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:
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
There are so many things that are part of the day-to-day of any medical practice. Scheduling, appointment reminders, credentialing providers, patient intake, managing electronic health records, billing, claims processing, appealing rejected claims, ordering PPE and other supplies, disposing of hazardous waste, patient follow up. It can often feel like a hamster wheel, with everyone balancing as many balls in the air as possible.
While it’s crucial for all of these operations to occur like a well-oiled machine, it’s also crucial to keep track of practice benchmarks. Doing so, known as healthcare benchmarking, will provide you with insights as to what is working well and what may need a modification in processes.
What is Benchmarking in Healthcare?
Healthcare benchmarking refers to measuring the performance of your medical practice against how it compares to other successful providers. Doing so helps you gauge trends and effective practices — as well as what keeps patients coming back.
When you benchmark the performance of different components within a healthcare, it helps you better define goals and to develop roadmaps to help you reach them.
The Importance of Healthcare Benchmarking
Paying close attention to performance metrics enables you to identify a lot more than simply whether your business is in the green. Yes, that is your north star; but it’s not the only component for sustainability and longevity. Additional benefits of healthcare benchmarking include:
- Productivity
- Containment of costs
- Relative value units (RVUs)
- Fair compensation
- Quality of care
- Patient experience
Taking such a comprehensive look at all the elements of your practice helps you strengthen the foundation of your business, as you can better plan for the future — and to ensure that every single step is data-driven.
Types of Holistic Practice Benchmarks
So how do you get started with healthcare benchmarking? Which metrics should you be tracking, and how can you keep it all organized? The most efficient way to do so is by grouping them by categories:
Quality of Care
The medical profession is a calling. People come to you because they trust you to diagnose, treat, and/or cure their ailments. This is a tall order, and sometimes you need the assistance of specialists; or a patient may require hospitalization. It can also pose additional challenges to receive accurate data.
Operational
In order to streamline this process, it’s essential to standardize information systems. Use the same software platforms, tools, nomenclature, and training across the board. Then pay attention to factors such as patient waiting time, ease of communication (phone, text, patient portal); their comfort while in the waiting room, their answers in patient satisfaction surveys, patient retention, employee retention.
Financial
As for financial aspects, make a list of every single element that affects your bottom line. Healthcare claims management, value-based reimbursements, healthcare payers’ claims processing, billing, supplies, compensation, and all accounts receivable and payable. How long does everything take? What’s the return on investment? Are there more beneficial players’ contracts?
Compliance
Complying with healthcare regulations such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, the Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act (PSQIA), the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA), and myriad other regulations require lengthy processes to comply with their terms. Some of them require daily monitoring, going through a continuum, and audits. Using software that keeps track of everything and automates alerts is the most effective way to stay on top of everything.
Marketing
Having a marketing strategy is an important part of any medical practice. It’s how you spread the word about your services and attract your intended audience. And as with everything else, you should be looking at key performance indicators for healthcare benchmarking to ensure that you’re getting a return on your investment. Elements you want to track include conversion rates, cost per lead, and patient acquisition costs.
Streamline Your Practice’s Medical Coding & Billing Processes with Holistic Billing Services!
At Holistic Billing Services, 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.
Take a minute to reflect on your holistic practice’s current marketing strategy; where are your efforts being directed? How frequently do you check in on the performance of your marketing efforts? How can you tell if they’re effective or if they need refining?
Marketing is an essential element of nearly every business or organization, of course, but the number of metrics at your fingertips can be overwhelming. Or, if you haven’t invested a lot of energy into your marketing strategy, then you might be unsure where to start or how to approach it.
In this article, we’ll tackle how marketing impacts your holistic practice and which metrics to track for success.
How Does Marketing Impact Your Holistic Practice?
Marketing entails a whole host of efforts and initiatives that impact your practice in a few manners:
Attract New Patients
Your patients won’t know you exist without some type of marketing strategy. Whether that’s word of mouth from current clients, search results advertisements, setting up a table at a local event, or something else, your holistic practice needs to market itself in order to make your community aware of your services.
Plus, if your marketing efforts are the first time a future client has ever heard of you, you’re able to make a great impression and lead with your best foot forward!
Keep Patients Informed of New Initiatives
Marketing is also great for your current clients to retain them and inform them of any new initiatives that you’re developing. For example, you might be moving to a bigger location and bringing on another practitioner. You can make a great marketing campaign around this, which is both engaging and informative!
This is important to take into consideration when building out your marketing strategy ideas because retaining a client is cheaper than attracting a new one; be sure your branding speaks to your current clients and keeps them in the loop with your practice.
Build Your Reputation
Beyond attracting and retaining your clients, marketing is how you build and refine your holistic practice’s reputation. Do you have decades of experience within your community? Do you make a point of volunteering in your community? Cater specifically to veterans in your area? Whatever makes your practice special is what you should convey in your marketing efforts.
This helps build rapport with clients, both current and potential, and establishes your practice in your community.
Marketing Metrics: What to Track
Now that we’ve addressed how marketing can be a powerful tool to leverage and have a significant impact on your holistic practice, let’s look into three key marketing metrics to track along the way:
Cost Per Lead (CPL)
This metric calculates the total amount spent on a marketing campaign and divides it by the number of leads your holistic practice got as a result:
Cost of Campaign / Number of Leads = Cost Per Lead
For example, if you spent $1000 on a campaign and you got 50 leads from it, then the cost per lead would be $20. On the other hand, if you spent $1000 but only received 10 leads, then the CPL is $100.
It’s important to note that the only way you can effectively calculate this metric is if you know the specific origin of a new lead. That’s why it’s helpful to ask your new leads how they heard about you; did they see an advertisement on social media? Hear about you from a friend? Tracking these origins is great to know where new leads are coming from.
Patient Acquisition Cost (PAC)
Patient acquisition cost provides you with the number of paying patients your holistic practice earns from a particular marketing campaign:
Cost of Campaign / Number of Paying Patients = Patient Acquisition Cost
This marketing metric helps you understand the more real, tangible cost of bringing in new revenue to your holistic practice. Following the same example, if 10 leads of the pool of 50 turns into actual paying clients, then the PAC is $100.
Return on Investment (ROI)
Figuring the ROI on a marketing campaign involves just a little more math and looks something like this:
Income Derived / Cost of Campaign X 100 = ROI
This first factor, the total income earned, involves you calculating the lifetime value of a patient. Let’s say each of the 10 new patients you acquired spends around $800 over the course of their relationship with your practice. That total amount would be $8,000.
$8,000 / $1,000 X 100 = 800%
This metric is helpful for monitoring the overall revenue generated from a particular marketing effort. This perspective is helpful for determining if a marketing campaign was “successful” depending on your holistic practice’s expectations or if something should be tweaked in the future.
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No-show patients can be costly to your practice in terms of both impacting your overall healthcare revenue cycle and productivity. When patients schedule appointments, that blocks out the time from another client booking that slot—so when nobody shows up for the time slot, you and your practitioners are left to fill the time how you each see fit.
Your holistic practice is there to deliver great care to the people in your community, so when patients don’t show up for their appointments and haven’t made any contact to let you know what’s going on with their schedule, it can be frustrating and costly.
If you find that your holistic practice is constantly dealing with no-show patients that affect your revenue stream and daily workflows, then try some of these tips below to help mitigate these unexpected absences.
Should Your Holistic Practice Have a Policy for No-Show Patients In Place?
The short answer: yes, definitely! No-show policies help you outline what constitutes a no-show patient, what options a no-show patient has to reschedule or cancel, and what consequences there are for repeat offenders.
Simply putting these components together into a document that is made available to patients, whether new or returning, can help your clients understand their role in keeping their appointment. Disseminating an email, having a notice on your website or scheduling software, and having a brief conversation over the phone, when relevant, clarifies what will happen if a patient misses their time slot; if patients don’t know that they have options to adjust their time slot, then they might be a no-show because they’re unaware!
A no-show policy doesn’t have to be an extensive document, but it should contain a few core parts that illustrate what your practice designates as a no-show patient and how the patient can proceed if they need to reschedule or cancel their appointment.
Consider adding these sections:
- Briefly describe what is a no-show patient and how this differs from a patient who calls to cancel
- Establish fees for canceling or incentivize patients to keep their appointments with your practice
- Explain how patients can take control of their time slot by rescheduling or canceling their appointment altogether instead of simply not showing up
- Outline what might happen if a patient is consistently making and not keeping their appointments; for example, if a patient is a no-show to more than 3 appointments, then they need to call your practice to schedule an appointment instead of using an online booking system
Determining a no-show policy for your holistic practice can save you a lot of headaches and better inform your patients of their options and responsibilities.
How Much Are No-Show Patients Actually Costing Your Holistic Practice?
Let’s break down how much no-show appointments are actually costing your holistic practice.
For example, if each appointment brings in about $100 and you’re having a no-show once a day, then the math looks like this:
$100/day x 5 days a week = $500/week in lost revenue
Of course, substitute in the frequency and actual revenue per appointment that pertains to your holistic practice; regardless, no-shows are definitely costing you.
Going back to the example above, over the course of a year, your holistic practice is losing around $25,000. That’s a significant amount of revenue and that’s why addressing no-shows—with the help of a policy and a few tips below—is important to the financial success of your practice.
Maximize Productivity and Minimize No-Show Patients with These 3 Tips
You can help keep the wheels of your holistic practice running smoothly with these tips to maximize productivity and minimize no-show patients:
Open the Lines of Communication with Your Patients
Life happens, of course, so it’s not uncommon for your practice to have no-show patients. But having a conversation with them about why they missed their appointment can be a strong indicator of how your practice can help them in the future!
For example, if a patient says that they didn’t show up to the appointment and it’s because they didn’t have a convenient way of rescheduling on their own then that might lead to you considering implementing or changing scheduling systems. If a patient is only able to make or change their appointment via the phone with you, then that’s not going to be ample enough for people who might not have the time to call.
Alternatively, if a patient says that they simply forgot they had a slot booked with you, then that might mean you consider establishing or beefing up a reminder system for your patients. Automated software that texts, calls, or emails patients regarding their appointment times at a designated time can help keep your practice top of mind for them.
Offer Walk-In Slots
If your holistic practice is in a busy part of town that gets a lot of foot traffic, then consider implementing a walk-in availability schedule. Sticking a sign on the sidewalk or having a post in the window can inform people interested in holistic treatments that you’re available and keep your workflow going. This can help keep revenue flowing when appointments are no-shows and gives you the opportunity to attract new patients!
Directly Call Patients Who Tend to No-Show
An automated reminder system will likely help the majority of your patients remember and confirm their appointment with your holistic practice, but if you notice that a handful of patients seem to be late or are frequently forgetting their appointments, then a personal touch might make all the difference.
It’s one thing to see a message or get an automated call to remind the patient of their slot, it’s another thing to directly hear from you about it. Adding that personal touch to your patients’ experience reflects favorably and demonstrates how much you care about delivering a great experience.
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Did you know that healthcare data breaches cost US industries $6.2 billion per year? With such a high cost, it’s more critical than ever to ensure that your holistic practice is taking the best steps possible to avoid a breach and safeguard your patients’ information.
One critical method for ensuring the privacy and safety of your patient’s sensitive information is to maintain compliance with the HITECH Act, which streamlines operations and keeps your holistic practice secure.
What Is the HITECH Act?
The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH Act) was signed into law as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) in 2009 with the purpose of encouraging adoption and “meaningful use” of technology in healthcare environments. A core component of this Act’s intention is to promote the use of electronic health record systems, which improves quality, communication, and protection for the patient’s sensitive information.
In this context, “meaningful use” is critical for this Act. The federal government wasn’t just trying to get more computers and electronic devices in healthcare offices for no reason—it was to encourage the adoption of technology with the purpose of leveraging these resources to achieve five goals:
- Improve quality, safety, and efficiency
- Engage patients in their care
- Increase coordination of care
- Improve the health status of the population
- Ensure privacy and security
These five goals are cornerstones of healthcare legislation like the HITECH Act, which promises to streamline operations and protect sensitive patient information.
Why HITECH Compliance Is Important for Your Holistic Practice
HITECH compliance isn’t the same as HIPAA compliance; the two are separate laws that complement each other well and work towards the same goal of protecting patient information but compliance with both Acts is important for your holistic practice.
Maintaining compliance with HITECH ensures that your holistic practice is able to access appropriate patient records, share patient information with pertinent parties as needed to improve collaborative care and that your holistic practice is taking steps to protect against cybersecurity threats to sensitive patient information.
Utilizing an electronic health records system and other relevant types of healthcare technology promotes what is called “data interoperability”, which essentially means that communication is effectively and securely shared, stored, and managed.
The benefits of data interoperability include:
- Two-way communication between healthcare providers, holistic practices, state public health agencies, etc.
- Standardized means of sharing data so that information exchanged can be readily interpreted and understood
- Overall efficiency across the healthcare industry
HITECH Compliance + Your Holistic Practice: Top Essentials to Know
Let’s review a few essential things to know when it comes to HITECH compliance and your holistic practice:
3 Principles to Achieve and Maintain Compliance
HITECH compliance starts with a few foundational steps and principles under which to operate in your holistic practice:
- Train your employees and confirm that your healthcare partners are knowledgeable of HITECH requirements to ensure that your practice is comprehensively compliant with meaningful use of electronic health records systems and patient privacy rules
- Implement an information security program that guarantees your patient data is private and protected from unauthorized access, storage, handling, etc. Make sure that your staff routinely refresh their knowledge of HITECH and HIPAA compliance
- Facilitate and encourage good cybersecurity practices like strong passwords, frequently updating passwords, restricting access to former employees, etc. so that your holistic practice is taking steps to avoid being vulnerable to data breaches
6 Components of the HITECH Act
The HITECH Act is comprised of six components:
- Meaningful Use program: Establishes the goals of implementing technology in a variety of manners within the healthcare field
- Business associate HIPAA compliance: This addressed a loophole in HIPAA legislation that was exploited by Covered Entities claiming they didn’t know that a Business Associate wasn’t compliant; with HITECH, more stringent reporting requirements were outlined
- Breach notification rule: Patients whose information was accessed or stolen in a cybersecurity breach must be notified within 60 days
- Willful neglect and auditing: Under the HITECH legislation, audits for HIPAA or HITECH violations could now result in a tiered system of fines depending on the findings of the audits
- HIPAA compliance updates: Once again fortifying HIPAA legislation, this component of the HITECH Act increased potential fines for violations and tightened up restrictions
- Access to electronic health records: With HIPAA, patients were given rights to obtain a copy of their records in physical form; with HITECH, patients were given rights to obtain an electronic copy of their records
Each one of these components plays a vital role in HITECH legislation and its importance to the progression of patient protection.
A Medical Billing Firm Can Help Streamline Your Holistic Practice!
When you’re so entrenched in the medical billing and coding process, facing claim rejections due to inaccuracies, and constantly trying to stay up to date on insurance or Medicare regulations, it can be too much to try and stay current on important legislation that impacts your holistic practice and your patients.
Partnering with a medical billing firm can tremendously help streamline your holistic practice by confidently and competently handling this important component of your holistic practice’s revenue cycle! Consider outsourcing this part of your practice’s operations so that you and your team can address other vital parts of your practice.
Holistic Billing Services has decades of experience and expertise in your holistic practice’s specialty. We’re eager to help you streamline your operations and boost your revenue cycle while you deliver great care to your patients.
Healthcare documentation is a critical component for your holistic practice, both in terms of delivering great care to your patients and for insurance billing purposes—not to mention the importance of having some form of documentation in the event of a legal situation.
Treatment notes are needed to keep a live record of how your patient is feeling and what plans have worked in the past or what needs to change for the future; keep reading to learn more about a particular outline of healthcare documentation called SOAP notes and how they can play a role in your holistic practice’s insurance billing cycle.
What Are SOAP Notes?
One standard form of healthcare documentation is called SOAP notes, which stands for Subjective Objective Assessment and Plan. Each section of this general formula is key to gathering a comprehensive report of the patient’s current experience and determining the best treatment plan.
Subjective
This is the first section of SOAP notes and pertains to the subjective experience of the patient you’re treating; this includes their feelings, perspective, and personal views as relevant to the treatment setting. The purpose of this section is to provide context for why the patient is visiting your holistic practice and to allow the patient to put into their own words what is going on with them.
Depending on the setting of your holistic practice and what type of treatments you offer to your patients, this section might have a few other subheadings to further elaborate on what the patient is experiencing.
For example, if you were doing a consultation for massage therapy services, you might include the following sections:
- Rate the intensity of pain on a scale of 1 to 10
- Describe the sensation of the pain, such as shooting, dull, cramping, tingling, throbbing, aching, etc.
- Note the places of pain on the body
- Explain how the pain started and how it might change during the day with different movements, what makes it worse or what helps reduce the pain, etc.
This initial section is important for illuminating how a patient’s condition is affecting them so that you can determine how best to address their pain points—both literal and metaphorical.
Objective
As opposed to subjective, this second section deals with objective, unbiased facts regarding the patient’s condition. Such information might include:
- Patient’s vital signs
- Diagnoses
- Allergies
- Imaging results
- Lab data
- Behavioral or physical signs
- Body posture
- Range of motion
It’s important to distinguish between symptoms and signs in this section; symptoms are considered subjective whereas signs are considered objective notes. As with all medical documentation, it’s also crucial to filter out any kind of assumptions in the note-taking process; each objective note should be verifiable through evidence.
Assessment
This third step of SOAP notes is where you bring together the subject and objective portions of your documentation and determine what might be ailing your patient. In this section, you might list whatever problems or diagnoses that patient is presenting with, in order from most to least important or severe.
The assessment portion of SOAP notes is important because it provides documentation of the diagnosing process and serves as a record of your thinking. Assessing the patient is helpful for other providers to review your conclusions and inform them on how best to deliver holistic care from their specialty or perspective.
Plan
The final step in writing SOAP notes is, of course, to outline a plan of care for the patient you’re serving. This section might include information like:
- What follow-up appointments are needed
- Referrals to other specialists
- Orders for further testing
- Therapy needed
The plan section is an essential conclusion to the SOAP notes outline because it provides the appropriate next steps and pertinent information for the patient to follow in order to begin their plan for treatment.
Importance of SOAP Notes and Treatment Documentation
The phrase “if it’s not documented, then it didn’t happen” might sound extreme, but in the world of healthcare—whether medical or holistic—it’s the norm. Treatment documentation is essential because it functions as part of the patient’s medical history, enables collaborative care between providers and authorized entities, results in a better quality of care, and more.
SOAP notes are simply one outline to follow when doing healthcare documentation; it’s an easy acronym to remember yet ensures that all cornerstone portions of a patient’s experience are documented. From the patient’s subject experience and reported history of their ailment to what your recommendations are for treatment, SOAP notes provide a comprehensive record that can be referred to in the future.
Why SOAP Notes are Important for Insurance Billing
SOAP notes are also important for insurance billing purposes; because healthcare documentation is an essential part of operating a successful holistic practice, it’s vital that your insurance billing process is as streamlined as possible. SOAP notes—and healthcare documentation, in general—are crucial for insurance billing purposes for the following reasons, including:
Improved Patient Outcomes
With precise, consistent documentation comes better patient outcomes. This, of course, helps insurance companies regulate the cost of healthcare because improved patient outcomes are the result of efficient and effective care.
Streamlined Claims Processing
As you well know, you can’t just willy-nilly code a patient-provider interaction with just any kind of coding; you need to back up your medical billing and coding with evidence of why you’re submitting a claim for that interaction! SOAP notes and healthcare documentation overall help justify why you’re submitting a claim for reimbursement.
Reduce Risk
Precise, comprehensive documentation that follows a logical line of reasoning is an effective way to reduce the risk of malpractice claims at your holistic practice. It’s hard to justify any kind of treatment plan or diagnosis without evidence, so SOAP notes and other forms of healthcare documentation are essential to reducing your practice’s risk in terms of delivering misguided care.
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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.
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.
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.
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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COVID-19 pandemic has already inflicted terrible damage upon many holistic medicine practices. As if the first wave of lockdowns wasn’t damaging enough, the sudden resurgence in cases throughout the country has pulled the rug out from underneath many businesses that thought the worst was already behind them. While it remains to be seen if states will begin ordering more shutdowns to limit the spread of the virus, holistic practices should start thinking about making lasting changes to their businesses rather than trying to ride out the crisis.
The Impact of COVID-19 on the Integrative Medicine Industry
Social distancing requirements have proven particularly difficult, though not impossible, for acupuncture, massage therapy, and chiropractic practices to manage. When the reopening process began in late spring, many of them adapted as best they could to the new guidelines, changing how many patients were scheduled, limiting staff presence, and procuring additional protective equipment. But just because those practices were ready to receive patients doesn’t mean they all came flooding back. A recent survey of healthcare facilities found that 79% of them were seeing fewer patients now than they did prior to the pandemic, a trend that has undoubtedly affected holistic practices as well.
5 Changes Integrative Medicine Practices can Expect to See Post-Pandemic
While it’s too early to say what the long-term impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic will be on holistic practices, there are some changes that seem quite likely to occur.
1. Marketing Will be More Important Than Ever
When the threat of the pandemic finally recedes, integrative medicine practices will face the tremendous challenge of attracting new patients. People may not know that holistic practices are even still open, so it will be important to establish a strong marketing presence to broadcast those services. The post-pandemic competitive landscape may look very different, with some long-standing practices going out of business and unproven newcomers opening practices. Established practices must be prepared to stand out in this new environment with the right marketing message that brings people back for their services.
2. More Patient Engagement
In addition to stepping up their marketing, practitioners will likely feel the pressure to cultivate stronger relationships with their patients. Keeping in regular communication with patients will make it easier to retain them over time and also build up a strong infrastructure that allows the practice to stay in contact in the future. Should another pandemic or similar event occur, having an engaged patient base will make the practice more resilient should it need to cut back or shut down services again.
3. Long Term Health Complications
One of the most disturbing and poorly understood aspects of COVID-19 is the lingering health effects it causes in some patients after recovery. These impacts include kidney damage, nervous system dysfunctions, and joint inflammation. Holistic practices must make themselves aware of these symptoms and determine how their health services might be able to address them for patients in search of relief.
4. Ongoing Social Distancing
While hopes remain high for the rapid development of a COVID-19 vaccine, it’s important to remember that their rollout will likely take place over time and could face significant logistical barriers. That’s partially why a study conducted early in the pandemic estimated that social distancing measures may be necessary well into 2022. Holistic practices should be prepared to keep social distancing guidelines in their offices in place for the foreseeable future.
5. Increased Demand for Remote Services
The retail industry has long found that online services tend to be “sticky.” That is, once people start using them, they tend to stick with the behavior. It’s why the number of online shoppers grows after each holiday season and it could be why the number of people expecting healthcare and holistic practices to offer remote services after the pandemic. The growth of telemedicine and increased familiarity with video conferencing tools could create a tremendous opportunity for holistic practices to reach a new range of customers who may not be willing to make an in-person appointment, but might be interested in remote consultations or presentations.
Prepare Your Holistic Practice for the Future with the Help of Holistic Billing!
Managing all these new challenges in the aftermath of the pandemic can be difficult enough without having to think about how they might impact your billing and coding. Partnering with an experienced medical billing provider with a special focus in acupuncture, massage, and chiropractic services can take the burden of insurance billing off your plate so you can work on meeting the needs of your patients and growing your practice.
At Holistic Billing Services, we deal exclusively with holistic healthcare practices like acupuncture, massage therapy, and chiropractic treatment. Our team of experienced billing and coding experts understand the unique needs of holistic practices and can help you take steps to improve your insurance reimbursements, reduce denied claims, and accelerate your revenue cycle management. To learn more about the benefits of holistic billing and begin preparing your practice for a post-pandemic world, contact our team today.