Tag Archives: healthcare administration

Check out these types of policies for your holistic practice

4 Types of Policies to Establish at Your Holistic Practice

Operating a successful and effective holistic practice means managing a plethora of responsibilities, tasks, and repetitive processes–all while delivering quality care to your patients and community.

Part of this, unfortunately, entails writing and maintaining several policies and other types of business writings related to your practice. Putting your actions and intentions into writing can be intimidating and you might not even know where to start!

In this article, we’ll focus primarily on a few types of policies you should implement at your practice, ranging from the obvious to the overlooked. Take notes of which ones you already have in place, which ones you might need to review or update, and which ones you need to leverage as soon as possible. 

Keep reading to find out more!

Why Are Policies Essential for Your Holistic Practice’s Success?

We know that paperwork is never someone’s favorite part of their work; it’s something that is often seen as a necessary evil and results in a headache.

Writing, updating, and managing different types of policies at your holistic practice is essential for a few reasons that make the headache worth it. From educating your patients to streamlining your processes and more, establishing a centralized plan for whatever element of your practice you’re addressing is incredibly useful!

For example, implementing a patient no-show policy is something that your patients need to be aware of, so they understand the consequences of not showing up for their appointment. Thus, having this policy in effect is vital to the patient-provider relationship; it’s also important for streamlining your processes because it helps manage your calendar and other administrative workflows.

The same can be said for numerous other types of policies; not to mention that keeping policies current is also essential for reducing the potential for any legal trouble!

4 Types of Policies to Write for Your Holistic Practice

Check out these types of policies to include in your holistic practice’s arsenal of business writings:

Patient Care Policies

Of course, the whole point of your practice is to deliver quality care to patients–that’s why you need a patient care policy! Care policies can take on a wide variety of subjects depending on the specialty of your holistic practice; be sure to do your research and establish a patient care policy that best reflects your practice.

HR Policies

Your practice wouldn’t operate smoothly without the support and power of your staff; as such, you need to help them succeed with policies that are related to the workplace, customer relationship success, and more.

Consider implementing policies related to:

  • Dress code, both for staff and patients
  • Legal and ethical standards
  • Annual leave and sick time

Workplace Safety Policies

Does your holistic practice utilize personal protective equipment (PPE)? What’s the protocol to follow in the event that a hazardous material is spilled? How would you respond in the event of a medical emergency?

Writing a clear set of guidelines will empower you and your staff to know how to handle a potentially dangerous situation safely.

Cybersecurity and Information Management Policies

HIPAA is basically synonymous with the healthcare field; you can’t have one without the other. However, it’s not the only kind of cybersecurity or information management policy to implement at your practice.

Check out these other forms of cybersecurity policies:

  • Threat escalation steps
  • Password-related guidelines
  • When access is given or restricted

The healthcare field is under relentless attack by cyber criminals; don’t let your holistic practice be the next victim!

Partner with Holistic Billing Services to Optimize Your Practice!

Are you tired of looking at paperwork and overwhelmed by the medical billing process? Even though it’s vital to your practice, facing mountains of forms, types of policies, and regulations can be incredibly stressful.

When it comes to optimizing your healthcare revenue cycle, the friendly experts at Holistic Billing Services are the ace up your sleeve! We’ve got decades of experience and expertise in your specialty, so rest assured that you’re in good hands. 

We’ll optimize your revenue cycle, minimize your rejected claims, and put more time back into your life so you can focus on what matters most: your patients. Let us handle the medical billing burden and contact us today!

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Prepare for a HIPAA audit

5 Tips for Preparing for a HIPAA Audit

Did you know that the Office of Civil Rights (OCR), responsible for enforcing HIPAA compliance, received more than 306,000 complaints regarding HIPAA violations between 2003 and 2022? Such violations were found in healthcare entities ranging from major medical facilities to small, independent practices–anyone dealing with personal health information could be found out of compliance.

When the OCR receives a complaint, that often results in a HIPAA audit on that healthcare practice. But what exactly is involved in a HIPAA audit? And how can your holistic practice ensure you maintain HIPAA compliance?

In this article, we’ll cover all of that and provide helpful tips for you to conduct your own internal audit. Keep reading to learn more!

What Is a HIPAA Audit?

To answer this question, let’s first recap what exactly HIPAA is: the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) was signed into law on August 21, 1996. 

It’s the cornerstone legislation that created national standards to protect sensitive information regarding patient health from being discussed or handled without the patient’s knowledge or consent. Essentially, HIPAA provides and affirms a patient’s right to privacy.

The latest legislative update pertaining to HIPAA was the Final Omnibus Rule, which was approved in 2013 and refined important definitions and included requirements for new technology, such as cell phones.

Since there are so many elements in this legislation, it’s imperative that your holistic practice stay vigilantly compliant or else you risk having a HIPAA complaint and audit levied against your practice.

A HIPAA audit conducted by the OCR will investigate a number of areas within your practice and operations, including:

Having an external audit performed by the OCR on your holistic practice is no small bump in the road; this process can take months from start to finish.

How Can a HIPAA Audit Impact Your Holistic Practice?

HIPAA audits can be costly and time-consuming for your holistic practice, both in terms of financial and reputational. If your practice is found out of compliance, then that can be damaging to your standing in the field and can result in lost business or further legal action. Don’t underestimate how important HIPAA compliance is in your practice!

5 Tips for Preparing for a HIPAA Audit

Now that we’ve reviewed what is involved in a HIPAA audit and how it can impact your holistic practice, let’s look at some of our top tips for preventing an external audit:

Make HIPAA Training Mandatory for Your Employees

No matter how many employees your holistic practice has–even if it’s just you–it’s vital that HIPAA training is part of your onboarding curriculum. After all, knowledge is power. If you or your staff aren’t well-versed in HIPAA’s standards, then it’ll be nearly impossible to ensure that your practice is in compliance.

Create a Risk Assessment Plan

If you want to avoid an external audit, then it’s a great idea to regularly perform internal audits of your own practice! Part of this entails creating a risk assessment plan, which analyzes every aspect of your practice to see where there might be room for improvement and map out an action plan in the event of a breach.

Know Where Your Documents Are at All Times

Carefully track where all your paper-based or electronic personal health information is stored, handled, and transferred. Whether it’s in old-school filing cabinets, desktops, mobile devices, shelves, or somewhere else, it’s important to know where your documents are.

Do Your Research

The OCR provides some general instructions for entities undergoing a HIPAA audit, including definitions of important terms. For example, “information systems” includes hardware, software, communications, people, information data, applications, and more. Check out their guidelines at this link here.

Partner with a Medical Billing Firm

The friendly experts here at Holistic Billing Services are HIPAA certified to handle your patients’ PHI while boosting your overall revenue cycle! Your success is our success, and we offer a range of services to help put more time and energy back into your day.

We’ll build a custom solution for your practice and empower you to get back to what matters most: delivering quality care to your patients. Our operations are grounded in professional, technical, and global billing for holistic care practices, no matter your specialty. 

To learn more about how outsourced medical billing with Holistic Billing Services can streamline your practice, contact us today. 

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Check out these types of policies for your holistic practice

How to Write a Patient Care Policy (+ Why Your Practice Needs One)

Ever heard of a patient care policy? If not, you might be wondering if your holistic practice needs one or how to write one for your practice and with so many different kinds of business writing for your practice, it can be easy to overlook one.

First, let’s define patient care–this term broadly includes the prevention, treatment, and management of illness and the preservation of physical and mental well-being through healthcare services. Sounds like that aligns with the goals of your holistic practice? It certainly does.

In this article, we’ll dive into what exactly is a patient care policy, explain the importance of one for your holistic practice, and outline how to write one yourself. Keep reading to learn more!

What Is a Patient Care Policy?

A patient care policy can take shape in a number of different ways and might differ from one practice or specialty to the next; there is no one-size-fits-all, which means you have the flexibility to put a policy together that best suits your practice.

Essentially, a patient care policy is an umbrella term for the policies that relate to caring for your patients; this might include:

Administrative Policies

This piece of writing would pertain to how your practice’s administrative workflows handle the patient from a paperwork perspective and other aspects relating to your practice’s operations overall. Examples include no show patient policies, patient-payer policies, and more!

Care Policies

These might get more in-depth as they should cover how you deliver care to your patients, what to do in the event of different patient emergencies should they arise, methods for evaluation and treatment, etc.

Communication Policies

How do you communicate with your patients? Via email, automated voicemail, social media, texting, or some other form? This is what you’d outline in this policy–how the patient can anticipate contact from you, how frequently, and more, plus their rights to opt out if they so choose.

Privacy Policies

Standards and laws, such as HIPAA, that deal with patient privacy are essential to include in this component of your practice’s patient care policy. Outline how you protect patient privacy and when your practice will be sharing patient information–such as in the event of working with insurance companies or other trusted providers.

Does Your Holistic Practice Need a Patient Care Policy?

The short answer? Yes.

The long answer? Yes, and here’s why: your patient care policy, like any kind of healthcare or holistic practice policy, is vital to ensuring consistency. Having protocols and expectations in place helps minimize any kind of miscommunications or errors across your practice.

Furthermore, writing and implementing a patient care policy at your practice strengthens compliance with important standards and laws, such as HIPAA, and can be leveraged as a foundational piece of writing when onboarding new staff members.

Since there are so many different layers to the robust patient care policy, it’s nice to have a comprehensive body of writing that addresses so many different elements of your holistic practice and the patients you treat.

How to Write a Patient Care Policy: Do’s and Don’ts

With so many different facets to one patient care policy, it might seem intimidating to start putting one together for your holistic practice.

Start here with these foundational tips:

Don’t Reinvent the Wheel

The good news is that you’re not the first holistic practice to write a patient care policy–you’re not starting from scratch! Hence there’s no need to stress about spending weeks writing this policy.

Do Your Research

Following up with the above point, do some research to see how other practices–whether holistic or traditional medical–have approached their patient care policies. This will help you get an idea of the industry’s best practices and chart a course to writing your own.

Don’t Be Too Generic

While it’s good to gain an idea of how other practices write their patient care policy, don’t be too generic or general in your own writing. Leaving out the details or particularities of how your practice cares for patients doesn’t help guide new staff members or codify processes that are important to your practice.

Do Tailor It to Your Practice and Specialty

What makes your practice stand out? Do you strive to serve the veterans in your community? Do you offer pediatric acupuncture? Multiple specialties under one roof? Factors like this will help you tailor your patient care policy to your practice and ensure that you consider the multitudes of your practice.

Don’t Let the Stress of Medical Billing Overwhelm You

Writing important documents and policies for your holistic practice isn’t exactly a piece of cake, but when you feel buried by a mountain of medical coding and billing paperwork then the pressure really settles in. Rejected claims, trying to read up on new regulations, and the overall hassle of dealing with insurance companies or Medicare programs can take a toll on your stress levels and make any additional paperwork feel burdensome.

Do Partner with Holistic Billing Services!

That’s where Holistic Billing Services is the ace up your sleeve–let our friendly experts handle the medical billing burden so you can focus on what matters most: delivering quality care to your patients.

We’ve got decades of experience and specialty-specific experts to help immediately boost your healthcare revenue cycle and put more time back in your day. Your success is our success, and we’re eager to alleviate your workload.

Contact us today to get started!

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Your practice's online reputation is essential for success

How to Manage Your Holistic Practice’s Online Reputation

In this day and age, nearly everything lives on the internet and it’s no secret that it’s an essential component of life, both personal and professional. The internet is an endless source of information and can positively or negatively impact your holistic practice, depending on your practice’s online reputation.

As potential clients turn to the internet to conduct research on holistic practices in their area, a phenomenon known as healthcare consumerism in which people shop around for the best care for their budget, it’s vital that your holistic practice is effectively managing its online presence and reputation.

Keep reading to learn more about the importance of your holistic practice’s presence and website plus tips for managing your online reputation!

Why Your Holistic Practice’s Online Reputation Is Important

The holistic care market is a $37 billion business, which means that general awareness and demand for holistic and alternative treatments is flourishing. How will your holistic practice attract, engage, and retain these prospective clients? Your online presence and reputation certainly play a major role here.

Let’s first break down what your online reputation includes:

  • Your holistic practice’s website
  • Reviews, both positive and negative
  • Blog articles that your practice publishes
  • Press coverage
  • And more!

Research shows that 63% of patients choose one provider over another based on a strong online presence. Since patients are leveraging the internet to research holistic practices well before they ever show up to your office, appealing to them via your online presence is critical, even if you’re not trying to attract new patients.

Patients will likely form their perception of your holistic practice based on your online presence, or lack thereof, so it behooves you to shape and refine your online reputation to the best of your ability.

5 Tips for Managing Your Online Reputation

Obviously, the ideal is that every external entity views your holistic practice as an effective, high-quality place to receive treatments, but crafting this reputation isn’t easy. Let’s dig into some of our top tips for managing your practice’s online reputation: 

Build a Professional-Looking Website & Optimize It for Mobile Users

The first step to managing your online presence is to have one. Your holistic practice needs a website just as any other business needs one! With so many user-friendly, no-coding-needed website building resources available like Wix or Squarespace, there’s no reason to not have a website for your holistic practice.

These do-it-yourself tools often feature an automatic version optimized for mobile users, but it’s worth noting to make sure that your site looks good on a desktop or cell phone. 

Request Honest Reviews from Patients

Word of mouth marketing plays an instrumental role in influencing which businesses people patronize; in fact, 86% of customers rely on word-of-mouth recommendations and online reviews.

As such, it’s good to solicit feedback from your patients both via patient satisfaction surveys and honest online reviews. If your patients seem hesitant to leave a review because they’re worried the process is too tedious or inconvenient, then you can do a brief tutorial of how quick and easy it is to leave one.

If you’re not sure how to ask patients to rate you, here are a few suggestions:

  • Hand a card to the patient with the URLs listed for key consumer rating sites and ask them to rate you
  • Add a clickable link for key sites to your email signature and website
  • Keep a tablet at the front desk and ask patients to post a review before leaving your office

Gaining feedback from your patients is a win-win because it validates your holistic practice’s efforts and builds the relationship between your practice and your patients. Be sure to try out different methods for requesting reviews to see which ones work best for your patients.

Upon Receiving Reviews, Engage with Them

A great step to take upon receiving reviews or questions online is to engage with them. It’s as simple as thanking someone for taking the time to leave a positive review, answering a posted question and encouraging the author to contact your office, or addressing a negative review with an apology and steps to resolve the issue, if relevant.

Your patients took the time to leave a review; it’s a good rule of thumb to respond and thank them for it!

Fill Out Every Online Profile Available for Your Business

With so many places for patients to research holistic practices, it’s beneficial to fill out and promote more than one online profile available to your business. This might include:

  • Google
  • Yelp!
  • Bing
  • Facebook
  • Better Business Bureau
  • And more!

Don’t forget to check out any local organizations or resources available to register your holistic practice’s website. Routinely keeping these profiles current can help more people discover your practice and learn about your services.

Stay Consistent in Your Online Branding

Last but not least, another top tip is to stay consistent in your online branding across all platforms. Maintaining your voice, no matter the platform, demonstrates authority, authenticity, and leaves a memorable impression in the reader’s mind. Whether it’s including your slogan or mission statement whenever relevant, or another manner for staying consistent in your online branding, it’s great to help readers learn more about your holistic practice.

Let Holistic Billing Services Handle the Medical Billing Burden!

If you’re feeling too burned out or overloaded with medical billing and coding processes, issues, or legislative updates to put creative and consistent effort into your online reputation, then let Holistic Billing Services step in!

Our friendly experts are knowledgeable in your specialty and can immediately boost your healthcare revenue cycle by handling your medical billing and coding processes. Plus, we operate as an extension of your practice, so you know that your success is our success!

Contact us today so you can focus on what matters most: your patients.

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Smart businessman and businesswoman talking discussion in group meeting at office table in a modern office interior. Business collaboration strategic planning and brainstorming of coworkers.

Does Your Practice Have a Strategic Plan? (Why You Need It + How to Write One)

Running a successful medical practice involves a long list of components. In addition to actual patient care, there’s administrative work, insurance claims processing, and billing. Add to that patient support, marketing, and follow up consultations. It’s a full plate — enough to make it tempting to do what needs to get done right now, while putting everything else on the back burner. 

Such can be the case with developing a healthcare strategic plan. Sure, you want to scale, but it doesn’t need to happen today, so pencil it in for later. Before you move on to the next task, take a minute to consider this further. At the end of the day, having a plan in place is what will ensure that you move in the direction you want to go — and that you have a tangible way to track progress.  

What is a Healthcare Strategic Plan? 

A healthcare strategic plan is an established process used to determine what are your practice’s goals, procedures to meet them, and the steps to take along the way to ensure that you’re on the right track. 

While you can certainly implement short-term goals, the focus is on long-term planning, with specific milestones at certain intervals.

7 Benefits of Healthcare Strategic Planning

While it’s common sense to simply think that you want to gradually grow your practice, establishing a healthcare strategic plan means creating a blueprint with actionable steps for each stage of your growth. In doing so, everyone involved within your organization will reap the benefits, including: 

  1. Streamlined Processes

    Establishing standard procedures ensures consistency and everyone on your team being aware of what to do and when to do it. It eliminates wasted time and resources going back and forth trying to figure out what to do or who’s in charge of doing what.

  2. Better Communications

    When you have processes for all elements of your practice, you eliminate the guesswork. It also ensures that each department knows how other departments conduct their own tasks, which better helps them align to work like a well-oiled machine.

  3. Predictive Analytics

    An essential part of having a strategic plan means using software that tracks your key performance indicators (KPIs). What these are may vary depending on your specific goals. For example, attracting more website traffic, engaging more users on social media, patient referrals, and determining whether you’ll have a surge in appointments during certain times of the year. By tracking past performance, identifying insights, and acting accordingly, you’ll be in a better position to gauge what is likely to happen next.

  4. A Better Patient Experience

    When you establish processes, train your team adequately, and provide your staff with the right tools and resources, a natural consequence is that patients will have a better experience as they interact with your practice — ease of scheduling, reduced wait times, efficient claims processing, timely follow-ups, appointment reminders, efficient customer care, etc.

  5. Employee Retention

    Employees are more likely to stay at a position where they are supported and provided with all of the tools they need to do their job. This includes planning for a large enough staff for busy times of the year, using software that is easy to use, and knowing where to find SOPs for any tasks they may be unfamiliar with. This makes it infinitely easier for them to conduct their responsibilities effectively.

  6. Brand Awareness

    Every long-term success plan incorporates marketing best practices. Developing buyer personas (in a medical practice’s case, this means identifying the patients you wish to attract), creating content that addresses their questions, and ads, where they can find them, is a great starting point. Combine this with word-of-mouth marketing from the excellent patient experience and it’s only a matter of time before your target audience starts recognizing your brand.

  7. Patient Retention

    When you’re intentional about making things better for your patients, they notice. And while quality care should always be paramount, so is a commitment to valuing their time, addressing their concerns, and making them feel that every single time they engage with your practice, they are the most important thing at that very moment. And none of this happens by chance. It’s all the result of well-executed strategic planning.

How to Develop a Medical Practice Strategic Plan

Now that you’re aware of all of the advantages of making strategic planning a priority, let’s take a look at how to create one for your own practice.

Develop Your Mission and Vision

This sounds cliché, but organizations do this for a reason. Why did you start your practice? How do you want patients to feel? What do you want to be known for? That’s your mission and should be the guiding principle in everything you do. 

By the same token, your vision focuses on how you want to move forward. Is your goal to be the leading oncology practice in your area? Is it to be a pediatric dentistry clinic that’s accessible to all income brackets? Even if you move the goalposts, you want to have something to aim for.

Establish Your Core Values

What are the characteristics you believe are most important when running your practice? This could be anything that fosters a sense of trust (e.g. transparency, proactivity, integrity). Or it could be diversity and inclusion (e.g. ensuring you have people from different races, cultures, and backgrounds in leadership positions). What do you want your practice to be known for? Base your core values on that. 

Prioritize Your Goals

Every organization has goals; but not all of them are equally important. For example, if your main objective is to aid underserved communities, you can start to develop ways to liaise with nonprofits, pro bono clinics, charities, and other community groups who share the same purpose. If you want your practice to be known for medical research, look for ways to work with clinical research scientists. If you want to be known as a practice with extraordinary patient care, look into the resources that will enable you to do so — such as a customer portal, healthcare CRM, employee training, etc. 

Develop Action Plans

Once you’ve established your practice’s priorities, it’s time to make a list of actionable steps for how to get there. Identify who’s going to be in charge of what. Institute a budget. Establish milestones and deadlines for each of them. And make sure that everything aligns with your core values. For example, if one of them is transparency, keep everyone involved notified of what’s going on and how to communicate with you in the event of any hiccups or concerns. 

Track Analytics

Change requires a common goal, everyone rowing in the same direction, and consistency. But since it happens so gradually, you need a way to gauge whether you’re moving the needle. Use software that enables you to create dashboards that reflect the metrics that are important to you. Depending on your goals, this could be marketing metrics, such as patient acquisition costs; or patient satisfaction metrics, such as average wait time; or total monthly revenue, or days each claim spends in accounts receivable. Doing so will help you identify what’s working and what needs to be modified. 

Streamline Your Billing Processes for More Efficient Practice Management

At Holistic Billing Service, we’ve been assisting chiropractic, acupuncture, and massage therapy practices for over two decades. We are the nation’s largest billing provider for holistic healthcare, serving more than 2,500 practices across the United States. 

By partnering with an experienced medical billing team, you can spend less time thinking about managing CPT coding and insurance claims, and more time scaling your practice and delivering high-quality care to your patients.

Contact us so that we can create a custom solution that aligns best with your practice’s needs.

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Patient financial agreements can help your holistic practice

Patient Financial Agreements & Your Holistic Practice (+ Template)

Your holistic practice exists to deliver quality care to your patients—and somebody has to pay for that quality care. Your patients might not exactly know their role or responsibility in paying for the services rendered—for example, there could be assumptions about insurance coverage that doesn’t apply to your holistic practice—which can lead to friction later down the line.

That’s where a patient financial agreement can help your holistic practice improve the patient-payer-practice relationship and start the conversation about patient responsibility! Keep reading to learn more.

What Is Involved in a Patient Financial Agreement?

A patient financial agreement can contain a multitude of components depending on how extensive your practice’s policies are and what best suits your patients. For example, if any of your clients pay by check, then you’ll want to outline if there are any special fees or steps in the event a check has trouble processing.

For the most part, your holistic practice will want to include the following core components when drafting your patient financial agreement:

Be Clear About Insurance/Medicare Coverage

The chances are that your holistic practice doesn’t provide healthcare that is covered by insurance—and while there are important legislative initiatives that would expand Medicare’s coverage of holistic treatments, such rulings are not in place as of yet.

Make sure you clearly explain if your practice doesn’t take any insurance coverage or provide details if you do happen to be contracted with a third-party payer. While your patients should ideally be informed of what their insurance coverage includes, many of them might have a blind spot when it comes to coverage for holistic treatments.

Clarify the Patient Is Responsible as the Payer

Since your practice likely doesn’t take insurance, make sure it’s clear on the financial agreement that your patient is responsible for the financial aspect of services rendered. In the case that you do accept insurance, remind the patient that they’re responsible for paying their deductible before coverage starts. The patient is also responsible for any unpaid balances.

Clarifying the patient’s financial role in your holistic practice can contribute to patient engagement and help them realize what responsibility they have in their relationship with your holistic practice.

Outline Payment Options

Does your practice take cash only? Credit cards? Venmo? Briefly state what options your patients have for paying their balance, whether that’s at the time of checking in, checking out, or via an online payment portal.

Encourage Questions

Seeing the words FINANCIAL AGREEMENT might be intimidating to patients and seem like a formal legal document; while you don’t want to minimize the importance of the patient understanding their financial responsibility, you also don’t want to keep the process opaque.

Encourage questions both when you hand the agreement to your patient and consider adding a point of asking questions in the preface of the agreement. Keeping the lines of patient communication open can help your practice fortify the patient-practice relationship and boost patient engagement, which is always a good thing.

Why Is a Patient Financial Agreement Helpful To Your Holistic Practice?

Keep your patients apprised of their financial roles in your practice

While your patients no doubt understand that they need to pay for the care your holistic practice provides them, there might be some confusion about how that happens. Especially for new patients, a patient financial agreement can simply function to clarify or reiterate your practice’s policies, any potential fees for no-show appointments or bounced checks, and if your practice has any relationships with insurance providers or Medicare.

The patient financial agreement is also a great prompt for your patients to ask any questions about paying for your services. Starting this conversation can further build rapport and trust with your patients, which is crucial for patient engagement and patient satisfaction!

Patient Financial Agreement Template

Your holistic practice’s patient financial agreement can take whatever form you wish; it might be shorter or longer depending on how in-depth you want to be on your agreement. You might include your practice’s mission statement or other branding or contact information in the header, which can also take up space.

The following template is simply an example of what you could include; tailor it to best suit your holistic practice’s needs!

Thank you for choosing [Name of holistic practice] for your holistic wellness needs. We’re committed to providing you with quality care. We ask all clients to review and sign this policy, asking questions as necessary. A copy will be provided to each client upon request. 

  • Patient payment: The patient is responsible for payment at the time of service unless XYZ [if applicable].
  • Payment methods: Explain if you take credit card payments, cash, checks, etc. Include any relevant fees that might incur if payment doesn’t go through, such as a service fee for bounced checks, etc.
  • Proof of payment and photo ID required: Some practices might want to keep a photocopy of the patient’s ID on file
  • No-show fees: Outline your practice’s no-show policy here
  • Insurance/Medicare Programs: Some holistic practices and their specialties are accepted by third-party payers; outline those guidelines here or explain that you don’t accept any insurance or CMS patients. In this latter case, reiterate that the patient is responsible for payment.

I have read the above financial policies and agree to follow [Name of holistic practice’s] policies and I acknowledge my financial responsibility for services rendered.

Patient Name

Patient Signature

Date

Spend More Time with Patients by Partnering with Holistic Billing Services!

The overall healthcare revenue cycle can be incredibly complex and lead to a lot of stress. If your holistic practice wants to spend less time dealing with medical coding, billing, and trying to keep up with new regulations, then partner with Holistic Billing Services and spend more time on what matters most: your patients!

Our experts have decades of experience and expertise in your specialty. We’re eager to help you succeed!

Contact us today!

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Electronic health records systems can benefit your practice

Electronic Health Records Systems: Why Your Holistic Practice Needs One

Electronic health records systems are a huge resource to utilize in your holistic practice, no matter the size of your business. While it might seem easier and more cost-effective to just maintain whatever paper file folder system you’re already using, making the switch to an EHR system is an overall more efficient strategy for streamlining your operations, both in the short and long run.

EHR systems have the capacity to enhance patient care, further fortify your patients’ information and sensitive data, and can save you time by eliminating clunky workflows. Plus, EHR systems are scalable for your future growth—perfect for if, or when, you decide to add more holistic practitioners to your practice or include more specialties to serve another population within your community.

On the other hand, there are a few things to keep in mind when making the switch to an EHR system, including HIPAA compliance regulations and potential cybersecurity threats. Keep reading to learn more about electronic health records systems and their advantages to your holistic practice!

What Does An EHR System Manage?

An electronic health records (EHR) system is exactly what it sounds like: a virtual, centralized collection of patient information and healthcare history. An EHR system updates patient information in real-time, which helps to deliver a well-rounded, patient-focused experience.

Additionally, other authorized parties or entities are able to see these real-time updates, which helps minimize friction in the patient’s overall wellness journey. Seeing multiple factors relating to a patient’s health in one spot enables a broader overview of their health overall.

Electronic health record systems can include:

  • Medical history
  • Diagnoses
  • Medications
  • Treatment plans and notes
  • Allergies
  • Lab results
  • And more!

Even if your holistic practice doesn’t directly deal with labs or x-rays, it’s still quite helpful to have access to that information regarding your patients. For example, if you have a new massage therapy patient who recently got a sports injury, being able to review their x-rays will enable you to see how you can alleviate pain from the injury.

Plus, adding your holistic practice’s involvement with the patient’s wellness journey is beneficial for their other providers. This also ensures that the patient is following through on their healthcare journey so that they can achieve the best results possible with a well-rounded approach to their wellness.

Overall, EHR systems help streamline a patient’s overall healthcare journey and enable collaborative care across authorized providers and other medical practices.

HIPAA Compliance for EHR

As defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), “The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) is a federal law that requires the creation of national standards to protect sensitive patient health information from being disclosed without the patient’s consent or knowledge.” Essentially, this Act establishes protections for the use and sharing of personal health information and secures a patient’s privacy.

To complement this Act and account for the rapid advancement of technology in the healthcare industry, the HITECH Act was later introduced. In 2009, the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH) was signed into law and determines technological requirements that align with HIPAA, such as encouraging the use of electronic health records to further secure sensitive patient data.

Furthermore, the HIPAA Security Rule, officially approved in 2003, also outlines a national set of security standards for safeguarding electronic personal health information (ePHI). This guarantees that all authorized parties are following good cybersecurity practices when handling sensitive patient information.

As defined by the Department of Health and Human Services, the Security Rule essentially declares that covered entities must:

  • Ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of all e-PHI they create, receive, maintain or transmit
  • Identify and protect against reasonably anticipated threats to the security or integrity of the information
  • Protect against reasonably anticipated, impermissible uses or disclosures
  • Ensure compliance by their workforce

Ensuring HIPAA compliance includes maintaining compliance with the HIPAA Security Rule, which is crucial to protecting your patient data since the healthcare industry is constantly under attack. In 2021 alone, there were more than 700 healthcare breaches.

Benefits of An EHR System

Utilizing an EHR system is important for your holistic practice

Implementing an EHR system comes with a variety of benefits for your patients and your holistic practice, including:

Streamlined Collaboration

Since patients are taking their care into their own hands, they’re researching and selecting providers that they want to receive care from. This means they have a lot of freedom in where they spend their time and money—so it behooves you and your holistic practice to utilize an EHR system that enables streamlined communication between your patient’s other providers. In fact, a recent study revealed that 30% of seniors see an average of 5 providers each year.

Organized Patient Data

With a digital record, you won’t have to worry about digging through stacks of files or misplacing a patient’s record. Nor will you have to worry about illegible handwriting! An electronic health records system handles all of it in one centralized place. This optimizes your workflows and empowers you and your staff to work from the same file instead of compiling multiple points of information for the patient.

Enhanced Cybersecurity Protections

While, yes, you need to practice good cybersecurity habits when dealing with your patient’s sensitive information—and with your daily holistic practice operations, in general—an electronic health records system is built-in with digital protections and can offer some peace of mind when mitigating cybersecurity threats and vulnerabilities.

Partner with Holistic Billing Services to Streamline Your Practice!

EHR systems are simply one component of your holistic practice’s operations—yes, they’re impactful in delivering quality care to your patients, but that’s not all it takes to run a successful practice. For example, your medical billing and coding processes. We know that the revenue cycle is a vital yet stressful part of your daily operations, and Holistic Billing Services is here to help!
Let our team of specialty-specific experts handle that responsibility so you can focus on what matters most: caring for your patients. Contact us today!

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healthcare kpis

Top Healthcare KPIs to Track to Improve Your Holistic Practice Management

When evaluating the success of your holistic practice, where do you start? It’s too short-sighted to worry only about keeping the lights on, but planning for the future on a broad, subjective scale can feel intimidating or overwhelming. That’s where tracking top healthcare KPIs can benefit your holistic practice. Healthcare KPI tracking can provide a tangible record of your operations across a variety of categories and aspects.

What Are Healthcare KPIs?

KPIs, also known as Key Performance Indicators, are metrics that can objectively measure various components of your holistic practice over time so you and your team can reflect on how the practice is performing and make educated decisions for the future. There are dozens of potential healthcare KPIs to track at your holistic practice, but try not to feel overwhelmed by the amount of data you’ll be collecting—each facet of your practice can be analyzed and optimized, but it doesn’t have to happen all at once. To start, select a few of the most important metrics that need immediate attention, then expand to measure other aspects of your operations.

Common Healthcare KPI Examples

As mentioned above, there are a variety of healthcare KPIs track that may or may not apply to your particular holistic practice, with categories including:

  • Operations: These metrics focus on how efficient and effective your practice is at delivering care
  • Finance: KPIs related to the financial performance of your practice measure the top and bottom line of your practice—your cost of operations and how much is returned
  • Internal: Metrics relating to your internal operations track staff performance and administrative efficiency
  • Public health: These KPIs reveal how your practice is impacting your community, whether in terms of child immunization doses, vaccine clinics, or educational seminar attendance numbers
  • Emergency: In an emergency healthcare environment, it’s crucial to monitor how effectively your patients are receiving care, average wait time, patient mortality rate, and more
  • Care quality: By keeping tabs on how many providers you have in relation to the number of patients you serve, patient satisfaction survey results, and more, you can evaluate how well your practice is serving your community 

Why Are Healthcare KPIs Important for Your Holistic Practice?

It takes a lot of time, energy, and resources to operate an efficient and effective holistic practice. How can you be sure you’re succeeding in every aspect of your practice? Key performance indicators are your best bet to gain a comprehensive insight into your operations, finances, public perception, and more. These figures can help you understand the current status of your practice, observe historical trends, and make informed decisions regarding how to improve or further grow your practice.

healthcare kpis

The Best Healthcare KPIs and Metrics to Track For Your Holistic Practice Management

There are numerous key performance indicators you should consider tracking when evaluating the performance of your holistic practice; be sure to consider the specificity of your holistic practice, community, and overall operations when outlining which healthcare KPIs to monitor. The following breakdown is a foundational place to start and is by no means a comprehensive list of potential metrics to keep track of:

Patient Experience Metrics

The goal of your practice is to deliver quality care to your patients; after all, your practice can’t sustain itself without them! When measuring patient experience metrics, consider the following factors:

  • Patient satisfaction: Utilizing patient satisfaction surveys can tremendously benefit your holistic patient care because you can solicit feedback or points of improvement from the very people you’re trying to please: your patients. Plus, by implementing a method of communication regarding their perception of your practice, you demonstrate how important they are to your success. When you establish an objective manner of measuring subjective components of your practice, such as ease of scheduling follow-ups or how comfortable the waiting room is, you can gain valuable insight into your practice’s performance.
  • Referral mix: This healthcare KPI indicates what type of patients your holistic practice is treating and who referred them to your practice. Tracking this metric helps you understand which patients are finding you from word-of-mouth recommendations, which in turn affirms the success of your holistic practice’s mission of delivering quality care.
  • No-show patients: It happens. Patients forget appointments or simply ghost your practice and never return your calls or attempts to reschedule. However, when this becomes a pattern at your holistic practice, do your best to get ahead of it and monitor these behaviors. If you find that a significant number of your monthly appointments are no-shows, it might be time to implement a no-show policy to discourage that!

Staff Performance Metrics

Your team is a reflection of your practice and keeps your practice running smoothly for your patients; when gaining insight into your staff performance, consider the following:

  • Staff-to-Patient Ratio: Do you have dozens of weekly appointments for only a handful of providers at your practice, resulting in faster burnout or longer patient wait times? It’s crucial to consider how much time and attention your providers can give to patients for top quality care. If they’re stretched too thin, it’ll catch up to your practice sooner or later and you’ll have to hire additional staff to manage.
  • Trainings and Certifications: When working in healthcare, it’s absolutely essential that your staff is HIPAA certified and follows best practices when handling patient information; it’s also beneficial that each member of your team have certifications in their pertinent areas of service.
  • Mistake Events: This self-explanatory metric simply refers to the frequency and type of mistake or error made, whether administrative, related to medical billing, patient confidentiality, or another type of mistake. This metric can provide insight and help you determine the best course of action to correct the problem, preventing it from becoming an internal pattern.

Medical Billing Metrics

How well do you know the details of your holistic practice’s finances? If you’re only measuring the short-term successes of paying your monthly bills, there’s a lot you’re missing! Dig into the many facets of your financial performance and learn which areas to improve moving forward, including:

  • Days in Accounts Receivable (A/R): This metric reveals how many payments remain outstanding at your holistic practice, either due to insurance reimbursement processing delays or out-of-pocket services. Ideally, the average time a bill spends in A/R should be about 30-40 days—the less time spent waiting for payment, the better. By tracking this metric, you can identify friction points along the payment cycle, such as billing and coding errors or not following up on claims, and redirect your efforts to streamline this process.
  • Net Collection Ratio: One key financial metric to monitor is the net collection ratio, which calculates how much potential revenue your practice nets after insurance adjustments are made. While the exact figure will fluctuate from specialty to specialty, aim for collecting about 95% of potential revenue for services, whether by patient payers or submitting clean claims. If this healthcare KPI falls consistently dips below 90% then that tells you something needs to be addressed in your revenue cycle.
  • New Patient Ratio: You can probably guess which figure this metric tracks; part of overseeing the financial health of your holistic practice is to sustain and grow your practice, which means a certain percentage of your patients are first-time visitors. When monitored over time, this healthcare KPI can help you determine if your holistic practice offers a desired balance of services for the price. Like with many other metrics, the exact figure to aim for can change from specialty to specialty; however, for general wellness practices, new patients can make up about 25% of visits, while specialty care practices could see up to 50% new patients each month.

Transform Your Medical Billing with Holistic Billing Services

By creating a monthly summary sheet to track healthcare KPIs, you can begin to identify and resolve problem areas in your holistic practice that are holding back growth and revenue. 

Our experts here at Holistic Billing Services believe 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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holistic practice audits

How to Prevent CMS Audits for Holistic Practices

Treating Medicare patients not only entails serving a greater population in your community, but it also means that your holistic practice may be subjected to Medicare audits. These can lead to suspension of payments and Medicare fees if your holistic practice isn’t up to snuff with current regulations and laws. 

Unfortunately, healthcare waste, fraud, and abuse lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to be diligent in recovering as much federal money as possible. Of course, there is no way to avoid facing a Medicare audit—sometimes they’re random. But there are ways to prepare for one to reduce any negative outcomes.

Which Holistic Modalities Does Medicare Cover?

While Medicare currently doesn’t fully cover the many services offered by holistic practices, there has been a significant push to include coverage for practices that manage and promote holistic wellbeing. 

For example, CMS recently introduced verbiage to cover acupuncture—with a few clauses related to back pain. According to Medicare, back pain can be covered if it meets the following conditions: 

  • It has lasted 12 weeks or longer
  • There is no known cause (not related to cancer that has spread, inflammatory, or infectious disease)
  • Pain not associated with surgery or pregnancy

Additionally, original Medicare pays for only one chiropractic service: manual manipulation of the spine if deemed medically necessary to correct a subluxation when one or more of the bones in your spine are out of position.

This procedure, when performed by a chiropractor or other qualified provider, is covered through Medicare Part B, the component of original Medicare that includes outpatient services; Medicare will pay 80% of the Medicare-approved rate for this procedure. 

Overall, Medicare won’t cover therapies unless deemed medically necessary. Regardless of coverage status through Medicare, many insurance companies follow the same policies. Staying up to date on these regulations and the consequences attached to them is important for your holistic practice to stay efficient and effective.

How Audits Impact Your Holistic Practice

By identifying errors and devising remedial actions to eliminate them, audits serve a vital role in a healthcare organization’s compliance plan.

Medical audits provide a mechanism to:

  • Review quality of care provided to patients
  • Defend against federal and payer audits, malpractice litigation, and health plan denials
  • Educate providers on documentation guidelines
  • Optimize revenue cycle management
  • Ensure appropriate revenue is captured
  • Determine if organizational policies are current and effective

 

What Are CMS Audits?

The goal of audits—in any industry or business—is to see how compliant that organization is with whatever set of rules and regulations is established and relevant. That’s essentially the same goal of audits conducted by CMS of holistic practices

These program audits measure compliance in terms of its contract with CMS, in particular, the requirements associated with access to medical or holistic services, drugs, and other enrollee protections required by Medicare.

The program areas for the 2021 audits include:

  • CDAG: Part D Coverage Determinations, Appeals, and Grievances
  • CPE: Compliance Program Effectiveness
  • FA: Part D Formulary and Benefit Administration
  • MMP- SARAG: Medicare-Medicaid Plan Service Authorization Requests, Appeals, and
  • Grievances
  • MMP- CCQIPE: Medicare-Medicaid Plan Care Coordination Quality Improvement Program
  • Effectiveness
  • ODAG: Part C Organization Determinations, Appeals, and Grievances
  • SNP-MOC: Special Needs Plans – Model of Care

What Is the CMS Program Audit Process?

There are four phases to a CMS audit:

  1. Audit Engagement and Universe Submission: Six weeks before fieldwork is conducted, an organization is notified that it has been selected for a program audit and is required to submit the requested data, which is outlined in the respective Program Audit Data Request document.
  2. Audit Field Work: Over the course of three weeks, program audit fieldwork is conducted, mostly via webinar with the exception of the CPE review, which may occur onsite during the last week. 
  3. Audit Reporting: Audit reporting occurs in multiple stages beginning at the conclusion of audit fieldwork. CMS first shares audit results with the holistic practice at the exit conference via the preliminary draft report, but the findings in a preliminary draft report are subject to additional review and evaluation after all supporting documentation has been received and evaluated, at which point classification occurs. 
  4. Audit Validation and Close-Out: This is the longest phase of the program audit process, taking approximately six months to complete. During validation and close-out, an organization has an opportunity to demonstrate to CMS that it has corrected the noncompliance that was identified during the program audit.

What Does CMS Look For in Audits?

By conducting audits, either at random or as suspicious activity is reported, CMS works to prevent, reduce, or address a holistic practice exploiting CMS money or information, regardless of intention. Such issues to address might include falsifying claims that are billed to Medicare, charging excessively for Medicare services or supplies, making false statements on applications to participate in federal programs, and more.

Part of this stems from CMS regulations updating from year to year, so paying attention to their regulations on a continuous basis is important to maintaining compliance.

How Much Will CMS Increase Audits in the Future?

CMS’s budget for fraud, waste, and abuse mitigation doubled from 2021 to 2022 as the agency sought a $50.5 million increase in funding for “conducting greater levels of review.” 

Medical review activities include pre- and post-payment audits and also encompass the Targeted Probe-and-Educate (TPE) process. CMS also requested additional funding for modeling and analytic tools aimed at identifying fraud, waste, and abuse.

The funding increase also allowed CMS to hire more administrative law judges (ALJs) in an attempt to reduce the backlog at the third level of Medicare provider appeals, which currently sits at five years

5 Tips to Avoid CMS Audits

avoid CMS audits

Perform a Self-Audit

Perform your own random mock audits based on the same criteria as a Medicare auditor to uncover what they would find and address any issues before they bring them to your attention. Visit the CMS website for the most up-to-date information on submitting claims that comply with Medicare guidelines.

Conducting internal audits at your holistic practice is important because it further ensures your practice is following all policies and procedures. Or, on the other hand, it points out areas of improvement for yourself and your team.

Prevent Billing and Coding Mistakes

Generally, Medicare pays claims based solely on your representations in the claims documents. Utilizing a standardized set of medical billing codes facilitates the billing process by bringing uniformity to the billing process. 

When the coding on the claim does not meet the Medicare requirements and Medicare pays the claim anyway, the audit may discover this mistake. That’s why it’s so important to submit accurate claims and ensure appropriate coding is employed.

Provide Accurate Documentation

Holistic organizations need to make sure that everything is documented, including data presented on meaningful use reports generated by EHR and all other evidence. Auditors will be looking for discrepancies along the practice’s decision-making process. 

By knowing the right procedures and eliminating errors with better technology, discrepancies can be kept to a minimum. Practices that have the appropriate documentation of every decision made—and each process change—will be able to easily find any potential trouble areas.

Review Every Process

Reviewing every process pertinent to the medical billing and patient information systems side of your holistic practice is important in preventing CMS audits. 

As medical billing and patient information systems become more integrated, the need to review every process becomes more critical since a simple change could require an organization to upgrade multiple other systems to be successful. This is a good habit to establish with your holistic practice, especially if the coding of a specific holistic procedure changes.

Train Your Staff

One of the most common reasons a healthcare organization fails an audit is due to human error. This is where a well-trained and experienced billing team can be considered the most important driver of revenue for holistic practices. Billers and coders who are credentialed and certified from the proper associations are less likely to make mistakes and understand how to properly manage these solutions.

A qualified and confident staff is also more likely to be aware of industry changes that impact operations and can implement changes to remain up-to-date. This kind of staff is also more likely to advance principles that can make a bigger difference in the revenue cycle.

Avoid CMS Audits with Holistic Billing Services!

Our 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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SOAP notes are vital for reducing patient risk

How Patient Satisfaction Surveys Can Boost Your Holistic Practice Performance

How well do you know how your patients experience your holistic practice? Of course, you’re providing the best care for them, but are there metaphorical pain points that you might not know about? By utilizing patient satisfaction surveys, you can open this conversation up between your patients and your holistic practice, resulting in stronger dialogue and better rapport to serve your community even better. 

Charting the course of patient feedback can seem daunting or maybe even awkward, but patient satisfaction is obviously one of your holistic practice’s top priorities—it ensures the short- and long-term success of your practice! Just as your practice is one of the most important resources available to your patients, your patients can be one of your practice’s most important resources, too.

Why Is Patient Feedback Important?

Ultimately, the only way to keep your patients coming back to your holistic practice is to make sure they’re satisfied with the experience they receive from you. That experience is about far more than just the patient-provider relationship and the effectiveness of a given course of care; it includes patients’ perception of your office, their interactions with your staff, and dozens of other factors ranging from scheduling availability to the reading materials in your waiting room.

Don’t assume that just because your patients aren’t complaining, they’re happy. The only way to truly know how satisfied your patients are is to ask them directly and often. The Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) has found that over 80% of practices regularly use patient satisfaction surveys to measure, evaluate, and improve their operations. If you neglect to use patient satisfaction surveys, you’re missing out on a valuable tool that can help you gain insight from your patients and improve your practice’s performance.

The knowledge of your patient’s opinions of their experience in your office is invaluable. It is, in many ways, just as important to the success of the practice as a correct treatment plan is to manage a chronic condition. When used properly, the patient satisfaction survey can truly serve as a diagnostic tool for the practice because patients have the opportunity to indicate points of friction or reveal blind spots of inefficiency in your holistic practice that you wouldn’t otherwise be aware of!

How To Request Patient Reviews

Asking your patients for reviews—whether on a public platform like Google or via anonymous feedback on an internal survey—doesn’t have to be awkward or feel like an imposition for either party. When you initiate the conversation about patient satisfaction, consider the following:

Inquire About Their Experience With Your Practice

For 87% of physicians, interacting with and helping patients is the most gratifying part of their profession; requesting patient reviews can provide you with real-time feedback that can strengthen your patient relationships and help you provide better care.

At the end of the patient’s visit to your holistic practice, try asking questions like “Were you able to easily schedule your appointment today?” or “Have I addressed all of your concerns?” If the feedback is positive, ask them to share their experience with others by writing a review. Take note of any constructive criticism and use it to improve the patient experience at your practice. 

When one patient provides a suggestion for improvement, it’s likely to be helpful to a majority of your patients! For example, if a patient says it would be helpful for the scheduling system to have more filters to narrow down the best appointment time, that might be a small annoyance easily solved which benefits all of your patients.

Remind Yourself That Writing Reviews Is Commonplace

You might feel a little awkward about asking your patients to review your practice, but it’s probably no big deal to them. When consumers are asked to leave a review, 72% follow through and do so. Your patients are likely already reviewing for other businesses in the community, so writing one for your holistic practice won’t be a hassle at all. To get a feel for the process yourself, try writing a few reviews for businesses you frequent to understand the simplicity of the process so you can assure other patients that it isn’t difficult to navigate. 

When you’re confident about the quality of holistic medicine you’re providing, asking patients to review your practice shouldn’t be too nerve-wracking. After all, patients who are asked for feedback are 2.3 times more likely to proactively submit an online review. People—including potential clients doing research on the holistic practices in your area—put a lot of weight in online reviews, so as long as you’re confident in the care you’re providing, don’t second guess yourself about requesting their honest feedback.

Address It All

The most important areas to cover with your survey are the ‘key three’: quality, access, and interpersonal concerns. But going into more general topics can be just as valid, since asking other types of questions can illuminate issues you may not have thought of. Consider including opportunities for feedback about the “non-essential” factors of your holistic practice, such as parking availability, overall office appearance, staff and physician professionalism, and costs.

Keep It Simple

Deliver your survey in the means most likely to get patients to complete it; if your clientele isn’t the most digitally savvy, stick with pen and paper. Try to avoid any instinct to overcomplicate things and be sure to write your surveys with clear, concise language and stick to yes/no options or “How satisfied are you with X?” questions that correlate to 1-5 ratings. Standardizing the range of answers will make data collection and internal assessment easier. Of course, include space for personalized feedback and comments, too.

patient survey

How Patient Satisfaction Surveys Can Boost Your Holistic Practice

Your survey results are useless if you don’t take action on them; don’t waste your patient’s time. Cull new goals and objectives from your survey results—e.g., aim for 10% improvement in a given area by this time next year—and hold yourself accountable for following up.

Plus, your patients will feel validated when they notice you’ve implemented suggested feedback. This further affirms the patient-provider relationship and maintains open communication, which is crucial for patient satisfaction.

The shaping of your holistic practice’s online reputation is happening whether you’re handling it or not. Your prospective patients will make quick assessments about your practice based on the first impressions they get when searching the web, which includes patient reviews!

After all, word of mouth is incredibly important and the first place you will see the impact of this is in the form of online reviews. 91% of 18 to 34-year-olds trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations.

With these essential basics of patient satisfaction, we’re sure your holistic practice will thrive! Holistic Billing Services is here to help you grow your practice in a variety of ways and has been facilitating the growth of holistic practices since 1999. Contact us today and let us help your holistic practice reach its potential!

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