing their private health insurance after being laid off, you may well find yourself billing for more Medicaid and Medicare reimbursements. Having an experienced billing service like Holistic Billing at your side can ensure that you’re acupuncture billing, massage therapy billing, and chiropractic billing are being done properly to get you reimbursed faster. Contact our team today to learn more about how we can get your practice back on its feed following the several months of coronavirus restrictions.
After the rapid spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus, social distancing guidelines quickly gave way to widespread shutdown orders that caused many businesses to close for an extended period of time. While some practices remained in operation, not every holistic practice was lucky enough to receive “essential” designation and joined businesses like restaurants and retail stores in closing their doors.
As several states begin to relax these guidelines, holistic practices need to start making plans to reopen to patients. Before they can do so, however, there are several factors they must take into consideration.
When Will Holistic Practices Start Reopening After COVID-19?
The question of when to reopen depends on a number of factors. First and foremost, COVID-19 shutdown orders have been implemented at the state level, so there has not been a universal standard applied to all practices across the country. This also applies to the decision to reopen, with some states moving very swiftly (perhaps too swiftly, in the eyes of some health experts) while others are more hesitant.
In some cases, holistic practices did not close at all. Chiropractic providers, for example, were designated as an essential service by the Department of Homeland Security in late March. While this designation took the form of an advisory rather than a federal mandate, it did create the justification for some states to allow these practices to stay open throughout the COVID-19 shutdown.
For massage therapy and acupuncture practices, however, the situation has been more complicated. Without clear guidance from federal authorities, most states have either specifically designated massage and acupuncture as “non-essential” medical services or failed to provide a clear exemption from shutdown guidelines. Since providing massage and acupuncture treatments is not possible without close contact with patients, many of these practices would most likely have experienced a significant drop-off in patient traffic even if they had been deemed essential medical services.
Given this complex environment, each state’s guidelines for relaxing shutdown policies must be considered individually. Some states are already allowing non-essential practices to reopen, but others are keeping strict social distancing guidelines in place for the foreseeable future. Holistic practices should check their state’s current status to make sure they’re using the most up-to-date information for deciding when (and how) to reopen.
What Do You Need to Do Before Your Holistic Practice Reopens?
If your state is allowing holistic practices to reopen, it’s important to realize that most businesses are reopening under very strict conditions that take the ongoing risk of COVID-19 into account. That means several changes will need to be made when it comes to managing and treating patients.
Here are a few things you should do before reopening your holistic practice:
Implement Patient Prescreening
Every patient should be prescreened by phone before they arrive at the office to make sure they are not symptomatic. Do not come into contact with anyone who may be infected with COVID-19. Patients who arrive at the office ill should be sent home immediately to avoid the risk of further infection. Since implementing social distancing measures will likely reduce the number of patients you can see in a day, you should also establish a system for prioritizing patients with the most urgent needs.
Rearrange Waiting Areas
Patients should not be in close proximity to one another while waiting to receive treatment. There should be at least six feet of distance between seating. Depending on the layout of the office area, guidelines may need to be put in place to avoid having too many people in narrow hallways or elevators. Non-essential items in waiting areas and treatment rooms (such as magazines, dishes with mints, or games) should also be removed as they could become transmission vectors.
Stagger Your Bookings
One of the easier ways to avoid having too many people in an office is to stagger appointments. This not only minimizes the number of people sitting in a waiting area, but also creates opportunities to clean and disinfect surfaces that could be contaminated. While this could mean seeing fewer patients during the day, lower patient volume is preferable to your holistic practice becoming a vector for COVID-19 infection.
Use Protective Gear
Even as states begin to reopen businesses, many of them are still advising customers and employees to wear protective equipment to minimize direct contact. Everyone working at your holistic practice should have a mask and gloves, and it would not be unreasonable to ask the same of patients.
Emphasize Handwashing
Handwashing is one of the most important steps you can take to minimize the risk of infection. It’s especially important for holistic practices, where some amount of patient contact is unavoidable. Stock up on soap and think about how to incorporate a rigorous handwashing routine into your practice. Even when wearing protective equipment and washing your hands regularly, avoid touching your eyes, nose, and mouth while treating patients to minimize the risk of transmission.
Get Your Holistic Practice Ready for Success With Holistic Billing!
Preparing your holistic practice to reopen after the COVID-19 shutdown is a major undertaking that will require you to rethink some of your core business practices. One area that could be more complicated than ever is patient billing. With many people losing their jobs and health insurance rules changing rapidly, it can be difficult to keep up with the demands of billing and coding for holistic practices.
By partnering with an experienced billing service like Holistic Billing, you can let someone you trust to manage the ins and outs of billing while you focus on getting your holistic practice ready to reopen. Contact our team today to make sure your business has everything it needs to manage billing the aftermath of the COVID-19 shutdown.
Operating a healthcare practice of any kind, whether it’s a western-style medical office or a holistic health service, is a challenging and complicated undertaking. As if providing quality care to patients wasn’t difficult enough, there are many other factors practices must take into account if they want to be successful. Learning the ins and outs of health insurance coverage, for instance, is an ongoing process that changes every year as provider policies are updated. Implementing processes and systems for collecting revenue is also essential, especially if many of the practice’s health services aren’t covered by insurance.
Most of these issues fall under the broad responsibilities of healthcare management and healthcare administration. While these terms are quite common, there is a lot of confusion around them because they are often used interchangeably despite the fact that they do have specific meanings.
The Difference Between Healthcare Administration and Healthcare Management
What is Healthcare Management?
As the term “management” might suggest, this area refers primarily to how the business aspects of a healthcare or holistic practice are handled. The primary focus of healthcare management is to develop a business plan that meets the practice’s specific goals and then execute on that plan using a variety of management, negotiation, and leadership techniques. Most healthcare management professionals hold an MBA or have a background in accounting or facilities management. They are typically responsible for budget management, organizational policies, standards of patient care, marketing, compliance, and various aspects of healthcare law.
What is Healthcare Administration?
While healthcare management emphasizes the business side of a practice, healthcare administration is more focused on overseeing and coordinating the staff within a practice or department. The typical healthcare administrator supports the policies and processes that help medical personnel deliver effective care that impacts patients. While they may at times be responsible for meeting regulatory requirements that are associated with healthcare management, healthcare administrators primarily support, direct, and encourage employees to ensure that they are able to provide the best care. Crucially, they are often considered to be healthcare professionals, and it is common for these roles to be filled by physicians, nurses, or other public health specialists.
Healthcare Administration vs Healthcare Management: Who Handles Medical Billing?
There are a lot of similarities between these roles, and the distinctions are made even more confusing by healthcare organizations that use the terms interchangeably. In general, however, the primary difference is that healthcare managers are responsible for the operation of a facility as a whole while healthcare administrators oversee the operations of specific departments and medical staff.
So which of these roles is responsible for medical billing?
Perhaps predictably, it depends on the specific practice.
Larger healthcare practices and medical facilities generally have dedicated medical billers who are responsible for coding medical services and then filing and submitting claims. Some organizations classify this role as a management position while others consider it administrative. In most cases, medical billers are not required to have any medical training, which would suggest that they’re more on the management side. However, since medical billers must work closely with both medical staff and patients, their role fits more naturally within the framework of healthcare administration.
For smaller healthcare practices, the distinction is far less important because the lines between healthcare management and healthcare administration are not clearly drawn. These practices don’t have the revenue or patient volume to justify the existence of additional office personnel. In many cases, both managerial and administrative are handled by only a few (or even just one) people, in addition to many other tasks they’re responsible for. This is especially true of holistic practices, where the clinician may be responsible for every aspect of their practice without any assistance from employees.
The Value of Outsourcing Holistic Billing
For many acupuncture, massage therapy, and chiropractic practices, it can be difficult to provide quality care to patients while also keeping up with all the demands of healthcare management and administration. Medical billing, in particular, can be incredibly time-intensive, not only requiring holistic practitioners to organize, file, and monitor all billing claims, but also to keep up-to-date on the latest changes to coding and to which holistic healthcare services insurance companies will agree to cover.
Partnering with an experienced medical billing provider that specializes in holistic practices can streamline an office’s operations and allow clinicians to dedicate more of their attention to their patients. While there are many medical billing services available, it’s important to find a provider that understands the unique characteristics of holistic practices and can provide the specialized support that helps these practices to be more successful.
At Holistic Billing Services, we recognize that acupuncture, massage therapy, and chiropractic practices call for a much different approach to medical billing than traditional healthcare practices. That’s why we’ve focused specifically on this growing area of medical care and have partnered with over 1,200 practices to help them improve their revenue cycle management and boost their net collections. Our convenient and secure solutions can take the hassle of insurance verifications, claims processing, and denied claims follow-ups off your hands so you can focus on what matters most: delivering quality care to your patients.
To learn more about how our team of experts can help improve your holistic billing, contact us today for a consultation.