221 What Does Your Staff Know?
Jul 06, 2025Welcome to the KC CHIROpulse Podcast.
This week’s topic: What Does Your Staff Know?
The KC CHIROpulse Podcast…the podcast that delivers real-world chiropractic business strategies in real time.
This week, the show is hosted by Kats Consultants’ coaches Dr Michael Perusich and Marisa Mateja, seasoned experts in Chiropractic business management. This podcast provides invaluable insights and actionable strategies to help you create a flourishing and sustainable Chiropractic business.
In this episode, we discuss:
- Whether or not you know what your staff knows
- How understanding issues like compliance can keep you out of trouble
- How easy it is to be a highly developed and impactful team
- Why team development is directly related to your success
- …and so much more…
In each episode of KC CHIROpulse, we delve into crucial aspects of building a successful Chiropractic practice, covering topics such as establishing a strong foundation, adopting a patient-centric approach, mastering marketing techniques, achieving financial fitness, fostering effective team building and leadership, integrating technology and innovation, and navigating common challenges in the field.
Whether you're a seasoned chiropractor or just starting your practice, the KC CHIROpulse Podcast offers a wealth of knowledge and personalized practical advice to help you navigate the intricate world of Chiropractic business. Join us on this journey as we explore proven strategies, share success stories, and connect with industry experts to empower you in your pursuit of building a thriving Chiropractic practice.
The KC CHIROpulse podcast is where strategy meets success. Subscribe now and unlock the secrets to taking your Chiropractic practice to the next level. Your success is our priority at Kats Chiropractic Business Advisors.
DISCLAIMER: The information presented in this broadcast is for educational purposes only and is not intended to offer legal, investment, accounting, or medical advice, and represents the opinions of the speakers. Seek the consultation of a professional for advice in those areas. And remember…your results using this information may be different than described.
Dr. Michael Perusich:
Doctors. What does your staff really know? Hi everybody. Welcome to the KC ChiroPulse Podcast, brought to you by Kats Consultants, the podcast that delivers real world chiropractic business strategies in real time. I'm Dr. Michael Perusich, your host, and I'm joined by my co-host Marisa Mateja. Marisa, what does our staff really know? What do they need to know? And if they don't know, how is that hurting us?
Marisa Mateja:
Obviously that hurts the practice big time if they don't know what they need to know. But it's funny they really don't know what they don't know sometimes. And I find that to, I didn't know that. I know. It's incredibly real though. I see this all the time. I start in on with a new client and their staff and I start to talk and it's. I already know all that. And then when you question them about some of the rules or this and that, then they're like, oh, I didn't know this. Oh, I didn't know that. I didn't know that. So I think it's really important that our staff is trained. I think it's really important that we uncover their knowledge base and those kind of things so that we can truly deliver the kind of care and the experience that the patient really needs from us.
Dr. Michael Perusich:
Yeah, I agree. And I think this starts with the doctor. I think your doctors, you have to know this stuff. At least have a surface knowledge of some of it. Yeah. But some of the compliance things and so forth, you really need to know, but you need to give your staff the directive to become knowledgeable and. Marisa, we see this a lot. We, at Kats Consultants, we put out tons of information to our clients and what we find sometimes is the doctors aren't driving that information back over to their staff or giving them the tools or plugging them into the tools to train. And they're not making staff and team development a priority.
Marisa Mateja:
And it's so important. We just sent out a brand new class the other day about advantage plans and Medicare and things, and. What I see is a lot of the staff just don't tune in on their own. So it's gotta be driven by the doctor. They have to be the one that says, Hey, there's new material out. Sit down, let's watch this. It's gonna be 20 minutes, yeah. Let's take care of this and make sure that we're up to speed and we know what the changes are and we're
Dr. Michael Perusich:
implementing.
Marisa Mateja:
Yeah. And if the doctor can't sit down with the staff. Together. They should at least be following up with the staff after the fact and saying, okay, let's talk about the point, the bullet points. Let's, what did you learn? What do you know? And asking those questions because I think that opens up a conversation then within your practice that can be incredibly valuable.
Dr. Michael Perusich:
Huge. And and if we're talking about compliance with insurance programs, compliance with HIPAA compliance with Medicare compliance, with plan C policies, Medicare Advantage Compliance with no surprises, act, there's so many things that we have to track and we need our staff to do that. So that we as the doctors can be, focused more on patient care. But as a team, if we're not doing those things, what are the consequences?
Marisa Mateja:
Can they explain to a patient the value of the treatment plan? Can they talk about what the doctor's doing with them through the adjustment? Sure. What's the importance of them staying under the treatment plan and finishing a care plan? What is the value to the patient? There's so many things that it comes back to, right? Yep. Just understanding if you're an insurance practice, for instance, just understanding what is covered and not covered. I see so many practices wanting to skip the verification of benefits. Part of everything, and that's the beginning knowledge base of everything. If you're in insurance practice, yeah, you have to know what's covered and what's not covered, right? You have to know what's gonna be cash and what's gonna be under insurance, and you have to know how to talk about maintenance care, and that goes for. That goes for your employees as well as you doctors. It starts with you talking about that as a goal for the patient, but it transfers over to that side of the business with the staff talking to patients about what's going to be collected.
Dr. Michael Perusich:
You bring up a great point there. I wanna talk a little bit about some of those transitions and being compliant with the insurance plans and so forth. But we need to, I cannot talk. We need to take a quick break. I'm so excited about this topic. I guess I'm talking too fast. So we're gonna take a quick break here. Word from our sponsors. We'll be right back.
ChiroHealth USA:
In today's economy, every dollar counts. Families are facing tough choices, having to reconsider what was once essential to them, but close to healthcare, no one should have to compromise on their wellbeing because of financial constraints. That's where Chiro, health, USA steps in the solution for your practice. We understand the financial pressures families are under. Whether they're insured on Medicare or paying out of pocket for treatment. By offering discounts on care, you can ensure that your patients can still afford the treatment they need. At Chiro Health USA, we're committed to making sure no family has to sacrifice their health due to financial hardship. We will work with you to create a game plan that keeps your waiting room full and your practice thriving. And here's the best part, offering affordable care not only benefits your patients, but also positively impacts your bottom line. So why wait? Join Chiro Health USA Today and join the ranks of the most successful practices because when you put your patients first, everyone wins.
Dr. Michael Perusich:
Hi everybody. Welcome back to the KC Puls podcast. We're talking with Marisa today and we're talking about getting your staff engaged in their knowledge base of things in the practice. And we were talking about you, you brought this up, Marisa, understanding what insurance cover, what they don't cover. And so doctors do your insurance plans cover maintenance. Not usually. Not usually, but there's a lot of caveats to that. And how many visits of acute care do you get before you really should be pushing those patients over to maintenance or discharging them from care?
Marisa Mateja:
Yeah,
Dr. Michael Perusich:
And if you're. Doctors. If you don't know that, then your staff probably doesn't. Yeah. And if your staff does know it and they're not sharing it with you, and vice versa, if there's a hole there in the cog, you've gotta plug it. You've gotta fill that in because that's incredibly important. Because if you are an outlier in your insurance billing, what happens in that? What's the end result of that? An audit? And we're seeing a lot of audits right now. A lot of the insurance companies have government fines that they have to pay and lawsuits that they're having to pay off right now. And I got news for you. Insurance companies don't pay those. We do.'cause they come back and they get it from two places. They recoup it from us, from reimbursement, and they recoup it from their members who are paying their premiums by raising premiums. You gotta dot your i's and cross your T's right now more than ever. And so understanding that Medicare has an endpoint, Medicare is not unlimited care. So at some point you've either gotta discharge the patient or put'em on a GA and an A BN, or if it's an advantage plan, there's a whole nother set of rules.
Marisa Mateja:
And I just wanna clarify something right now. Part B is the same nationwide. I hear a lot in my area no. It is the same nationwide. So know what your rules are under your part B, and also make sure you're verifying benefits under that part C, your advantage plan. So it's so important. So important.
Dr. Michael Perusich:
Yeah. And the same distinction. Under Part C, the Advantage plans. It is not like Part B. It's different. It's completely different. Some of those Cadillac plans under the Advantage side do cover some maintenance. Do you know that? Do you know how much they cover? Some have some utilize the A BN form. Some have their own form. Some don't have a form at all. Some you have to use different modifiers, and if you don't understand this. Then you're gonna set yourself up to get in trouble.
Marisa Mateja:
So the, these are really the crux of what you really need to make sure staff is understanding, right? It starts with, if you're an insurance practice, it starts with verifying benefits. It starts with understanding those plans and understanding insurance, being able to read an EOB, being able to communicate that information to a patient because then we come back around and it. All of that then helps your staff be able to talk about what you're doing and why, and your treatment plans and what that's going to do for the patient. So it's really important to know that they know what your policies and your pricing models look like and those kind of things so that they can communicate to the patient.
Dr. Michael Perusich:
Absolutely. And there's a whole plethora of other things. That they need to know. They need to understand the practice's, mission and values. Yeah. They need to understand what your goals are with the practice. They need to have a, I think, a really good understanding of chiropractic fundamentals and chiropractic philosophy so they can communicate to patients why chiropractic care is so important.
Marisa Mateja:
Absolutely. It. We used to sit down and talk every single day almost, right? So we did our huddles in the morning and we would sit down and talk about who was on our schedule and why they were coming in. And I encourage you docs to communicate with your staff and give them the understanding of why these patients are coming to see you, what you are doing with them. And that all will in turn come back. Hugely to you because now your staff can reiterate what you've told the patient without even thinking about it. It's just common knowledge in their brain to be able to regurgitate basically what you're telling the patients. And so Exactly. We talk about that mimicking of the doctor a lot, and I think it's incredibly important.
Dr. Michael Perusich:
Yeah. And to piggyback on that, do they know how to, again, I'll use your term piggyback on what you're telling the patient to help gain case acceptance. Yeah. And engage the patients in their care plan. Your patients are leaving you from the report of findings and where are they going? They're going to the front desk and they're talking to your staff. And your staff can be helping to reengage or fully engage that patient in your care recommendations. And if they're not. When the communication is off, that's when patients spin off and drop out of the practice.
Marisa Mateja:
Yeah. And I've been asked this, how do we get to that point? Role playing is huge. Practice these scenarios. Have the doctor go behind a. A treatment room door and have the staff pretend they're patients and move around and talk about the flow of the practice, talk about the communication that happens, talk about what's gonna happen next with the patient, and how do we talk to the patient about that. All of these things are huge. So role playing to me is incredibly important because we uncover things that we didn't even realize about the practice sometimes. So sometimes you. Find an area that is being tripped up, or maybe it takes too long. And as we all know, every second counts in our practice, right? It matters that we have good flow going on because each step that patient takes can take seconds off of your day. So the faster you get'em to a treatment plan, the, or excuse me, treatment room, and the faster that you get'em to therapy or the faster you get'em back to the front desk and out your door. The better experience that the patient has, if they're not waiting, they're, and it helps with turnover in your practice. What do I mean by that? I don't mean you're losing patients, but on a day-to-day basis you can see more people. It's like going to a restaurant.
Dr. Michael Perusich:
Yeah. Yeah.
Marisa Mateja:
It's like going to a restaurant. Like they wanna turn over tables quickly. The same thing happens in our practice. We wanna turn over our adjustment rooms to make sure that we can maximize the amount of people we can see in a day. This all happens with good communication, good flow procedures, practicing those things. It really does help the practice.
Dr. Michael Perusich:
And you mentioned, we talked about this a lot in our practice and the whole goal was to develop a high performance team. Yeah. And, how do you become a really great professional ball team? Football, baseball, doesn't matter what sport, but how do they become great? They practice. Practice, and it's that repetition. It's that constantly innovating and evolving and mastering those skills. And creating that culture of constant learning in the practice. And I hear docs say, oh, we don't have time to do that. We need to be in patient care. Yeah. I'm gonna call you out on that because you're not in patient care as much as you think you are. And if you're a better manager of time and you can get your staff involved this to in, involved in this to help. If you guys as a team are managing time on a. On a highly effective level. There's all kinds of time to do this stuff. All kinds. Yeah.
Marisa Mateja:
There's time for micro trainings, if you will. You don't have long, extensive things. And a lot of our offices know our trainings are all between five and 15 minutes. We keep them short and concise so that you can jump in, watch something. You could watch one of those a day and. Expand your knowledge base five times, just in a week. It's amazing what you can do. So you know, that's important. Do you have the other sec? Part of that I would say is do you have staff that are asking questions and wanna learn and want more responsibility? And if you do these, this is where you do it. Role playing and micro training, huge for our practice.
Dr. Michael Perusich:
It's huge. So we need to take another break, but I wanna come back and I want to wrap this up and talk about what's the benefit, what's the payoff of having a team that's in the know that understands all these things and everybody's aligned together. So we're talking about what does your staff know and the importance of making sure they know what they need to know to help you run a great practice. So we'll be right back.
Kats Consultants:
Kats Chiropractic consultants, your partner in chiropractic success. We are dedicated with one-on-one guidance to bring you all your practice management needs. Let's supercharge your practice. Give us a call today.
Dr. Michael Perusich:
Okay, Marisa, we're talking about what does our staff know and, there's so many benefits to this. It just I don't know that we could even mention them all here, but, things like improved patient communication. This is one of the barriers we see in most practices is the communication is not, it's not good enough. To keep patients in care for very long. And when we don't have aligned communication, and when I say aligned, the doctor and the staff are all saying the same things to the patient and reinforcing the message. Patients leave. That's one of the big reasons why they drop outta care. And now they, they may give you a different excuse I don't have time, I don't have the money, whatever. But the real reason is somewhere along the way the communication was off.
Marisa Mateja:
Yeah, and let's just face it, you can't scale a practice with staff who are winging it, right? So you have to have people that are engaged that understand the communication process. And we see this a lot and. Very commonly, we flip the script by a couple words or you change a sentence around and it means something different, right? Means something different. So a lot of times it is just the way that we are saying things, the way we're presenting it, and if we flip the script just a little bit. So often you get such better results, and so instead of a question, it's a statement. Little bitty things can change the outcomes of your patients staying with you and adhering to treatment plans. We can do that very quickly a lot of times. So it's again, what you know and what you don't know, right? And so it's pulling that great knowledge base in and really implementing that into your practice so that you can get these growth strategies in place so that you can,
Dr. Michael Perusich:
yeah, a highly trained team and doctors that includes you in the team. You should be driving growth, not draining energy. That's far too often what we see is just this, these practices who have a constant flow of new staff because they can't retain staff and staff's not happy and the doctor's not happy and nobody's engaged and nobody's communicating. And a lot of it just comes down to are you developing as a team and are you making sure that your staff knows what they need to know? I know that sounds like Dr. Seuss, but it's important.
Marisa Mateja:
Start with just asking your staff to explain your philosophy.
Dr. Michael Perusich:
Yeah.
Marisa Mateja:
Start with them explaining your technique. Start with them explaining, your treatment plans one little thing at a time, and all of a sudden you're really building on that knowledge base.
Dr. Michael Perusich:
You brought up one that I always thought was funny. So many staff members have no idea what techniques their doctors use.
Marisa Mateja:
Sure. And I realize that's not something that. Our patients ask a lot, right? Some do. Some do. Some do. But it's, having that information helps them explain why you're doing things. It's the why that's important in all of this. Sure. Is being able to talk about those things.
Dr. Michael Perusich:
I'll give you a great example where it's not a specific, but how about a patient who calls up and says. I really want to come see a chiropractor. I'm trying to find one that I don't like manual adjustments, so I'm trying to find something different. And what if your staff says, oh, I don't even know what techniques our doctor does, or, I don't even know what that means. Instead of, oh, our doctor utilizes the activator or adjustment in instruments. You'll love it. It's a great alternative to a manual adjustment. Let's get you scheduled. Isn't that a much better approach? But if your team doesn't know the answer to that. Your practice is gonna come off looking oh, that's not the place to go. They don't even know what they're doing.
Marisa Mateja:
And I will, I would encourage all of you docs that are listening, don't assume I. Your staff knows. Again, don't ask them to explain these things to you because you'll uncover where the holes are in their communication strategies or what they know and how they can communicate.
Dr. Michael Perusich:
Absolutely. Marisa, this is a great conversation. We could go on with this for hours but go to Kats consultants.com, see all the great things that we're doing for our clients and for the profession. If you want to see if we're a good fit for you, jump on our schedule. You can do that on our website. When you go to Kats consultants.com, it's in the top right corner. Let's chat. We do that for free. We love talking to you guys out there. So let's talk about your practice. And I wanna thank Chiro Health USA, for being one of our sponsors. They're an amazing team and an amazing group of people, so go check them out too. And Marisa, anything to add?
Marisa Mateja:
No. We're just glad that you tuned in today and figure out what you know and what you don't.
Dr. Michael Perusich:
Absolutely. What do you know? All right, everybody. Thanks for tuning into the KC polt Podcast, where strategy meets success. We'll see you next time.
Marisa Mateja:
See ya.