Do you know the value of your holistic practice’s online reputation? Research shows that 63% of patients choose one provider over another based on a strong online presence – that’s a major win for those who capitalize on these opportunities.
As patients leverage the internet to discover and research different holistic providers, appealing to your online audience is more important than ever, even if you’re not currently accepting new patients.
Let’s dive into a cornerstone of your practice’s online reputation: your website.
Why Does Your Holistic Practice Need a Website?
A website demonstrates authority and validates your presence, both online and your physical existence within your community. Your practice’s website is where you can further drive patient engagement, distinguish yourself from the competition, and empower patients to learn more about you. It’s a tremendous resource to leverage!
How Does Your Website Impact Your Online Reputation?
The truth is that your online reputation is being shaped whether you’re managing it or not, so it behooves you and your practice to steer the digital ship. Your website is your comprehensive path into the digital buzz around your practice and can help communicate important information to your patients and those shopping around for the best care.
You always want to put your best foot forward, right? Creating and maintaining your holistic practice’s website is a surefire way to do that. Since the possibilities are endless, there are countless ideas and methods to use when crafting your site, but the most important thing is to put forth your best representation of who you are and what your practice strives to do.
5 Things to Feature on Your Holistic Practice Website
Your options are nearly limitless, but here’s where we recommend you start with including on your practice’s site:
Mission Statement, Guiding Principles, and Other Foundational Writings
Your holistic practice’s mission statement is a core piece of writing that should absolutely be featured on your website. But why stop there? Consider including a section or page that features your practice’s foundational writings so that patients can reference them. This will help distinguish you from the competition and shape a meaningful online reputation.
About Us
Everyone loves a good origin story; share yours with the world on your holistic practice’s website! Potential patients in the research phase will connect well with learning more about you, how you got started, and what drives you – and current patients will build a deeper connection to your practice, too. Your “About Us” page is a core element of shaping your practice’s online reputation.
Links to Social Media Accounts or Other Platforms
If your holistic practice isn’t utilizing at least one social media platform, then you could be missing connections with a multitude of patients. Your practice’s website and social media accounts are perfect complements to each other which means you should link them together when possible. Point website visitors to your social media accounts and vice versa to further affirm your practice’s online reputation.
Contact Us, Location Details, Hours of Operation
Your patients finding you online is awesome, but at some point, they’ll need to visit your practice in-person. Be sure to include pertinent details to make this happen, including contact information, location details, hours of operation, and more.
Blogs or Articles Relevant to Your Specialty and Interests
Sharing your thoughts on new developments within your specialty, writing a response to other thought leaders in the industry, spreading the news about upcoming events and why they matter to you are just a few things you can write about for a blog on your website. You don’t have to be a great writer to get started – just taking a few minutes to write can help you further connect with your patients and start a conversation with them!
Want More Time to Refine Your Online Reputation? Partner with Holistic Billing Services!
We know all too well that a huge burden for holistic practices is the medical coding and billing process. It’s cumbersome, complicated, and can lead to a multitude of issues with your revenue cycle if not properly managed. None of these features bode well for your goals of developing a website and distinguished online reputation.
That’s where the friendly, knowledgeable experts at Holistic Billing Services come in! We have decades of experience and expertise in your specialty, so rest assured that we know how to handle your revenue cycle. Ditch the mountain of paperwork and frustration with rejected claims – we’ve got it all covered!
Let us take on the burden of medical billing so you can focus on what matters most: your patients.
One of language’s inherent qualities is the capacity to have more than one way of saying the same thing—or at least, what might be perceived as the same thing. There seems to be another way of phrasing something in countless cases, which can be helpful for connecting the dots between ideas or it can result in the feeling that you can’t quite find the right word you’re thinking of.
Holistic medicine is no exception, especially when it comes to the connection between your practice, your patients, and the general public who may or may not know a lot about the intricacies of holistic medicine.
That’s why it’s helpful to take a step back to see how people might be referring to holistic medicine, such as integrative medicine or functional medicine, and then dive into the various terminologies to see where they overlap and where they differ.
In this article, we’ll break down a few popular terms for holistic medicine and discuss why it’s relevant that your practice is aware of them, too.
How Is Integrative Medicine Defined?
Let’s begin with answering the question: what is integrative medicine and how is it defined?
According to the Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona, integrative medicine is defined as “healing-oriented medicine that takes account of the whole person, including all aspects of lifestyle. It emphasizes the therapeutic relationship between practitioner and patient, is informed by evidence, and makes use of all appropriate therapies.”
They’ve further defined 8 principles of integrative medicine, including points like:
- Patient and practitioner are partners in the healthcare journey
- Medicine and treatments are grounded in evidence that proves their effectiveness
- Natural and less invasive interventions should be used when appropriate and when proven to be effective
- And more!
Integrative medicine differs from holistic medicine because it involves a global approach to healing, including Western techniques and Eastern medicines.
What Is Functional Medicine?
Integrative medicine is often interchangeably referred to as functional medicine—but this isn’t entirely accurate.
Whereas integrative medicine strives to leverage any kind of medicine, treatment, technique, etc. to help the patient on their wellness journey, functional medicine aims to address the root cause of illness by enabling optimal functions of the body and organs.
The Institute for Functional Medicine explains that “the precise manifestation of each cause [of disease] depends on the individual’s genes, environment, and lifestyle, and only treatments that address the right cause will have lasting benefit beyond symptom suppression.”
Functional medicine differs from integrative medicine in terms of approach; where integrative medicine seeks to utilize a variety of methods and techniques from around the world and different traditions, functional medicine starts with a deep dive into the patient’s individual make-up.
Other Terms for Holistic Medicine & What They Mean
Let’s dive into a few other common terms related to holistic medicine and what they mean:
- Homeopathic medicine: This is a particular approach to healing that utilizes plants and minerals to help the body heal itself; there aren’t any regulated certificates or official trainings for homeopathy and this genre garners doubt and skepticism regarding how effective it is
- Alternative medicine: This is a catch-all term that relates to anything beyond the traditional Western medicine approach, methods, techniques, etc.
- Naturopathic medicine: An ND is a medical license that uses natural substances to balance a patient’s internal chemistry; NDs are considered primary care physicians, although not every state supports this medical degree
Why It’s Important to Know How to Define Various Terms for Holistic Medicine
Patient education efforts are always a good idea and can take shape in countless ways; one way is to help define various terminologies for your patients to learn more about holistic medicine.
Articulating the various terms that people might refer to your practice can help them realize the intricacies and multiple facets of the work that you do, which leads to a deeper appreciation and can encourage more dialogue between you and your patients, your patients and the general public.
Gaining an awareness and better understanding of the different phrasings people might have for your practice is also beneficial on the marketing front.
For example, people in your community might be looking for “integrative medicine” on the internet instead of “holistic medicine”. By knowing this and learning more about your potential clients, you can target those keywords if they resonate with your practice, or, at the very least, you can provide educational material explaining what other terms mean.
Putting yourself in the potential client’s shoes can help you understand their thought process, connect with them in a more meaningful way, and build better relationships.
What’s In Holistic Billing Services’ Name? More Time and Energy for Your Holistic Practice
We know that operating a successful, impactful holistic practice requires a plethora of skill sets, time, creativity, and more. You have to wear many hats, which can get overwhelming and result in mounting frustrations and impatience.
But what choice do you have? When it comes to the medical billing and coding process, the burden doesn’t have to fall on your shoulders alone. That’s where Holistic Billing Services is the ace up your sleeve!
With our friendly experts by your side, you’ll enjoy an optimized revenue cycle, accurate claim submissions, prompt payment, and most importantly, more time and energy for your holistic practice.
Have you ever wondered if your holistic practice needs a mission statement? Do you feel intimidated about writing one or are worried it’ll sound too generic? Fear not, we’ve got you covered.
Mission statements are a foundational element of your holistic practice’s business operations and help communicate an important message to your clients, both present and potential. This compounds to foster patient loyalty and boost your overall healthcare revenue cycle!
Writing a mission statement doesn’t have to be mission impossible for your holistic practice. Let’s dive into the components of a mission statement, why your practice needs one, and how to put it all together.
Why Is a Mission Statement Important?
A mission statement articulates why your practice exists in the first place; unlike other types of business writing, such as a Statement of Purpose or Vision Summary, the mission statement reveals the values of the business and should have an inspiring tone of voice.
Mission statements can be displayed and promoted in a plethora of ways, including:
- Reception area or waiting room
- Exam room
- Brochures and pamphlets
- Newsletters
- Stationary
- Website
- Blogs
- And more!
In addition to being a valuable piece of writing, your holistic practice’s mission statement is important for the following reasons:
Increases Patient Engagement
When patients understand the core reason for your holistic practice’s operations, they’re more likely to engage on a deeper level with your practice. Patient engagement is huge for your healthcare revenue cycle in terms of patient satisfaction, client retention, and word of mouth marketing.
Stands Out from the Competition
Anything, within reason, that your practice can do to distinguish itself from the competition is probably a good idea: crafting a succinct and compelling mission statement is one such manner to go about this! A little creativity and sincerity can go a long way to helping your practice stand out from the competition and make your operations more memorable.
Helps Your Patients Connect with the Core of Your Practice
Patients will have their own perceptions and expectations about your holistic practice from your online reputation, word of mouth recommendations, and other sources of information that don’t include your actual practice space. Reading your meaningful mission statement can help shape their perception and build a better relationship between your practice and your patients.
Core Components of a Mission Statement
Now that we’ve outlined the importance of a mission statement for your holistic practice and how you can leverage this piece of writing to promote your practice, let’s dig into the core components of a mission statement.
Brevity
Perhaps you’ve heard of the phrasing “Be brief, be bright, be gone” to illustrate the mantra for effective communication; the same applies here for your mission statement. It shouldn’t be more than about 100 words or a few sentences, which means you’ll want to refine it from a rambling story to a clear, concise piece of writing.
Philosophy of Care
Your holistic practice exists to deliver quality care to members of your community, of course, but how can you express this in phrasing that is relevant, compelling, and authentic to your operations? Brainstorm with your staff or even pick the brains of your patients to see how your practice manifests its philosophy of care in daily operations.
Guiding Principles
What are the core tenets and values that guide your holistic practice’s operations? Highlight a couple of them in your mission statement so that your patients gain a clearer understanding of your principles.
A Healthy Dose of Inspiration
Your mission statement’s mission is to inform and inspire all who read it, including yourself, your other staff members, and your target audience. As such, it’s important to utilize an inspiring tone when writing and to captivate the reader with an authentic message that reflects your practice.
How to Write a Mission Statement for Your Holistic Practice in 3 Steps
As we said earlier, writing a mission statement doesn’t have to be mission impossible: it doesn’t need to take days or weeks to put it together, just a little bit of creativity.
You can write your holistic practice’s mission statement in three easy steps:
- Define your practice’s purpose: articulate what your practice does to serve your patients and the community
- Describe your practice’s goals and objectives: briefly highlight what sets your practice into motion and guides your operations
- Be specific and brief: avoid using filler words or industry jargon that will distract your reader from your mission statement
Your mission statement can be effectively leveraged in a myriad of ways, ranging from your website presence to posting it in your office and including it in marketing efforts. This piece of writing is essential for connecting with your audience and distinguishing yourself from the competition in your area.
Another important reminder is that your mission statement can evolve over time. For example, perhaps you add another specialty to your practice, or you initiate a relationship treating the veterans in your community; these elements can and should be reflected in your mission statement!
Partner with Holistic Billing Services to Streamline Your Operations!
Wish you could spend more time refining the various pieces of writing you need for your holistic practice? Do you often find yourself swamped with medical billing problems, rejected insurance claims, and generally at a loss for updated billing regulations?
Partner with the experts at Holistic Billing Services to take the burden of billing off your shoulders and empower you to focus more energy, creativity, and time into your practice. We’ve got experience in your specialty, and we can’t wait to see you optimize your operations! Your success is our success and we’re here with you for every step of your healthcare revenue cycle.
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:
- Yelp!
- Bing
- 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.
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.
Your holistic practice exists to deliver quality care to your community; no matter what specialty you offer, it’s crucial that your patients recognize, value, and return to your practice. After all, you won’t last long if you don’t attract patients!
But how can you go beyond simply making your patients aware of your practice and foster a long-term, genuine connection between you, your practice, and your community? How can you instill patient loyalty in a manner that is sincere and beneficial to the future of your practice?
Patient loyalty is a key component of your healthcare revenue cycle and this article strives to provide you with the context and measures to take in order to grow and nurture it within your practice. Keep reading to learn more!
How Does Patient Loyalty Impact Your Healthcare Revenue Cycle?
Let’s look at a few key statistics regarding customer loyalty that can apply to your holistic practice:
- 82% of companies agree that retention is cheaper than acquisition
- 65% of a company’s business comes from existing customers
- Increasing customer retention by just 5% boosts profits by 25% to 95%
As with any business venture, minimizing churn and turnover results in a more stabilized, consistent revenue stream. It’s cheaper to keep the customer you already have than to attract a new customer to replace them.
This directly applies to your holistic practice and your overall healthcare revenue cycle! Putting in the effort and developing an enduring, profitable relationship with your patients leads to a better revenue cycle and empowers you to scale your business as more patients come your way. But how can you achieve genuine patient loyalty?
How to Instill Patient Loyalty in Your Holistic Practice
Patient loyalty can be nurtured in a variety of manners in addition to providing excellent holistic services! Consider these tips to further solidify the relationship between your practice, your patients, and your community:
Create and Maintain a Comfortable, Clean Environment
Nobody wants to enter a place of business that is disorganized, dusty, or cluttered—particularly not in a holistic environment where wellness, healing, and good energy are synonyms with your business. From the steps leading up to your practice to the waiting room, bathroom, and everything along the way, make an effort to reflect your holistic values in the environment of your practice.
This might include:
- Dusting shelves, decorations, ledges, etc once a week
- Burning incense
- Softly playing relaxing music
- Sanitizing high-touch points
- Keeping your waiting room clean and organized without making it crowded with furniture or other objects
- Maintaining a clean, sanitary bathroom for patients
- And more!
Setting the tone for your patients’ experience and delivering a fantastic first and lasting impression is a surefire way to get patients returning to your office again and again.
Be Professionally and Administratively Organized
Scrambling to find a patient’s misplaced file or having a desk littered with sticky notes doesn’t bode well for appearing to run your practice smoothly and efficiently. Your patients want to see that your office is professional and organized, meaning they can trust you to deliver a great experience in terms of treatment and administration.
From answering the phone in a clear, consistent manner to handling scheduling conflicts and following up with patients about any billing issues, your holistic practice needs to be on its game to demonstrate trust and loyalty.
Build Rapport with Your Patients and Create an Individualized Treatment Plan For Each of Them
If you and any team members appear cold or indifferent to a patient, that can leave a negative impression. Instead, make an effort to engage the patient in conversation and use their name in communication. Deploying active listening skills and exhibiting you have an interest in your patient—not their pocketbook—can help build patient loyalty, engagement, and overall satisfaction.
Taking this even further means creating an individualized treatment plan for each of your patients and maintaining a dialogue with them about it. While this might sound like common sense, and that’s great if it does, making the effort to inform each patient about their treatment plan, check in with them over time, and encourage questions are all great ways to nurture patient loyalty.
Leverage the Power of Social Media
Social media platforms can be the ace up your sleeve if you leverage them appropriately for your holistic practice. Use your accounts to post about:
- Upcoming events, like open houses or charity events
- Holidays or moments in history related to your practice’s specialty
- Polls to get patient feedback, such as which composer to play in the office next
- Encourage honest reviews
- Some personal, yet professional, information about you and your practice—for example, showing off your beloved pet so that patients can get to know you a little better
Social media doesn’t have to be overwhelming or feel superfluous if you build and facilitate engagement with your patients!
Leave Your Medical Billing Stress to the Experts at HBS!
Want to deepen the relationship between you, your practice, and your community but feel overwhelmed with the medical coding and billing process? Find yourself frequently fielding questions from patients regarding the status of their claims? Unsure if you should accept insurance, how to bill Medicare, and have other important questions relating to your healthcare revenue cycle?
Turn to the experts at Holistic Billing Services to effectively handle your medical billing and coding so that you can get back to what matters most: your patients. Our team of friendly professionals has experience in your expertise and we’re eager to help your practice thrive so you remain a cornerstone in your community!
Your patients and your healthcare revenue cycle are more connected than you might think. Attracting new patients and providing great holistic care are two essential components of your revenue, but what else can you do to ensure your revenue cycle continues moving smoothly? How can you deepen the relationship between your holistic practice and your community in a manner that is sincere and still profitable?
Developing patient education resources for your patients and initiating conversations can have a significant impact. You might already be taking these steps in the natural flow of your practice’s operations, but making them an intentional part of your patient interactions can lead to a better patient experience and revenue cycle.
Keep reading to learn more about the different types of patient education resources, the link between patient engagement and your holistic practice’s revenue cycle, and some tips for fostering this engagement in your practice!
Different Types of Patient Education Resources
Patient education resources come in a variety of shapes and sizes and can be wholly custom to fit your specialty and your patients. Depending on what services you offer and what type of clients you have, your patient education materials can include one-on-one teaching, analogies, or any of the following tools:
- Brochures and other printed materials
- Podcasts
- YouTube videos
- Posters or charts
- Models or props
- And more!
The goal of patient education resources is to supplement the patient experience with opportunities to further learn and engage with their care. For example, a dermatology practice might have brochures explaining different skin conditions, perhaps one each for eczema or psoriasis, whereas an acupuncture practice might have posters that visually explain how the treatment works. It’s important to utilize the most appropriate medium of communication so your patient has the greatest chance of learning from your efforts.
The Link Between Patient Education, Patient Outcomes, and Your Healthcare Revenue Cycle
As the saying goes, knowledge is power. Patient education further builds rapport between your patient and your holistic practice, which leads to trust and a continued relationship. Increasing the patient lifetime value by attracting and retaining clients, naturally, helps your holistic practice’s overall healthcare revenue cycle. Plus, a client who is delighted by your services will spread the word about your practice and could lead to new patient relationships.
Patient education also leads to better patient outcomes as they learn more about their treatment and wellness plan. In fact, just 45 minutes of patient education can improve outcomes for patients with chronic diseases, according to a study in the Journal of the American Osteopathic Association. As patients gain a greater understanding of their conditions, the treatment that your holistic practice offers, and how to manage chronic conditions on their own, they become empowered and engaged in the process.
Delivering great care and equipping your patients with the tools they need to effectively engage with their healthcare journey demonstrates your practice’s dedication to their success—which leads to a better healthcare revenue cycle. Furthermore, providing resources relating to patient-payer relationships and how healthcare billing works can better inform your patients of their role within the revenue cycle.
3 Tips to Boost Your Revenue Cycle With Patient Education
Ready to further your patient education resources while boosting your revenue cycle? Check out these tips for each part of the patient’s journey with your holistic practice:
Initiate Clear Conversations About Payment Responsibility Prior to the Appointment
Your holistic practice’s reception desk plays an important role in the patient-practice relationship. This is where first and lasting impressions are formed, educating patients about their role in the healthcare revenue cycle takes place, and where patients should feel encouraged to ask questions.
The front desk is perfect for providing patients with information regarding co-pays, any insurance policies that are or aren’t accepted by your holistic practice, disseminating no-show policy papers, and more. It’s a great opportunity to welcome the patient into the practice and initiate clear conversations about payment responsibility.
Plus, if a returning patient has a balance remaining from a previous visit, this is a good time to gently but firmly bring it up and ask the patient for payment. Not verifying that the patient is in good standing—or not feeling confident in bringing it up—leads to a sluggish healthcare revenue cycle since you’re leaving money on the table.
Provide Patient Education Resources During the Visit
Your patients come to your practice for quality care and trust you and your staff to deliver on that. Along the way, it’s important to gauge how involved they are with what treatment plans you and other pertinent healthcare providers have coordinated for the patient.
Facilitating a conversation about why they’re at your practice, how your holistic services are contributing to a better quality of life, and encouraging them to ask questions along the way demonstrates a commitment to care. Plus, presenting a tangible education resource like a pamphlet or literature related to their wellness journey empowers them to do research on their own and ask questions as needed.
Your holistic practice’s revenue cycle benefits from returning patients who tell their loved ones about your practice and who value the time spent with your practice, making them less likely to be chronically absent from their appointments.
After the Appointment, Help Patients Navigate Their Bills and Gather Their Feedback Via Surveys
If your patient’s initial encounter with your practice’s reception desk entailed learning about their payment responsibilities, then the same reception desk after the appointment shouldn’t lead to any sticker shock. Staying proactive in conversations with your patients about their role in the healthcare revenue cycle boosts transparency in your practice and fosters trust between your patients and your practice.
Following the appointment, collect patient payment and their feedback via patient satisfaction surveys. Directly collecting payment, of course, benefits your revenue cycle by bringing in revenue to your practice. Gathering patient feedback is one more touchpoint for building rapport and reflects your practice’s commitment to providing an overall positive experience. With this information, you can make changes as needed to improve the patient experience!
Partner with Holistic Billing Services to Boost Your Healthcare Revenue Cycle!
Wish you had more time to engage your patients in conversation and develop patient education resources that suit them? Feel like you’re always swamped in medical coding and billing issues, rejected claims, and new legislative initiatives that impact healthcare billing?
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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?
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!
No matter the specialty of your holistic practice—whether you offer acupuncture, massage therapy, chiropractic treatments, or a combination—you’re there to provide quality care to your community. How do you know that you’re squarely hitting that target, though? What if there are some areas of your holistic practice that patients wish were a little more streamlined for them? That’s where a patient satisfaction survey helps facilitate effective patient communication.
Patient satisfaction surveys are a great way to get feedback on the perception your patients have regarding your overall holistic practice experience. Encouraging their feedback can lead to a stronger patient-practice relationship and optimize your overall practice to best suit the patient experience.
Why Is Patient Satisfaction Important for Your Holistic Practice?
The success of your holistic practice depends upon patients having a great experience, ideally from start to finish. Your patients, both new and returning, are the heart of your practice since they dictate the financial performance and are there to receive quality care from your organization. A negative experience, or repeated pattern of not addressing patient feedback, can lead to loss of business.
Implementing a patient satisfaction survey can help your holistic practice prioritize the feedback of your patients beyond delivering great care: simply initiating the conversation and asking for their feedback and taking steps to apply that feedback demonstrates great care for the relationship. A strong patient-practice relationship behooves you and your practice’s enduring success!
How to Write a Patient Satisfaction Survey
Writing a patient satisfaction survey for your holistic practice’s patients doesn’t have to take a long time—nor is it meant to be unchanging! It’s completely fine if you start with a few anchor points to ask them about but later pivot to ask about something else pertaining to your practice.
Start with these foundational steps to put together some questions that you feel best to apply to your patient population:
Reflect Upon What Might Need Improvement
Internally brainstorm for ideas regarding what might apply to your patients; is there a problem with the scheduling system? Do you often have issues with designating parking spots for your practice? Are you seeing patients return to your practice or do they visit once or twice but move to another organization? Jot down your practice’s internal points of interest to consider including on the patient satisfaction survey.
Listen to Your Patients
Some patients might be telling you what they think about your practice without having the official survey in front of them—picking up on what they discuss when making small talk can help give you insight into what is inconvenient to them or what they’d like to see more of.
For example, if you hear your patients ask if they’re okay to park in front of the business next door, then that might be a clue into what your holistic practice needs to address in your patient satisfaction survey. Picking up on these informal comments that share a theme or pattern is a great way to scope out what to include in your survey.
Determine Your Rating Scale
Your survey results won’t be as actionable as you’d like if your rating scales are inconsistent; your survey needs a measurable way to compare data to make it effective! There are many different ways to scale your patient satisfaction survey, but keep these points in mind when determining which to implement in yours:
- Try to avoid offering a “neutral” option since that won’t help your holistic practice yield specific results
- Stick to one rating scale method for all quantitative questions; for example, utilizing a variety of emoticons or a numbered scale for the survey will help keep your results comparable
Questions to Consider Using for Patient Satisfaction Surveys
If you’re ready to write your holistic practice’s patient satisfaction survey, consider including some of these questions to jumpstart discussion and select the best range that suits your patient population:
- How long did you wait for your appointment to start (beyond your appointment time)?
- How clean was the waiting room?
- How knowledgeable were the staff?
- Was the staff courteous?
- Were you informed of the payment options available to you?
- Are our appointment times convenient?
- How would you rate the parking availability of this office?
- Did the practitioner meet your needs?
- Did you feel you were treated as a top priority in this office?
- Will you return to this practice?
- Would you refer your friends and family to this practice?
You’ll notice that none of these questions are double-barreled—or, in other words, asking about two separate things in the same question. For example, asking if the patient will return to your practice is different from asking if they would refer their friends and family to your practice.
Be sure to also include some open-ended questions for your patients to share their free-form opinion and ideas for improvement. For example, ask the question “What can we do to improve your experience?” to demonstrate your holistic practice’s eagerness to hear from the patient directly about what can be streamlined for their experience.
Focus on Your Patients and Let Holistic Billing Services Handle Your Medical Billing!
The shaping of your holistic practice’s reputation is happening whether you’re directly 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! That’s why creating an effective patient satisfaction survey is a core component for strengthening the relationship between your practice and your patients, and can be a great tool for attracting new patients.
Wish you had more time and energy to spend working on these questions and your patients? Partner with a medical billing firm to handle your medical billing and coding processes. 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!