177: The Most Expensive Mistakes Chiropractic Clinics Make
Jun 09, 2024
Dr Michael Perusich: All right.
Dr Michael Perusich: Hi everybody. Welcome to the KC Carol pulse podcast brought to you by Katz consultants and chiral Health USA. I'm Dr. Michael perusich. And I'm joined by my host Marisa mateja. Yes, the world's most brilliant. manager Office management all know it all Anyway,…
Marisa Mateja: my I Wait,…
Dr Michael Perusich: I'm Marisa.
Dr Michael Perusich: I don't know where I was going with that. I'm good.
Marisa Mateja: wait stop. You didn't do your intro.
Dr Michael Perusich: yeah. forgot about that.
Marisa Mateja: About the actual podcast, That's okay. I can cut all this.
Dr Michael Perusich: Okay.
Marisa Mateja: Sorry, all the sudden. I was like wait, we're missing part of that trip.
Dr Michael Perusich: Yeah. Okay.
Marisa Mateja: Okay.
Dr Michael Perusich: Doctors is your staff cost. Cheese. It's been a while.
Marisa Mateja: What was the last time we recorded a long time ago?
Dr Michael Perusich: All right. Doctors is your staff costing you money. Hi everybody. Welcome to the KC chiropold's podcast brought to you by Kat's consultants and chiral Health USA. I'm Dr. Michael perusich. I'm joined by my host mateja Marisa. We see this We see doctors. And these amazing practices and either because maybe they don't do staff development enough training. They're not paying attention which is admittedly hard as the doctors but things are happening behind the scenes that truly could be costing these doctors a lot of money. So I wanted to talk about that today. I know you have a lot of thoughts on that.
Marisa Mateja: I do. I mean there's so many reasons for costly mistakes so we can dive into the very first thing that I think I see is probably poor communication. And it's spending the time that you need as the doctor as the business owner with staff and talking about what are those good practices for communication with patients, I mean, that's number one spinning the time to evaluate what you're saying with patients,
Dr Michael Perusich: right
Dr Michael Perusich: right and…
Marisa Mateja: Everybody gets busy we can all be short sometimes or…
Dr Michael Perusich: lack of coordinated communication, when the doctors telling the patient one thing and…
Marisa Mateja: whatever we heard that with an office today…
Dr Michael Perusich: then they get to the front desk and…
Marisa Mateja: because they were so busy that sometimes staff gets overwhelmed.
Dr Michael Perusich: the staff says something totally different, in a simple example of that…
Marisa Mateja: So being overwhelmed can definitely cause poor communication…
Dr Michael Perusich: but this happens is doctor says hey if your sore tonight,…
Marisa Mateja: if we're not careful so really staying on top of all those things is first and…
Dr Michael Perusich: I want you to use moist heat at home and then you go to the front desk and The front desk says hey,…
Marisa Mateja: foremost for the docs.
Dr Michael Perusich: sometimes the docker Dr. Recommends ice…
Marisa Mateja: Yes.
Dr Michael Perusich: if you're sore at home tonight, un that one little piece confuses patience and the minute you confuse patients. They're a lot of times out the door.
Dr Michael Perusich: Yeah.
Dr Michael Perusich: what's your take on this do you think staff should have an idea of what? a patient's treatment plan might be
Marisa Mateja: Sure, it has to be coordinate So when we talk about coordinated communication, it's really important that everybody on the team is saying the same thing. I mean it's as simple as that.
Dr Michael Perusich: usually
Dr Michael Perusich: Yeah, and…
Marisa Mateja: Gosh.
Dr Michael Perusich: that's a good way to put it they have to share that information.
Marisa Mateja: Yes, they should know everything. there's no way to keep that coordination of care going or…
Dr Michael Perusich: So here's another scenario. I just thought of Patient comes up the front desk. They just got adjusted in the back.
Marisa Mateja: communication or…
Dr Michael Perusich: They come up to the front desk and…
Marisa Mateja: anything with that patient…
Marisa Mateja: if staff are not involved in what's going to be happening with the patient. So in my opinion,…
Dr Michael Perusich: Maybe the front desk person notices that they're kind…
Dr Michael Perusich: moving around funny and…
Marisa Mateja: that's one of the number one things that docs and…
Dr Michael Perusich: maybe the patient says, I just don't feel right after that adjustment.
Marisa Mateja: staff need to do as coordination is talking through…
Dr Michael Perusich: And let's say the staff person notices it…
Marisa Mateja: why is this patient coming in?
Dr Michael Perusich: but doesn't say anything and…
Marisa Mateja: What's their condition?
Dr Michael Perusich: just tells patient.
Marisa Mateja: Why are they going to be seeing us?
Dr Michael Perusich: Tell the doctor next time you're in,…
Marisa Mateja: And what are we going to be doing for them?
Dr Michael Perusich: …
Marisa Mateja: How are we going to help them through their journey through their wellness and…
Dr Michael Perusich: is that good patient communication or not?
Marisa Mateja: Everything has to be talked about and shared amongst each other on the team.
00:05:00
Dr Michael Perusich: exactly
Dr Michael Perusich: Yeah, so this whole idea of just poor communication. It's missed opportunities. it has a negative effect on patient retention. People start missing appointments you get,…
Marisa Mateja: Bad bad first things and…
Dr Michael Perusich: you…
Marisa Mateja: foremost if the patient is feeling that way before they've left the office,…
Dr Michael Perusich: potentially negative online reviews. I mean, there's a lot of missteps that can really happen with that. Yeah.
Marisa Mateja: they shouldn't leave the office. So I mean that patient should be stopped right there. The doctor should be I brought into that conversation and whether they need to be looked at reevaluated more therapy, whatever it may be that day before they leave or at home directions or anything that has to be looked at before the patient leaves that door.
Marisa Mateja: the stopper
Dr Michael Perusich: exactly
Dr Michael Perusich: and so what are some things doctors can do kind of Simply to help make that communication process better?
Dr Michael Perusich: Yeah. pretty cool team meeting
Dr Michael Perusich: her
Marisa Mateja: Isn't that interesting? It's snowballs, right? I mean one little thing can really snowball into a laundry list of things that could go wrong with the patient and we see this often in practice as unfortunately that really don't spend the time to make sure that they are really on top of everything and…
Dr Michael Perusich: Yeah, and I think also making sure that staff knows how to in Lay terms explain a patient's treatment plan to them.
Marisa Mateja: ready for their day each day with who's coming in and…
Dr Michael Perusich: Maybe a patient says why am I getting muscle stem?
Marisa Mateja: what's happening with them and why we're treating them and…
Dr Michael Perusich: Oftentimes the doctor recommends that or…
Marisa Mateja: and all of those things pay our staff need to know why patients are coming in to see you it helps them communicate with the patient to help you the doctor out in the long run.
Dr Michael Perusich: puts that into a treatment plan prescribes it Because they want your muscles to relax. So the adjustments will hold a little bit better, does your staff know how to explain little things like that those kind of things are important.
Marisa Mateja: I mean one is spend time with your staff each morning before you start the day talk about schedule. I mean and that's an easy thing to do right asking staff. If any of the patients on the schedule have told them something that maybe they forgot to think in terms of
Dr Michael Perusich: yeah. Yeah, it's good stuff. So I want to take a minute just here a quick word from one of our sponsors, but we've got some other interesting things to talk about here. So hang in there everybody. We'll be right back. We're gonna hear word from our sponsor. You'll listening to the Casey chiropolites podcast brought to you by cats consultants and Cara Health USA. We will be right back.
Marisa Mateja: We as staff probably have a little more Authority than the doctor in those first few visits and…
Dr Michael Perusich: Hi everybody. Welcome back to the KC chiropold's podcast brought to you by Katz consultants and…
Marisa Mateja: then that transposes over to the doctor,…
Dr Michael Perusich: chirohealth USA. We're talking about mistakes that can happen in your office that can sometimes be pretty costly whether it costs you money.
Marisa Mateja: It moves over to them at one point or another where they have more Authority with the patient. in that early stage it's important for us as staff to be communicating well with the doctor so that communication goes both ways.
Dr Michael Perusich: It costs you reputation it cost you patience, another one Marisa we talked about communication, but another one is inaccurate billing and mishandling of insurance claims.
Marisa Mateja: Yeah, yeah little and it doesn't have to be long explanations. We're not looking for a paragraph from everybody on why muscle stem does what right we're looking for a simple explanation that's in doctor terminology that is easy for the patient to go. that makes sense. Okay, great, and if they have more questions than we direct them back to the doctor at that point.
00:10:00
Marisa Mateja: Yeah insurance claims is one of the biggest things I can suggest is one pay attention to your Clearing House and your Clearing House should be giving you reports on everything that was billed and a lot of times will catch errors for you and a lot of times fix those on there again. Go back to your main software system. Make sure they're fixed there so they don't continue to happen. But there's lots of things that you can figure out before the claim actually gets to the insurance company.
Marisa Mateja: But once it gets to the insurance company, that's when that explanation of benefits comes back to us.
Dr Michael Perusich: Yep.
Marisa Mateja: And again, we have to be watching for those codes at the bottom. And what are they telling us? So a lot of times the insurance company tells us what the codes at the bottom exactly why a claim was denied or not paid and at that point a staff we've got to not be I see this a lot. Don't be scared to pick up that phone and…
Dr Michael Perusich: Yes.
Marisa Mateja: call that insurance company. I know you may be on hold for a while.
Dr Michael Perusich: Yep.
Marisa Mateja: I know it's no fun. But a lot of times that person on the other end can help you through what you need to do, Whether it's fix the claim send it back as a corrected claim, whatever you need to do.
Dr Michael Perusich: Huge. Yeah,…
Marisa Mateja: Some of them have their own forms.
Dr Michael Perusich: it really is huge,…
Marisa Mateja: You have to fill out first,…
Dr Michael Perusich: you…
Marisa Mateja: whatever that may be
Dr Michael Perusich: and another place with insurance billing and…
Marisa Mateja: They give you the idea of…
Dr Michael Perusich: mistakes that happen is insurance companies.
Marisa Mateja: how to help fix that right? And if not look up…
Dr Michael Perusich: A lot of times will change codes and it's not always just at the beginning of the year.
Marisa Mateja: what those error codes mean start there. You…
Dr Michael Perusich: Sometimes they'll have a change mid-year especially with a modifier or…
Marisa Mateja: that's a big part of it. don't feel bad about it. So following up on denied claims aired claims,…
Dr Michael Perusich: something like that, so you really got to watch those eobs to see…
Marisa Mateja: all of those kind of things are truly very important to make sure we're catching.
Dr Michael Perusich: why you may have been denied on a claim and be ready to correct it. And keep correcting it by doing it correctly once you learn that whatever you submit it was incorrect.
Marisa Mateja: A what's covered and not covered, right?
Marisa Mateja: A lot of times we're sending in things to insurance companies that are not covered and it should be patient responsibility. We want to make sure that those items are not getting to the insurance companies for them just to make sure patients understand that those are their responsibility, really part of your insurance handling is that transparency of communication of front with the patient. So that's another area of insurance that we kind of forget about but that first phone call and…
Dr Michael Perusich: Yeah, you should download those LCDs every year and…
Marisa Mateja: making sure patients understand exactly…
Dr Michael Perusich: read through them doctors. Everybody should read through them.
Marisa Mateja: what you're going to do for them whether you're gonna verify their benefits or…
Dr Michael Perusich: Because the crazy thing is we're all worried about documentation and…
Marisa Mateja: you're going to file for them. You're gonna do what and making sure they understand what that process looks like.
Dr Michael Perusich: those kind of things and those LCDs walk you through…
Marisa Mateja: Having them verify their own benefits while that's a New Concept right make sure that they are involved in the process.
Dr Michael Perusich: how they want you to document.
Dr Michael Perusich: It's crazy. So again, what are some solutions here obviously training.
Marisa Mateja: This is their insurance. Sometimes I think we Overlook that a little bit so
Dr Michael Perusich: Is a solution to make sure that building issues aren't happening.
Marisa Mateja: starting at that very first phone call making sure you're sending your good faith estimate through the no surprises act transparency right now is huge.
Dr Michael Perusich: Yeah, and there's so many great billing softwares out there. Make sure you use on a billing software. I mean in today's world if you don't have that technology in your practice, I know there's still a few practices around that drop claims to paper and send them away and they even do them on a typewriter.
Marisa Mateja: And watch your insurance companies,…
Dr Michael Perusich: Yeah.
Marisa Mateja: they send out these notices or they may not but it should be on your local coverage determination on their website.
Dr Michael Perusich: Yes.
Marisa Mateja: It should be in their newsletter or their most recent Communications. All of those kind of things should be updated on their website. make sure you're reading that information as well often because you're gonna learn some stuff through that.
Dr Michael Perusich: Yep.
Marisa Mateja: everybody on the team.
Marisa Mateja: It's amazing the information in there, right?
Dr Michael Perusich: Yeah, it's really kind of like a Bible. I mean, it's amazing. Everything is in there. Plus it helps really kind of keep you up to date.
Marisa Mateja: Absolutely.
Dr Michael Perusich: So you need to buy one every year.
Marisa Mateja: Training's gonna be huge for the whole process.
Dr Michael Perusich: It keeps you up to date on all those changes and…
Marisa Mateja: I mean, that's one of the biggest things that you can do is make sure that as a team you're working on some of these things and…
Dr Michael Perusich: things that are happening. So, another big mistake that we see a lot of times is around scheduling and…
Marisa Mateja: whatever management company you're with out.
Dr Michael Perusich: just the inefficiencies that offices sometimes create with scheduling and…
Marisa Mateja: should be putting out information in regards to these things.
Dr Michael Perusich: managing appointments and those kind of things. I know you see this a lot from your Vantage Point,…
00:15:00
Marisa Mateja: Yeah.
Dr Michael Perusich: so I'm gonna
Marisa Mateja: I've seen some of those the other thing with not only billing software but utilizing the cover code manual whether it's electronic or you actually buy the book. I don't care but update that every single year. Remember ICD tens or what we're on right now, but elevens are coming. So that is something to keep in mind when you're looking through that they're always making changes. So make sure every single year you're updating that information chiro codes a great resource for your practice. Not only do they talk about the codes in there. But there's half the book is also on best billing procedures and how to handle things and…
Dr Michael Perusich: yep.
Marisa Mateja: where to go when you have an issue. I mean, there's so much information in that book.
Marisa Mateja: Yes, it really is.
Marisa Mateja: Yeah.
Dr Michael Perusich: And you mentioned Trying to you get overbooked when the doctor is slow…
Marisa Mateja: I work with a lot of offices on scheduling that's one of the main things that I get to help offices with and…
Dr Michael Perusich: but the other way can happen too. what if the front desk is booking every five minutes,…
Marisa Mateja: and staff with we see a lot of I'll call them unorganized schedules that can really trip up an office…
Dr Michael Perusich: but the doctor utilizes a technique that takes 10 in that area you're constantly behind patients get frustrated and…
Marisa Mateja: because if our schedule is unorganized or…
Dr Michael Perusich: And we're winds up costing you money is it costs you in visits…
Marisa Mateja: days and organized and our patients feel that when they come in,…
Dr Michael Perusich: because now patients are going to back off.
Marisa Mateja: so one of the biggest things that …
Dr Michael Perusich: They're not going to come as often.
Marisa Mateja: we work on with our offices is making sure that their schedule is put together in a good manner meaning the motion efficient the most
Dr Michael Perusich: Worst case scenario. They're gonna drop out of care. so if you think of the lifetime value of a chiropractic patient It can be a pretty substantial loss. If you lose that lifetime value for walks out of your clinic and…
Marisa Mateja: Efficient but non-time time-consuming I guess is…
Dr Michael Perusich: goes to the clinic down the street, so You've really got to make sure that you're on top of scheduling and…
Marisa Mateja: what I'm trying to say manner so that the doctor has the most maximized time in their day to see the most patients.
Dr Michael Perusich: and scheduling isn't something that should be just haphazard. I was talking to an office earlier today and…
Marisa Mateja: So looking through some of that thing…
Dr Michael Perusich: The doctor was lamenting over the fact that there was no room and…
Marisa Mateja: then we look for what delays a schedule,…
Dr Michael Perusich: I'm using air quotes if you're listening.
Marisa Mateja: is the doctor actually spending too much time with patients and…
Dr Michael Perusich: There's no room on my schedule for a new patient today. And my question was are your new patients slots already filled and…
Marisa Mateja: that can happen because of what our goals are and how many patients we need to see that can happen.
Dr Michael Perusich: it's come back was what do you mean by new patient slots?
Marisa Mateja: So really looking through our patients feeling rushed through the practice or…
Dr Michael Perusich: We just stick them in where we can. that I knew that reaction Skelter scheduling mechanism really creates chaos in your day.
Marisa Mateja: are they getting the time that they need or all of that but on the business side really knowing is our schedule physically set up for us to be able to mean our goals and a lot of times I see offices that are not set up that way.
Dr Michael Perusich: right
Dr Michael Perusich: right
Marisa Mateja: right
Marisa Mateja: Yeah.
Dr Michael Perusich: Yeah, yeah, you just made me think of a scenario that used to happen to us once in a while. we'd have a very busy day going and you would come back and you would say something like hey, do you mind if I put Surely in at a certain time. She's had a fall and I'd look at you like no, we're too busy and you'd look back at me and you'd say you've got this and you'd walk off and you'd put her in my point of that is your staff taking control of the scheduling process in that manner and…
Marisa Mateja:
Dr Michael Perusich: making it work so that you as the doctor don't have to think about it.
Dr Michael Perusich: Yeah, right.
Dr Michael Perusich: right
00:20:00
Marisa Mateja: It does and you're also not planning for what you need to be seeing. So your schedule needs to be evaluated often because as we were growing and as you're changing the amount of new patients you need may also be changing. do you have the time a lot of for the number that you need and it's not just the new patients but we have to think about our existing patients. if we're doing a report of findings. We have to think about the time for Progress exams. There's all these things and…
Dr Michael Perusich: So here's another one.
Marisa Mateja: events that can happen on your schedule.
Dr Michael Perusich: I'm gonna post this as a question to you even…
Marisa Mateja: So the more organized and…
Dr Michael Perusich: though I know the answer.
Marisa Mateja: planned out you are The more likely it is that you're setting yourself up to hit your goals.
Dr Michael Perusich: in your opinion Should we schedule one visit at a time or…
Marisa Mateja: To see the patient numbers you want all of those kind of things.
Dr Michael Perusich: the entire treatment plan?
Marisa Mateja: So an organized schedule is a number one for scheduling that I see as a misstep a lot of times.
Dr Michael Perusich: Yeah.
Marisa Mateja: Yeah, and when I would do that a lot of times I really wasn't asking you. I was kind of telling you this is what's coming, right so that you're mentally prepared for maybe an exam in a spot that we weren't used to an exam happening. So when we think about an organized schedule, it's not just hey, this is set in stone. There's always going to be emergencies that happen.
Dr Michael Perusich: Right, right. Yeah the scheduling one visit at a time just leads to a higher rate of dropouts.
Marisa Mateja: There's always going to be things that have to fit into a schedule. And so we look at those things as hey.
Marisa Mateja: How do we manage that…
Dr Michael Perusich: higher rate of missed appointments and…
Marisa Mateja: so managing your schedule might be Point number two of that right and…
Dr Michael Perusich: the chance that the patient's going to just Walk away and…
Marisa Mateja: not only managing emergencies…
Dr Michael Perusich: not come back. So
Marisa Mateja: those kind of things but let's talk about what if there's missed appointments,…
Dr Michael Perusich: right
Marisa Mateja: are we managing the missed appointment? So we calling those people are we texting them?
Dr Michael Perusich: exactly
Marisa Mateja: Are we letting them know? Hey, we're sorry we missed you. Come on over. If you can are we going to go ahead and work them in it's however, you guys do it in your office. But those are the things that keep people engaged with your practice and…
Dr Michael Perusich: Yep.
Marisa Mateja: keep them coming.
Marisa Mateja: Back to you as long as you're doing those things.
Dr Michael Perusich: And I have a real life example of that. I was talking to a dark a couple of days ago and who's talking about the fact that he and his wife were out somewhere and a former patient. They saw a former patient and…
Marisa Mateja: the entire treatment plan so there's a couple reasons…
Dr Michael Perusich: he walked up to him and said hey Bill haven't seen you in a while. And he said yeah, I quit coming to you…
Marisa Mateja: why and…
Dr Michael Perusich: because I never got better and…
Marisa Mateja: it goes back to Consistency patients that have something that's consistent and…
Dr Michael Perusich: so he was talking to me about and I said how many times did you see him? I only saw him twice. Of course. He wasn't fully better and…
Marisa Mateja: recurring on their schedule.
Dr Michael Perusich: said, but did he know that?
Marisa Mateja: It makes it easy for them to not miss.
Dr Michael Perusich: We hadn't done a report of findings. He hadn't gone over the treatment plan.
Marisa Mateja: Okay, so that's the very first reason and…
Dr Michael Perusich: The patient had no idea then how many visits it was going to take and…
Marisa Mateja: it goes to if they are continually coming in they're gonna understand Wellness better as well as we're talking about those things all the way through their treatment plan.
Dr Michael Perusich: they were only scheduling a visit at a time. So we get to the front desk. He's not out of pain. He doesn't know what the treatment plan is.
Marisa Mateja: We're going to make sure that they understand some of those things so it's easy for them to especially and…
Dr Michael Perusich: He didn't know what the schedule is supposed to be nothing. So he says I'll call you when I need you which means sayonara I'm gone.
Marisa Mateja: I'll bring this up just as a side note in
Marisa Mateja: I'll call it an unstable economy that we have right now as people start to stress over things like that the value of…
Dr Michael Perusich: right
Marisa Mateja: why they're coming in to see you is going to come into play and if they have value in what they're doing and it's recurring and they know that there's a reason why they come in every time they're less likely to eliminate your service.
Dr Michael Perusich: exact
Marisa Mateja: Absolutely.
Marisa Mateja: What happens if they walk away they potentially didn't get better.
Dr Michael Perusich: right
Marisa Mateja: A potentially are going to go tell 10 people that they didn't get better in your clinic. I mean, there's so many downfalls to that and they never made it to that Wellness phase…
Dr Michael Perusich: We're supposed to lead them.
Marisa Mateja: which is typically when people start referring so We've lost not only their lifetime value…
Dr Michael Perusich: That's our job. As a doctor as a clinic team, it's to lead the patient and patients want to be led so it can be a win scenario…
Marisa Mateja: but we've now lost the people that they would have referred to us as a lifetime value.
Dr Michael Perusich: if you just take the bull by the horns. So here's another big mistake and in this goes back to scheduling and it's Tuesday morning.
Dr Michael Perusich: what is the end of the week look like?
Dr Michael Perusich: It's a good one.
Dr Michael Perusich: right
00:25:00
Marisa Mateja: Yeah.
Dr Michael Perusich: Yeah.
Dr Michael Perusich: Yeah.
Marisa Mateja: and as soon as a patient says I'll call you when I need you. It means we didn't fulfill something in our communication with them. And so it goes back to point number one of this whole thing right poor communication. So if we don't have good communication with our patients and give them that transparency of here Here's what we expect your body to do. Here's when how you're gonna get well with us all of those things. If we don't tell them that path they don't know it so the same thing happens when …
Dr Michael Perusich: huge
Marisa Mateja: we don't schedule them. And that's the point we're talking about right scheduling. So if we don't schedule them all of those visits, they have no idea what to expect when they can expect it. They're more likely to stay under care. So when they don't expect it, you hear things like what you just said, which was I'll call you when I need you…
Dr Michael Perusich: And if your schedule is a little light.
Marisa Mateja: because they don't know when they're supposed to come back.
Dr Michael Perusich: Yes, this is incredibly important. This goes back to is your staff really taking control of the schedule,…
Marisa Mateja: Absolutely.
Dr Michael Perusich: Tuesday morning, you might come back and…
Marisa Mateja: Absolutely.
Dr Michael Perusich: say hey Doc Thursday afternoon is just a little light. And you never tell me how light because I probably would have passed out you would tell me and so that just prompted me to pay more attention to what are the opportunities I might see coming in.
Marisa Mateja: That's a big question.
Dr Michael Perusich: And I'd start listening to patients a little bit more and…
Marisa Mateja: So Most of the time…
Dr Michael Perusich: I'd ask them questions.
Marisa Mateja: what we see is we're not spending enough time looking forward.
Dr Michael Perusich: Hey Bill, would you do this last week and…
Dr Michael Perusich: you're kind of tight today? I went on a water ski and I wiped out really hard.
Marisa Mateja: So it's an interesting phenomenon in the Chiropractic world,…
Marisa Mateja: We live in 30 day cycles.
Dr Michael Perusich: Great Bill. Here's what I want to do.
Marisa Mateja: And so we're trying to break people out of that.
Dr Michael Perusich: We're gonna treat you today. But because you're so tight. I want to bring you back in on Thursday afternoon,…
Marisa Mateja: But we live in this 30 day cycle.
Dr Michael Perusich: Fits right…
Marisa Mateja: And so everything's based on what's gonna happen within that 30 days.
Dr Michael Perusich: because I know there's space but it's good for the patient. So I want to bring you back in on Thursday afternoon. Make sure you're ready to go for the weekend.
Marisa Mateja: Same thing happens if we break it down to a week or whatever. We spend too much time looking backwards then we do looking forward. So my big thing was staff is looking forward on the schedule and…
Dr Michael Perusich: Yep.
Marisa Mateja: what's happening and how many people are gonna be coming into your practice. Are you gonna meet your goals? Does it look like who's scheduled out it will meet those goals will we exceed them or we gonna be under and if we're under where the holes what's happening on the schedule?
Dr Michael Perusich: yeah, that's our litmus.
Marisa Mateja: Where can we put people how we communicated that with the doctor? There's so many things just within looking forward that tells you a huge amount about your practice now Docs
Marisa Mateja: I will challenge you to go look at your schedules and…
Dr Michael Perusich: Yep, and don't think we're talking about overutilization. We're not. If a patient needs extra care,…
Marisa Mateja: don't want you to pass out but go look at your schedules and…
Dr Michael Perusich: you're just more.
Marisa Mateja: I want you to look out for six and…
Dr Michael Perusich: You're just more present time conscious about it.
Marisa Mateja: eight weeks and I want you to think about who's on your schedule. How many patients are on and…
Dr Michael Perusich: Yeah, otherwise,…
Marisa Mateja: will you meet your goals next week based on today?
Dr Michael Perusich: you may be thinking the practice is full or you…
Marisa Mateja: What's on your schedule?
Dr Michael Perusich: the staff's gonna take care of it or it just brings that present time consciousness.
Marisa Mateja: Call us.
Dr Michael Perusich: Sure.
Marisa Mateja: Yeah.
Marisa Mateja: No.
Dr Michael Perusich: right right
Dr Michael Perusich: and night Yep, and nine out of 10 patients will do what you just said if your scheduled out two weeks and they're hurting before they're gonna wait the two weeks. Instead of coming in sooner. So get out of that habit of saying, I'll see you out in two weeks.
Marisa Mateja: You may have missed that opportunity had you not been focused on the fact that hey we may need some patient visits on the schedule.
Dr Michael Perusich: But if you need to come in sooner, that's not a bad thing to say, but if you feel like they're gonna need to come in sooner.
Marisa Mateja: And so that's another part of that good organized schedule and…
Dr Michael Perusich: Just tell them hey.
Marisa Mateja: scheduler that's ability to communicate those things to the doctor ends up increasing patient visits. Remember if it's for the patient, it's good for the practice, right? So you have to pay attention to those things. But so often we miss those opportunities and staff all include you in that staff and doctors sometimes miss those opportunities…
Dr Michael Perusich: I'm gonna put you out a week,…
Marisa Mateja: because we're not spending the time looking forward like we should
Dr Michael Perusich: but I want you to come in on Thursday if you're hurting so be specific with your patients. So this is all just training it goes back to communication with your staff and…
Marisa Mateja: No, no, no.
Dr Michael Perusich: train your staff on efficient scheduling practices. it really not only helps to fill your schedule up,…
00:30:00
Marisa Mateja: in tune with it when you're focused on the fact that those kind of things need to happen.
Dr Michael Perusich: but it creates a much more use your terminology a much more efficient schedule and
Marisa Mateja: It may change your communication with the patient is what it does. So it in that scenario…
Dr Michael Perusich: Yeah, and the reminders.
Marisa Mateja: if you thought the practice was going to be full that week. You may have told the patient something different I want to see you back Thursday afternoon. It may have been okay on my schedule you for next week, but if by the end of the week, you're still not feeling better. I want you to come in you didn't schedule them.
Dr Michael Perusich: exactly
Marisa Mateja: We miss an opportunity because as soon as we do that what happens the patient never calls us unless they're really bad,…
Dr Michael Perusich: Okay good stuff.
Marisa Mateja: right …
Dr Michael Perusich: So we're gonna take a quick little break.
Marisa Mateja: I had one scheduled.
Dr Michael Perusich: We're gonna hear from one of our sponsors and…
Marisa Mateja: So I just thought I'd wait we miss an opportunity…
Dr Michael Perusich: we'll come back and…
Marisa Mateja: because of our poor communication and…
Dr Michael Perusich: we're talking about different mistakes that can really be really costly in your practice.
Marisa Mateja: we didn't look ahead on the schedule so they don't even hand.
Dr Michael Perusich: So we'll be right back.
Marisa Mateja: Yeah.
Marisa Mateja: No.
Dr Michael Perusich: All right everybody. Welcome back to the KC chiropoil.
Marisa Mateja: Yeah.
Dr Michael Perusich: Hello. The Casey caribles podcast brought to you by Kat's consultants and carohealth USA.
Marisa Mateja: Yeah. Yeah.
Dr Michael Perusich: We are talking about mistakes that happen in your practice that can be very costly and we've talked about some great things. But Marisa I want to talk a little bit about Ineffective or a lack of good customer service and how profound of an impact that can have on a practice?
Marisa Mateja: Another solution to your schedule may be online scheduling, Yes, an appointment reminders those two things are excellent. Examples of technology that can change the way your practice functions so,…
Dr Michael Perusich: right
Marisa Mateja: make it easy for people to get to you. I see such a hard time being made of patients being able to get to you make it easy for them.
Dr Michael Perusich: right
Dr Michael Perusich: No.
Dr Michael Perusich: It's a team.
Marisa Mateja: customer service isn't just greeting them and…
Dr Michael Perusich: I always say it's kindness carrying in Grace.
Marisa Mateja: those things matter customer service in my opinion goes beyond it's really becoming For a better terms friends with your patients,…
Dr Michael Perusich: When you bring those three things into your practice, you really become much more connected with your patients. and like you said understanding…
Marisa Mateja: right and…
Dr Michael Perusich: who they are…
Marisa Mateja: and what I mean by that it's knowing them.
Dr Michael Perusich: what their kids do what are they involved in?
Marisa Mateja: It's knowing where they work.
Dr Michael Perusich: Those are things that keep patients connected to you.
Marisa Mateja: It's knowing what activities are doing when they're leaving your practice or…
Marisa Mateja: over the weekend or where they're traveling. It's Really getting to know the people that are coming to your practice so that you can best help them in the last segment.
Dr Michael Perusich: And here's the crazy thing about it.
Dr Michael Perusich: It generates more referrals just automatically and the referrals that you get are the minded referrals. It's the people who when they come to you,…
Marisa Mateja: We talked in regards of a you…
Dr Michael Perusich: they already believe in…
Marisa Mateja: scheduling a patient…
Dr Michael Perusich: what you do. They already have an understanding of…
Marisa Mateja: because they may have gone water skiing over the weekend,…
Dr Michael Perusich: who you are as a practice and…
Marisa Mateja: It's knowing those details about each and…
Dr Michael Perusich: so you're not getting to know each other in the same way as a cold new patient.
Marisa Mateja: every one of your patients that really creates excellent customer service…
Dr Michael Perusich: incredible
Marisa Mateja: because then you can take their care to a whole new level. So
Marisa Mateja: That takes all of us in the practice the doctor can't do it alone. The front desk person can't do it alone. It takes everyone being in tune with what's happening with their patients.
Dr Michael Perusich: All right.
Marisa Mateja: So customer service to me is not just being friendly and those kind of things with patients. it's having a deeper understanding of them. It's knowing what's happening with them.
Marisa Mateja: Yeah.
Dr Michael Perusich: Yep.
Dr Michael Perusich: right I'll be a balance. Yeah.
Marisa Mateja: Yes.
Marisa Mateja: Yeah.
00:35:00
Dr Michael Perusich: Yes, absolutely. And I always say if you want to see good customer service, you have to go outside of your practice to find it and…
Marisa Mateja: Yeah, it's that warm or hot lead right?
Dr Michael Perusich: I'm not saying you might not have it in your practice,…
Marisa Mateja: It's that those people that are already ready to schedule with you just…
Dr Michael Perusich: but you need to witness it being done elsewhere.
Marisa Mateja: because they know what people have told them about you.
Dr Michael Perusich: So anytime you're out whether at a department store or…
Marisa Mateja: So our customer service has to go above and…
Dr Michael Perusich: a restaurant or wherever you're at pay attention to the customer service that you're getting and…
Marisa Mateja: beyond first and foremost. Obviously, we have to be friendly with our patients.
Dr Michael Perusich: grade it. Is it good?
Marisa Mateja: We have to be courteous with them.
Dr Michael Perusich: Is it not so good are they doing something that we should be doing in our Clinic?
Marisa Mateja: We have to talk gently to them sometimes, in those kind of things…
Dr Michael Perusich: Learn from those kind of things.
Marisa Mateja: but we also have to watch our time that's spent with them…
Dr Michael Perusich: That's how you really understand…
Marisa Mateja: because we also on the flip side of all of that have to be King into the fact that maybe they're in a hurry that day or…
Dr Michael Perusich: how to affect great customer service
Dr Michael Perusich: right
Marisa Mateja: they need to be in and out. We have to watch our wait times and how much time is spent our practice too much time will run people away.
Dr Michael Perusich: right
Dr Michael Perusich: And what does that do? It gets people talking about you. I've had a couple of amazing customer service experiences in my life one. Will the hotel one with the department store and I'm not gonna go into the stories right now. Yeah, but here's the crazy thing. I have told those stories all over the country hundreds of times. On a lot of pages and I'll tell the names of the businesses and so that's free advertising for those businesses.
Marisa Mateja: Too little time. We'll do the same thing.
Marisa Mateja: So we have to have that nice little balance.
Dr Michael Perusich: Along the way so that's…
Dr Michael Perusich: what you want to get to you.
Marisa Mateja: And yeah that keeps them coming in and…
Dr Michael Perusich: Want to get to the point where everybody in your community is talking about you…
Marisa Mateja: So checking them out those two processes are very important to make sure that we have good solid procedures in place for those things so that we don't hold patient up…
Dr Michael Perusich: because what you do is so exciting and yes, you want to have great Chiropractic outcomes and all those things too, but you can't lose sight of the customer service because that's what brings people back.
Marisa Mateja: but we get what we need from them. So again, I'll go back to there's a ton of electronic systems out there that do a ton of things to help you whether it's scrambling that credit card and…
Dr Michael Perusich: exactly it was well said
Marisa Mateja: keeping it on file whether it's Advanced multiple online scheduling. There's so many tools out there to help you with that process.
Dr Michael Perusich: And here's the funny thing when you look at a lot of online reviews for chiropractors. Most of the good reviews really don't say anything about how much better they felt or how great the adjustment was or how quickly we got out of pain. I love this place. They're so warm. They're friendly I wanted to bring my family in
Dr Michael Perusich: That's when you're doing a good job with your customer service. So, think about that, maybe you should offer a survey in your practice how good are we at customer service and help identify some areas that maybe you need to improve here's another thing you should do we used to do this all the time anytime something breaks down in your clinic. I don't mean a table but anytime a process or…
Marisa Mateja: And don't just Look at department stores.
Dr Michael Perusich: your customer service breaks down a little bit. Here's an example you're 30 minutes behind patients are waiting you your staff's telling you people are getting impatient wanting to reschedule at the end of the day stop get together.
Marisa Mateja: Look at all the different things that you do on a daily basis. And where is the service that you get? and does it exceed your expectations, think in terms of that and then take all that information back to the practice and…
Dr Michael Perusich: What happened? What could we have done different?
Marisa Mateja: try to figure out how you can apply it to what you do.
Dr Michael Perusich: How could we have changed the outcome of that when you do that you will change the trajectory of your customer service. It will go straight through the roof when you're really paying attention to it and changing it and…
Marisa Mateja: Yeah. good…
Dr Michael Perusich: and making it better along the way.
Marisa Mateja: because I've heard him. No, I'm joking.
Dr Michael Perusich: Yeah. we did.
Marisa Mateja: on a lot of stages Yeah.
Marisa Mateja: Yeah. Absolutely.
Dr Michael Perusich:
Dr Michael Perusich: So, if you haven't done so yet go to cats Consultants calm. We've got all kinds of resources. You can check out our blogs. We've got some great downloads on there. One of the big things that we do is we help doctors train staff and not just train them to do tasks, but train them to do things like…
Marisa Mateja: It matters how you make them feel. period
Dr Michael Perusich: what we're talking about today, so they become your success partners, and we're not making these mistakes and…
Marisa Mateja: Thanks. For…
Dr Michael Perusich: things that are costing us money costing us patience and…
Marisa Mateja: how you make them feel that that's…
Dr Michael Perusich: costing us reputation.
Marisa Mateja: what our service experience should boil down to is…
Dr Michael Perusich: So when you have a chance go check us out no,…
Marisa Mateja: how do they feel when they left your practice?
Dr Michael Perusich: no twisting of arms or anything, but we're doing some great things with doctors. So check out those resources and if we can plug in with you, feel free to jump on one of our schedules, and we'd love to talk to you.
00:40:00
Marisa Mateja: Yeah.
Dr Michael Perusich: Awesome, and to our sponsors. We appreciate you and from all of us here at cats Consultants. Thank you for tuning in to the KC carapults podcast. Be sure to alright, yeah, share with everybody our podcast is really grown and…
Marisa Mateja: Yeah.
Dr Michael Perusich: it's because of you guys out there listening to so we greatly appreciate it. that's all from those of us at cats Consultants. We'll see you next time.
Dr Michael Perusich: Yeah.
Marisa Mateja: evaluate yeah.
Marisa Mateja: And we just hit point one and three that we talked about today right communication and scheduling we literally just touched on that at the end of our day and figured out what caused some of those hiccups or some of those things that maybe staff aren't catching. So make sure that you're tuning into some of those things.
Marisa Mateja: Yeah.
Marisa Mateja: Absolutely. There's a let's chat button at the top of our website and you can pick Dr. Crush or myself and I'm happy to talk to anybody. I love chatting with Doc. So just let us know how we can help.
Marisa Mateja: right share
Marisa Mateja: Bye-bye.
Marisa Mateja: That's a good one.